Will Governor Evers Be Able to Give the Voters What They Asked For? ... page 10
Mar. 14 - Mar. 20, 2019 shepherdexpress.com
FREE!
WISCONSIN’S LARGEST LOCALLY OWNED AND OPERATED NEWSPAPER
spring drink ‘19
DOWNTOWN
DRINKING New places and old favorites near the Fiserv Forum
Congratulations Milwaukee
On The Democratic National Convention 2020 Thank You: Mayor Tom Barrett and Alex Lasry: President of the 2020 Convention Bid Committee
Time to PLAY. 4/2–6
BEN BAILEY ON SALE NOW!
5/11
THE NILS LOFGREN BAND ON SALE NOW!
4/11
THE MANHATTAN TRANSFER ON SALE NOW!
5/16 & 17
THE WINERY DOGS
WITH DAMON JOHNSON ON SALE NOW!
ALSO AT THE NORTHERN LIGHTS THE ATER MARCH 20
MAY 15
THE OAK RIDGE BOYS
CARROT TOP
MARCH 27
MAY 2 3
ONE NIGHT OF QUEEN PERFORMED BY GARY MULLEN & THE WORKS
INDIA.ARIE SOLD OUT
JUNE 21
SOLD OUT
HOWARD JONES
WITH MEN WITHOUT HATS & ALL HAIL THE SILENCE
APRIL 27
MARCH 23
NEMR
APRIL 13
JOE DEROSA
THE DANGEROUS DAMES OF COMEDY STARRING POPPY CHAMPLIN AND SONYA WHITE
TICKETS AVAILABLE AT ticketmaster.com / 800.745.3000 or visit the NLT Box Office 1721 WEST CANAL STREET I MILWAUKEE, WI 53233 I MUST BE AT LEAST 21 YEARS OLD TO ATTEND SHOWS I FOR MORE INFORMATION, CALL 414-847-7922 ALL SCHEDULES SUBJECT TO CHANGE I MANAGEMENT RESERVES ALL RIGHTS ©2019 FOREST COUNTY POTAWATOMI COMMUNITY, WISCONSIN 2 | M A R C H 14 , 2 0 1 9
ADV19136-ShepEx Full page Ent ad 3_14.indd 1
SHEPHERD EXPRESS 3/8/19 12:08 PM
p o t s Non
! N FU
PUBLISHER & EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Louis Fortis (ext. 3802) GENERAL MANAGER: Kevin Gardner (ext. 3825) MANAGING EDITOR: David Luhrssen (ext. 3804) EXPRESS EVENTS EDITOR: Rip Tenor (ext. 3810) ASSISTANT A&E EDITOR/MUSIC EDITOR: Evan Rytlewski (ext. 3818) A&E EDITOR: John Schneider (ext. 3817) EDITORIAL ASSISTANT & ASSISTANT TO THE PUBLISHER: John Jahn (ext. 3801) Assistant to the General Manager: Blaine Schultz (ext. 3813)
ES. M A G G N EXCITI ING. N I D S U O DELICI OWS. FREE SH
Editorial Interns: Jean-Gabriel Fernandez, Elizabeth Janowski CREATIVE SERVICES: ART DIRECTOR: Dave Zylstra (ext. 3821) GRAPHIC DESIGNER: Melissa Lee Johnson (ext. 3838) GRAPHIC DESIGNER/PHOTOGRAPHER: Maggie Vaughn (ext. 3803) ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES: Bridgette Ard (ext. 3811) Denise Langston (ext. 3808) Donna Wagner (ext. 3815) Executive Assistant to the Sales Director and Publisher: Jackie Butzler (ext. 3814) BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER: Chuck Hill (ext. 3822) In Memory of Dusti Ferguson (October 18, 1971 – November 20, 2007) EVENT COORDINATOR: Rachel Repetti (ext. 3823) EVENTS ASSISTANT: Jessica Johnson (ext. 3812) WEB PUBLISHER: Cole Vandermause (ext. 3807) WEB EDITOR: Rob Hullum (ext. 3806) BUSINESS MANAGER: Peggy Debnam (ext. 3832) CIRCULATION COORDINATOR: Blaine Schultz (ext. 3813) CIRCULATION: CONNIE ANDERSON, JOSEF BIENEK, BRIAN BRUNO, PEG DYER, GARY GORLEWSKI, MIKE HOULEHEN, TOWNSEND HUNT, LARRY JONES, BRENDA LEWIS, JUAN MARCOS RODRIGUEZ-LUIS, FRANCIS MULVEY, TODD PEARSON, JENNIFER SCHMID, DANIEL SURGES, GREG TOMASETTI, RICHARD VAN WIERINGEN, DANIEL ZOLLNER
APRIL 2–6
BEN BAILEY
MILWAUKEE’S COMEDY HOT SPOT
DISTRIBUTION: Shepherd Express is available free of charge. The Shepherd Express may be distributed only by authorized distributors. No person may, without prior written permission of the Shepherd Express, take more than one copy of each weekly issue. Mail subscriptions are available. No refunds for early cancellations. One year (52 issues) via First Class mail: $125.00 Six months (26 issues) via First Class mail: $70.00
The Northern Lights theater welcomes comedian and Cash Cab star Ben Bailey, bringing his unique brand humor for six shows, April 2–6!
207 E. Buffalo St., Suite 410, Milwaukee, WI 53202 Phone 414/276-2222 Fax 414/276-3312 Advertising Inquiries: jackie@shepex.com e-mail: info@shepex.com URL: shepherdexpress.com
PAYSBIG.COM/SHOWS
Shepherd Express makes no representations or warranties of any kind, whether expressed or implied, regarding any advertising. Due diligence is recommended before entering into any agreement with an advertiser. Shepherd Express will not be held liable for any damages of any kind relating to any ad. Please check your ad the first day of publication and notify us of any changes. We are not responsible for errors in advertising after the first day. We reserve the right to edit, reject or reclassify advertisements at our sole discretion, without notice. We do not knowingly accept advertisements that discriminate or intend to discriminate on any illegal basis, or are otherwise illegal. NO REFUNDS for cancellation after deadline, no copy changes except to price or telephone number.
Shepherd Express uses newsprint that contains recycled fiber and is fully recyclable. Our color ink is made with soybean.
NATIONAL ADVERTISING THE RUXTON GROUP 1-888-2-RUXTON
A.A.N.
MARCH 2 3
NEMR
WITH SPECIAL GUEST
Also, catch international comedy “hero” Nemr on Saturday, March 23.
FREE SHOWS THIS WEEK! MAR 16 MAR 21
BOURBON HOUSE BAR 360 • 9 P.M.
MARK CROFT BAR 360 • 8 P.M.
MAR 22 MAR 23
GEOFF LANDON & FRIENDS BAR 360 • 9 P.M.
89 MOJO
BAR 360 • 9 P.M.
MAR 26 & 27 MAR 28
AL WHITET U E &
BAR 360 • 3/26T 4HP.M. U R •S3/27 8 P.M.
KEVIN KENNEDY IS SPECIAL K BAR 360 • 8 P.M.
KIP WINGER ACOUSTIC THE FIRE PIT’S SIDE BAR APRIL 4 • 8:30 P.M. APRIL 5 • 9:30 P.M.
WITH MICHAEL SEAN OF BELLEVUE SUITE
APRIL 6 • 9:30 P.M.
Association of Alternative Newsweeklies
On the Cover ... Major Goolsbys and Good City Brewing SHEPHERD EXPRESS
1721 WEST CANAL STREET I MILWAUKEE, WI 53233 I MUST BE AT LEAST 21 YEARS OLD TO ATTEND SHOWS FOR MORE INFORMATION, CALL 414-847-7922 I ALL SCHEDULES SUBJECT TO CHANGE MANAGEMENT RESERVES ALL RIGHTS ©2019 FOREST COUNTY POTAWATOMI COMMUNITY, WISCONSIN
ADV19137-ShepEx 3quarter pg Ent ad 3_14.indd 1
MARCH 14, 2019 | 3 3/8/19 12:24 PM
::NEWS&VIEWS
For more News, log onto shepherdexpress.com
FEATURES | POLLS | TAKING LIBERTIES | ISSUE OF THE WEEK
No More Tax Breaks for Moving Jobs Out of Wisconsin?
Bipartisan support in Madison to eliminate ‘moving-expense’ corporate tax breaks ::BY DAN SHAW n 2017, the last yacht produced by the Palmer Johnson Yacht Company floated out of its Sturgeon Bay shipyards before the company moved its operations to Europe. If the loss of at least 100 jobs wasn’t enough of a blow to Wisconsin, there was also this: Because of a wrinkle in state law, the company was able to lower its state tax bill by deducting its moving expenses. Now, a group of Democratic and Republican lawmakers have introduced legislation to prevent that from ever happening again. Assembly Bill 10, which received a hearing on Wednesday, March 6, before the Assembly Committee on Federalism and Interstate Relations, would eliminate tax breaks for a series of moving-related expenses for companies that leave Wisconsin or the country. It comes as the latest attempt by lawmakers to adjust Wisconsin’s business incentives in response to a series of scandals at the state’s economic development agency and questions about the enormous amount of money being offered Foxconn Technology Group in return for its plans to build a massive factory in Mount Pleasant. On the surface, at least, this latest proposal looks as if it will have no trouble getting adopted. Twenty-eight representatives, Democrats and Republicans, have signed on Assembly 10, and 17 Senators, once again a bipartisan group, are sponsoring a companion piece of legislation moving forward in the State Senate. Among outside interests, the only ones to have taken official stances on the bills are supporters. Wisconsin Property Taxpayers and Wisconsin Realtors Association have joined the American Federation of Labor of Wisconsin in coming out in favor of the bills. For John Jacobson, government and member relations director for the Wisconsin Property Taxpayers, it all comes down to common sense. “Why should Wisconsin taxpayers have to pay in the form of lost revenue for somebody to pick up and move their company out of the state?” he asks. Just how much money is at stake is difficult to say. A fiscal estimate drawn up for Assembly Bill 10 by the Department of Revenue found there is no reliable way to estimate how many companies claim tax breaks for moving out of the state or country in any given year.
4 | MARCH 14, 2019
Meanwhile, not everyone is enamored with the legislation. The chief sponsor of Assembly Bill 10, Adam Neylon, a Republican from Pewaukee, said it’s almost never the case that proposals cracking down on incentive abuse enjoy universal support, even if no one’s outspoken in their opposition. Neylon declined to name any groups or people he might have spoken to in private, but he said one concern that’s almost always expressed anytime lawmakers try to hold business to account is that there will be a “chilling effect” on economic development. Neylon’s response is that lawmakers are still trying to strike the right balance. “I understand where people are coming from,” Neylon says. “I think it’s still a bit misunderstood. We are not trying to scale back any benefits we are offering. We are trying to make sure they aren’t being misused.” The sponsor of the senate version of the bill, Sen. Dan Feyen, a Republican from Fond du Lac, has much the same thought. Emelia Rohl, a spokeswoman for Feyen, said it was through Feyen’s work on the board of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. that the senator learned about Wisconsin’s tax breaks for moving expenses and that “we were, in a sense, rewarding companies with taxpayer money for moving out of the state.”
Recouping Taxpayers’ Investment?
The Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC), which oversees many of the state’s development incentives, has long been at the center of lawmakers’ attempts to make sure the state both isn’t being overgenerous with loans and grants and has a means of recouping taxpayer money obtained under false premises. Along with the hiring and spending targets companies must often hit to receive tax breaks, the state has added “claw back” provisions to many of the incentive contracts it signs with private companies. Ideally, these provisions would let the state recoup money it had awarded to a company that then went on to fall short of its promises. In reality, though, they can be difficult to enforce, often because whatever business is being targeted has declared bankruptcy and is thus shielded from all sorts of claims for payment. With its lack of opposition and bipartisan support, Assembly Bill 10 stands a fairly good chance of getting through the state legislature this year. The way forward isn’t likely to be so smooth, though, for other attempts to make sure Wisconsin’s business incentives don’t trample over taxpayer interests. Neylon noted lawmakers tried unsuccessfully in the state’s previous legislative session to pass bills that would have made it a felony to defraud the WEDC. Their bills came in response to well-publicized cases in which businessmen had used spurious information to obtain grants and loans backed by taxpayer money. In one instance, a man from De Pere allegedly obtained more than $9 million from the WEDC and investors for a plant operation that he claimed could recycle fast-food wrappers. As is now true for the moving-expenses proposal, there was bipartisan support for making it a felony to defraud the WEDC. But unlike the latest legislation, the fraud bill was weighted down by public opposition from groups like the Wisconsin Economic Development Association, which predictably warned of a “chilling effect.” Neylon says he and other lawmakers are willing to have another try at making it a felony offense to defraud the WEDC. But even should that attempt fail, at least they will have eliminated a moving-expense loophole that was only too ripe for abuse. “If companies want to leave Wisconsin for any reason, that’s their prerogative,” he says. “But taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay for it.” Comment at shepherdexpress.com. n
“IF COMPANIES WANT TO LEAVE WISCONSIN FOR ANY REASON, THAT’S THEIR PREROGATIVE,” NEYLON SAYS. “BUT TAXPAYERS SHOULDN’T HAVE TO PAY FOR IT.” SHEPHERD EXPRESS
A Whiskey vs. Brandy showdown for the ages took place on Friday, March 8 at The Garage at The Harley-Davidson Museum®.
Introducing In tr the 2
We kept it local with Great Northern Distilling’s Vanguard Whiskey and Wollersheim Distillery Press House Brandy.
Bibinger’s Whiskey & Overall Winner Drink Wisconsinbly Brandy Winner Thanks to all participating bars and restaurants BIBINGER’S • BITTERCUBE BAR & BAZAAR BRANDED (IRON HORSE) • CHOPHOUSE CRIMSON CLUB • DON’S DINER DRINK WISCONSIBLY • FAMOUS DAVE’S FIVE O’CLOCK STEAKHOUSE GARY’S OLD FASHIONED MIX KEGEL’S INN • SAFEHOUSE THE KNICK • TOAST • VITUCCI’S
This new single elimination tournament will run from
March 21 - April 7
and feature one-on-one beer matchups decided on by Milwaukee’s craft beer fans. Watch next week’s paper for the official unveiling of our Beer Bracket featuring beers from 32 Milwaukee-area breweries.
For more information, information, visit: shepherdexpress.com/beerbra shepherdexpress.com/beerbracket cket SHEPHERD EXPRESS
MARCH 14, 2019 | 5
::SAVINGOURDEMOCRACY ( MAR. 14 - 20, 2019 ) The Shepherd Express serves as a clearinghouse for all activities in the greater Milwaukee area that peacefully push back against discriminatory, reactionary or authoritarian actions and policies of the Donald Trump administration, as well as others who seek to thwart social justice. We will publicize and promote actions, demonstrations, planning meetings, teach-ins, party-building meetings, drinking-discussion get-togethers and any other actions that are directed toward fighting back to preserve our liberal democratic system.
Thursday, March 14
Saturday, March 16
Ballot Bash @ Turner Hall Ballroom (1040 N. Fourth St.), 5-10 p.m.
Leaders Igniting Transformation (LIT) will host a get out the vote event at Turner Hall Ballroom to increase turnout for the Tuesday, April 2 election. Local vendors, artists and nonprofits will be on hand.
Milwaukee Democratic Socialists of America Happy Hour @ Lakefront Brewery (1872 N. Commerce St.), 6-8 p.m.
The Milwaukee chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America will host a happy hour for new members and people who are interested in the organization to come learn more about…well, democratic socialism!
Becoming: An Intimate Conversation with Michelle Obama @ Miller High Life Theatre (500 W. Kilbourn Ave.), 8 p.m.
Former First Lady Michelle Obama will reflect on the events that have shaped her—from her upbringing on the south side of Chicago to becoming the first African American First Lady of the U.S.—in a conversation moderated by comedian and late-night TV host Conan O’Brien.
Canvass with MPS Educators @ MTEA Office (5130 W. Vliet St.), 10 a.m.-1 p.m.
The Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association (MTEA) is organizing canvassing events to support pro-public education candidates for the MPS School Board. Canvasses launch from the MTEA office. Those interested can register at the Facebook page, titled: “Canvass with MPS Educators to Win School Board Students Deserve!”
Peace Action of Wisconsin: Stand for Peace @ The corner of Water Street and Juneau Avenue, noon-1 p.m.
Every Saturday from noon-1 p.m., concerned citizens join with Peace Action of Wisconsin to protest war and, literally, “Stand for Peace.” Signs will be provided for those who need them. Protesters are encouraged to stick around for conversation and coffee afterward.
Monday, March 18
Shorewood School Board Candidate Forum @ Lake Bluff Elementary
(1600 E. Lake Bluff Blvd., Shorewood), 8:30-10:30 a.m.
The Lake Bluff and Atwater Parent-Teacher Organizations will host a forum with four of the candidates vying for two open seats on the Shorewood School Board. The latter hosts an informational session on a school referendum after the event.
End Prison Slavery @ Milwaukee Central Library (814 W. Wisconsin Ave.), 5-6:30 p.m.
Two Industrial Workers of the World members will be on hand at the Milwaukee Central Library in Downtown Milwaukee to discuss issues related to closing the troubled Milwaukee Secure Detention Facility, networking inside prisons and more. The public is invited to come find out more about their work in support of those formerly or currently incarcerated.
Tuesday, March 19
Wisconsin Supreme Court Judicial Forum @ Milwaukee Bar Association (747 N. Broadway), noon-1 p.m.
Candidates running for the vacant seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court will speak at a moderated forum at the Wisconsin Bar Association. No registration is required, and the event is open to the public. The election will be held on Tuesday, April 2. To submit to this column, please send a brief description of your action, including date and time, to savingourdemocracy@shepex.com. Comment at shepherdexpress.com. n
Discover the world’s best walk-in bathtub from 5 Reasons American Standard Walk-In Tubs are Your Best Choice 1 Backed by American Standard’s 2 3 4 $
1,500
in Savings Trusted Professional Installation with Best Lifetime Warranty!
INCLUDES a FREE
®
A+ RATED
Toilet
Receive a free American Standard Cadet toilet with full installation of a Liberation Walk-In Bath, Liberation Shower, or Deluxe Shower. Offer valid only while supplies last. Limit one per household. Must be first time purchaser. See www.walkintubs.americanstandard-us.com for other restrictions and for licensing, warranty, and company information. CSLB B982796; Suffolk NY:55431H; NYC:HIC#2022748-DCA. Safety Tubs Co. LLC does not sell in Nassau NY, Westchester NY, Putnam NY, Rockland NY.
6 | MARCH 14, 2019
5
1,500
$
S AV I N
GS 140 years of experience Ultra low entry for easy entering and exiting Patented Quick Drain® fast water removal system Lifetime Warranty on the bath AND installation, INCLUDING labor backed by American Standard 44 Hydrotherapy jets for an invigorating massage
Includes FREE American Standard Right Height Toilet
Limited Time Offer! Call Today!
844-306-0246
FREE IN-HOME EVALUATION! SHEPHERD EXPRESS
1313 N. FRANKLIN PLACE #1002, EAST TOWN
Visit Us: 153 N. Milwaukee St Historic Third Ward
414-213-5055 CORNERSTONEMKE.COM
V I N YL RELEA S E S H O W
Spectacular Breakwater 1 Bed/1.5 Bath West facing condo offers impeccable finishes & concrete divisions between units for the best possible acoustical separations. Elegant custom cabinetry w/Crystal Gold Granite counters, new SS upgraded Kitchen Aid appliances featuring external venting. Loft-like walls of glass & ample dimensions make dining and entertaining a breeze! Marble Baths include enhanced vanities & medicine cabinets featuring electric. Large covered deck w/gas, water and electric for year round grilling. 1 indoor heated parking space plus full size 9ft storage unit. Building includes 9-6 Front Desk coverage plus Fitness & Community Rooms. Steps from Lakefront parks & The HOP! $399,000 Presented By: Mary Beth Waite (414) 213-5055
FE AT U RI NG Michael Perry and the Long Beds The Mascot Theory Bascom Hill Craig Baumann DATE & TI M E Sunday, April 14, 2019 – 4:00 PM LOC AT I ON Anodyne Coffee Roasting Co 224 W Bruce St, Milwaukee, WI 53204 I NFO & TI C K E TS wisconsinvinyl-anodyne.eventbrite.com
W I SCON S IN VINYL C O LLE CTIV E SHEPHERD EXPRESS
MARCH 14, 2019 | 7
NEWS&VIEWS::POLL
You Believe Michael Cohen Last week, we asked if you believe Donald Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen was telling the truth during his most recent public testimony, despite admitting to previously lying to Congress. You said: n Yes: 78% n No: 22%
What do You Say? Would you like to see Democratic Party run on a platform that is politically and philosophically closer to Bernie Sanders or Joe Biden in 2020? n Joe Biden n Bernie Sanders Vote online at shepherdexpress.com. We’ll publish the results of this poll in next week’s issue.
Prospect Avenue High Rise is looking for a Part-Time 2nd Shift Garage Attendant. What We Look For:
We are looking for flexible, hardworking and courteous individuals who enjoy working with people and excel in a fast-paced environment.
Job Description:
• Hours are 3:30 PM to 11:30 PM Saturday and Sunday. • Promptly and carefully park residents’ vehicles. • Greet and open garage lobby door for all residents. • If appropriate, assist residents with groceries, packages and luggage.
Requirements:
• Must be able to drive vehicles with manual transmission. • Must have a valid driver’s license and insurance. Please contact Lori Ferguson at 414-326-3575 or by email at lferguson436@gmail.com for more information. You may also fill out an application in person at 1610 N. Prospect Avenue, Milwaukee, WI 53202. 8 | MARCH 14, 2019
SHEPHERD EXPRESS
NEWS&VIEWS::TAKINGLIBERTIES
REPUBLICAN LOBBYISTS FLEEING HAGEDORN’S COURT RACE ::BY JOEL MCNALLY
T
he final proof of how terrible a candidate Appeals Court Judge Brian Hagedorn is for the Wisconsin Supreme Court is that even Republican business lobbyists around the state are publicly fleeing from his candidacy and refusing to contribute to his race against Appeals Court Chief Judge Lisa Neubauer. The Wisconsin Realtors Association (WRA) has rescinded its endorsement of Hagedorn and asked for an $18,000 campaign contribution to be returned. Also, the state’s largest business lobby, Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, which has poured millions of dollars from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce into elections creating the conservative Republican-backed majority on the current state Supreme Court, has withdrawn its financial backing of his candidacy. Lobbyists for both state groups also helped draft the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s nationally embarrassing “ethics code,” which is more like a blueprint for judicial corruption. It specifies justices aren’t required to recuse themselves from cases involving parties that have made large financial contributions to their election campaigns. State business lobbyists have never shied away from supporting ethically dubious, pro-business, conservative judicial candidates. So, why then are businesses suddenly embarrassed to be associated with Judge Hagedorn? It’s directly related to his public opposition to equal rights under the law for same-sex couples, including the right to marry (on June 26, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down all state bans on same-sex marriage, legalized it in all 50 states, and required states to honor out-of-state same-sex marriage licenses). There has been a rapid shift in public opinion toward marriage equality following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges; a 2016 Marquette Law School poll showed 64% in Wisconsin favored marriage equality with only 28% opposed. Ten years earlier, 59% of those who voted in a Republican-sponsored statewide referendum supported adding a ban on same-sex marriage to the Wisconsin Constitution.
Hagedorn a Hateful Throwback
Hagedorn isn’t merely a throwback, but an openly hateful one who, on a legal blog, equated private sexual activity between human beings of the same sex to having sex with dogs and horses. In 2016, Hagedorn founded Augustine Academy in Waukesha County, created as a private Christian school incorporating opposition to same-sex relationships and any sexual behavior outside of marriage as core principles. Teachers may be fired, and students may be expelled, if they engage in what Hagedorn’s school deems “immoral sexual activity”—defined as same-sex relationships or heterosexual relationships outside of marriage. The school’s “immoral sexual activity” ban also SHEPHERD EXPRESS
extends to the private lives of students’ parents. The WRA, which does business with people of diverse backgrounds statewide, said it withdrew its endorsement because Hagedorn’s candidacy was being overshadowed by “issues with which we do not want to be associated and that directly conflict with the principles of our organization and the values of our members.” That prompted Hagedorn’s campaign to attack those who oppose him as “anti-religious zealots.” That’s an insult to the majority of deeply committed Christians and followers of other religions who harbor no ill will toward LGBTQ individuals. There’s nothing anti-religious about strongly supporting equal treatment under the law for everyone regardless of sexual orientation. But a Hagedorn campaign spokesman called respecting LGBTQ rights to be part of a liberal political agenda, saying: “We’re confident voters prefer a justice who stands by the rule of law.” That’s a bizarre argument to make on behalf of a court candidate who clearly does not stand by the rule of law. Instead, Hagedorn ridicules landmark U.S. Supreme Court decisions that struck down laws criminalizing private consensual sexual behavior and denying equal marriage rights. When legal decisions by the nation’s highest court do not conform with Hagedorn’s extreme political or religious views, he mocks them as no better than legalizing humans engaging in sex with sex with dogs and horses.
Changing Times
This is an important moment in our political history if traditional Republican business organizations now refuse to fund judicial candidates who openly display bias against members of the LGBTQ community who appear before them. That was not the case just three years ago, when those same organizations were major contributors to Justice Rebecca Bradley’s successful election to a 10-year term on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Like Hagedorn, Bradley was originally appointed a judge by then-Republican Gov. Scott Walker and had previously written opinion pieces expressing contempt for members of the LGBTQ community. As a college senior, Bradley wrote Marquette Tribune columns attacking them as “queers” and “degenerates” who deserved no sympathy when they were dying of AIDS because they had brought it upon themselves. Unlike Hagedorn, Bradley apologized publicly and said those heartless views no longer reflected her beliefs. The election on Tuesday, April 2, between Hagedorn and Neubauer—the latter Wisconsin’s highly qualified Appeals Court Chief Judge—will not change the conservative majority on the court that has existed for 11 years. But the next state Supreme Court election in April 2020 very well could. That’s when Justice Dan Kelly, another Walker appointee, is up for re-election on the same date as the Wisconsin Democratic presidential primary. Republican leaders were so concerned about Kelly’s prospects that they tried (unsuccessfully) during the legislature’s lame-duck session to enact legislation that would have cost some $7 million to separate the two statewide elections. That move proved to be too much even for a majority of Republicans. That’s another positive political sign, along with the growing reluctance of Republican funders to finance openly bigoted candidates. Comment at shepherdexpress.com. n MARCH 14, 2019 | 9
NEWS&VIEWS::ISSUEOFTHEWEEK
Will Governor Evers Be Able to Give the Voters What They Asked For? ::BY LOUIS G. FORTIS
W stupid computer! can HELP. help WEWe CAN specializing in
smallsetup businesses evaluate network troubleshoot build train
PC & MAC
(414) 687-9650
www.chipconnection.com
stupid computer! We can help
evaluate setup network troubleshoot build train
PC & & MAC PC MAC
(414) 687-9650
hy is Governor Tony Evers’ budget getting so much push back from the state legislature? He defeated an incumbent by proposing a new direction for the state, including proposals the voters definitely embraced. Despite his victory over Scott Walker, the GOP Speaker of the Assembly Robin Vos, State Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald and Finance Chair State Senator Alberta Darling are proposing to literally ignore Evers’ budget that includes all the items that the people voted for and use Walker’s last budget (whose agenda the voters rejected in November 2018) to build the 2019-2021 budget. This arrogance is in the wake of Wisconsin’s rejection not only of Walker, but also Republican legislators on a whole, who only won 44% of the votes cast last November compared to the Democratic legislative candidates who received 54% of the total votes cast. Beating an incumbent governor as Evers did in November is a lot more difficult than winning an open seat, which is certainly difficult enough. When a challenger beats an incumbent governor the public knows well, it is a clear rejection of his policies and a desire on the part of voters for a new direction and some serious change. This was made quite clear by the polls that came out after the election, showing that Wisconsin voters support Evers’ agenda on education, Medicaid expansion, criminal justice reform and election reform by more than 60% in most cases. The poll also shows voters supporting legalized medical marijuana by almost 80%. Last November, the voters backed both Evers the person and his policies.
The Voters Made it Clear: They Want Change As a result of this desire for change, elections that remove an incumbent executive almost always carry over a lot of votes into state legislative races, and the new governor’s party’s invariably gets significant legislative victories. This usually leads to the new governor’s party gaining control of at least one of the legislative chambers and often both. That control in one or both chambers helps the new governor enact many of the policy changes the voters wanted. In November 2018, Wisconsin voters rejected Walker and his tired policies, and Democratic candidates for legislative seats got more than 200,000 votes in all of the legislative races combined than their Republican opponents, but the Democrats did not gain
control of even one chamber in the state legislature. Despite this outsized victory, the ratio of Republicans to Democrats in the legislature barely budged. Why? The answer is clear to anyone watching the news over the past year. Wisconsin is currently being governed by an “unconstitutional legislature,” according to a three-judge federal panel—two of whom were appointed by Republican presidents. We have been living under an illegitimate legislature and under legislators that should not be leading the state. Essentially, Vos, Fitzgerald and Darling are working hard to thwart the will of the voters in the last election running an illegitimate government. Tell me, how is this any different from how the governments of Turkey, Egypt or the Congo function, which we strongly condemn as totally corrupt?
Why is it Unconstitutional? It is unconstitutional because Vos and Fitzgerald hired extreme rightwing lawyers to redraw the legislative boundaries in 2012 in such a way that in a majority of legislative seats, any Republican, qualified or totally unqualified, couldn’t lose even when the total vote count is heavily Democratic. It is totally undemocratic and according to the federal judges an “unconstitutional legislature.” On top of creating these unconstitutional districts, Wisconsin Republicans, over the past several years, have passed some of the most restrictive voter suppression laws in the country, rivaling the most rightwing states of the deep South. So, unfortunately, much of the major legislation that has been put forth and passed over the past six years by our “unconstitutional legislature” has been designed by the special interest groups to benefit a small group of wealthy contributors. Over the past several years, it has come down to passing laws for the Republican special interest groups who then, just coincidentally, write large campaign checks. When you have an illegitimate legislature that only gets about 44% of the vote in the last election, the only way you can stay in power is by raising a lot of special interest money and corrupting the election laws with policies like extreme gerrymandering. Unfortunately for Vos, Fitzgerald and Darling, it’s all about doing whatever is necessary to stay in power. It’s definitely not the Wisconsin of the Tommy Thompson or Tony Earl eras. Understanding all of this, it is amazing to hear Fitzgerald saying that it wasn’t only Evers who won, but it was he and his Republican legislators who also won in November. Does he really think the voters are stupid? Does he have no sense of shame? He and his colleagues created unconstitutional districts and then won in what can be accurately be called a rigged election.
Don’t They Understand What Democracy Means? If you are holding power due to a rigged election, you would think that the winners of that election would have the sophistication to try to work with the other party and show some give and take and not push an extreme agenda, knowing full well that they don’t have majority support. In Wisconsin, that is not the case. As Gov. Evers tries to implement the agenda that the voters supported in November 2018— and the voters currently support by more than 60% in recent polls—Republican legislative leaders like Darling, Vos and Fitzgerald are still trying to hold on to Walker’s failed policies. These three individuals cling to power from the results of an election in legislative boundaries that are unconstitutional. If there were honest lines—and with the fact that the Republican legislative candidates got significantly fewer votes than their Democratic opponents—they would not be in power, and Wisconsin voters could see the policies they voted for become law. Louis Fortis served three terms as a member of the Wisconsin State Assembly. Comment at shepherdexpress.com. n
www.chipconnection.com 10 | M A R C H 1 4 , 2 0 1 9
SHEPHERD EXPRESS
FREE VISIT
Shepherd Swag
$5 Value
.com
eshepstore Get it here: th
New Members Only 1 pass per person
$30 a month or $225 a year
Illustration by Scott Radke
To advertise on this page, contact BRIDGETTE at 414-292-3811 or email at bridgette@shepex.com
Brickyard Gym
• 481-7113 2651 S. KK Ave. ym.com brickyardg
DAY CARE OVERNIGHT CARE GROOMING TRAINING CLASSES 1820 S. 1st St. Mke, WI 53204 | 414-763-1304 | bayviewbark.com
Yes! Make Your Own Wedding Rings
JEWELERS GUILD
2408 East St. Francis Avenue | 414-488-2727 | www.jewelersguild.biz SHEPHERD EXPRESS
M A R C H 14 , 2 0 1 9 | 11
::CANNABISCONNECTION THE GO-TO SITE FOR EVERYTHING CANNABIS IN WISCONSIN
We will keep you informed each week about the growing availability of legal cannabis products in Milwaukee and what’s happening at the state level with respect to Wisconsin’s movement towards legalization, what’s happening in other states and in the rest of the world.
Outpost Natural Foods Adds Minty Cannabidiol Cookie to Hemp Offerings ::BY SHEILA JULSON
A
s a pioneer of natural foods and holistic living in the Milwaukee area, it makes sense that Outpost Natural Foods co-op would take cannabidiol (CBD) offerings to the next level and produce their own house-made, CBD-infused cookies. Extracted from the hemp plant and free from the psychoactive effects of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), CBD has—mostly through word-of-mouth—grown to become a popular natural alternative to traditional medicine for anxiety, sleep issues, as well as muscle and joint pain. The co-op has been stocking CBD supplements and products in the personal care aisle at all of their four store locations for about a year, and Lisa Malmarowski, Outpost Natural Foods’ director of brand and store development, says those items have been very popular. “We saw an increase in sales in CBD oil supplements about the same time we learned that other co-ops were having great success with selling CBD edibles,” she says. “In fact, the original cookie recipe was shared from another co-op, but we’ve since changed it a bit.” Outpost Natural Foods house-made CBD cookie is vegan and is currently available in chocolate chip mint flavor. Like their entire bakery line, it’s scratch-made and free from artificial additives or preservatives. Malmarowski says Outpost’s bakers are working on a gluten-free version of the CBD cookie. Each cookie contains 10 to 12 milligrams of chocolate mint flavored CBD oil sourced from Sunsoil (previously known as Green Mountain) out of Vermont. The cool chocolate mint flavor masks much of the earthy, grassy taste found in come CBD edibles. And the retail price? $4.20 per cookie. For now, Outpost Natural Foods will stick to CBD cookies, but they also do offer CBD shots for fresh smoothies or juices available from the store’s cafés. Customers can choose from a flavorless addition of CBD oil from Colorado-based Charlotte’s Web, or the chocolate mint flavor from Sunsoil. The CBD-infused cookie is just one of many CBD foods and beverages at Outpost Natural Foods. Malmarowski said that, in addition to supplements from various vendors, they have CBD coffee shots and CBD chocolate pops from local PhiloÇoffia; CBD kombucha from GT’s Kombucha; and Veggimins Hemp Bars. They will soon add Sparkling Vybes beverage, out of Los Angeles, and a hemp-infused water. Several Wisconsin’s craft brewers are already on the ball with adding CBD to their beers, and Outpost Natural Foods also stocks a CBD Pilsner by Untitled Art Brewing, out of Waunakee, Wis. Outpost Natural Foods has always been active in educational efforts and community events, and they look forward to furthering hemp awareness. “June is Hemp History month and we’ve been discussing doing some promotions and deeper education around hemp products then,” Malmarowski concludes. For more information, visit outpost.coop. Please note that any health claims in this article are intended for informational purposes only and are not to be taken as substitutes for medical advice. Consult with a healthcare professional before starting any treatment. 12 | M A R C H 1 4 , 2 0 1 9
Debunking Five Myths About Medical Marijuana ::BY JEAN-GABRIEL FERNANDEZ
F
ollowing Gov. Tony Evers’ announcement that he wants to legalize medical marijuana in Wisconsin, it is important to address myths and preconceived ideas about it. Many people still think medical marijuana is a joke and that people should instead use “real medicine.” While the U.S. is in the midst of an opioid crisis—which was caused by prescription medications, the very same “real medicine”—cannabis deserves to be fairly considered as an alternative. Here are a few myths that need to be debunked.
n Marijuana does not have medicinal uses.
Doctors clearly think the opposite, as there are more than 2.5 million medical marijuana patients in the U.S. In order to be recognized as patients, most of them need to suffer from seizures, untreatable pain or one of a few very serious medical conditions. We know very little about the actual medical applications of cannabis since it has been illegal for so long throughout the country, and research on the subject was repressed for many years. However, every new study indicates marijuana can be used as a legitimate medicine. The Food and Drug Administration has recently recognized three drugs derived from marijuana as treatments against seizures and as a complement to chemotherapy.
n Using medical marijuana is just an excuse to get high.
There are ways to use marijuana as medicine that do not make the patient feel high in the least. “THC [tetrahydrocannabinol] can increase appetite, reduce nausea, decrease pain, inflammation and muscle control problems. CBD [cannabidiol—a cannabis component that doesn’t make people ‘high’] may be useful in reducing pain and inflammation, controlling epileptic seizures and possibly even treating mental illness and addictions,” according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
It is entirely possible to manufacture medicine with CBD (or even THC) extract that does not have any intoxicating or psychoactive effect while retaining the substance’s beneficial medical effects.
n Marijuana is dangerous.
“The negative health effects of cannabis have been primarily tied to heavy, daily use. The health effects of occasional use are uncertain and not conclusively demonstrated,” according to Randall Brown, addiction expert and director of the University of Wisconsin Hospital’s Center for Addictive Disorders. The Centers for Disease Control lists the negative effects of marijuana as “having difficulty thinking and problem-solving, having problems with memory, learning, maintaining attention and demonstrating impaired coordination.” Besides the fact that consuming alcohol causes the same short-term effects, it is impossible to overdose on cannabis, and it has no long-term health risks—unlike alcohol, which causes violence, alcohol poisoning, miscarriages, high blood pressure, heart diseases, strokes, liver and digestive diseases, multiple sorts of cancer, dementia, depression, anxiety and potentially death. “The acute toxicity of cannabis is very low. There are no confirmed cases of human deaths from cannabis poisoning in the world medical literature,” reads a study by the World Health Organization.
n Cannabis causes cancer.
There is no medical proof of this assertion, and cannabis seems to have an overall positive effect on health. The National Academy of Science published a report in 2017 that claims they “found no statistically significant association between smoking cannabis and cancer.” The study, however, reminds readers that there are many types of cancer, and that further research still needs to be led on each of them to have a better understanding of the issue. The only known downside of cannabis is its possible negative effect on individuals with mental health issues, in particular those suffering from schizophrenia, as it can exacerbate existing psychosis.
n Consuming marijuana damages the lungs.
Lung damage due to smoking marijuana by itself has not been proven. The World Health Organization found that reports of cannabis use causing lung damage “fall short of providing convincing evidence because they were uncontrolled, and many of the cases concurrently used alcohol and tobacco.” There are also ways to consume cannabis without smoking it, especially by simply eating it, which does not affect the lungs whatsoever. Comment at shepherdexpress.com. n SHEPHERD EXPRESS
When you buy from VERDANT, you are getting products you can trust!
C B D • E - C I G A R E T T E S • G L A S S B LOW N P I P E S A N D T U B E S • C I G A R S • TO B A CCO • H O O K A H S • VA P O R I Z E R S
BEST HEAD SHOP AND BEST VAPE SHOP Our CBD oil is produced in an FDA registered and inspected, food-grade facility.
CBD PRODUCTS For Mind & Body 2680 S. Kinnickinnic Ave. 414.763.3762 www.verdantmindandbody.com
Organic. Non-GMO. Kosher. Vegan. Gluten Free. Full Spectrum. Excellent Bioactivity. Clean Extraction.
OILS/TINCTURES, VAPORIZER PRODUCTS, WI GROWN RAW FLOWER, TOPICALS, AND EDIBLES
GOT PA I N ? WE HAVE YOUR CBD STRAIN.
YOUR FAMILY IS AS IMPORTANT TO US AS OUR OWN!
3133 S. 92nd St. • 414-763-3764 • Mon-Sat: 9-9 Sun: 9-5
COME SEE OUR NEW CBD WELLNESS CENTER!
CBD Sunday: ALL CBD PRODUCTS 15% OFF Home Grown Monday: ALL AMERICAN MADE GLASS 25% OFF Tubular Tuesday: ALL WATER TUBES 20% OFF Ashless Wednesday: ALL DRY & WAX VAPORIZERS 10% OFF, E-HARDWARE 15% 0FF & E-LIQUID 20% OFF Throwdown Thursday: BEAT A KNUCKLEHEAD ON THE SWITCH FOR 20% OFF YOUR ORDER Phat Dab Friday: 20% OFF ALL CONCENTRATE SUPPLIES Silly Swag Saturdays: 20% OFF ALL CLOTHING AND APPAREL KNUCKLEHEADSTOBACCO.COM
@MKE_KNUCKS
LET OUR KNOWLEDGEABLE STAFF ANSWER ALL YOUR CBD QUESTIONS.
• Fu l l y L i c e n s e d • A l l Pr o d u c t s C o n t a i n ≤ 0 . 3 % T H C • 1 8 + w i t h Va l i d I D •
The Go-to Site for Everything Cannabis We will keep you informed each week about the growing availability of legal cannabis products in Milwaukee, the move toward legalization of marijuana in Wisconsin and cannabis news from around the world. SHEPHERD EXPRESS
M A R C H 14 , 2 0 1 9 | 13
::DININGOUT
DAVE ZYLSTRA
FEATURE | SHORT ORDER | EAT/DRINK
For more Dining, log onto shepherdexpress.com
Five O’Clock Steakhouse
I felt as though I was forming a new friendship; the personable and warm bartenders welcome you as you belly up to the bar. You can enjoy a classic cocktail like their signature Old Fashioned or one of their many martinis while mulling over the tantalizing menu. The impeccably dressed server will take your dinner order at the bar and has everything timed perfectly. Awaiting you at your table is a display of warm sourdough bread with butter and honey, a family style garden salad and the traditional supper-club relish tray. The appetizers and sides are listed first on the dinner menu and include French onion soup ($9), shrimp scampi you can order per piece ($4), crab cakes ($16) and more, along with lovely sides of vegetables. The crab mac-and-cheese dish is large enough to share family style ($17). All of the steaks come surrounded by butter-sautéed button mushrooms. No matter which cut of steak you choose, they are cooked flawlessly to the requested temperature. The gorgeous charred exterior, juicy interior and bold beef flavor are accentuated by the seasoning. Beef cuts include steer filet mignon in ladies ($39), ::BY ALISA MALAVENDA king ($49), or a specialty cut filet on the bone ($55). The Five O’Clock cut is a hearty porterhouse ($53). My favorite is bone-in rib eye ($48). ive O’Clock Steakhouse is the quintessential supFor a real show-stopper, try the 32-ounce tomahawk ($75), perfect for sharing. per club with unique and exceptional dining deeply Also on the dinner specials menu is a slow-cooked, Wisconsin lamb osso bucco rooted in traditions. Even the décor represents a differ($40). The lamb was served with grilled carrots and asparagus, creating a textural ent place and time before all that talk about food trends, contrast and balancing the dish with crunch juxtaposed with the tender, fall-offsnapchatting every dish and innumerable gimmicks. It’s the-bone lamb shank. However, I thought that the vegetables could have been just a place to gather with good food and service. The cooked just a little longer. There are plenty of choices on a menu that also includes multicolored lights glow against the warmth of the dark seafood, pork chops and ribs ($35-$140) and some gluten-free options. wood, and the music softly bounces off the carpeting while you can I can’t believe I’m admitting that after this hearty meal, we enjoy pleasant conversation. saved room for dessert! The homemade cheesecake, crème Five O’Clock Steakhouse has been serving the brûlée and key lime tart were all divine with a glass of crisp finest steaks and cocktails in this supper-club style Five O’Clock Moscato to finish the perfect meal. You can also complete of dining since 1946. No wonder they were the Steakhouse your experience with one of their “Spirited Ice Cream Drinks,” Shepherd Express Best of Milwaukee’s first-place 2416 W. State St. such as a grasshopper or pink squirrel. Five O’ Clock Steakrestaurant last year for “Best Supper Club” and “Best 414-342-3553 • $$$$ house has music on the weekends in the Alley Cat Lounge Steakhouse.” Recently, the Food Network named it Handicapped access: Yes and also offers private dining. the best place for steak in Milwaukee. CC, FB,GF, RS Required, At Five O’Clock Steakhouse, the hospitality really does re(left) Salmon (right) Bone In Filet Mignon flect their motto: “You’re only a stranger once.” From the start, Free Valet Parking
Named Best by the Food Network
14 | M A R C H 1 4 , 2 0 1 9
SHEPHERD EXPRESS
::SHORTORDER
CAFÉ EL SOL’S FLAVORFUL FISH FRY
THIS IS NOT YOUR FATHER’S FISH FRY!
The days of 2 or 3 same old fish selections is OLD HAT! The Thistle has 21 fish selections this week! You can get a combo order. The same old fish fry advances to the modern era at the Thistle! SPECIAL ST. PATRICK’S DAY MENU ALL DAY SUNDAY, MARCH 17 • With three bands performing! • SO MANY FISH, ONLY ONE MOUTH
::BY DAVID LUHRSSEN
For an unusual slant on a Milwaukee tradition, the Friday fish fry, try Café El Sol on the lower level of the United Community Center (1028 S. Ninth St.). At lunch, every Friday, the café serves Pescado Frito o al horno ($10.95), an ample plate of fried or broiled fish along with cabbage slaw made with cilantro and jalapeño and Puerto Rican rice whose tomato and chicken stock base is enhanced with green olives and pork. The tender broiled fish is covered with red and green peppers and onions, and the fried fish is lightly breaded with a Goya seasoning. On Friday night, El Sol serves an all-you-can-eat buffet ($13.95) featuring fried and broiled fish, Mexican and Puerto Rican rice, plus beans and a changing array of fajitas and meat dishes. The café is a bright place with painted plaster walls, as well as wood and wicker chairs. On most Fridays, the space hosts live Latin music during dinnertime.
Live Music: Every Fri & Sat starts at 8pm
• Arapaima • Barramundi • • Blue Gill • Catfish • • Clam Strips • Cod Loin • • Crappies • Flounder • • Grouper • Haddock Loin • • Lake Perch • Mahi-Mahi • • Northern Pike • Pollock • • Rainbow Trout • Red Snapper • • Sauger • Shrimp • Smelt • • Wahoo Steak • Walleye • • Wild Salmon •
LOOK! The Thistle is now OPEN FOR LUNCH! tuesday-sunday at 11am Tuesday-Sunday 11am-10:30pm
ALL FISH CAN BE FRIED, BAKED, OR BROILED. GLUTEN FREE!
84th and Lisbon • 414-871-3977 • Dine in & Carry Out www.thethistleandshamrock.com
SHEPHERD EXPRESS
M A R C H 1 4 , 2 0 1 9 | 15
DININGOUT::EATDRINK
BALISTRERI BROTHERS
GAME SPECIAL Healthy Two 3-Topping 16” Pizzas, 2 Garlic Bread, 20 Wings
49
$
99
3815 S. 108th St. Greenfield | 414-543-0707 www.balistreripizza.com • W E D E L I V E R !
WHAT THE FOCK? YOU DON’T HAVE AN ART KUMBALEK T-SHIRT? the
GET ‘EM AT THE SHEPSTORE.COM
All you can eat Fish Fry NOT JUST ITALIAN ON FRIDAYS AT CAPRI!
8340 W Beloit Rd, West Allis | 414-543-5510 | capridinuovo.com
Monday - Thursday: 3 - 9 pm • Friday & Saturday: 11 am - 10 pm • Sunday: 11 am - 9pm 16 | M A R C H 1 4 , 2 0 1 9
Food Choices at Sherman Phoenix ::BY SHEILA JULSON
S
hortly after the Aug. 13, 2016, Sherman Park Uprising, JoAnne Sabir, who owns The Juice Kitchen with her husband, Maanaan, received a suggestion to expand into the Sherman Park neighborhood, along with the request to, “be the Phoenix that rises from the ashes.” That quote, which concluded an Aug. 20, 2016, New York Times article featuring the Sabirs, would eventually lead her, along with developer Juli Kaufmann, to spearhead Sherman Phoenix, an entrepreneurial hub for small businesses-of-color offering an array of healthy foods, wellness services and cultural activities. Sabir said she had traveled the nation, visiting food hubs and thinking about how those incubator spaces reflected the neighborhoods in which they rested. “My husband, who lived in the Sherman Park neighborhood for most of his life, built deep relationships with so many entrepreneurs that we just began to ask people to journey with us,” she said. “We realized there was a need and a desire from entrepreneurs to have a shared space.”
Prior to Sherman Phoenix opening, there were few options for fresh, healthy foods in the community. The current food vendors in Sherman Phoenix include Buffalo Boss, featuring hormone-free Buffalo wings; Confectionately Yours bakery; Funky Fresh Spring Rolls; Lush Popcorn; The Next Level Vegans; Purple Door Ice Cream; Sauce & Spice pizzeria; and SHINDIG Coffee. Trueman McGee, of Funky Fresh Spring Rolls, has been selling spring rolls packed with fresh ingredients like buffalo chicken and kale, or sweet potato and black bean. The spring rolls are grilled instead of fried. There are also salads and quinoa bowls. McGee had sold spring rolls at farmers markets and events, and he had a temporary space in the Milwaukee’s Shops of Grand Avenue. “I’m a former resident of the Sherman Park neighborhood, and I thought it would be important to have our business represented in the area. I jumped on board right away,” McGee said. McGee will still continue to do farmers markets and festivals, which will provide additional opportunity to direct customers to Sherman Phoenix. He said the love and support from customers has been overwhelming. “Sherman Phoenix has definitely been positive for our business,” he said. Anah Lesure, chef and owner of The Next Level Vegans MKE, started in 2012 with a food truck. She was a customer at The Juice Kitchen and started making vegan food for the Sabirs to offer along with juices and smoothies. The Next Level Vegan MKE’s specialties include scratch-made vegan versions of classic comfort foods like lasagna, eggplant Parmesan, macaroni and cheese and gyros. Lesure is implementing a grab-and-go system to serve the lunch crowd, and she now has a larger commercial kitchen space to prepare for events and meet the growing demand for vegan food in Milwaukee. Colectivo’s Paul Miller supported and mentored the Sabirs in opening SHINDIG Coffee, an extension of The Juice Kitchen. In addition to coffee and juices, SHINDIG will offer wraps, salads and soups, including a veggie dumpling soup that is Sabir’s father’s recipe. In addition to food vendors, Sherman Phoenix has salons, a barbershop, a yoga studio, an apothecary, artist studios, a consignment boutique, lifestyle and business consultants, counselors, massage and martial arts. Sabir said there’s been heavy interest from people requesting to rent space at Sherman Phoenix for private events. Public events such as Summer Phoenix Fest are in the works. Could Sherman Phoenix be a model for other communities? “I hope so,” Sabir said. “We know that it works, and we know it’s a sustainable model and plays a significant part to serve the needs of the community, so we hope it’s replicated again and again.” For more information, visit shermanphoenix.com. SHEPHERD EXPRESS
::SPORTS
BREWERS SPRING TRAINING LEAVES UNANSWERED QUESTIONS GOING INTO OPENING DAY
Introducing the 2 19
::BY KYLE LOBNER
I
t seems like just yesterday the Milwaukee Brewers reported to Maryvale, Ariz., to open their defense of the 2018 National League Central championship, but Cactus League play is already significantly more than halfway over. The early weeks of spring training, however, have not provided many new answers to the questions the Brewers brought along to American Family Field of Phoenix. Here are some things we still don’t know with a little more than two weeks left until Opening Day:
n How Do the Brewers Sort This Bullpen?
Through multiple weeks of Cactus League games, the Brewers still had 29 healthy pitchers in camp, and the majority came to Phoenix to compete for one of a handful of available relief jobs. To date, the most notable candidate ruled out of the chase was Bobby Wahl, whose season is likely over due to an ACL injury. With incumbents Corey Knebel and Josh Hader and newcomer Alex Claudio seemingly all but assured jobs—plus Jeremy Jeffress (if healthy) and Matt Albers (according to Craig Counsell)—there might be as few as three spots available in the Opening Day bullpen; that’s if the Brewers don’t opt to keep an extra starter in the bullpen or give up an eighth reliever to keep an extra position player. The list of potential candidates for the back of that bullpen includes many pitchers with MLB experience, including incumbents Jacob Barnes, Junior Guerra and Taylor Williams and the array of veterans in camp on non-roster invitations, including Deolis Guerra, Jay Jackson and Angel Perdomo. Phrases like “preserving organizational depth,” “opt-out clause” and “options remaining” will likely be cited as factors in whatever decisions the team makes.
n What Will the Brewers Do with Eric Thames?
A year ago, Eric Thames was the entrenched incumbent at first base, and Jesus Aguilar had an at best murky path to the MLB roster or any significant playing time. This year, the roles are reversed: Aguilar is coming off of his first All-Star season, and Thames, despite significant and recent success in the majors, doesn’t have a clear assignment for Opening Day. However, last year, Aguilar taught everyone a valuable lesson that even a player with no clear route to relevance can still, if things break right, find himself in the thick of things once the season gets underway. Thames’ limited positional flexibility, the Brewers’ likely desire to use a roster spot on an extra reliever and their abundance of left-handed power make him a challenging fit for the roster, but it’s impossible to rule out the possibility that the Brewers will find a way to keep him around. In the meantime, all Thames can do is keep hitting and hope it lands him a job somewhere.
Presented BY
Shepherd express This new single elimination tournament will run from
March 21 - April 7
and feature one-on-one beer matchups decided on by Milwaukee’s craft beer fans. Watch next week’s paper for the official unveiling of our Beer Bracket featuring beers from 32 Milwaukee-area breweries.
— Sponsored BY —
n Are the Brewers Done Making Moves?
If recent springs have taught Brewers fans one thing, it’s this: If David Stearns and company find an opportunity to make a meaningful addition to the roster in the days before or shortly after Opening Day, they won’t hesitate to take it. In 2018, it was lefthanded reliever Dan Jennings joining the team on the season’s second day and going on to make 72 relief appearances. In 2017, it was Jared Hughes, who went on to pitch in 67 games. In 2016, it was Carlos Torres, whose 72 relief appearances led the team. Given the bullpen logjam mentioned above, it seems unlikely the Milwaukee Brewers would add even more confusion to the mix by signing a late-spring reliever for the fourth consecutive year. Recent history would suggest, however, that they’ll be closely monitoring the list of players that becomes available as other teams make their own final roster cuts. Comment at shepherdexpress.com. n
SHEPHERD EXPRESS
For more information, visit: shepherdexpress.com/beerbracket M A R C H 1 4 , 2 0 1 9 | 17
::A&E
Brought to you by The Milwaukee Art Museum
FEATURE | FILM | THEATRE | ART | BOOKS | CLASSICAL MUSIC | DANCE
::BY KEVIN LYNCH
M
usicians from Africa and North America, Sonic Harvest and the YaYa Kalbaye Trio, vibrate together, illuminated by spot-lit artwork. Tom Smith, an artist seated beside the stage, begins a new oil painting. Dipping his brush in and out of his palette, his strokes dance to the music’s bubbling rhythms. The total effect feels transporting—two Senegalese kora players plucking strings rising from their spherical sounding gourds. The music’s spangling weave circles a pianist pounding out a propulsive vamp. The hypnotic aura reflects the fearless creative mission of the Jazz Gallery Center for the Arts (JGCA). A somewhat-hidden city jewel, the center’s challenge has been long, arduous and complex—signified by the checkered stage the musicians stand on, like so many chess players advanced by creative, dedicated thinkers during two distinctive incarnations of the venue. From 1978 to 1984, as the historic Milwaukee Jazz Gallery, that stage held countless famous jazz players, including Dizzy Gillespie, McCoy Tyner, Stan Getz, Dexter Gordon and Art Blakey with Wynton and Branford Marsalis. Founder-owner Chuck LaPaglia doggedly pursued a venue that actively served local artists and the community situated on Center and Weil Streets, a location both urban and easy to access for East-Side dwellers. Fast-forward to 1995. The Riverwest Artists Association (RWAA) seized it as a promising art gallery venue. “The place had been a hard rock/party disco club and it was a total shamble, smashed mirrors everywhere,” recalls JGCA president and venue manager Mark Lawson. In 2011, the young musicians organized as Milwaukee Jazz Vision suggested they do live jazz there, knowing the club’s historic legacy. “Jazz in Milwaukee was struggling at that point,” Lawson recalls. “The original Jazz Estate was on its last legs. But the musicians didn’t not know how to run a club, so we took over as a music and visual arts space.” That’s when the venue began to assert its current vision, as imaginative and diverse as any non-profit arts space in the city. RWAA board member John Richards, a master carpenter, built a small kitchen in one corner. Now, the center regularly offers refreshments and potlucks to complement art shows and performances. Without bar distractions, performers can count on attentive audiences. And despite dwindling state funding under Gov. Walker’s administration, social media connections have helped attract touring musicians and visiting artists from around the U.S. and Europe. Lawson, a longtime gallery curator at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, mounts consistently varied and sometimes provocative exhibits.
18 | M A R C H 1 4 , 2 0 1 9
ILLUSTRATION BY TEREKS
JAZZ GALLERY PROMOTES THE ARTS AND BUILDS COMMUNITY
Lawyer/musician Steve Tilton donated a Yamaha grand piano a few years ago and helps stage community and higher-profile events, like last year’s Pianofest, headlined by renowned Milwaukee-born pianist David Hazeltine. So, there’s really nothing quite like this place in Milwaukee. They still stage jazz, but it’s become a bastion of experimental arts, exemplified by the monthly series called Seed Sounds, curated by longtime Milwaukee multi-instrumentalist Rick Ollman, where the musical sky’s the limit. Drummer-composer Adam Nussbaum, who’s played with Stan Getz, John Scofield and the Gil Evans Orchestra, will bring his Lead Belly Project to the Seed Sounds series on Sunday, March 17. Also, intrepid board member and performance artist Peter Woods’ Samuel Beckett-influenced one-man shows employ noise sonics “and critical theory to investigate learning practices that emerge from experimental arts.” “What we do makes a big difference in the community,” Lawson says. Many women musicians and noteworthy young performers got their start here, including guitarist Cody Steinmann, singer-songwriter Caley Conway, the fusion group Digbii, performance-poet Kavon Cortez-Jones and the luminous jazz saxophonist Lenard Simpson. “He took the bus here when he was 18 years old,” to Tuesday jam sessions long featuring iconic Milwaukee guitarist-educator Manty Ellis. Among the center’s regular offerings is as a hip-hop venue and workshop under the guise of a loose-knit organization called Free Space, partly spearheaded by local rapper WebsterX, “which counters the stereotypes about hiphop clubs,” Lawson says.” In five years of Free Space, we’ve never had an incident.” At the other end of the generational spectrum, a twice-weekly seniors activity called “Older, Wiser and Local”(or OWL) offers interactive presentations. “Who knows?” cries the owl. Ol’ Dizzy Gillespie might still haunt the place, as king of the chessboard.
SHEPHERD EXPRESS
15!
Tickets start at
$ BIG RIVER: THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN World premiere co-production with The Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma, in association with Rogers and Hammerstein Theatricals and First Stage Book by William Hauptman Music and Lyrics by Roger Miller New arrangements and orchestrations by William Yanesh
March 15 – April 14, 2019 Suggested for families with young people ages 10 – 17+
FIRST STAGE .ORG / BIGRIV ER SPONSORED BY:
MEDIA PARTNERS:
SHEPHERD EXPRESS
March 15 - 31, 2019 Composed by Carl Or Orfff ff In collaboration with Milwaukee Opera Theatre Danceworks Performance Company Chant Claire Chamber Choir
Four organizations and 62 perfo f rmers unite to reimagine fo Carl Orff’s masterpiece for Skylight’s intimate stage as “total theatre”” in which music, dance and wo w rd r s are r inseparab re r le. rab “A masterpiece!” – The New York Times imes “Fresh! Glowing! Imaginative!” – Chicago Tribune
Tickets start at
30!
$
www.skylightmusictheatre.org/shepex • (414) 291-7800
M A R C H 14 , 2 0 1 9 | 19
::THISWEEKINMILWAUKEE THISWEEK FRIDAY, MARCH 15
Vince Staples w/ JPEGMAFIA and Trill Sammy @ The Rave, 9 p.m.
Vince Staples released one of the most compelling albums of 2016 with his Def Jam debut Summer ’06, a complicated, Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City-esque account of growing up amid the background of drugs, gangs and violence. But like many of the most respected rappers of his generation, he’s refused to be pigeonholed. He followed up that triumph with a more overtly arty, electronic album, 2017’s Big Fish Theory, then threw yet another curveball late last year with FM!, a brief, 22-minute thrill ride that featured some of his most buoyantly upbeat tracks yet. Critics were divided over whether the call the project an album or an EP, but Staples indicated there’s probably no meaningful distinction between the two anymore. “I was about to tell y’all FM! not an album but I don’t even know what an album is anymore, so I’m just about to eat some catfish,” he tweeted with his usual sardonic wit.
Dennis DeYoung @ The Pabst Theater, 8 p.m.
As a founding member of Styx, Dennis DeYoung used his showy synth-keyboard style and commanding lead vocals to distinguish the group’s progressive rock during its 1970s and early-’80s heyday. Creative differences began to divide the band after 1981’s theatrical concept album, Paradise Theater, and 1983’s “Mr. Roboto”-yielding concept album, Kilroy Was Here, leading to a five-year hiatus starting in 1984 that began DeYoung’s solo career. DeYoung split from Styx permanently in 1999, but he continues to tour behind the band’s songbook. His current tour celebrates the 40th anniversary of the band’s 1977 record The Grand Illusion.
THURSDAY, MARCH 14
Queensryche w/ Fates Warning @ The Rave, 8 p.m.
Michelle Obama @ Miller High Life Theatre, 8 p.m.
Queensryche was never the most popular of the 1980s hair-metal bands, but they emerged from the heyday of heavy metal with a prestige many of their contemporaries lost (or never had in the first place), thanks to their political, prog-metal ambitions. In 2006, they issued a mostly well-received follow-up to their 1988 masterwork, Operation: Mindcrime, that, if nothing else, reminded metal fans how powerful the first Mindcrime album was. In 2009, they released a new concept album, American Soldier, which the band wrote after interviewing veterans. Recorded with Rob Zombie producer Zeuss, their latest record The Verdict arrived in March.
Since it was published in November, former First Lady Michelle Obama’s memoir Becoming has been a phenomenon, outselling any other book published last year. The book details her childhood in Chicago, her years as a working mother and her time in the White House, as well as her thoughts on serving as the country’s first African American first lady. Obama is now undertaking a large book tour where she’ll be interviewed by a variety of luminaries at different stops, Robin Roberts, Jimmy Kimmel, Rachel Ray, Stephen Colbert and Gayle King among them. At this Milwaukee stop, though, she’ll be interviewed by a late-night host not as well known for serious conversations: Conan O’Brien, of TBS’s “Conan.”
Coco Montoya @ Potawatomi Hotel & Casino, 8 p.m.
A former guitarist for John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, Coco Montoya went on to become a top bluesman in his own right, earning rave reviews for the solo albums he’s released steadily since the mid-’90s. The left-handed guitarist’s latest album is 2017’s Hard Truth, a searing and soulful follow-up to his 2014 live disc Songs From The Road. It includes a fiery version of the Warren Haynes/Allman Brothers song “Before the Bullets Fly.”
Risk! @ The Back Room at Colectivo, 8 p.m.
FRIDAY, MARCH 15 Mariah Carey w/ DJ Suss One @ Miller High Life Theatre, 8 p.m.
How is it Mariah Carey has never played a show in Milwaukee until now? The legendary diva, one of the best-selling artists of all time, has bypassed Cream City on her previous tours, but her debut at the Miller High Life Theatre is well-timed. She’s touring behind her strongest album in a decade, 2018’s Caution, a slick set of a hip-hopinspired R&B and pop that showcases her flawless voice. Carey’s 18th record to debut in Billboard’s Top 10, the record features some inspired guest spots from Ty Dolla Sign and rappers Gunna and Slick Rick. Vince Staples 20 | M A R C H 1 4 , 2 0 1 9
Unlike Ken Marino, Michael Ian Black, Thomas Lennon, Joe Lo Truglio and seemingly every other album of MTV’s short-live comedy show “The State,” Kevin Allison didn’t become an especially sought-after comic actor. He found a calling nonetheless, though, as the host of an unusual podcast called RISK!, which invites guests to tell true stories they never thought they’d ever share in public—think of it like a dirtier, higherstakes alternative to The Moth. Past participants have including Marc Maron, Sarah Silverman, Kevin Nealon, Dan Savage and Andy Dick, and while there’s no word on who exactly will be participating in this live recording of the podcast at the Back Room at Colectivo, you’re guaranteed to hear some uncomfortably funny anecdotes. SHEPHERD EXPRESS
Read our daily events guide, Today in Milwaukee, on shepherdexpress.com
TUESDAY, MARCH 19 Jukebox The Ghost w/ The Mowgli’s and Twin XL @ Turner Hall Ballroom, 7 p.m.
Like Ben Folds Five before them, the Philadelphia trio Jukebox The Ghost plays a mix of irreverent, quirky piano-pop and sincere ballads, with ample nods to Billy Joel and The Beatles. That’s not to say that they’re bound by those influences, though. On their hyperactive, hook-a-minute 2010 sophomore album, Everything Under the Sun, the trio began to shake those Ben Folds comparisons, dialing up the energy for a peppy set that often plays more like The Dismemberment Plan’s Emergency & I than Folds’ Rockin’ the Suburbs, and that same gleeful energy carries through their last couple of records, including 2018’s Off to the Races. They’re joined on this bill by the sunny California alt-pop band The Mowgli’s.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 20 Bob Weir and Wolf Bros @ The Riverside Theater, 7 p.m.
TODD MICHALEK
No living member of the Grateful Dead seems to love the road quite as much as Bob Weir, who toured hard in the years since that band’s breakup with his band RatDog, along with a rotating cast of musicians who reprised many of the Dead’s favorites. RatDog went on hiatus in 2014 while Weir reunited with his Dead bandmates as Dead & Company, which still continues to tour with John Mayer on guitar. But Weir also has a new band now: Wolf Bros, which features legendary bass player Don Was and drummer Jay Lane. As you’d expect, they don’t shy away from Grateful Dead songs.
Bob Weir and Wolf Bros
SHEPHERD EXPRESS
M A R C H 1 4 , 2 0 1 9 | 21
::PERFORMINGARTSWEEK
Carmina Burana
For More to Do, visit shepherdexpress.com
THEATRE
Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
First Stage announces this production in quite eyecatching terms, stating that Big River is “adapted from the novel by Mark Twain” and is a “world premiere co-production with The Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma in association with Rodgers and Hammerstein Theatricals.” Based upon a Tony Award-winning Broadway musical, this is a somewhat more family friendly adaptation,
which tells the story of Huck and his friend Jim, a slave, as they travel along the shores of the Mississippi River. In Big River, Huck is trying to help Jim escape to freedom and reunite with his family, and their shared journey of discovery proves humorous, suspenseful and heartwarming all at once. The show’s director, Marti Gobel, explains: “It is with great joy that I work on Big River; Mark Twain has offered us a story of one of the most powerful friendships found in the American canon. Through the friendship of Huck and Jim, we can also come to a greater understanding of the beauty found in unlearning some of this country’s negative traditions.” (John Jahn) March 15-April 14 at the Marcus Center’s Todd Wehr Theater, 929 N. Water St. For tickets, call 414-273-7206 or visit firststage.org.
A “standard” performance of Carmina Burana—German composer Carl Orff’s 1937 self-described “scenic cantata,” would be purely musical; that is, large orchestra, full chorus and vocal soloists. But we’ve put this particular showing under “Theatre” for a very good reason: the upcoming performance will be, indeed, highly theatrical. It will be a monumental collaborative effort by Milwaukee Opera Theatre, Skylight Music Theatre, Danceworks Performance Company and Chant Claire Chamber Choir. Pareddown somewhat on the music side but enhanced tremendously by acting and dance. Carmina Burana, while undeniably “modern,” makes for a fascinating aural bridge between the Middle Ages and the 20th century, given its texts derived from 13th-century poetry—both sacred and secular (some of the latter rather raunchy, at least for its time). Encompassing music, song and movement, the work begs for more than a routine concert performance, and that’s what comes to the Cabot Theatre during the latter half of March. (John Jahn) March 15-31 at the Cabot Theatre, 158 N. Broadway. For tickets, call 414-291-7800, or visit skylightmusictheatre.org.
CLASSICALMUSIC
BOOK YOUR VACATION NOW – CALL FOR LIMITED-TIME SAVINGS FROM
$
1,749 *
1,499
$
$
FROM
2,249 *
1,999 *
*
$
FREE ONBOARD CREDIT
FREE BEVERAGE PACKAGE OR INTERNET
GRAND ALASKAN CRUISE & TOUR
NEW ENGLAND & CANADIAN MARITIMES CRUISE AND TOUR
Seattle • Vancouver • Ketchikan • Juneau • Skagway • Glacier Bay • Anchorage • Denali • and more
Boston • Cape Cod • Newport • Halifax • Charlottetown • Quebec City • Montreal • and more
12 days, departs July - September 2019
15 days, departs September - October 2019
Enjoy a cruise & tour between Seattle and Alaska including 7 nights aboard Holland America Line’s ms Westerdam and 4 nights on land. You’ll cruise the Gulf of Alaska and the Inside Passage—a sea lane teeming with marine wildlife, where you’ll pass glaciers, mountains, and lush forests, with stops in Ketchikan, Skagway and Glacier Bay. On land, you’ll go deep into Denali National Park, tour Anchorage, and see the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center.
Explore the best of New England and the Canadian Maritimes. Tour Boston, see the extravagant Gilded Age mansions of Newport, Rhode Island, and enjoy the shores of Cape Cod. Board the Norwegian Gem and sail through Maine to charming Bar Harbor north to Canadian ports in Halifax, Charlottetown, Gaspésie and La Baie. Explore Quebec City, Montreal and the Green Mountains of Vermont in beautiful fall. Port stops vary for the southbound cruise.
$
FROM
1,849 *
$
1,599 *
$
FROM
2,249 *
1,999 *
$
FREE SPECIALTY DINING PACKAGE
NATIONAL PARKS OF THE GOLDEN WEST
HAWAIIAN ISLANDS CRUISE & TOUR
Grand Canyon • Monument Valley • Bryce Canyon • Zion • Arches and Canyonlands • Yosemite • and more
Oahu • Maui • Hawaii • Kauai 12 days, departs year-round
14 days, departs June - September 2019 See up to 9 of America’s most spectacular national parks on this incredible tour! Start off in dazzling Las Vegas and continue to the world-famous Grand Canyon, Zion’s steep sandstone cliffs, rock hoodoos in Bryce Canyon, Monument Valley’s giant mesas, Arches National Park’s gravity-defying rock arches, waterfalls and granite scenery in Yosemite, towering sequoia trees in Kings Canyon, and everything in between—America’s natural beauty awaits!
Discover Hawaii on this island-hopping cruise tour. Spend 7 nights aboard Norwegian Cruise Line’s renovated Pride of America and enjoy freestyle cruising at its finest. Experience the lush Iao Valley on Maui, the beauty and charm of Hilo, Kona’s coffee-rich “Gold Coast,” and Kauai’s spectacular Na Pali coast and Waimea Canyon. Your land tour includes Pearl Harbor and Honolulu city tours, and time to relax on world-famous Waikiki Beach. Escorted on Oahu by our friendly Tour Directors—your local experts.
ESCORTED TOUR EXPERTS – CALL FOR YOUR FREE BROCHURE TM
Promo code N7017
CALL 1-855-526-0587
*Prices are per person based on double occupancy plus up to $299 taxes & fees. Cruise pricing based on lowest cabin category after Instant Rebate; upgrades available. Single supplement and seasonal surcharges may apply. Add-on airfare available. Onboard Credit requires purchase of Ocean View or Balcony Cabin for Grand Alaskan Cruise & Tour. Free Beverage Package or Internet requires purchase of Ocean View Cabin or Balcony Cabin (and applies to 1st and 2nd guests occupying a cabin, for the cruise portion of the tour only). Free Beverage Package or Internet requires additional service charges and is subject to NCL terms & conditions and are subject to change. Free Specialty Dining Package requires purchase of Ocean View Cabin or Balcony Cabin. For full Set Sail terms and conditions ask your Travel Consultant. Offers apply to new bookings only, made by 5/31/19. Other terms and conditions may apply. Ask your Travel Consultant for details.
24 | M A R C H 1 4 , 2 0 1 9
“For Two Lutes: Virtuoso Duets from Italy and England”
Early Music Now brings Ronn McFarlane and Paul O’Dette to Milwaukee for a fascinating concert by these two renowned lute players. In case you’re wondering, a lute is a plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back; it’s an instrument that was extremely popular in Europe from the Middles Ages through the Baroque Era. The works on their concert program hearken back, for the most part, to the 16th century. The first half of the concert explores the world of the lute in Italy, while the second half moves the action to England. From Renaissance Italy, McFarlane and O’Dette will perform the Saltarello and Piva by Joanambrosio Dalza; Fantasia Settima, Spagna, Fantasia Terza and other works by Vincenzo Galilei (father of astronomer and physicist Galileo Galilei and the lute virtuoso and composer Michelagnolo Galilei); the Toccata à dui Liuti by Alessandro Piccinini and more. From England’s lute music history, concertgoers will hear such as The Earl of Essex Galliard by John Dowland; A Fancy by John Danyel; The Queen’s Treble by John Johnson and more. (John Jahn) Saturday, March 16, at 5 p.m. (with a silent auction and chocolate reception at 3 p.m.) at UW-Milwaukee’s Zelazo Center for the Performing Arts, 2419 E. Kenwood Blvd. For tickets, visit earlymusicnow.org. SHEPHERD EXPRESS
MILWAUKEE REPERTORY THEATER
MA RCH 2 2 to MAY 26
The Return Of A
SOLD-OUT HIT!
®
Celebrates 85 Years
BY CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI
MARCH 22, 24, 30, & 31 MARCUS CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS
A NEW & ORIGINAL PRODUCTION FEATURING A PERIOD BAROQUE ENSEMBLE MAJOR SUPPORT FROM THE GARY AND CYNTHIA VASQUES FAMILY FOUNDATION
Created by Richard Maltby, Jr. Conceived by William Meade Directed by Dan Kazemi SPONSORED BY
F EATU R IN G :
I Walk The Line A Boy Named Sue
Folsom Prison Blues
& Ring of Fire
FEATURING 2019 GRAMMY-WINNING TENOR KARIM SULAYMAN AS EMPEROR NERONE Part of the Camille & David Kundert Stackner Season
1-800-32-OPERA OR FLORENTINEOPERA.ORG SHEPHERD EXPRESS
Executive Producers: John Halechko & Marc Colletti
SPONSORED IN PART BY:
www.MilwaukeeRep.com | 414-224-9490 M A R C H 14 , 2 0 1 9 | 25
MATTHEW MURPHY
A&E::INREVIEW
‘Things I Know to Be True’ Not to be Missed ::BY ANNE SIEGEL
T ‘Phantom of the Opera’
A Thoroughly Enjoyable ‘Phantom of the Opera’ ::BY JOHN JAHN
I
’m not a “Phantomhead,” “Phantomfan,” “Phantomista” or whatever you call Phantom of the Opera groupies. I’m not even particularly “into” Andrew Lloyd Webber (its composer) in general. But the fact is that I was thoroughly enraptured by the current production thereof at Uihlein Hall last Friday evening. Webber’s music and Charles Hart’s lyrics in Phantom are a creative artist’s version of striking gold. Put simply, the show has everything. The music is compelling, classical, lyrical, modern and memorable; the lyrics are sincere, witty, touching; Phantom’s send-up of old-fashioned operatic productions is as hilarious to those “in the know” as well as those who’ve never seen an opera. It has great humor, pathos, love, hate, fear, death and some jump-in-your-seat shocks. All a production of The Phantom of the Opera truly needs is an excellent sound system, fine orchestra, professional dance troupe, several fine actor-singers, large cast, lavish costumes, gorgeous sets and pyrotechnics. That’s all. Obviously, it’s an enormous undertaking to pull off such a big show in precisely the right way. Happily, Cameron Mackintosh’s production expertly manages it all in a not-to-be-missed show. If you’ve ever been tempted to go to a musical theatre production but were just too intimidated to take those last few steps up to the box office window, Webber’s Phantom is the show—and this is the production— for which you should do so. Ultimately, what makes or breaks a performance is the central cast, and this Phantom has a perfectly balanced central trio, as well as a completely harmonious group around them. Jordan Craig is the embodiment of the earnest, heroic, loving Raoul; Kaitlyn Davis has the gorgeously shimmering lyric soprano and fine acting skills to create a believably smittenyet-horrified Christine (depending on the show you attend, you may see Emma Grimsley or Eva Tavares in this role); finally, the title character is menacingly, touchingly, convincingly and rather brilliantly played by Quentin Oliver Lee. The fact that your own feelings toward the Phantom, Christine and Raoul evolve as events unfold—and you gradually discover that what is generally perceived as purely “good” and “evil” ultimately emerge as shades of each other in the most striking ways— tells you that, in this production of The Phantom of the Opera, you’ve witnessed truly great musical theatre. Through March 17 at Uihlein Hall, 929 N. Water St. For tickets, call 414-273-7206 or visit marcuscenter.org. 26 | M A R C H 1 4 , 2 0 1 9
he Milwaukee Repertory Theater’s multi-faceted Things I Know to Be True offers an at-times tender and touching portrayal of a Midwestern family. This production is the American premiere of Andrew Bovell’s 2016 play, which garnered positive critical reviews when it originally opened overseas. The hard work of adapting the play to reflect Midwestern values has paid off. This is a not-to-bemissed production of the early spring theater season. Life isn’t always perfect, of course, and neither are the lives of long-married couple Fran (Jordan Baker), a nurse, and her husband, Bob (Bill Geisslinger), an auto factory worker who took an early retirement package. They’ve worked hard all their lives, sacrificing and saving so that their four adult children could have better lives than they had. The entire play takes place in the couple’s rose garden, beautifully decorated by set designer Scott Davis. The set is dominated by a large tree that looms over the cast like a protective cloak. In between a series of monologues, there’s a short dance sequence involving all the characters. This storytelling through movement illustrates how the children are drawn towards the family’s orbit,
A Most Likeable (and Youthful) ‘As You Like It’ ::BY HARRY CHERKINIAN
W
illiam Shakespeare’s lighthearted comedy As You Like It takes on a youthful, contemporary look at the First Stage production featuring its Young Company performers. These young actors are in the high-school age range, yet they perform with a level of experience and professionalism due in large part to their FS training and the production’s director, James Fletcher. The Bard’s work becomes even more accessible to people of all ages, given the minimal set, modern dress and use of simple songs and instruments throughout the production. This tale of mistaken identities, mixed-up
even if they are thousands of miles away, as the youngest child, Rosie, discovers while touring through Europe. Rosie (Aubyn Heglie) suddenly yearns for the safety of her family circle and cuts her trip short to reunite with them. The older children face their own struggles, but they still return to the family for a bit of comfort, advice or—at least—understanding. Pip, the oldest daughter (Kelley Faulkner), feels trapped by her marriage, and she eventually leaves her husband and children behind as she moves to Finland. High-living Ben (Zach Fifer) tries to ingratiate himself with an upscale crowd by “skimming” (i.e. embezzling) money from his firm. Then there’s Mark (Kevin Kantor), the son who is unhappy with his manly body. Bravely, he tries to talk to his parents about his quest to become Mia. The conversation doesn’t go well, especially at first. Sensing that this might be the case, Mark already has made contacts in San Francisco, a place where he hopes to live and make his own family with those who can identify with the changes he is going through. All these crises are a far cry from what Bob had envisioned the future might be. He hoped the “kids” would someday settle nearby, or at least close enough to come home during the summer for Sunday barbecues. Fran, too, has her reservations about choices the kids have made. Instead of a paternal, “Ozzie and Harriett” approach to their children’s lives, they aren’t above cussing them out if they think it’s necessary. Whatever is happening in this play at any given moment, director Mark Clements ensures that the audience cares deeply about this family. Audiences can’t help but identify with the struggles, fears, joys and secrets that unfold in a bit more than two hours on the Quadracci stage. Through March 31 at Quadracci Powerhouse, 108 E. Wells St. For tickets, visit milwaukeerep. com or call 414-224-9490. loves, and mischievous merriment in a forest are reminiscent of another of Shakespeare’s comedies, A Midsummer Night’s Dream; but the resemblance ends there. Shakespeare’s characters rely on wit, resourcefulness and the classic dialogue which the Young Company delivers well, for the most part. While there were vocal projection issues with some of the Young Company actors, they all had their lines down pat. And with Shakespeare, there’s plenty of that! Standout performances were many; Mary Jensik in the “male role” of Jacques had remarkable poise and delivery, showcasing a range of emotions that belie her young years. As Orlando, Molly Boyle brought a quiet strength to the role, as well as a literal one in the well-choreographed wrestling match with Charles (a high energy performance by Kamani Graham). And what fun Bradley Nowacek has playing the fool, Touchstone, commanding the stage regardless of what’s going on. Sylvie Arnold grounds the production with her smart, clever portrayal of the banished Rosalind, ably aided by Kayla Salter’s charming depiction of Celia. With As You Like It, audiences will find that there’s plenty to like. Through March 24 at the Milwaukee Youth Arts Center, 325 W. Walnut St. For tickets, call 414-267-2961 or visit firststage.org. SHEPHERD EXPRESS
A&E::INREVIEW
THIRD WARD GIVES BACK
‘The Moving Archive/What Is Remembered’
A ‘Moving Archive’ of Delight at Milwaukee’s Newest Performance Space ::BY JOHN SCHNEIDER
S
o many good things happened in the quiet hour-long event called The Moving Archive/What Is Remembered last Saturday at The Warehouse, the new art space so generously created by Jan Serr and John Shannon for Milwaukee artists of proven skill to take risks and show work. First, there was the space itself: a big white, well-lighted room with four fat pillars you could lean against and a clean stone floor you could sit on if you felt like it. A few movable chairs were there for the taking. Mostly, the audience stood or walked about in plain view, part of the show. You didn’t want to stay too long in one place since there was art to look at everywhere, and one key part of it was always moving; specifically, the dancers Maria Gillespie, Joelle Worm and Chanteé Kelly. Since big walls with big photographs and floor-to-ceiling projected videos by artists Lois Bielefeld and Nirmal Raja filled the room’s center and blocked sightlines, you had to follow the performers as they’d vanish around corners or wait for them to circle back, which took a while. You might decide to linger near the cellist Janet Schiff whose slow, low, deep original music made every second feel essential; her practiced improvised compositions as powerful a source of emotion as your memories. On Belonging was the terrific exhibition by Bielefeld and Raja on the walls, there through May 31. Raja immigrated to Milwaukee years ago from Chennai (formerly Madras), the cultural capital of south India. For many months, Bielefeld, a Milwaukee native, photographed Raja in radically different but culturally meaningful local settings, always beautifully dressed in saris. A second photographic series shows Raja entirely wrapped in 30 yards of organdy fabric, her brown hands and feet the only clues to her identity. She’d covered the fabric with rubbings from an engraved timeline of Wisconsin history found somewhere along the Riverwalk. Her video art shows a performance by 19 Milwaukee women from diverse backgrounds connected by that fabric. That fabric lay heaped on the floor near the entrance, with director Gillespie, invisible, wrapped in it. Worm and Kelly lay similarly wrapped at other spots. Ever so slowly, they moved, unwound, unfurled the cloth, paraded it, moved on, in, against and apart from it, reminding us that we are all immigrants to this place and time, living artifacts, physical cultural records, together here. Now what? Visit thewarehousemke.org to book a free visit to the exhibition. Stay posted for a repeat of the dance installation.
SHEPHERD EXPRESS
BLOOD DRIVE 12pm - 6pm Tues. March 26th Black Swan MKE Make your appointment by visiting versiti.org/bcw, or call 877-BE-A-HERO.
M A R C H 1 4 , 2 0 1 9 | 27
A&E::VISUALART
SPONSORED BY
OPENINGS: Emerging Artists Exhibition March 15-April 20 Var Gallery • 643 S. Second St.
Examining the Threat to ‘The Great Lakes’ at the Haggerty Museum of Art ::BY SHANE MCADAMS
N
ew York-based painter Alexis Rockman’s Great Lakes Cycle, currently on view at the Haggerty Museum of Art through May 19, dispenses with any polite ambiguity on the way to his dramatic, cautionary message about the health of the Great Lakes ecosystem. They are as didactically ecological as Giotto di Bondone’s Arena Chapel fresco was didactically biblical. Commissioned originally by the Grand Rapids Museum of Art, Rockman’s cycle confronts threats to the Great Lakes through monumental narratives, painted with a purposive clarity. We know what everything is about in a general sense pretty quickly; the remaining urge then is to sort out the themes of each painting, and the particular references within, an exercise in symbolic taxonomy that is satisfying, if not transformative. The painting Cascade is a firehose of visual information, offering a historical synopsis of extracted Great Lakes resources from the Ice Age through the industrialized present. The painting doesn’t have a clear focal point, so left-to-right, like the printed word, wins out. The work features charging caribou in the foreground gliding through crowded waters toward cut logs and rusty tanker ships in the future at stage right. It’s truly an ensemble performance, though, with glaciers, plumes of smoke, beetles and flocks of birds joining in. Rockman’s signature compositional division above and below a waterline reveals native fish, boat wrecks and other debris lurking underneath the forsaken terrestrial landscape, without hardly a square foot of real estate, wet or dry, abstaining from the opportunity to tell us how bleak the ecological situation is. Walking toward the 12-by-five-foot panoramic paintings in the gallery is a powerful, verging on destabilizing, experience. They are truly cinematic, but the returns tend to diminish from work to work. The scale, messaging and extravagance provides a kind of tent-pole quality; the storylines 28 | M A R C H 1 4 , 2 0 1 9
change slightly, but the structure and process don’t. This is partially due to the nature of the project, to be sure, but nevertheless, it figures into how they’re received. It’s a hazard of the job that Thomas Cole must have thought about when he painted the Course of Empire. Someone once said that Goodfellas was a movie that looked like it simply happened, until Casino made it look like it was made. In other words, the more we see of the work, sometimes, the more we see of the artist, and the more we see of the artist, the more we notice the wizard than his spell. Five 72-by-54-inch framed watercolor and acrylic paintings rediscover some of the mystery and ambiguity lost in the Cycle paintings. Two in particular, Ice Fishing and Upper Peninsula, strike a fine balance between field study detachment and artistic eccentricity. Ice Fishing’s composition recalls the famous poster for the movie Jaws, only the figure on top of the waterline is an ice fisher, and the submerged life is native fish. The work is eccentric yet meditative—from lake bottom to the winding green aurora at top. Upper Peninsula, a fairly simple composition of a moose in a woodsy lake, makes great use of the aqueous medium to build the composition. Rockman relaxes his hand and lets the watercolor do the work, flowing and pooling as naturally as the subject matter itself. These paintings feel slightly off script and allow the viewer to explore the terrain on their own, dipping into each one’s compositional contingencies and material quirks. When the narrator fades into the background, we lose a little of the overt ecological messaging, but sometimes it’s better to be shown than to be told. Alexis Rockman (American, b. 1962) Cascade, 2015, Oil and alkyd on wood panel, 72 x 144 inches. COMMISSIONED BY GRAND RAPIDS ART MUSEUM WITH FUNDS PROVIDED BY PETER WEGE, JIM AND MARY NELSON, JOHN AND MURIEL HALICK, MARY B. LOUPEE, KARL AND PATRICIA BETZ, AND GENERAL ACCESSIONS FUNDS. GRAND
Var Gallery’s fourth annual Emerging Artists Exhibition will showcase “six select artists from both MIAD and UW-Milwaukee’s Peck School of the Arts,” says Nykoli Koslow, gallery assistant and communications manager. “Most artists have graduated within the last year. Featured artists will include Molly Hassler, Melissa Mursch, Brian Pfizer, Brennen Steines, Emma Ponath and Izzy Waite. This is one of Var’s most anticipated exhibitions as it showcases what’s yet to come within Milwaukee’s thriving arts scene.” For more information, visit vargallery.com.
“The Tiveys: Looks, Sounds, Smells Like the Universe” March 15-April 28 REAL TINSEL 1013 W. Historic Mitchell St.
The Tiveys—Hap, Quinn and Rhys, explore time and the Universe through a multi-disciplinary installation of smells, sounds and visual arts. The show feeds off the work Endless Events, a scroll from the “Origins Project” that maps the Universe’s scale from the smallest possible space-time dimension of energymatter (1.6 x e-32 mm) to the largest known scale of a discreet region of galaxy clusters (8.8 x e+29 mm). Somewhere near the center lies the scale of our physical body inhabited and defined by human consciousness. As Mr. Spock would surely opine, “Fascinating.” For more information, call 347-683-0197 or visit realtinsel.com.
bruise bullet flower
Saturday, March 16 Woodland Pattern Book Center 720 E. Locust St.
Poet and visual artist Rachel Eliza Griffiths will give a reading at Woodland Pattern at 7 p.m. in response to her new photography exhibition, bruise bullet flower, which is currently on display in the Center’s gallery. Griffiths’ exhibition documents the strength, vulnerability and beauty of black and brown queer bodies existing under the daily threat of gun violence in the U.S. This exhibition at Woodland Pattern is the national debut for Griffiths’ project. A chapbook published by Woodland Pattern in celebration of bruise bullet flower will be available to event attendees free of cost. It features photographs from the exhibition and poetry from 11 authors of color. For more information, call 414-263-5001 or visit woodlandpattern.org.
RAPIDS ART MUSEUM. 2015.19.
SHEPHERD EXPRESS
::OFFTHECUFF LAUREN MILLER
Safety, Shakespeare and Drinking Off the Cuff with Bard and Bourbon’s Katie Merriman ::BY JOHN SCHNEIDER
A
s an undergraduate theatre major, Katie Merriman fell in love with Shakespeare. She soon grew keenly aware of the lack of Shakespeare performance opportunities, especially for women. She’d drive from Sheboygan to Milwaukee for Milwaukee Shakespeare’s shows, but that company closed in 2008. She admires Optimist Theatre, best known now for summer Shakespeare in the Park at the Marcus Center, but they do just one show annually. Summit Players Theatre only offers summer Shakespeare in State Parks. So, in 2014, Merriman founded Bard and Bourbon in Milwaukee to fill this gap. Off the Cuff talked to her about it. How did you start? I wanted a Shakespeare company that was open to casting all genders in any role. I decided to start with Hamlet, because why not? I was able to cut it to six parts. I asked five friends to join me in the cast and asked them to choose the part they wanted to play. It didn’t matter what body type, gender or anything else. The one man in the group was fourth to pick. He chose Hamlet. The rest of the cast were women. You see different things when you don’t let gender become an issue. It creates different tensions, puts the focus on different themes in the play. Your shows are fully staged and memorized. Do you cut the texts? Shakespeare often gives you four hours, but he repeats a lot of stuff because his audience was easily distracted. We do closer to two or two and a half and hope our modern audiences are paying attention. We do a lot of text analysis in rehearsal. We try to cut repetitions. We try not to be harsh, not to cut in the middle of the iambic pentameter, not to interrupt the beautiful flow of the words. And the bourbon? It started as a bit of a gimmick and also just self-indulgence. I knew about the Drunk Shakespeare Society in New York—they’re one of the first to do it formally—and I happen to love whiskey and I love Shakespeare and I thought let’s do it, it sounds like a fun time. But doing it, we realized how much letting everybody just relax with Shakespeare—the audience as well as the cast—brings people to access Shakespeare who might not be able to otherwise, because he’s put up on a pedestal and treated so formally. We heard from many audience members that this was the first time they’d understood Shakespeare or the first time they’d enjoyed it. And many of the scenes are performed without drink; it’s just Shakespeare. Only one actor drinks? Once in a while, there are two, if they don’t interact much. We had two for Twelfth Night because of the theme of twins. Zach Woods, the director for our upcoming Julius Caesar, is using two for some performances.
Katie Merriman
How drunk do they get? Quite. We set a limit of twelve drinks over the course of the evening because we want to make sure our actors are safe. It’s primarily whiskey and that’s a lot of whiskey. We don’t ask anyone to do that more than one night. The other actors are sober specifically to help maintain the safety of the drunk actor. If it seems like it’s getting too much, they’ll say nope, you’re done. I always say, it’s safety first, Shakespeare second and drinking as an afterthought. How is the actor chosen? Sometimes, it’s the role. If we’re doing Hamlet, we’d ideally like to see Hamlet drunk. Roles will be offered with the added contingency that this is a drunk role, will you accept it? Or this is not a drunk role, will you accept it? We often have four or five performances with sometimes eight to 11 actors. We’ll never force someone who doesn’t want to do it. The director will decide which parts make the most sense. The actors know well in advance. We make sure they can take off work the next morning, that they have a designated driver and they’re completely prepared, that they’ve had a good meal and they have all the water they need. How does it change the performance? It adds an element of surprise, so you start to lean in and listen more carefully. And alcohol lowers inhibitions, so the acting can become so raw, so immediate. We had an almost allfemale cast for Romeo and Juliet and the reaction to Juliet’s death by the man who played the Nurse drunk was so personal, so genuinely felt you could hear a pin drop. Julius Caesar runs March 14-17 at the Marcus Center’s Rehearsal Hall A, with a March 13 paywhat-you-can preview. Visit bardandbourbon.com for more information.
WINNER! BEST MUSICAL ALL ACROSS NORTH AMERICA ON SALE NOW!
MAY 7 – 12 • MARCUS CENTER MARCUSCENTER.ORG • TICKETMASTER.COM • 414-273-7206 GROUPS 10+ SAVE! CALL 414-273-7121 EXT 210 ®
SHEPHERD EXPRESS
M A R C H 7 , 2 0 1 9 | 29
A&E::FILM
[ FILM CLIPS ] Captive State PG-13
Set in Chicago during the near future, this story looks into the aftermath of an alien invasion. It’s been 10 years since extraterrestrials arrived, enforcing peace among Earth’s humans. Governments attempt to comply, but a resistance movement is equally determined that no overlord shall determine our destiny. Collared, frightened and tortured, Gabriel (Ashton Sanders), along with members of his Resistance group, believe that making humanity passive is instrumental to annihilating us. Using thoughtful ideas as its platform, the story resonates. (Lisa Miller)
Five Feet Apart PG-13
Adapted from Rachael Lippincott’s novel, this story explores first love between teens afflicted with Cystic Fibrosis. At 17, Stella (Haley Lu Richardson) embraces her treatment and drug routines. Then she falls for fellow patient Will (Cole Sprouse), who is treated at her hospital. Since CF patients are cautioned to maintain 6-feet of separation in order to lower the risk of cross-infection, romance between Will and Stella is difficult. Will draws pictures for Stella, flashes an infectious smile and inspires her to shorten their separation to five feet. Impossible young love has been mercilessly mined, but the film sheds light on the difficulties of living with this incurable disease. (L.M.)
Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase PG
This updated adaptation of Mildred Wirt Benson’s girl sleuth, first published in 1930, takes on issues of bullying, sexism and ageism through the experiences of Nancy Drew. Solving mysteries using logical deduction, Nancy is called upon by a pair of elderly sisters to investigate their suddenly haunted mansion. Portraying Drew’s supportive dad, Sam Trammell helps his daughter understand that illegal activities, no matter how well-intended, come with consequences. Though the film’s simplistic plot targets pubescent girls, the story examines issues and develops characters, which is appreciated by all. (L.M.)
Ruben Brandt, Collector R ‘Climax’
‘Climax’ Asks: Who Spiked the Sangria?
A
::BY DAVID LUHRSSEN
t least a dozen characters are introduced at the onset of Climax via video recordings of their audition interviews with an unseen choreographer for an international dance tour. All are young, all dance; otherwise, their backgrounds and personalities diverge. Most are French but some come from elsewhere. Most are white but many are black and one is of Middle Eastern heritage. The ranks of men and women are about even. It’s an interesting way to preview a cast of characters, but like everything else in Climax, the intro drags on and on. It’s never a good feeling when a 96-minute movie feels like eternity spent in a dark hole. French director Gaspar Noé assembles his youthful crew inside an abandoned school where they rehearse for their tour. It’s a violently coherent number compounded from interpretive motion and breakdancing. Climax is set in 1996, meaning no one is sending selfies, but maybe the point is: they can’t call the outside world on their mobile phones but are trapped within the horror they colClimax lectively conjure up. Perhaps in a perverse response to ’90s rave culture, someone spiked the sangria bowl with Sofia a hallucinogen. Maybe the acid is bad or maybe it’s the Boutella vibes, but the party goes utterly out of bounds. Some Romain will die. All will be hurt somehow. Guillermic Noé engineers bravura tracking shots as he follows Directed by individual dancers and couples around the floor. Hints drop during the dialogue of interpersonal tensions, Gaspar Noé followed by mounting unease and jitters once the drug Rated R kicks in. What happens next is a bedlam of unfiltered ugliness shot in grainy textures. It’s as if one of the partygoers was a cinematographer, not a choreographer, and kept the digicam running through the chaos. Recriminations and fists fly; a knife is pulled; blood spills; some revelers even find time for sex. Someone’s child (he sipped the sangria; mom was preoccupied) electrocutes himself, shutting down the power and leaving only the dim emergency lights, glowing red and lurid as hell. Along the way, Noé interjects pseudo-profound captions along the lines of “LIFE IS A COLLECTIVE IMPOSSIBILITY.” Did Sartre or someone coin that bit? Climax brings to mind reading de Sade with the realization that, after a while, perversity grows dull. 30 | M A R C H 1 4 , 2 0 1 9
Ruben Brandt is a psychotherapist tormented by art. The figures on great paintings come to life and stalk him through his nightmares in this animated romp by Slovenian director Milorad Krstic. Composed of hand-drawn and computerized animation, Ruben Brandt, Collector features chases by car and foot through Paris and a gang of international art thieves—led by a femme fatale—in a story that tips its hat to the smarter end of 1960s cartoons. Rocky and Bullwinkle at the art museum? (David Luhrssen)
Wonder Park PG
For years, little June (voiced by Brianna Denski) collaborated with her mom (Jennifer Garner) to create an imaginary amusement park they named Wonderland. Putting the park out of her mind since her mother’s untimely death, young June is magically transported to Wonderland and finds it in disrepair, a consequence of her ignoring it. The park, located in the woods, has become a favorite playground of destructive animals. To save it, June must team up with other woodland creatures (such as a blue bear). Splashy colors and softly rounded characters take aim at the 4-to-7-year-old audience. Paramount plans to base a Nickelodeon series on this idea. No director is credited because Dylan Brown was fired following multiple complaints of “inappropriate and unwanted conduct.” (L.M.)
[ HOME MOVIES / NOW STREAMING ] n The World Before Your Feet
In 2009, Matt Green quit his engineering job and started walking. His latest trek involves hiking every street in New York City, totaling 6,000 miles. Jeremy Workman’s documentary follows him on his odd but endearing quest. Green claims to live on $15 a day. With no residence, he flops with friends and cat-sits. Disclaiming any intent to monetize his adventure, he unearths the history of New York’s hundreds of neighborhoods and posts the findings on his blog.
n The Possessed
The 1965 erotic thriller The Possessed is a dark murder mystery with origins in a true crime story. Italian directors Luigi Bazzoni and Franco Rossellini made good use of their stark lakeside setting, with evocative black and white cinematography conveying a brooding, wintry sense of loss. Some of the visual compositions are unforgettable. The wide, fish-eye lenses help distort the distinction between dreams and waking, intuition and fact. The unsettling score heightens the disturbing suspense.
n My Name is Julia Ross n So Dark the Night
A young woman, Julia Ross, awakens in a strange mansion overlooking the sea with a new name, a wedding ring on her finger and a husband she had never met. The intriguing 1945 production by director Joseph H. Lewis (The Big Combo) merges film noir with a metaphor of female subjugation. Despite its title, Lewis’ follow-up, So Dark the Night (1946), opens in a lighter tone before settling into a twisted psychological murder mystery.
n Unknown Soldier
In the summer of 1941, the Finnish government allied itself with Nazi Germany and joined the invasion of the Soviet Union. They sought revenge for Josef Stalin’s 1939 attack on their country. Directed by Finland’s Aku Louhimies, Unknown Soldier follows an army unit on the front line. The soldiers’ attitudes range from gung-ho to subversive with much grumbling about “Hitler’s war.” Unknown Soldier is best at depicting the cold fear that is every soldier’s comrade in arms. —David Luhrssen
SHEPHERD EXPRESS
SHEPHERD EXPRESS
M A R C H 14 , 2 0 1 9 | 31
A Whiskey vs. Brandy showdown for the ages took place on Friday, March 8 at The Garage at The Harley-Davidson Museum®. We kept it local with Great Northern Distilling’s Vanguard Whiskey and Wollersheim Distillery Press House Brandy.
Bibinger’s Whiskey & Overall Winner Drink Wisconsinbly Brandy Winner Thanks to all participating bars and restaurants BIBINGER’S • BITTERCUBE BAR & BAZAAR BRANDED (IRON HORSE) • CHOPHOUSE CRIMSON CLUB • DON’S DINER DRINK WISCONSIBLY • FAMOUS DAVE’S FIVE O’CLOCK STEAKHOUSE GARY’S OLD FASHIONED MIX KEGEL’S INN • SAFEHOUSE THE KNICK • TOAST • VITUCCI’S
A&E::BOOKS
BOOK|REVIEWS
Nobody’s Looking at You (FARRAR, STRAUS & GIROUX), BY JANET MALCOLM Janet Malcolm’s subtle snark is more like the swipe of a cat’s claws than the barking dogs of contemporary media. Her essay collection, Nobody’s Looking at You, has no unifying theme beyond her unassuming-yet-willing-to-draw-blood sensibility. She punctures the pretense of the ostensibly non-hierarchical hierarchy of the Eileen Fisher clothing empire, examines the academic antics of UW-Milwaukee’s Jane Gallop and demolishes the translators who dumb-down Tolstoy for contemporary sensibilities. “(Would u really want that?)” she asks. Malcolm has little patience for journalists who transcribe reality without insight or biographers with “priggish” psychological theories focused on “squalid findings” on their subjects’ sex lives. Reading Malcolm is a pleasure for the quiet force of her intelligence. (David Luhrssen)
A Supernatural War: Magic, Divination, and Faith during the First World War
(OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS), BY OWEN DAVIES During World War I, many soldiers went to the front carrying lucky charms shaped like swastikas—these were British soldiers in the last years before the swastika was given a sinister new meaning. In A Supernatural War, British historian Owen Davies examines a gamut of “supernatural” actions and sightings that accompanied a war of unprecedented technological slaughter. Some stories of spectral intervention on the battlefield began as fiction but spread virally (yes, without the internet) as if they were fact. Meanwhile, charlatans predicted the future. Davies is especially amusing when visiting conflicting astrological predictions produced on both sides of the conflagration. Occasionally, eerie eyewitness accounts of strange sights ring with true belief. Davies has delved into the sources and emerged with an interesting conclusion: World War I did not increase public interest in the para-rational, as some historians have held, but only gave it a new and horrible context. (David Luhrssen) 32 | M A R C H 1 4 , 2 0 1 9
SHEPHERD EXPRESS
A&E::BOOKS Thallis Hoyt Drake, Founder | Charles Grosz, Executive & Artistic Director
BOOK|PREVIEW
When Milwaukee’s ‘Old Tinderbox’ Burned
The Go-to Site for Everything Cannabis
S
Across Borders •
S O N E A
18 • Across Time 19
LOCAL HISTORIAN RECALLS ONE OF THE CITY’S GREATEST FIRES ::BY JENNI HERRICK
MAR
16
MCFARLANE • • RONN & PAUL O’DETTE We will keep you informed each week about the growing availability of legal cannabis products in Milwaukee, the move toward legalization of marijuana in Wisconsin and cannabis news from around the world.
For Two Lutes : Virtuoso Duets from Italy & England
EARLYMUSICNOW.ORG 4 1 4 . 2 2 5 . 3 1 1 3
I
n the years after the Civil War, boom cities developed across America thanks in large part to wood construction. Elaborate wooden hotels decorated most major downtown skylines, and Milwaukee was no exception. And like so many other cities that boasted elegant wooden structures, the history of Milwaukee includes a tragic tale of a deadly hotel fire. The story of the Newhall House hotel fire differs from other large blazes of the late 19th century in significant ways, and in a new book published by the Wisconsin Historical Society, Milwaukee writer Matthew J. Prigge shares the surprisingly dramatic events that unfolded on a cold morning in January 1883. When the famous Newhall House hotel—one of the tallest buildings in the nation at the time—burned to the ground, 70 guests and hotel staff lost their lives, some of whom succumbed to the smoke and flames from the fast-moving fire, while others opted to jump to their deaths from windows as high as the sixth floor. There were immediate signs of arson and the ensuing search to identify a criminal behind this calamity brought global attention to the city. The case continues to stand as one of the deadliest unsolved mysteries in Milwaukee. Damn the Old Tinderbox!: Milwaukee’s Palace of the West and the Fire that Defined an Era is a gripping local tale engrossingly told by Prigge. He will speak at Boswell Book Co. at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, March 19.
SHEPHERD EXPRESS
M A R C H 1 4 , 2 0 1 9 | 33
::HEARMEOUT ASK RUTHIE | UPCOMING EVENTS | PAUL MASTERSON
::ASKRUTHIE SPONSORED BY
::RUTHIE’SSOCIALCALENDAR March 13—LGBT Wednesday at TRIO (1023 N. Old World Third St.): Break up the workweek, celebrate Hump Day and let off a little steam when you check out this new hot spot. Each Wednesday, TRIO features a drag show, a DJ, dancing and drink specials. The fun starts at 10 p.m. with three floors of fun to investigate. Wednesdays just got a little hotter in downtown Milwaukee. March 14—“Becoming: An Intimate Conversation with Michelle Obama” at Miller High Life Theatre (500 W. Kilbourn Ave.): One of the country’s most beloved first ladies visits Cream City with her one-woman reflection on her life—both public and private. Enjoy firsthand accounts of her childhood, how she balanced work and motherhood, and what it’s like to be an American icon. Tickets to the 8 p.m. event run $55 to $190 and can be purchased at ticketmaster.com. March 15—Pride Night at The Rep at Milwaukee Repertory Theater (108 E. Wells St.): Be one of the first to enjoy the touching new LGBTQ-themed play Things I Know to be True, making its American debut at The Rep. On this special night, your $30 ticket gets you into the 8:00 p.m. show, as well as a pre-show reception (6:30 p.m.) featuring free appetizers, wine and beer. For tickets and more, see milwaukeerep.com. March 15—Stanton Warriors at LVL Dance (801 S. Second St.): After Midnight Entertainment pairs with Milwaukee’s mega LGBT dance club for a wild adventure of house music, DJs and dancing. Direct from the UK, Stanton Warriors bring their landmark breakbeats and garage cuts to the Cream City for a 9 p.m. house party that runs till bar close. The $20-$25 tickets can be purchased at eventbrite.com.
HALF-OFF YOUR FIRST MONTH AT
COMOTION FITNESS
$130 VALUE FOR $65 GO HERE FOR THE DEAL: WWW.SHEPSTORE.COM the
34 | M A R C H 1 4 , 2 0 1 9
Celebrate All Colors of the Rainbow This Week It may be St. Patrick’s Day, but the LGBTQ community is ready to party all week long. After all, green isn’t the only color in the rainbow, is it? Check out my social calendar and you’ll find a great activity every night of the week. I’ll be back next week with some questions from and advice for the city’s lovelorn, but until then schedule some fun for yourself this week and hit up a few of the events below. Can you do it all? Give it a try and let me know how it goes. Tell ’em Ruthie sent ya. See you out and about, Milwaukee!
March 15—Pagan Holladay’s Schadenfreude Funhouse at This Is It! (418 E. Wells St.): One of the stars of the reality show “Camp Wannakiki,” Pagan Holladay, mixes up the local drag scene with this entertaining twist on typical shows. Watch as she puts her guests through a kooky ringer during the fun-loving 10 p.m. event. March 16—The Gathering 2019 at Potawatomi Hotel & Casino (1721 W. Canal St.): Jammin’ 98.3 invites all women to attend this 17th annual female expo. Enjoy a relaxed, inspiring day with your girlfriends when you attend the 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. event that includes health information, live entertainment, a marketplace, fashion shows and more. General admission is $10 at the door, and the event is only open to those 18 and older. March 17—St. Patrick’s Day Bash at the Harbor Room (117 E. Greenfield Ave.): It’s not easy being green... unless it’s St. Paddy’s Day! Toss back a few green beers, nosh on some corned beef and wear you best Leprechaun duds. The party starts at the top o’ the morning (okay... 11 a.m.) and runs till bar close. March 18—GirlBoss Film Series at The Iron Horse Hotel (500 W. Florida St.): Elizabeth Kay of 99.1 The Mix and WISN celebrates Women’s History Month with this salute to trailblazing ladies in film. This week’s movie? Thelma & Louise, of course! Partake in an extended happy hour with food and drink specials during the 6 p.m. showing. March 19—Trivia with Sylvia at Hamburger Mary’s Arcade Bar (734 S. Fifth St.): Are you smarter than a drag queen? Find out during this zany weekly trivia night. You don’t have to be an Einstein to enjoy the 7:30 p.m. party. Just grab a few friends and come on down for a frosty beverage, free popcorn, free arcade games and free trivia craziness with local funny lady, Sylvia Nyxx. March 20—Coffee Connection at United Way of Greater Milwaukee Volunteer Center (200 W. Pleasant St.): The Wisconsin LGBT Chamber of Commerce is serving up piping hot cups of Joe once again. Grab a free mugful when you stop by this 8-9 a.m. meet-and-greet. Make a few new friends, rub elbows with LGBTQ business owners and jumpstart your day with a few smiles. Ask Ruthie a question or share your events with her at dearruthie@shepex.com. Follow her on Instagram @ruthiekeester and Facebook at Dear Ruthie. Don’t miss season one of her drag reality show on YouTube—“Camp Wannakiki!” SHEPHERD EXPRESS
::MYLGBTQPoint of View
Women’s History at Seen Through ‘Bouguereau & America’ ::BY PAUL MASTERSON
I
n celebration of International Women’s Day, I took a Milwaukee Art Museum (MAM) tour on the subject of women artists. In all, 55 are represented. But it wasn’t surprising to learn that of the 2500 works currently on view, only about 100 are by women. Of those, the vast majority are from the 20th century. Before that, there are few, like a 16th century portrait by Sofonisba Anguissola. She had the rare fortune to be the daughter of a true Renaissance man who valued education, even of women. Jumping a few centuries into the mid-1800s, we encounter French realist and cross-dressing lesbian, Rosa Bonheur. Her story is noteworthy for its long-term, successive committed relationships with two women. All are buried together. A century later, we see the deeply closeted lesbian Agnes Martin’s reductive and calmingly spiritual abstract expressionism. Among the others are notable feminists. There’s Wisconsin’s Georgia O’Keeffe, of course, who epitomizes that radical consciousness. She once famously refused to participate in a retrospective exhibit of “woman artists” because she felt the concept to be a repressive male construct. But in ironic juxtaposition, opening just in time for Women’s History Month, is the special exhibit “Bouguereau & America.” It provides inadvertent context for the polemics of the “male gaze,” that patriarchal objectification of women. Divided into five sections, the exhibit presents William-Adolphe Bouguereau, considered the late 19th century’s finest Paris Academy artist. The first section displays massive canvases with mythological scenes of muscular men and buxom women like Orestes murdering his mother or the Battle of the Centaurs and the Lapiths, an allegory of civility conquering barbarism. They’re benign enough but didn’t sell particularly well. Portraits followed as Bouguereau painted for income and found clients. The next rooms, however, present disturbing documents of Gilded Age patriarchy. One focuses on seemingly innocuous paintings of beggar girls. While Bouguereau’s American clientele apparently delighted in the genre, there’s nothing particularly sympathetic about its themes. They’re actually rather salacious. Perhaps it’s the bare feet, a sexual symbol that goes back to ancient Greece, the source of Bouguereau’s inspiration. Here, the fixation on the fetishized proletariat, especially in the context of women’s history, conjures exploitation rather than social
SHEPHERD EXPRESS
consciousness. One canvas celebrates lost virginity symbolized by a doe-eyed girl at a well with a broken pitcher. A water pump’s protruding spout reiterates the sexual innuendo. It hangs next to a painting of a fair pre-pubescent subject weaving a crown of fresh daisies placed strategically in her lap. There’s a room of religious art. Almost exclusively versions of the Madonna and Child, they have a superficial piety about them. Finally, entering the last room, Sensuous Subjects (read Titillating Guy Stuff), we find female nudes in the guise of beguiling creatures of mythology. Their perfect bodies indulge male power and control, on the one hand romantically falling to Cupid’s darts, on the other, submissively capitulating to pure sexual desire. A Satyr with his stable of Nymphs, like so many trophy mistresses, underscores a prurient appeal to the rich American male. The image eventually turned up on a cigar box (read whatever subliminal messaging that might entail). A #MeToo poster if there ever was one, a handsome Faun presses against a giggling drunken nymph he’s plied with wine, her hand brushes upon a staff adorned with a particularly comely pine cone finial. Speaking of phallic symbolism, in Dawn, a female figure fondles a shapely lily. The take-away: we’ve come a long way since Bouguereau’s demeaning gender hierarchy. Oh, wait… never mind.
FINALLY, ENTERING THE LAST ROOM, SENSUOUS SUBJECTS (READ TITILLATING GUY STUFF), WE FIND FEMALE NUDES IN THE GUISE OF BEGUILING CREATURES OF MYTHOLOGY. THEIR PERFECT BODIES INDULGE MALE POWER AND CONTROL, ON THE ONE HAND ROMANTICALLY FALLING TO CUPID’S DARTS, ON THE OTHER, SUBMISSIVELY CAPITULATING TO PURE SEXUAL DESIRE.
::BLACKBLUE&RAINBOW
Some Ideas for a More Democratic America
::BY CHRISTOPHER WALTON
T
he United States is composed of 50 states, a federal district and five major self-governing territories. With a population of nearly 330 million people, the U.S. is the third most populous country on Earth. When this nation was founded that hot summer day in July 1776, the founders had no idea that this country would eventually become this size in only 243 years. They also had no idea that people other than wealthy, land-owning white men would be voting. But the world has changed thanks to the 15th and 19th Amendments, which give all men and women that are American citizens the right to vote, and the 24th Amendment banning things like poll taxes. The march towards freedom and democracy in this country hasn’t always been a glide forward. We backslide every few years, which leads us to the vote suppressing events of today. I believe it is time we update and freshen up our democracy. These few ideas that I simply propose would revitalize and make more effective our government and make it that much more reactive to the voice of the people.
Enact the Wyoming rule.
The U.S. House of Representatives is one of the smallest governmental bodies in the Western world to represent an entire nation; 435 members do not properly provide an accurate voice to 330 million. Enacting the Wyoming rule would expand the size of the House and, consequently, provide an equal vote to every district. The average House district currently has nearly 750,000 people. Wyoming’s sole Congressional District represents the state’s population of 485,000 people. This makes the district nearly 1.5 times smaller than the average district. If the Wyoming rule was enacted, every district would have to be the same size as the smallest (Wyoming) district. That would increase the size of the House to 681 members, adding 246 members to the House. That would give Wisconsin alone two additional members of the House and two more electoral votes when it comes to electing a President. Milwaukee would likely get a second representative to join Gwen Moore. This change would increase the voice of the people, while also likely bringing more diversity in the Congress.
Admit the District of Columbia as the 51st state and Puerto Rico as the 52nd.
Why not admit the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa and the Northern Marianas Islands as states as well? Certainly, for D.C. and Puerto Rico, it’s time. Both territories have repeatedly asked to be made official members of the Union. As a federal district, Washington, D.C., falls under Congress’ authority. Congress can declare the National Mall area under its jurisdiction and release the rest of the District to become its own separate state. D.C. has already gone so far as drafting a state constitution. Puerto Rico was wrecked by a devastating hurricane followed by the additional pain brought by the orange tide of willful ignorance. Their financial issues stem from being taken advantage of as a tax and bond haven, since they don’t have the oversight that states have. Bring them into the Union and protect them. Recognizing their status as a state would allow them to get a handle on their debt as other states routinely are able to do. If we admitted D.C. and all five territories as states, the diversity they would convey upon the U.S. Senate would assure that never again would it be an all-white assembly, as it would likely guarantee four new African American, two Puerto Rican and six new Asian/Pacific Islander U.S. senators.
Establish federally mandated independent redistricting.
People should pick their elected representatives; representatives should not be picking their people. The lines of our districts should not be drawn by the hands of elected officials. They should be balanced by considering regional communities of interest and minority populations, not just the political calculations of the next 10 years. These proposals would go a long way towards creating a more diverse and stable democracy for the United States that accurately reflects modern America. Comment at shepherdexpress.com.
M A R C H 1 4 , 2 0 1 9 | 35
::MUSIC
FEATURE | ALBUM REVIEWS | CONCERT REVIEWS | LOCAL MUSIC
For more MUSIC, log onto shepherdexpress.com
Oak Ridge Boys
THE OAK RIDGE BOYS RETURN TO THEIR GOSPEL ROOTS ::BY ALAN SCULLEY
ver the past decade, few acts in music have been any more prolific than the Oak Ridge Boys. In addition to performing 150-plus shows each year, the vocal quartet has released eight albums— five studio releases, a live album and two Christmas records—in that span. Every album, naturally, was important to the group, but a couple of years ago, the Oak Ridge Boys decided to set their sights on really making a statement with their next studio release. “We were inducted (in 2015) into the Country Music Hall of Fame,” Oak Ridge Boys bass vocalist Richard Sterban explained. “After that we felt like we wanted to do something special, something different, something kind of monumental to commemorate now being members of the Country Music Hall of Fame.” As Sterban, lead vocalist Duane Allen, tenor vocalist Joe Bonsall and baritone vocalist William Lee Golden pondered what kind of album project could achieve that lofty goal, one idea kept coming up. The group could work with producer Dave Cobb. The Oak Ridge Boys first met and worked with Cobb on the 2009 album The Boys Are Back, and that experience in the studio had remained etched in the memories of the four singers. “We were so excited about that project, because he took us down some roads musically we had never traveled before, like doing a cover of the White Stripes’ ‘Seven Nation Army,’ and (John Lee Hooker’s) ‘Boom Boom,’ songs we would not have done on our own,” Sterban said. “But Dave kind of just took us in that direction.”
36 | M A R C H 1 4 , 2 0 1 9
Since that 2009 album, Cobb has become arguably the hottest producer in country/Americana music, thanks to his work with the likes of Chris Stapleton, Jason Isbell, Sturgill Simpson and the Zac Brown Band. So getting back in the studio with Cobb, who these days can pretty much take his pick of what acts to produce, would be a coup. As it turned out, Cobb must have enjoyed his work with the Oak Ridge Boys, which during the late 1970s and ’80s became one of country music’s most popular acts, reeling off 17 No. 1 country singles and at one point 10 straight top-10 albums, including three that topped the country album chart. When the group met with Cobb to discuss the project, the producer already had a clear idea for the kind of album he wanted to make with the Oak Ridge Boys. “(He said) ‘What I want you guys to do is to think about Elvis [Presley], think about Ray Charles, think about Jerry Lee Lewis, think about the old blues guy,” Sterban recalled. “‘What was it that turned them on?’ And the common thing they had between all of them was the fact that they grew up in church. They went to church and their first singing was done in church.” The gospel emphasis for 17th Avenue Revival was a natural enough direction for the group. The original
Oak Ridge Boys began in the 1940s as a gospel group. By the time Golden and Allen joined in 1964 and 1966 respectively, the Oaks were one of the leading gospel acts going. While the shift to country in the late 1970s brought the Oak Ridge Boys their huge success, the group’s gospel roots have remained present. Gospel is certainly the primary ingredient on 17th Avenue Revival, but the brand of gospel on several songs is something a bit different for the group. The early rock ’n’ roll elements infused into gospel tunes like “Brand New Star,”“God’s Got It” and “Let It Shine On Me” give these songs a shot of rootsy energy. Sterban said the Oak The Oak Ridge Boys figure to perRidge Boys form perhaps five songs from 17th Avenue Revival in Potawatomi their live shows, while covHotel & Casino ering plenty of other musiWednesday, cal ground. March 20, “We realize that people 8 p.m. want to hear the hit songs. So you can count on the fact that when we come to town, you’re going to hear ‘Elvira.’ That is the law. That is our signature song,” he said. “I can list all of our hits and you’re going to hear most of those hits. We always change it around. We never do the same show twice. But we always include, there are several songs we have to do on every show, like ‘Elvira’ and ‘Y’all Come Back Saloon.’” The Oak Ridge Boys play Potawatomi Hotel & Casino on Wednesday, March 20, at 8 p.m.
SHEPHERD EXPRESS
::::LOCALMUSIC
::CONCERTREVIEW
John Fogerty Recreated His Woodstock Past at the Riverside ::BY BLAINE SCHULTZ
A
73-year-old John Fogerty sprinted onto the stage at the Riverside Theater, leading a five-piece band that included his son Shane playing the guitar. Fogerty considers himself a lucky guy and didn’t hesitate to acknowledge that fact several times during a performance of wall-towall songs that have become a part of rock ’n’ roll’s fabric. Building on a handful of tunes from Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Woodstock set, Fogerty remarkably seems to have lost little in terms of energy, voice and musical chops. (Maybe Dorian Gray should check Fogerty’s portrait.) During CCR’s five-year reign, the band released a string of hit records, a number of which charted both A- and B-sides. History has a way of repeating itself and songs like “Fortunate Son,” “Bad Moon Rising” and “Who’ll Stop the Rain” still resonate. Thursday night, at least, Fogerty kept any of his political views to himself and let the music do the talking. “Traveling Band” is still as good as any Beatles/Little Richard ripoff, complete with a blasting saxophone solo. “Green River” may be as close as rock ’n’ roll has come to Mark Twain. Sporting events may have made listeners immune to the charms of “Centerfield,” but Fogerty brought the song to life and even took a selfie with a toddler who was likely the youngest fan in the house. His mastery as a songwriter is predicated on Fogerty’s value of simplicity. “Down on the Corner” and “Proud Mary” were performed with all the passion of a garage band. Like George Harrison, another guitarist in a well-known band of his era, Fogerty’s playing drew a line back to Sun Records and economical players like Carl Perkins and Steve Cropper. Throughout CCR’s run, their taste in covers was impeccable. On this night, Fogerty and company offered Little Richard’s “Good Golly, Miss Molly,” Lead Belly’s “Cotton Fields,” Gary “U.S.” Bonds’ “New Orleans” and extended arrangement of “I Heard It Through the Grapevine”—the rare jam that actually paid off. “My 50 Year Trip” seems like an ironic title for a guy who was nearly straight edge before that term was coined. Because CCR’s performance was absent from both the Woodstock movie and soundtrack many fans don’t realize the band played the legendary festival between The Grateful Dead and Janis Joplin. Yet in 1969, at the height of hippie hedonism, CCR were firing on all cylinders. He said they went on at 2 a.m. and had to follow the Dead. “People were impatient then and went to sleep. Today, they watch the president all day.” Still flying the flannel, not on a shirt but on a Les Paul guitar, one mystery has never been solved. When Fogerty, his brother Tom, Stu Cook and Doug Clifford formed their band in El Cerrito, Calif., they were 2,000 miles away from Cajun swampland. Somehow, Fogerty again conjured hoodoo tonight with “Born on the Bayou,” “Run Through the Jungle” and “Long as I Can See the Light.”
Low End
Milwaukee Hardcore Outfit Low End Processes Pain and Anger ::BY MICHAEL CARRIERE
COURTESY OF THE ARTIST
A
John Fogerty
SHEPHERD EXPRESS
t the end of 2017, Low End vocalist Jimmy LaDue felt like he had finally made it. His band, Milwaukee-based hardcore outfit Stone, had signed to Pure Noise Records; their debut LP, Inch of Joy, was set to be released in March 2018. A tour with Kentucky’s Knocked Loose was booked to commemorate the release of the record, which was gathering strong pre-release word of mouth throughout the hardcore scene. Yet, by January 2018, it was all over. After vocalist Zach Dear was accused of multiple sexual assaults, the remaining Stone members realized they simply couldn’t carry on with the band in good conscience. Cognizant of the pain of those harmed by his former bandmate, LaDue himself was also hurt and confused by the actions of someone he once considered a close friend. All he was left with was one glaring question: What now? For LaDue, the answer was to pour all his anger and frustration into a new band: Low End. He recruited Mitch Reitman (drums) and Sean Thompson (guitar), whom he had played with in Cross Me, along with bassist Adam Kobs. The fourpiece quickly wrote the songs that would make up Steadfast, the band’s debut EP that dropped in August 2018. Recorded by Shane Hochstetler at Howl Street Recordings, the record is a blur of unadulterated metallic hardcore energy. Anchored by the guitar work of Thompson—his playing on “Steadfast” reminds me of Leeway’s A.J. Novello
(which is a very good thing!)—the record’s six songs provide sound evidence that Milwaukee remains fertile ground for innovative heavy music. Perhaps more importantly, the songs also give LaDue the opportunity to express the emotions that the past year has forced him to confront. An unrelenting anguish marks LaDue’s vocal work on “Steadfast”; you can tell he needs this band. This is most evident on “Struck My Chord,” a song that clearly references the break-up of Stone. Commenting on this time, LaDue notes that “It was pretty crushing to all of us, all in different ways.” As LaDue articulates this feeling, he seems to confront Dear directly. “Concrete jungle broke to rubble,” LaDue roars, “What we had you knew would crumble/Lick your wounds while we’re still bleeding/The pain you caused, you’re not seeing.” It is a powerful moment, one that reminds the listener that the hurt caused by sexual abuse never truly disappears. This ability to tap into the raw energy that pain often produces is also evident on “Empty Vessel,” another standout track on Steadfast. Here, LaDue relays the confusion of watching his father cling to life in the intensive care unit of a nearby hospital: “I feel the paddles shocking through you/I’ve seen you down, but never quite this blue/So it goes/Flat line/Right here in ICU.” As LaDue explains, “Empty Vessel” is “not necessarily about him passing. It’s about me watching him pass and the whole experience that sticks in my brain.” Hardcore is not usually known for its Low End ability to confront mortalX-Ray ity, and it will be interesting Arcade to see if the band continues to cover such topics as they Monday, move forward. March 18, Thankfully, it looks like 6 p.m. the band will have the chance to evolve. In late 2018, Low End signed to Safe Inside Records, which will be pressing Steadfast on vinyl and is interested in putting out future releases with the band. LaDue is particularly excited to play the Steadfast songs in his hometown—and at the X-Ray Arcade. “It’s going to be the first hardcore show at the venue, so it’s super-cool!” For Low End, it now seems that the promise of the future finally outweighs the grief of the past. Low End plays at X-Ray Arcade with Judiciary, No Victory, Buggin Out and Terrified Eyes on Monday, March 18, at 6 p.m.
M A R C H 1 4 , 2 0 1 9 | 37
MUSIC::LISTINGS
::ALBUMS
To list your event, go to shepherdexpress.com/events and click submit an event
THURSDAY, MARCH 14
Elvis Presley The Best of the ’68 Comeback Special (RCA LEGACY) Under the management of the egregious Tom Parker, Elvis Presley’s career was spinning down the drain after a succession of increasingly unpopular, bad to worse movies. The King of Rock ’n’ Roll was a jester in his own court. In 1968, he dug in his bootheels. Presley said no to Parker’s notion of an Elvis TV Christmas special and insisted that he’d only do the show if it was different from anything he’d ever done. What resulted was a sensational restart to a fizzling career, a path-setting network television special whose audio highlights are sampled here. Presley was fortunately handed off to a creative team that understood something fundamental: the King would look foolish if he tried to emulate 1968 (hippie Elvis?) yet couldn’t pretend that the world hadn’t turned since 1958. The program they produced dynamically refurbished his image without losing his roots and became a more-or-less timeless artifact. Elaborately choreographed numbers followed scenes of Elvis alone in the round, prowling a small stage like a caged panther as an unseen orchestra played the hits. For rock ’n’ roll fans, the best scenes featured Elvis and a small combo in the round, the audience barely inches away, with an amplifier the size of a suitcase and no drum kit. The percussion consisted of tambourine and sticks played against a solid surface. The hits are included on The Best of, with “Heartbreak Hotel,” “Blue Suede Shoes” and “All Shook Up” as highlights. The presentation was a good representation of Elvis’ diverse roots in gutbucket blues, gospel solemnity and show business hoopla. He was obviously enjoying himself. He even made a crack about the bad movies in which he was forced to play. —David Luhrssen
38 | M A R C H 1 4 , 2 0 1 9
Art*Bar, Open Mic Comedy Cafe Carpe (Fort Atkinson), The New Pioneers Caroline's Jazz Club, Wicked Long Day Club Garibaldi, Shoe Box Money w/Sun Silo & Taylor Campbell County Clare Irish Inn & Pub, Acoustic Irish Folk w/Barry Dodd Jazz Estate, Latin Night: Carlos Adames Group Kelly's Bleachers (Big Bend), JJ Eckl Linneman's Riverwest Inn, The Rouge Electrics w/Small Various Fires Lucky Joe's Tosa, Matt MF Tyner Mason Street Grill, Mark Thierfelder Jazz Trio (5:30pm) Miramar Theatre, Spring Break Bash: Wrath, Fairy Dust, Rozario, DJ Gustav & hosts Dash & Vic "The Hendo Bros" (all-ages, 8pm) O'Donoghues Irish Pub (Elm Grove), The All-Star SUPERband (6pm) On the Bayou, Open Mic Comedy w/host The Original Darryl Hill Potawatomi Hotel & Casino, In Bar 360: Hambo and the Meemops Rounding Third Bar and Grill, World's Funniest Free Comedy Show Saloon on Calhoun with Bacon, Amplified Artist Sessions: Wise Jennings Shank Hall, Ike Reilly Assassination w/Brendan O'Shea Sheryl's Club 175 (Slinger), Acoustic Jam w/Milwaukee Mike & Downtown Julius The Back Room at Colectivo, Bronze Radio Return w/ Wildermiss The Bay Restaurant, CP & Stoll w/Chris Peppas & Jeff Stoll The Packing House Restaurant, Barbara Stephan & Peter Mac (6pm) Transfer Pizzeria Cafe, Martini Jazz Lounge: Manty Ellis Trio Turner Hall Ballroom, Ballot Bash (5pm) Up & Under Pub, A No Vacancy Comedy Open Mic
FRIDAY, MARCH 15
Alley Cat Lounge (Five O'Clock Steakhouse), Brian Dale Group American Legion Post #399 (Okauchee), Nite Trax American Legion Post #449 (Brookfield), The Nightinjails (5pm), The Ricochettes (7pm) Angelo's Piano Lounge, Julie's Piano Karaoke Art*Bar, Genevieve Heyward & Tae Cactus Club, oddCouple w/Rich Jones, Kultiskane, Mr. Jackson & Clown Baby Cafe Carpe (Fort Atkinson), John Elliott Caroline's Jazz Club, Donna Woodall Group Circle-A Cafe, Alive at Eight: Slander Cannon w/Smoking Flowers (8pm); DJ: The French Connection (10pm) Clarke Hotel (Waukesha), Steve Vaughn Guitar/Vocal (6pm) Club Garibaldi, Whut? w//NSOA & Primal Enemy ComedySportz Milwaukee, ComedySportz Milwaukee! County Clare Irish Inn & Pub, Traditional Irish Ceilidh Session Iron Mike's (Franklin), Open Jam Session w/Steve Nitros & Friends Jazz Estate, The Two Tenors (8pm), Late Night Session: Eric Jacobson Quartet (11:30pm) Kuhtz General Store (Oconomowoc), Robert Allen Jr. Band Lakefront Brewery, Brewhaus Polka Kings (5:30pm) Lepanto Banquet Hall (Port Washington), John Primer & the Real Deal Blues Band (6:30pm) Linneman's Riverwest Inn, Obscure Birds w/Marr'lo Parada Los Mariachis Mexican Restaurant, Larry Lynne Revue Mamie's, Bootleg Bessie Mason Street Grill, Phil Seed Trio (6pm) Miller High Life Theatre, Mariah Carey w/DJ Suss One Milwaukee Ale House, 5 Card Studs Miramar Theatre, Kyle Hollingsworth w/Crosseyed & Phishless (all-ages, 9pm) Moose Lodge 49, Tomm Lehnigk Pabst Theater, Dennis DeYoung: Grand Illusion 40th Anniversary Album Tour Paulie's Pub and Eatery, Pre-Patty's Party w/Pat McCurdy Potawatomi Hotel & Casino, In Bar 360: Alyssia Dominguez and Jeremy Zima Rave / Eagles Club, Vince Staples w/JPEGMAFIA & Trill Sammy (all-ages, 9pm), Queensryche w/Fates Warning (allages, 8pm) Reefpoint Brew House (Racine), Sammy Marshall Riverwest Public House, The Unitaskers w/Limber Brain, Yum Yum Cult & Tomatillo Saloon on Calhoun with Bacon, Off Tha' Hook Shank Hall, Sprecher presents: Koch Marshall Trio Site 1A, Kill Paris Stolley's Hogg Alley (Oconomowoc), Joe Kadlec The Back Room at Colectivo, Risk!
The Bay Restaurant, Mark Meaney The Lakeside Supper Club & Lounge (Oconomowoc), Detour The Packing House Restaurant, Ellen Winters & The Carmen Sutra Trio (6:30pm) The Underground Collaborative, Insult & Battery: Comedy Roast Battle Turner Hall Ballroom, Chris Kroeze w/Bella Cain Up & Under Pub, Honey on the Biscuit
SATURDAY, MARCH 16
American Legion Post #449 (Brookfield), Doo Wop Daddies Anodyne Coffee, Alex Ballard and Sugarfoot w/Wire & Nail, and The Fainting Room Art*Bar, Art Bar 15th Anniversary Party w/The Squeezettes Bert's Bar (St. Francis), Dem Cider Boys BlondiePop (West Bend), Maple Road Blues Band Boat House Pub & Eatery (Kenosha), Joe Kadlec Brewtown Eatery, Larry Lynne Solo Cactus Club, King Buffalo w/The Old Prospectors & Hot By Ziggy Cafe Carpe (Fort Atkinson), James Lee Stanley Caroline's Jazz Club, The Paul Spencer Band w/James Sodke, Aaron Gardner, Michael Ritter, Dave "Smitty" Smith & Victor Campbell Circle-A Cafe, Alive at Eight: Vortis w/Floor Model (8pm); DJ: WarLock (10pm) City Lights Brewing Company, Derek Byrne & Paddygrass (7pm) Club Garibaldi, The Slurs w/C-Sides, The Hullmen & Under Hoan ComedySportz Milwaukee, ComedySportz Milwaukee! Company Brewing, Cream City Beat Battle Vol. 1 Crush Wine Bar (Muskego), Dave Miller Trio w/Mike Cascio & Hal Miller Cue Club of Wisconsin (Waukesha), McTavish Fire On Water, St. Patty’s Bash w/Sweet Delta Dawn Five O'Clock Steakhouse, Gabriel Sanchez Fixture Pizza Pub, Matt MF Tyner (2pm) Hilton Milwaukee City Center, Vocals & Keys Irish Cultural & Heritage Center, Socks in the Frying Pan Jazz Estate, Marlene Rosenberg Trio (8pm), Late Night Session: Joshua Catania Trio (11:30pm) Kelly's Bleachers (Big Bend), The Now Kochanski's Concertina Beer Hall, Brad Wicked and the Thieves Lepanto Banquet Hall (Port Washington), Paramount Blues Challenge (5pm) Lily Lake Resort, Cactii EP Release Party Linneman's Riverwest Inn, Big Style Brass Band Mad Planet, House Your Body w/Jonn Hawley & Elechronic Mason Street Grill, Jonathan Wade Trio (6pm) Matty's Bar & Grille (New Berlin), Winter Music: The Novy Spinners Milwaukee Ale House, Crank The Radio Motor Bar & Restaurant, Bulleit Bourbon Presents BBQ & Blues (5pm) MugZ's Pub and Grill (Muskego), Open Jam w/host Potter's Field Muskego Moose Lodge 1057, Tomm Lehnigk (6pm) Pabst Theater, 9th Annual Grand Slam Charity Jam w/The Village People Paulie's Pub and Eatery, Bennyho 20th Annual St Paddy's Birfday Extravaganza and Bazaar w/Master of Puppets & Decathect the Aftermath Potawatomi Hotel & Casino, In Bar 360: Bourbon House Rockfield Live (Germantown), Robert Allen Jr. Band Saloon on Calhoun with Bacon, 33 RPM Site 1A, Sahun Frank The Cheel (Thiensville), Martelle Jossart Jazz Quartet The Lakeside Supper Club & Lounge (Oconomowoc), Orange Whips The Packing House Restaurant, Lem Banks, Jeff Stoll, Alvin Turner & Omar (6:30pm) The Underground Collaborative, Body Language: Comedy & Burlesque Turner Hall Ballroom, Max Frost w/Mikey Mike & UPSAHL Up & Under Pub, Hey Captain Knight w/Joe E Bong Washington County Fair Park, ShamRock at Fair Park Westallion Brewing Company, Derek Byrne & Paddygrass (1pm)
SUNDAY, MARCH 17
Angelo's Piano Lounge, Live Karaoke w/Julie Brandenburg Cactus Club, Nox Boys w/The Unitaskers Circle-A Cafe, Alive at Eight: The Mourning Glories (8pm); DJ: John Riepenhoff & Sara Caron (10pm) County Clare Irish Inn & Pub, Blackthorn Folly (6pm), 5 Card Studs (8:00pm) Delafield History Center (Hawks Inn), SummerStage Winter Concert Series: The Bluegrass Drifters (4pm)
Dugout 54, Derek Byrne & Paddygrass (3pm) J&B's Blue Ribbon Bar and Grill, The Players Jam Jazz Estate, Irish Night with áthas Mamie's, The Squeezettes Matty's Bar & Grille (New Berlin), St Paddy's Day Music (9am) Miramar Theatre, A Night Of Frank Zappa Music w/Ike Willis & Brothers Rage (all-ages, 9pm) Mo's Irish Pub (Wauwatosa), Derek Byrne & Paddygrass (10am) Muskego Moose Lodge 1057, Tomm Lehnigk (2pm) Pabst Theater, The High Kings Riverwest Jazz Gallery Center for the Arts, Adam Nussbaum Concert Rounding Third Bar and Grill, The Dangerously Strong Comedy Open Mic Saloon on Calhoun with Bacon, St. Patrick's Day Celebration w/Tis' The Band (1pm) Shank Hall, Eilen Jewell w/John Sieger Sheryl's Club 175 (Slinger), Open Jam w/ Milwaukee Mike and Downtown Julius (2pm) Smith Bros. Coffee House (Port Washington), Green Sails (2pm) The Back Room at Colectivo, Cass McCombs (and his band) w/Sam Evian (and his band) Trinity Three Irish Pubs, Kilarney Blarney (10am), Trinity Irish Dancers (3pm), Shinigans (4pm). In the Intersection Tent: The Scrubbers (10am), Another Pint (3pm), Dan Harvey (6pm)
MONDAY, MARCH 18
Cactus Club, Be Forest. w/Lightfoils, Blue Unit & Operations Crimson Club, Metal Mondays Jazz Estate, Latin Jam Session w/Cecilio Negrón Linneman's Riverwest Inn, Poet's Monday w/host Timothy Kloss & featured reader Sue Blaustein (sign-up 7:30pm, 8-11pm) Mason Street Grill, Joel Burt Duo (5:30pm) Paulie's Pub and Eatery, Open Jam: Christopher John & Friends w/featured band Rave / Eagles Club, Veil Of Maya & Intervals w/Strawberry Girls & Cryptodira (all-ages, 6:30pm) Up & Under Pub, Open Mic w/Marshall McGhee and the Wanderers
TUESDAY, MARCH 19
Cactus Club, Dwn 2 Hearse w/Red The Bully, LeanBeatz, Rich Robbins, A.C. the Ruler, Camb, Burnoutboi & Spaidz ELMNT Lounge, The World of Drum and Bass 2019 Jazz Estate, Funk Night w/Mythic Mystics Kim's Lakeside (Pewaukee), Robert Allen Jr. & Friends Mamie's, Open Blues Jam w/Marvelous Mack Mason Street Grill, Jamie Breiwick Group (5:30pm) McAuliffe's Pub (Racine), The Parkside Reunion Big Band Miramar Theatre, Tuesday Open Mic w/host Sandy Weisto (sign-up 7:30pm, all-ages) Potawatomi Hotel & Casino, In Bar 360: Al White (4pm) Riverwest Jazz Gallery Center for the Arts, Jazz Jam Session Transfer Pizzeria Cafe, Transfer House Band w/Dennis Fermenich Turner Hall Ballroom, Jukebox The Ghost & The Mowgli’s w/ TWIN XL
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 20
Cactus Club, Monoculture w/Cairns & Luxi Conway's Smokin' Bar & Grill, Open Jam w/Big Wisconsin Johnson Glen Cafe, Jim the Piano Man (5pm) Hudson Business Lounge and Cafe, Jazz at Noon: Don Linke and Friends Iron Mike's (Franklin), B Lee Nelson Acoustic Jam Jazz Estate, NYC Soul: Ben Pirani Band Kochanski's Concertina Beer Hall, Polka Open Jam Linneman's Riverwest Inn, Acoustic Open Stage w/feature Ion Lightnin (sign-up 7:30pm, start 8pm) Mason Street Grill, Jamie Breiwick Group (5:30pm) Mezcalero Restaurant, Larry Lynne Trio Miramar Theatre, Tyler Carter - Moonshine Tour (all-ages, 6:30pm) Paulie's Field Trip, Wednesday Night Afterparty w/Dave Wacker & guests Potawatomi Hotel & Casino, In Bar 360: Al White Riverside Theater, Bob Weir and Wolf Bros Saloon on Calhoun with Bacon, Wednesday Night Open Jam w/Gabriel Sanchez Shank Hall, Carsie Blanton Sunset Grill Pewaukee, Robert Allen Jr. & Friends Tally's Tap & Eatery (Waukesha), Tomm Lehnigk The Packing House Restaurant, Tracy Hannemann & Kostia Efimov (6pm)
SHEPHERD EXPRESS
CLASSIFIEDS TO PLACE YOUR AD CALL 414-292-3819 DWELL
3/14 Fuzzysurf 3/21 Chicken Wire Empire
TEWELES SEED TOWER Location, Location, Location 1, 2 & 3BR, many w/2BA Market & Affordable Rates Available Industrial Chic Design! 888-TEWELES (888-839-3537) Exceptional, Furnished Studios OPEN HOUSE- 2nd & 4th SUN of every month 1-3pm. No appt. necessary. Five Stars. Located in trendy Walkers Point. Extra Clean. Shared bath and kitchen. Smoke Free. On Bus Line. Weekly rent starts at $99 plus sec. dep. Utilities incl. 703 S 5th St. 414-384-2428. Need a roomate? Roommates.com will help you find your Perfect Match™ today! (AAN CAN) Your home goes here.
The Go-to Site for Everything Cannabis We will keep you informed each week about the growing availability of legal cannabis products in Milwaukee, the move toward legalization of marijuana in Wisconsin and cannabis news from around the world.
SHEPHERD EXPRESS
CLASSIFIEDS 414.292.3819
JOBS Drivers Wanted Passenger Transportation: MKE County. Early Shift starting at 6am or 1:15 pm as well as afternoon shifts. Full-time. $14.10/ hr. Full benefit package incl. $500 retention bonus after 6 mos. Must possess clean driving record, pass criminal background and drug screening. Call 414-264-7433 x 222. 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).
HEALTH
Shepherd
Swag Get it here: theshepstore.com
SHEPHERD EXPRESS
Innermost Calm Massage Suzanne Seilers LMT CMT $40 hr, $70 90 mins 414-430-4449 Call or Text Suffering from an ADDICTION to Alcohol, Opiates, Prescription Pain Killers or other DRUGS? There is hope! Call Today to speak with someone who cares. Call NOW 1-855-266-8685 (AAN CAN)
AUTO FOR SALE: 2013 Ford Focus Hatchback Black, SE Automatic 2.0L 16V, good condition, brand new transmission, located in Downtown Milwaukee. $6,999. Contact richjonno18@gmail.com CASH FOR CARS! We buy all cars! Junk, high-end, totaled—it doesn’t matter! Get free towing and same day cash! NEWER MODELS too! Call 1-866-535-9689 (AAN CAN)
MISC DISH TV $59.99 For 190 Channels + $14.95 High Speed Internet. Free Installation, Smart HD DVR Included, Free Voice Remote. Some restrictions apply. Call Now: 1-800-373-6508 (AAN CAN) Earn Your Hospitality Degree Online at CTI! Restaurant, Travel, Hotel & Cruise Ship Management! A degree can take you to the next level! 1-844-5196644 TrainCTI.com (Not Available in CA) (AAN CAN) Disclaimer: The Shepherd Express makes no representations or warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, regarding any advertising. Due diligence is recommended before entering into any agreement with an advertiser. The Shepherd Express will not be held liable for any damages of any kind relating to any ad. Please check your ad the first day of publication and notify us of any changes. We are not responsible for errors in advertising after the first day. We reserve the right to edit, reject or reclassify advertisements in our sole discretion, without notice. We do not knowingly accept advertisements that discriminate or intend to discriminate on any illegal basis, or are otherwise illegal. NO REFUNDS for cancellation after deadline, no copy changes except to price or telephone number.
MKE’s BEST Boarding House SINCE 1935
The Clark Boarding House (414) 739-7249 | Cell: (262) 339-7883
Historical Building in West Marquette Neighborhood
$460 PER MONTH
Good Old Fashioned Home-Cooked Meals and A Room of Your Own
FREE PARKING
NOW HIRING PART-TIME SPORTS AND ENTERTAINMENT CLEANERS TO CLEAN MILLER PARK STADIUM! JOB FAIR AND IN-PERSON INTERVIEWS
FRIDAY, MARCH 8, 2019 10AM-1PM
Miller Park Stadium: One Brewers Way MKE Please enter through the North Dock Entrance
(Docking Station underneath TGI Friday’s restaurant)
Questions? Contact 414-902-4780
Ask the Dentist Submit your questions at drmurphy@ stephaniemurphydds.com
Ask the Attorney Send your Personal Injury legal questions to Emailadmin@techmeier.com
M I LWA U K E E C A M P U S Scout is a wonderful pup who promises to be your best friend. He is loyal, loves treats, and is always up for adventure. At 8 years old, Scout is quite wise and already knows how to sit, shake, and speak. If you are looking to add a great companion to your family, stop by the Wisconsin Humane Society Milwaukee Campus today! M A R C H 14 , 2 0 1 9 | 39
THEME CROSSWORD
HOW HARD COULD IT BE?
By James Barrick
Complete the grid so that every row, column and 3x3 box contains every digit from 1 to 9 inclusively.
© 2019 United Feature Syndicate, Dist. by Andrews McMeel Syndication
74. Single 75. Food for whales 76. Furze, a plant 77. — povera 78. Number prefix 79. Try to get 80. Hybrid hatchback 81. Ann — Boothe Luce 82. Distinct 84. Arched handles 85. Ground squirrel 86. Caliber 87. Haciendas 88. Upscale 89. At an oblique angle 92. Myanmar, formerly 93. Dance garments 97. End of the quip: 4 wds. 100. Tennis score 101. Application 102. That ‘70s music 103. Best or Ferber 104. Pip 105. To the — born 106. Classified info 107. Adolescent
17. Preponderance 18. Genus of olives 24. Hangout 25. Concern of students 26. Solidus 31. TV fare 32. Heavy dull sound 33. Fact or figure 34. Fragrant resin 35. Airfoils 36. Like pitch or tar 37. Merriment 38. Of birds 39. Ladd or Lane 40. Facilitated 42. Grow more mellow 43. Primp 46. Rouse from sleep 47. Cast 48. Recipe direction 50. Lake in the west 51. Officer-to-be 52. Dubrovnik denizen 54. Doubly 55. A kind of painting 56. Linen tape 58. Old French coin DOWN 59. Celestial bull 1. There ought to be — — 60. — Kringle 2. Love or Anderson 61. Lies 3. Howls 4. Coming before 5. Botanical gum 6. Jekyll or Ford 7. Press 8. — lettuce 9. Protective gear 10. Concedes 11. — comitatus 12. Date: Abbr. 13. Big-biz honcho 14. Writer 15. Tibetans, e.g. 16. Surrounds
62. Worship as divine 63. Garden item 66. Vaughan or Bernhardt 67. Cave 68. Bullock 70. Fireplace frame 71. Hill 72. Cooks in water 75. Sudan’s capital 76. Princely family of Monaco 77. ABCs 79. Chum 80. City near Milan 81. — del Sol 83. Lessened 84. Trade 85. Ten to the hundredth power 87. Tierra del — 88. Peter’s — 89. Tools 90. Brake part 91. Lap against 92. High-fiber food 93. Lean 94. Was carried by 95. Sand formation 96. Getz or Kenton 98. “Born in the —” 99. Family
3/7 Solution
WORD FIND This is a theme puzzle with the subject stated below. Find the listed words in the grid. (They may run in any direction but always in a straight line. Some letters are used more than once.) Ring each word as you find it and when you have completed the puzzle, there will be 23 letters left over. They spell out the alternative theme of the puzzle.
Enjoy a cuppa Solution: 23 Letters
© 2019 Australian Word Games Dist. by Creators Syndicate Inc.
ACROSS 1. Terra — 5. Toss 10. Lickety-split 15. Speaking stand in a church 19. Advance 20. Zigzag — (bird) 21. Lamebrains 22. Music genre 23. Start of a quip by anonymous: 3 wds. 27. Smarty-pants 28. Subsist 29. The Last Frontier 30. Neat and orderly 31. Outpouring 32. Blue-green 33. Characterize 36. Rambles 37. Sliding step in ballet 41. Bestow 42. Interprets 43. Like a cuddly toy 44. — Dolorosa 45. Rend 46. Bits of smoke 47. River in England 48. Slant 49. Game official 50. Heavy textile 51. Impudence 52. Pose in yoga 53. Wrong 55. — nostrum 56. Used a small appliance 57. Part 2 of quip: 4 wds. 61. Give, in a way 64. Concoction 65. The Natural State 69. Infer 70. Old English coin 72. Jerry- — 73. Emmet
Solution to last week’s puzzle
Assam Bags Billy Bohea Brew Cafe Caravan Coarse Cream Cup of excellence Dark Dry
Dull Empty Even Flat Flowery Flush Good Grey Iced Leaf Light Luaka Malty
Sowmee Taste Temi Thin Thowra Tips Tisane Tscheinik Uva Weedy Wiry Yin zhen Yunan
Matcha Milk Mug Musty Neat Nibs Pearl Plain Pot Puck Rose Smoko Soft
40 | M A R C H 14 , 2 0 1 9
3/7 Solution: Someone keeps making a big mess SHEPHERD EXPRESS
Solution: Kickstarter in the morning
Creators Syndicate 737 3rd Street • Hermosa Beach, CA 90254 310-337-7003 • info@creators.com
Date: 3/14/19
::FREEWILLASTROLOGY ::BY ROB BREZSNY PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): In 2014, NASA managed to place its MAVEN spacecraft into orbit around Mars. The cost of the mission was $671 million. Soon thereafter, the Indian government put its own vehicle, the Mangalyaan, into orbit around the Red Planet. It spent $74 million. As you plan your own big project, Pisces, I recommend you emulate the Mangalyaan rather than the MAVEN. I suspect you can do great things—maybe even your personal equivalent of sending a spacecraft to Mars—on a relatively modest budget. ARIES (March 21-April 19): The coming weeks might be a good time to acquire a flamethrower. It would come in handy if you felt the urge to go to a beach and incinerate mementoes from an ex-ally. It would also be useful if you wanted to burn stuff that reminds you of who you used to be and don’t want to be any more; or if you got in the mood to set ablaze symbols of questionable ideas you used to believe in but can’t afford to believe in any more. If you don’t want to spend $1,600-plus on a flamethrower, just close your eyes for 10 minutes and visualize yourself performing acts of creative destruction like those I mentioned. TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Taurus aphorist Olivia Dresher writes that she would like to be “a force of nature,” but “not causing any suffering.” The way I interpret her longing is that she wants to be wild, elemental, uninhibited, primal, raw, pure—all the while without inflicting any hurt or damage on herself or anyone else. In accordance with your astrological omens, Taurus, that’s a state I encourage you to embody in the coming weeks. If you’re feeling extra smart—which I suspect you will— you could go even further. You may be able to heal yourself and others with your wild, elemental, uninhibited, primal, raw, pure energy. GEMINI (May 21-June 20): In some major cities, the buttons you push at a crosswalk don’t actually work to make the traffic light turn green faster. The same is true about the “Close Door” buttons in many elevators. Pushing them doesn’t have any effect on the door. Harvard psychologist Ellen Langer says these buttons are like placebos that give you “the illusion of control.” I bring this phenomenon to your attention, Gemini, in hope of inspiring you to scout around for comparable things in your life. Is there any situation where you imagine you have power or influence, but probably don’t? If so, now is an excellent time to find out—and remedy that problem. CANCER (June 21-July 22): Philip Boit was born and raised in Kenya, where it never snows except on the very top of Mount Kenya. Yet he represented his country in the cross-country skiing events at the Winter Olympics in 2002 and 2006. How did he do it? He trained up north in snowy Finland. Meanwhile, Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong competed for Ghana in the slalom in the 2010 Winter Olympics. Since there was no snow in his homeland, he practiced his skills in the French Alps. These two are your role models for the coming months, Cancerian. According to my analysis of the astrological omens, you’ll have the potential to achieve success in tasks and activities that may not seem like a natural fit. LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): In the process of casting for his movie The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, director David Fincher considered selecting A-list actress Scarlett Johansson to play the heroine. But ultimately he decided she was too sexy and radiant. He wanted a pale, thin, tougher-looking actress, whom he found in Rooney Mara. I suspect that in a somewhat similar way, you may be perceived as being too much something for a role you would actually perform quite well. But in my astrological opinion, you’re not at all too much. In fact, you’re just right. Is there anything you can do—with full integrity—to adjust how people see you and understand you without diluting your brightness and strength? VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): In 1993, an English gardener named Eric Lawes used his metal detector to look for a hammer that his farmer friend had lost in a field. Instead of the hammer, he found the unexpected: a buried box containing 15,234 old Roman silver and gold coins worth more than four million dollars today. I bring this to your attention, Virgo, because I suspect that
SHEPHERD EXPRESS
you, too, will soon discover something different from what you’re searching for. Like the treasure Lawes located, it might even be more valuable than what you thought you wanted. LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): “The role of the artist is exactly the same as the role of the lover,” wrote author James Baldwin. “If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see.” To fully endorse that statement, I’d need to add two adverbs. My version would be, “The role of the artist is exactly the same as the role of the lover. If I love you, I have to kindly and compassionately make you conscious of the things you don’t see.” In accordance with current astrological omens, I recommend that you Libras enthusiastically adopt that mission during the coming weeks. With tenderness and care, help those you care about to become aware of what they’ve been missing—and ask for the same from them toward you. SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): For thousands of generations, our early ancestors were able to get some of the food they needed through a practice known as persistence hunting. They usually couldn’t run as fast as the animals they chased. But they had a distinct advantage: they could keep moving relentlessly until their prey grew exhausted. In part that’s because they had far less hair than the animals, and thus could cool off better. I propose that we adopt this theme as a metaphor for your life in the coming weeks and months. You won’t need to be extra fast or super ferocious or impossibly clever to get what you want. All you have to do is be persistent and dogged and disciplined. SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Brooke (Wompsi’kuk Skeesucks) is a Native American woman of the Mohegan tribe. According to her description of Mohegan naming traditions, and reported by author Elisabeth Pearson Waugaman, “Children receive names that are descriptive. They may be given new names at adolescence, and again as they go through life according to what their life experiences and accomplishments are.” She concludes that names “change as the individual changes.” If you have been thinking about transforming the way you express and present yourself, you might want to consider such a shift. 2019 will be a favorable time to at least add a new nickname or title. And I suspect you’ll have maximum inspiration to do so in the coming weeks. CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): For many of us, smell is our most neglected sense. We see, hear, taste and feel with vividness and eagerness, but allow our olfactory powers to go underused. In accordance with astrological omens, I hope you will compensate for that dearth in the coming weeks. There is subtle information you can obtain—and in my opinion, need quite strongly—that will come your way only with the help of your nose. Trust the guidance provided by scent. AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Essayist Nassim Nicholas Taleb says humans come in three types: fragile, robust, or antifragile. Those who are fragile work hard to shield themselves from life’s messiness. The downside? They are deprived of experiences that might spur them to grow smarter. As for robust people, Taleb believes they are firm in the face of messiness. They remain who they are even when they’re disrupted. The potential problem? They may be too strong to surrender to necessary transformations. If you’re the third type, antifragile, you engage with the messiness and use it as motivation to become more creative and resilient. The downside? None. In accordance with the astrological omens, Aquarius, I urge you to adopt the antifragile approach in the coming weeks. Homework: Upon waking up for the next seven mornings, sing a song that fills you with feisty, glorious hope. Go to realastrology.com to check out Rob Brezsny’s Expanded Weekly Audio Horoscopes and Daily Text Message Horoscopes. The audio horoscopes are also available by phone at 877873-4888 or 900-950-7700.
::NEWS OF THE WEIRD ::BY THE EDITORS OF ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION
Meth’s Amphetamines
U
nfortunately named Johna Martinez-Meth, 46, of Clearlake, Calif., was sentenced on Feb. 21 for involuntary manslaughter stemming from a delivery she made to Adrian Sepulveda, an inmate at California Medical Facility in Vacaville, in May 2018. Sepulveda, who died on May 28, 2018, was serving a life sentence for second-degree murder when Martinez-Meth visited him; an autopsy showed that shortly after her visit, Sepulveda had swallowed multiple balloons filled with methamphetamine, Fox News reported. A subsequent search of Martinez-Meth’s home uncovered meth and balloons. She plead guilty to the charges and will serve two years.
Don’t Be a Cheapskate in Maryville Attorneys in Maryville, Tenn., are debating the merits of a felony case brought against Howard Matthew Webb, 31, after he dipped his testicles in a takeout container of salsa that a coworker and he were about to deliver along with Mexican food. As the two ferried the food on Jan. 12, Webb “seasoned” the salsa while he recorded the act on his cellphone; his companion, meanwhile, laughs, saying: “This is what you get when you give an 89-cent tip for an almost 30-minute drive.” Webb is heard saying, “Oh, oh, it feels so good.” The video made it to Facebook, and Webb was arrested on Feb. 22 for “adulteration of foods, liquids or pharmaceuticals,” a Class C felony.
Panda Patrol The long, harsh winter must be getting to folks in Muskego, Wis., to wit: Police were called to a home on Feb. 22 after “a big teddy bear” was reported to be at a neighbor’s front door. As it turned out, the human-sized panda (certainly not native to our state) was a 48-year-old man who had been asked to check on the dogs and thought it would be funny to prank his neighbors through their security system. “I knew my neighbors had cameras, and I thought I was going to make the ordinary extraordinary and dress up in a panda suit,” the unnamed man told CBS 58. Apparently he has also picked his daughter up at school and met her at the bus stop in the suit (pandas are her favorite animal).
Czeching on the Lions Neighbors of Michal Prasek, 33, of Zdechov, Czech Republic, were rightly concerned about the animals living on his property. In 2016, Prasek bought a full-grown lion, and two years later added a lioness. He built enclosures for them, defying government regulations, and would not allow authorities onto his property to investigate. BBC News reported on March 5 that Prasek’s project had met a tragic end: He was discovered by his father in the lion’s cage, mauled to death. Police who were called to the scene killed the two lions in order to reach Prasek’s body. Presumably grasping for a silver lining, Zdechov Mayor Tomas Kocourek rather icily commented: “Today’s incident will finally resolve this long-term problem.”
Fools with Firearms In the category of Unnecessarily Calling Attention to Your Criminal Self, Trinidad Garcia, 26, of Forest Lake, Minn., wins the gold. On March 1, as Garcia motored his BMW north on snow-slick I-35, police say he fired a stolen gun, without provocation, into the passenger door of a pickup truck passing him on the left. The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported he then veered his car into the median ditch. Luckily (well, maybe not so luckily as it turned out) for Garcia, a state trooper was close by and stopped to check on his welfare. Garcia, who had stuffed the loaded gun (sans one bullet, of course) in his front pocket, was arrested; in his car, officers found a shoebox with $11,481 in cash. He was charged with second-degree assault, drive-by shooting and being a felon in possession of a firearm. Mark Jones, 46, of Marion, Ind., is probably in the market for a nice holster after his experience on Feb. 28. Jones told police he was walking along a riverside trail early that morning when his pistol began to slip from his waistband. As he reached to adjust it, the loaded weapon fired and, according to the police report, “the bullet entered just above his penis and exited his scrotum.” WISH-TV reported that Jones did not have a license for the HiPoint 9mm weapon. Grant County prosecutors were considering whether to charge him with any crimes. © 2019 ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION M A R C H 1 4 , 2 0 1 9 | 41
::ARTFORART’SSAKE
No People Like Show People ::BY ART KUMBALEK
I
’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? Listen, I heard the job rate is on the upswing of late, but for the young people, and me, not so much; so I think it best we commence with a little show business story I recall again from some years back at the old Jazz Oasis. The timing seems right. (About that convention shebang coming to Beer Town? That’s for next week’s essay, what the fock.) Anyways, this instructive anecdote came to me by way of a musician pal of mine and I’d like to pass it on since I believe it may be particularly helpful to the younger readers here, especially those who entertain the deluded grandiose illusions that got yours truly hooked up with professional show business in the first focking place. It’s the only gift I’ve got to give to our wayward youth, but it cost a lot, I kid you not. “So the guys are on the job, the kind your musician would call your pickup gig. And wouldn’t you know, one of the boys on the bandstand likes to tip a couple, three tall-and-frostys at the drop of a downbeat, any kind of downbeat you got, 24 hours a day Jack, as any working musician is wont to do. But unlike any tried and true working musician, this guy just doesn’t know the right arrangement for when it comes the time that your constitution is fully ratified, and that you make room for your next double-Scotch amendment at least somewhere near the bar, out in the parking lot during a break or better yet, how ’bout the bathroom toilet bowl for crying out loud. “But a tried and true working musician does not heave his guts out right there on stage when getting ready for the next set, which he did. Puked it up all over the piano bench big-time, and now he’s ready to jam. But wouldn’t you know, the piano guy on the job happens to be blind, I shit you not; and moments following the launch of lunch-blow courtesy of the trombone player, he gets on the stand and sits right where he ought to, and sits right in it. ‘OK, The Way You Look Tonight, in C, let’s swing fellas.’”
42 | M A R C H 1 4 , 2 0 1 9
I bring this up, so to speak, as an example to our young people that show biz can often be more than just trying to make ends meet by only having to work a couple, three hours a day, receiving a mention in the media once in a while and GETTING HOUNDED BY THE IRS TWENTY-FOUR FOCKING HOURS A DAY. No sir. (Hey, what’s the difference between a prostitute and the IRS? A hooker stops when you’re dead, you betcha. Ba-ding!) I also bring this up for the young people since it occurs to me that many of them are currently torn at a crossroads by having to make a life-long choice between a career in the food-service industry or professional show business. Allow me to recommend show business for several important reasons, the least not being that you can often sleep the live-long day through, then show up for a mere couple hours in the nighttime somewhere, do some schtick, have some cocktails and call it a focking day. Nice work if you can find it, ain’a? But be warned. This occupation can lead to the acquiring of what they would call in a church, “bad habits.” These are habits that scientists have supposedly proven will kill you dead if persisted upon. In response to this alleged fact, the crafty show-business person always asks, “So can I do it ’till I just need glasses?” My answer would be yes. What the neo-focking-phyte needs to know about these so-called “bad habits” is this: You will either die from them (O Death, where is thy sting?) or if you have health insurance, a trained professional will therapeutically teach you the error of your ways and means. The upshot is that if you got bad habits, enjoy them while you can. Plus, that joy can be communicated to an audience willing to be entertained in an age where joy seems to be in mighty short supply. Everybody wins, what the fock. So in conclusion, I feel behooved to hand out the following caveat: Maybe be careful what you wish for. Example: When I was youthful, lo, those years ago, and harassed by my local draft board at a time when that could happen and I had no use for such a happening; as a joke, I would always list “professional entertainer” as my occupation on all correspondence I received from the U.S. Death Machine, even though the only stage I was trodding was post-adolescence. And come to think of it, the damn thing is that even what you don’t wish for can come true, and what the fock is that? Hey, you tell me, ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.
SHEPHERD EXPRESS
FREE TRIAL
FREE TRIAL
Who are you after dark?
414-918-4010
More Numbers: 1-800-700-6666 Redhotdateline.com 18+ Real Singles, Real Fun... FREE HALF HOUR CHAT
1-414-918-4011
Playmates and soul mates...
Milwaukee:
Meet real local guys 1-855-673-0627 18+
1-414-342-2222 18+ MegaMates.com
Playmates and soul mates...
1-414-933-5555
YOU DON’T HAVE AN ART KUMBALEK T-SHIRT?
WHAT THE FOCK? GET ‘EM AT THE SHEPSTORE.COM
HALF HOUR FREE
Real Singles, Real Fun...
1-866-389-1715 SHEPHERD EXPRESS
18+ M A R C H 14 , 2 0 1 9 | 43
SPECIAL GUEST THE SUBURBS
MARCH 31 • 7 PM MILLER HIGH LIFE THEATRE Ticketmaster.com | 800-745-3000 Convenience fees apply.
TICKETS ON SALE NOW AT TICKETMASTER.COM
L& jąĦ IL&2Ħðø 8 L ZPĦ 9U L
?LĦU$ ĦI L ?L8&9 Ħ LUP ?9ĦP 2 ĦU$ZLP jąĦ ĊĦñðĦ UĦ9? ?9
U& 0 U8 PU LĊ ?8ĦōĦóðóĚñöòĚöñïõ
SHANK
HALL
30TH ANNIVERSARY YEAR 1989-2019
1434 N FARWELL AVE • 276-7288 www.SHANKHALL.COM • all shows 21+
All shows start at 8 pm unless otherwise indicated Tickets available at Shank Hall Box Office, 866-468-3401, or at ticketweb.com
3/14 The Ike Reilly Assassination 3/15 Sprecher presents: Koch Marshall Trio 3/17 Eilen Jewell 3/20 Carsie Blanton 3/21 Vanilla Fudge 3/22 Wynchester 3/23 PHUN 3/24 Bonerama 3/28 Roy Rogers & The Delta Rhythm Kings 3/29 Michael Henszey 3/30 No Quarter 3/31 #MilwaukeeStrong 4/2 Tommy Castro & the Painkillers 4/4 Arielle 4/5 Peter Bradley Adams 4/6 Lovin Kind, Failure to Launch 4/8 Jeremy Enigk 4/10 Uli Jon Roth 4/11 Captain Beyond 4/12 Cherry Pools, TiLLie 4/13 New Wave Fest 2019 4/14 Roger Clyne & The Peacemakers 4/15 The National Parks 4/17 Mike Edel 4/18 The Mother Hips 4/19 Pundamonium 4/20 Mike & Friends 4/23 Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio 4/26 Mary Fahl: former lead singer of October Project 4/27 Tallan Noble Latz 4/30 Nekromantix 5/1 Lee DeWyze 5/2 Starz 5/4 Terry McBride 5/11 Plasticland 5/12 Steve Hofstetter 5/17 Jared James Nichols 5/25 Lincoln Durham 5/26 Terry Reid 5/27 Nashville Pussy 5/28 The 5.6.7.8’s 5/29 Nita Strauss 44 | M A R C H 14 , 2 0 1 9
SHEPHERD EXPRESS