Power Tripping

Happy Obama Day, all. As we've all been historical significance-ed nearly to death, I'll let the event pass simply by noting how pleased I was to refer to "Former President George W. Bush" on the air today. It has a nice ring to it.

But it's official: I'm exhausted from relaxing so hard.

My last-minute power vacation to northern California was a raging success, don't get me wrong. I found out the other week I had some vacation time to burn before the end of the month, so I called up my buddy Bryan in San Jose and asked "pretty please" if he was still up for hosting me for a long weekend as we'd been discussing.

He was. In fact, he should probably go into business giving tours, because the man had a plan, we stuck to the plan, and we cram-a-lammed a whole lot more fun into four nights than we had any right to.

I flew out of Madison early Thursday morning, cussing under my breath the whole way until the negative-45-degree windchills and snowy fields fell away under a blanket of clouds. On the way out, I plowed through local writer Emily Mills's first (published) novel, The Fix Up, which was a fantastic, quick read. Mills flaunts a dark sense of humor she seldom gets to exhibit in her regular blog posts, trots out an intriguing, likeable character in Chapel, then spends 136 pages making the reader wonder what Chapel ever did to Mills. Watching as the character responds to the increasingly sordid circumstances that seem to stalk her, never triumphing but certainly never beaten, leaves me wanting a lot more of Chapel than 136 pages.

As such, it's become my mission to get my eyeballs on the short film the novel serves as a backstory to. If I catch up with Mills at a bar sometime, I will have a sharpie in hand so as to get my copy of The Fix Up autographed before, not too long from now, people are standing in lines at bookstores to do the same.

It's a good read, and they're selling it at A Room of One's Own on Johnson Street. I also plan to work the phrase "drinking totally ironic forties" into my regular vocabulary.

I got down in San Jose, met Bryan and then promptly knocked one item from near the top of my lifelong to-do list: I ate at an In-and-Out Burger. It was everything I'd hoped and more.

Then, we trucked it out to a golf course in the hills to the east of the Silicon Valley for what was arguably the worst 17-and-a-half holes of golf I've played since my first round out. It didn't help matters that I hadn't swung a club since July. Nor was it of any assistance that the course was on a mountainside -- thus, on the rare occasion I placed a shot in the fairway, it would unfailingly roll off.

But after notching four above par on my first hole, a relatively straightforward 400-yard par four, I informed Bryan I was only going to be scoring the holes I was happy with.

By the time it got too dark to spot a ball (hence the 17-and-a-half holes of golf), my scorecard read like War and Peace written in the Wing-Dings font. Aside from two bogeys and a hard-fought par, I instructed Bryan to score me two parallel exclamation points, a question mark, an infinity symbol, a null set sign, a radioactive symbol, a hammer and sickle, a frownie face, and a snowman complete with arms and a corncob pipe, among others, on varying holes. Turns out, Bryan is very good at detail work with a golf pencil.

We set out early on Friday for San Francisco and spent the day drinking in the city (Post-post writer's note -- this is not to mean "imbibing" in the city, but rather experiencing it... the imbibing came later). I honestly haven't walked so much since I was a student. We made our way into Chinatown for lunch, then marched up to Union Square, where we satisfied my pathological need to view cities from a tall place by walking into a hotel we were clearly not staying at and abusing their 32-story glass elevator (see previous blog post).

Then, we meandered back to Washington Square, where we watched some people throw frisbees for dogs and chatted with a guy named "Irish Pete" who, as far as we could tell, made his living hanging out in the park and sketching. After declining his generous offer to smoke us up, we popped down to Fisherman's Wharf, where the stench of tons and tons of fish was curiously absent. Disappointed by the lack of wharfishness, we boarded our ferry to Alcatraz Island and took the night tour there, then came back to the waterfront for dinner, which was NOT disappointing.

We crashed with a friend's sister (I spent the night calling Anna the "West Coast Mary Beth") a block off historic Haight Street and sampled the night life. After staying out until bar time, we were up again early on Saturday to drive somewhere we could continue drinking: Sonoma!

Now, I had never really considered myself much of a wine person -- more a beer-whiskey-brandy-rum-and-so-help-me-god-tequila kind of person. But then again, I had never been to the Sonoma Valley before.

We started the afternoon with a tour of the Benzinger Family Winery, which was phenomenal and speech-sluringly educational. Through the tour, we also received a pass for a free tasting at the sister winery, Imagery Wines, a mile up the road. As that was where the bartenders were most generous with the samples, that is where we spent most of our time. I even invested a tidy sum in having a few bottles of whatever-it-was-I-really liked shipped back to Madison. Being unfamiliar with wine terms and a little schnookered at the time of purchase, I don't quite remember what it was I bought, just that I'm going to be really happy when it arrives.

The countryside was gorgeous, and the land, people and rural atmosphere reminded me a lot of Wisconsin. We topped off the afternoon with a stop at the Mayo Family winery and, fully hammered, drove back into Sonoma proper to sober up some, have dinner and then trek back to San Jose to go to the bars, where I spent the night hassling the bartender about the fact that there were only TWO varieties of beer on tap. My Wisconsin sensibilities were deeply offended.

Sunday, verging on exhaustion, we opted to ignore common sense and spent another long day road-tripping to Santa Cruz, where Bryan tried like hell to teach me to surf. It wasn't so much his failure as mine that resulted in a number of salty-tasting faceplants, but I had fun anyway learning that surfing is indeed not as easy as it looks. After lunch at a little Mexican restaurant a block from the beach, we took the long way back and cruised Highway 1 along the Pacific Coast, stopping at a beach along the way to gawk at the ocean.

Bryan's co-worker Preethi joined us for the day, and invited her friend Sharon out to the bars with us that night. Chaos and hilarity ensued, and we'll just say it was a damn miracle I was able to get to the airport in time to catch my 12:10 back to Wisconsin.

All in all, a great trip, but I'm already feeling hard-pressed to readjust to the work grind. It's a busy week, with city council tonight, the first session of the Madison Citizen's Police Academy tomorrow, a basketball game I have to do commentary for on Thursday and some kind of city council election information taping Friday night. I'll certainly be posting updates on the academy and another segment of "Rumble in the Deuce" about the taping, so as Paul Harvey says, "Stand By For NEWS!"

Vacation Update

Hello from San Francisco!

Allegedly "Progressive" Talk

Are you ready for some biased media commentary? I didn't shed a tear, didn't furrow my brow, didn't even blink today at the news of major upcoming format changes at Madison's "Progessive" Talk, the Mic 92.1.

I know, right? Stop the presses, we've got a story for page one! "Local News Anchor Not Sad to See Competition Start to Fold." Somebody's sure to notch a Pulitzer on their belt for this one.

Well, before you write me off as completely irrelevent, dripping with bias, let me fill you in on some background here.

On February 1st, I'll have worked at AM 1670 WTDY for a whole year. Prior to that, I worked at the newspaper in Portage, which entailed a 45 minute commute to and from work every day. This left me plenty of time to listen to talk radio, and after switching back and forth from WTDY to the Mic for months, I finally settled on WTDY as my go-to station. The reason is as much a matter of principle as it is a matter of preference.

WTDY and a handful of other stations in Madison are owned by Midwest Family Broadcasting, a Madison-based company that has operated in the city for half a century and also owns stations in La Crosse, Springfield Illinois, Springfield Missourri and Benton Harbor Michigan.

As a company, our small locally-based operation competes primarily with Madison's Clear Channel Communications-owned stations, which include the Mic. For those unfamiliar with Clear Channel or its notoriety, try and imagine the business practices of McDonalds, Wal-Mart and the entire oil industry wrapped into one package and focused on radio and billboard advertising.

It was Clear Channel that lobbied for the massive ownership deregulations passed under the guise of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, then dropped a cool $30 billion to increase its nationwide radio station ownership to 1,200 -- the single largest conglomerate of AM and FM stations in the country.

Then, it was Clear Channel that began firing the on-air staff at smalltown radio stations across the country, and piping in voicetracked disk-jockeys that have never even been to the cities where their voices were heard. This practice, in addition to hamstringing local radio as a business and putting thousands out of work, also endangered dozens of lives in the 2002 Minot, North Dakota ammonia spill when no one was at the local radio stations to warn the populace to stay indoors.

It was Clear Channel that put together a list of songs following September 11, 2001 that were not to be played on the radio for fear that they might offend the populace or stir up dissent -- among the banned songs, Rage Against the Machine's entire body of work. It was Clear Channel that refused to display anti-war billboards or air paid commercials featuring anti-war mom Cindy Sheehan.

I barely acknowledge the Dixie Chicks as musicians, but when Clear Channel stations stopped airing their music following the band's public criticism of George W. Bush, I was pissed off as all hell.

Even before I worked for the competition, I couldn't ignore the flagrant hypocrisy of Clear Channel operating what they call "Madison's Progressive Talk." The progressive movement is one that's supposed to be rooted in the ideal of a locally-focused, uncensored public discourse.

Clearly, non-censorship is not one of Clear Channel's strong suits, but the Mic fails to meet the other tenets as well. Calling all-left, all-the-time talk radio a "discourse" does as much disservice to the term as Fox News has done to the concept of 24-hour news. I consider myself a moderate-to-left-leaning skeptical progressive when I don't have my reporter's hat on, but if I can listen to an hour of talk radio and not be upset by one thing I hear, I know I'm being pandered to.

It's not hard to see Clear Channel's original right-wing agenda behind left-wing talk. Sure, giving Al Franken a national pulpit eventually backfired when he was elected to the Senate, but for years, Republicans were able to dismiss his arguments as the irrelevent ramblings of a comedian-turned pundit when Air America could just as easily have filled his slot with someone with some real cred.

You can see the same in the Mic's morning lineup. Stephanie Miller isn't much more than a chattering, vacant floozy, discussing little of substance and spending half her program bubbling about the irrelevent goings-on in Hollywood. Ed Schultz has the potential to present a delectible conondrum as a "gun-totin', red meat-eatin' electric car-drivin' lefty," until you realize his corporate handlers keep too tight a leash on him to allow for any issue of legitimate depth to be discussed.

The closest thing the Mic had to a saving grace was their morning host, Lee Rayburn, who recently quit his post in Madison, as noted in the newspaper story above. He provided an interesting forum for local debate, but it wouldn't surprise me to discover he was driven out of his job. But with Rayburn the possible lone exception, every other piece of daily programming on the Mic is syndicated from elsewhere in the nation, sterile, safe and noncontroversial.

That's what has always perplexed me about the Mic's local following -- that a self-purported progressive city like Madison could rally around the obvious machinations of an evil empire like Clear Channel and turn its back on the locally-owned alternative. Up until budget concerns forced some massive cuts in November, WTDY was staffed by a set of live bodies at the microphone 13 hours a day, bringing a slew of differing, sometimes opposing, viewpoints on local and national issues to the airwaves. Management has assured me that as soon as we pull out of the slump, we'll be live and local all day again.

Having a radio station in town that broadcasts left wing views exclusively does little to combat the image of Madison as eighty square miles surrounded by reality. As a progressive, I welcome a challenge to my viewpoints almost as much as I welcome a substantive discussion, and the Mic rarely provided either.

I can't feel bad for the Mic's listeners as the corporate keepers in San Antonio, Texas retool what some Madisonians thought was "their" radio station. Given Clear Channel's record, it was a predetermined inevitability, and I like to think that this will serve as a wake-up call that a truly progressive radio station is one staffed by people you can bump into at a protest, on a barstool or in line at the grocery store.

Vigilante Parking Enforcement

Madison parking scofflaws on the isthmus -- you're on notice. I'm a hair's breadth from taking the law into my own hands, and while I'm generally pretty mild-mannered, I'm as restrained as Adam "PacMan" Jones in a strip club with a bad case of the Mondays when it comes to meting out vilgilante justice.

I don't live on a main thoroughfare -- far from it, in fact. That the city chooses to clear the snow off our little half-block of a side street at all should be cause for the residents to celebrate, but the plow drivers are not exactly being greeted by a ticker tape parade.

When the city's workers make the right turn onto Castle Place, they're finding cars parked willy-nilly, with no regard for the snow emergency parking regulations designed to allow plow drivers to clear each road curb to curb over the course of two nights. And now, I'm worried the city is a few snowfalls away from writing off our street altogether.

Once again this winter, owning an automobile in the heart of Madison has not been a piece of cake. Digging out occasionally and braving the winter parking regulations is par for the course, a part of the price drivers pay for the privilege of being independently mobile in a city that offers decent public transit options anyway.

Except it seems our city is plagued with a bunch of clueless deadbeats content to let their automobiles accumulate enough snow around their bases to build a good-sized fort. It begs the question whether people who only use their cars once every couple of weeks should be allowed to keep them on the street.

Do I begrudge your owning an automobile in the heart of the city? Absolutely not. But do I take serious issue if you're not willing to invest the time and effort to get your two-ton hulk of rust and rubber out of the damn way so our city crews can do their job and make driving easier for everyone?

Let me put it this way: leaving your car buried up to the quarterpanels in week old snow where I can see it with two parking tickets stuck under the wiper blade is inviting me to huck a molotov cocktail through the window.

My case in point is the bucket of bolts, rust-on-gray mini-van some probable child molester left parked right in front of my house for two weeks in December. Never mind that the owner left it parked in the same spot through the heaviest periods of snowfall we've gotten so far in this outrageous winter... and two declared snow emergencies! Never mind that the piece of trash was taking up prime parking real estate right off my front door step. Never mind that I was re-infuriated at the owner's lack on decency every time I walked past, or even looked out my front window.

What irks me the most is that, whether the van was eventually moved or towed, the amassed snow around its base remains, melted down by the brief warm spell, then re-frozen into foot-and-a-half crags of ice that make parking there a virtual impossibility for every vehicle known to man save an Abrams tank.

I wish I could say what I just described is a rare scenario, but a drive through downtown Madison will turn up an identical case every thirty to forty feet. What's worse, if too many cars are parked on one side of the street when a plow rumbles through, oftentimes the driver will have no choice but to simply clear the middle of the street, leaving the snow to accumulate on the side where people should be able to park.

This results in drivers having to park closer to the middle of the road, and when a few of THEM don't move their cars to allow the plow drivers through, the problem compounds itself and the roads begin to continuously get narrower. It's only mid-January, but it's already so bad on my street that I watched a plow squeak a single narrow lane between the rows of cars parked on each side of the road this weekend, with mere inches to spare on either side of the blade.

If my road gets any narrower, it's going to be unplowable, and then I'll really be in a car-torching mood.

It's winter. This is Wisconsin. Checking up on the vehicle every couple of days and moving it if necessary is the owner's responsibilty, no exceptions. While digging a car out after a snowstorm is no fun, if we're to be able to drive on our damn roads, we need to work together with the streets department to ensure they can do their job. If the threat of a sixty dollar parking ticket isn't enough to motivate one to do so, being able to move an ambulance or a fire truck down the street should be.

So this is my call to arms. You're either with me or against me, and those who shun our cause of passable streets hold their own personal property forefeit.

From here on out, the rules are as such. Those who fail to comply with the snow emergency alternate side parking rules are subject to have their finish keyed and their windows egged. Failure to comply with the city's 48-hour street storage rule when there's a fresh layer of snow on the ground not only risks a ticket, but also broken sideview mirrors.

After the third day of abandonment, a heavy boot to the quarter panel becomes acceptable. If a car has been buried to its lugnuts in snow for four days, the radio antenna may be pried off -- likewise for the windshield wipers on day five, and the gas hatch or any spoilers and other such adornments on day six.

If a car is still buried in snow that's a week old, the use of heavy throwing or bludgeoning implements is strongly encouraged. I recommend beginning with smaller rocks, hurled at the side of the car at close range. If this doesn't drive the point home after several days, more drastic measures may be needed, including the use of a baseball bat to remove the sideview mirrors entirely and perform some major body work.

Eventually, you may find it cathartic to resort to lobbing bricks or even cinder blocks at the hood or through the side windows. Care should be taken not to damage the windshield, however, and there's a good reason.

You'll note that all the recommended methods of vigilante parking enforcement thus far do nothing to inhibit the violating auto's owner from clearing the snow off their car, firing it up and moving it to a more appropriate parking spot. Indeed, that's what we're trying to encourage here. A broken windshield, for instance, slashed tires or a sugared gas tank would only delay the process of clearing the parking spot for use.

But upon reaching the two-week mark following a snowstorm, if the car still has not been moved, it's fair to assume it's really and truly abandoned -- a public nuissance, a pile of refuse taking up space in the public right of way -- and it's every decency-conscious citizen's duty to blow it up.

As I mentioned earlier, a hurled molotov cocktail presents a simple-yet-dramatic way to torch an errant automobile without much risk of personal injury or exposure to police attention. Given the cover of darkness and a little time to work, it's also possible to pry the cover off the gas tank and use the reservoir itself as a source of fuel, given the ability to rig up some sort of improvised fuse like an oily rag.

Torching a car that's preventing city employees from clearing the road presents a trifecta of advantages. Once the flaming hulk of metal has smoldered and gone out, a city crew will inevitably arrive to tow it out of the street. Likewise, a burning car sets a noticeable, iconic example to other potential scofflaws on your street, and they'll think twice before violating the city's snow parking laws themselves.

Finally, the heat thrown off in the hour or two the car burns will quickly melt away the accumulated snow and ice that would otherwise render the parking space unusable. It's basically win-win-win... and a lose for the deadbeat that didn't think enough of their neighbors to just move their damn car.

Lay of the Land

Why? 'Cuz I basically figured, "What good is in-depth coverage without a really lame graphic to go with it?"

And please, don't ask me how long it took me. My photo-shopping skills are not what they ought to be.

I have every intention of updating this feature at least on a weekly basis, or as the story warrants. District two has all the elements needed to make it the most interesting city council race in the upcoming spring election, and I'm thrilled to get to cover it as a reporter and vote in it as a constituent.

And the Deucers will certainly get to do their share of voting. Only two of the five candidates for the second city council district will get to appear on the April 7 spring election ballot, meaning the February 17 primary election will be when the real "rumble" happens.

With the primary just more than a month away, that means there's precious little time to get informed on each of the candidates and their stands on the issues. Fortunately, most of them have already posted websites, and I was able to get in touch with all of them in the span of one day, resulting in an A+ in accessability for each one.

The deadline to declare candidacy is barely two days past, but the race is already steeped in some degree of controversy. Word around city hall had been for several weeks that Mayor Dave Cieslewicz was actively seeking someone to run against four-term incumbent Brenda Konkel, and he confirmed it on the record in a newspaper story this week.

There's no love lost between Cieslewicz and Konkel as a result. Anyone who's ever been to a city council meeting has likely seen them butt heads at least once. Konkel has certainly made herself a thorn in the administration's side, and while the Mayor denies he was successful in recruiting anyone to carry out his political hit, he's made it clear he's not displeased to see competition coming out of the woodwork.

Part of the reason Konkel has aroused the ire of the Mayor (and a number of her fellow council members to boot) is the same reason a number of her constituents, including myself, admire her. While I find myself disagreeing with her on some issues, the passion and fire with which she defends the issues she does is unmatched on the council.

Likewise, Konkel wears her dedication to the job of alder and the ideals of democracy on her sleeve. Like a number of alders I could note, she works a job for a living but lives her elected office, spending free time pouring over meeting notes and minute details. Somehow she finds time to constantly update the blog she keeps on city affairs, which has become a resource, not just for her constituents, but for Madison's citizens in general.

As a reporter, her blog sits near the top of my daily reading list (though I do harbor a *little* resentment stemming from the comment about "biased media" in the header).

Most admirably, she welcomes the four candidates that have materialized to try and swipe the seat from under her. "I think it's fantastic for democracy," she told me yesterday, "to see so much interest in a district... and so much youth. I just wish there was this good a turnout in every other district."

In meetings, unfortunately, Konkel's passion is easily construed as combativeness. Her reputation as being obstinate is well-deserved, as much a black mark as a badge of honor. Her attention to detail can be alternately useful and infuriating for her fellow alders. Some constituents, particularly business- and home-owners, accuse her of paying more attention to renters and the homeless than their own middle-class plights.

It's those traits her opponents Adam Walsh, Bridget Maniaci and Sherman Hackbarth are taking aim at now, each in their own way.

"I'm not running the anti-Konkel campaign," Walsh told me. "I respect many of the things she's done. But I think we could do a better job of making sure everybody feels their needs and concerns are addressed -- not just a select minority."

Walsh was the first to declare his candidacy in the second district, and is not, in fact, the missing son of "America's Most Wanted" host John Walsh. I asked. He actually joked with me that the shared name was going to "make it hell for anybody Googling my web page."

Adam Walsh is relatively fresh out of UW law school, recently married and is a new homeowner on the isthmus. While he works as a civil rights and criminal defense attorney, he paints himself as a concerned neighbor settling into life as a grown-up, as it were. Walsh and his wife plan to have children in the near future, which he says has instilled in him a desire to see more stop signs, brighter night streets and safer parks in the neighborhood.

Raised in the suburbs of Milwaukee, Walsh says he's enthralled with the idea of sending his kids to a "neighborhood school" like Lapham Elementary. But the school isn't the only unique feature of District Two he has an interest in preserving.

"We need to pay more attention to those businesses (in the East Johnson Street corridor)," Walsh said. "I want to foster them so they, hopefully, don't leave. There aren't any chain businesses in the entire district, and if one of them leaves, that opens it up for a chain to come in."

Walsh isn't alone in that fear either. Supreme Pizza, Madison Food Mart, Pinkus McBride, Burnie's Rock Shop, Cork and Bottle Liquor Store -- 25-year-old candidate Bridget Maniaci identified them all as unique businesses struggling to get by in a city that normally lauds local commerce. In fact, she says she'll be offering free advertising space to any takers on her campaign literature.

It's just one example of the kinds of outside-the-box ideas she says she would like to bring to city hall. While she may be the youngest candidate in the race, as a former intern to Mayor Cieslewicz, she has plenty of familiarity with city hall, and her experiences working on Wisconsin's Capitol Hill and on the Fair Wisconsin campaign lend her a legitimate grounding in politics.

In light of the mayor's grudge against Konkel, assuming Maniaci was Cieslewicz's's pick to run for the seat is an easy leap to make, but she assured me that was not the case. "I had to wait two weeks to get a meeting with Dave to tell him I was going to throw my hat in the ring," she told me. "He was actually pretty surprised."

Likewise, Maniaci insists that just because she's a former mayoral staff member doesn't mean she'll end up as a rubber stamp for the mayor, if elected. As a staffer in the early phases of planning the revamped Halloween on State Street (editor's note: don't say Freakfest, ever!) celebration, Maniaci says putting her foot down became a regular priority.

A fourth-generation Madison native, Maniaci and her family have watched the isthmus evolve for decades. But recently, she's become more concerned by the mass exodus of the student population from her west end of the district, trickling into the growing highrises near University Avenue. While she says the district two area is one she thinks "families would like to live in," the housing stock is old, and some homes are run down from years of neglect by landlords and tenants alike.

The push-pull of development and preservation is clearly a delicate one, and she says a plan is needed. "I'm very keen on trying to rehab the houses we do have," Maniaci said, "but if they really are as bad as some of the owners are saying they are from previous landlords, I don’t have a problem with them coming down. I would, however, really like to see something of a similar size and scale go up."

The need to differentiate between the areas where massive development is appropriate and forbidden weighs heavily on the second district, and candidate Sherman Hackbarth, a real estate lawyer, says there's room for both. The 31-year-old graduate of both the UW-Whitewater business program and the UW-Madison law school has been long active in campaigning for updates to Madison's decades-old zoning code as a member of the Capitol Neighborhoods Association.

Hackbarth says he fretted over whether or not to run for weeks leading up to the deadline, and chose to file as District Two's fifth candidate the day of. He stakes his campaign on a measured mantra: "planning we can look back on and be proud of, public safety and effective services with an efficient price."

While part of his solution to the verging-on-decrepit homes in district two is to attract more homeowners to the area, Hackbarth also insists the relationship between renters and landlords has become too combative to provide productive solutions to many problems. He says the city should work to encourage more cooperation.

"Landlords should feel great pride in getting a rent check front their tenants," Hackbarth told me. "They should take utmost care complying with all fair housing issues, and they should be held to a high standard. But tenants should also be pleased to give their landlords a rent check, to be provided with a place they can call home."

While injustices move both ways, it's the plight of landlords Hackbarth says goes unnoticed in district two, where the current alder admittedly makes her living fighting against landlords. If elected, Hackbarth says he'll make policy based primarily on the needs and wants of all his constituents.

He paints himself as a man without a party affiliation, and he's certainly not one to mince words regarding his perceptions of the current seat-holder's performance. "I think Brenda Konkel needs to go," he said. "I want to thank her for her service. She's dedicated, but we need to reviltalize this district, to stop the political fighting and take it in a new direction. I see myself as a voice for the district, not a one-sided political agenda."

Thankfully, the race for the second district city council seat is not without a little comic relief. I was unable to reach Dennis deNure as I researched this story, but rest assured I will do an entire feature on him when the time is appropriate. He's a well-known frequent flyer in local elections, with unsuccessful bids for mayor and the state senate under his belt. A brief perusal of his website provides a fair enough assessment of the man to convince some to vote for him.

With the mix of candidates pounding the pavement, it's going to be an interesting race -- far more interesting than any city council race has any right to be. All four candidates I spoke with seemed amenable to the idea of a debate, which I would eagerly attend, and I hope I'm not the only one.

The Deucers should consider themselves lucky to have the palette of candidates they do to chose from this year. I certainly won't be making up my mind until election day.

Coverage Plan

Now that the city of Madison has survived a historical election and two months worth of aftermath, I have to breathe a sigh of a relief. We're verging on my favorite time of year...

Election time!

Now, I don't expect everyone to share the diabolical pleasure I derive from local elections. There are plenty of folks who would be hard-pressed to note the last time Wisconsin Supreme Court Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson ran for office, who their school board or city council representatives are, or what the county executive even does.

But the upcoming February primary and the April general election to follow are shaping up to be pretty inetresting in the Madison area, following yesterday's deadline to declare candidacy, and I feel it's my job to help everyone to see the drama that's unfolding right out their front door.

First of all, there are several city council races that are simply going to be steeped in titillation. Foremost among them is the knock-down, drag-out death match that's unfolding to claim the second district seat on the council, which is currently held by Alder Brenda Konkel.

Konkel has no plans to go anywhere, but two lawyers, a former mayor's aide and a crazy guy have their sights set on sneaking the north half of the isthmus out from under her. The intrigue tripled when word got out that Mayor Dave Cieslewicz was actively seeking out people to run against Konkel, with whom his working relationship could best be described as "shaky." It's by far the most hotly contested race in the city, and it's all unfolding right out MY own front door.

As a second district resident, I'll be taking special interest in this race. I already spent between 20 minutes and an hour each on the phone with Konkel, Adam Walsh, Bridget Maniaci and Sherman Hackbarth this afternoon, and I'll attempt to frame up their platforms in tomorrow's blog post. I'll also be writing weekly updates on the district two race, and eventually have to decide which of these people I'm going to vote for.

I'm not sure yet if I will be publicly announcing my pick in district two, but there is one race I'm ready to make a full-fledged endorsement in. I whole-heartedly urge all the east-side residents within district 15 to vote Alder Larry Palm into a third term with the city, as I have no doubt they will.

Palm is a dedicated civil servant, an activist within his community and a man that sticks to his ideals. By contrast, his challenger Will Sandstrom, while endlessly amusing, is far too intolerant, unstable and incapable-of-maintaining-his-focus-on-a-single-line-of-discussion to properly serve his community as alder.

That's not to say it wouldn't be hilarious to have Sandstrom on the council. His farcical 2007 campaign for mayor yielded more than its share of classic moments, but I honestly don't know if I could deal with moments like this (audio clip pulled from a public discussion of changes to the city's zoning code on November 6, 2008) on a bi-weekly basis.



So I suppose, in light of that rant, it's no surprise Sandstrom has chosen to run against Alder Palm in what we can only assume is a well-meaning attempt to make Madison a more straight-friendly community. God only knows there have been plenty times in my five years as a resident I've felt persecuted as a straight white male.

And seriously, there are people who think local politics are boring?

Frankly, I'm a little disappointed by the fact that 13 alders are running for their seats unopposed, and not because I have any particular issue with the way city government is being run, but because democracy is supposed to remain in a constant state of flux. It's clear what we have in Madison isn't the "series of smaller revolutions to prevent the big one" that would be ideal, but there are plenty more local races to dig into, and I'll bring a shovel. Stay tuned.

Adventures in 2008

Everybody I talk to keeps telling me to have a happy new year. I was half kidding, but I think I alarmed a Madison Police Sergeant on the phone today when I shot back, "New year?!? Why?What's wrong with the old one? What's the hurry?"

The truth is, while it's had its share of ups and downs, and barely a stolen couple of seconds to catch my breath, 2008 has been a fantastic year. I realize how lucky I am in this -- that things have gone to hell for a lot of folks, and that's certainly not something I've been immune to or isolated from. But looking back on it all, I'm able to view each month and pick at least one thing new or exciting from each one, and that's a damn good feeling.

It's weird, too, how mired I'm becoming in adulthood. This is the conclusion of my first full calendar year beyond a university setting, and I'm happy to report my head is still above water. 2008 saw me stand up at a wedding for the first time, move on to my second "real job" and purchase my third set of motorized wheels. But even though I'll be 24 in March, a glance back at the past 12 months proves I'm not yet allowing adulthood to consume me, and I like it that way.

January

When 2008 began, I was covering government, courts and cops for the Portage Daily Register, which I maintain is one of the finest small market papers in the state. I'm all too familiar with some of the dregs of the newspaper world that get published, but the company and management behind the PDR go out of their way to keep fresh, talented blood pumping through their offices, and it shows.

I began at the Register first as a summer intern, then continued as a part-time reporter and fulltime student, then finally became a fulltime reporter upon my graduation in May of 2007. But by the end of that year, the 45-minute commute from Madison to the office was starting to wear on me, and I heard about a chance to get back into broadcasting, so I started looking into it.

That didn't keep me from enjoying my final month at the paper. In fact, the day in January when U.S. Senator and penultimate role model Russ Feingold paid a visit to our office may be among my favorites of all time.


My admiration for Wisconsin's junior senator is well-documented, so I'll skip the fanboy noise and stick to the issue. As an editorial board, we got to spend two hours grilling Feingold on topic after topic, ranging from the upcoming presidential election to government wiretaps to NAFTA. After the session, he hung around and we chatted a little. The Senator and I discovered that one of his Washington staffers used to babysit me when I was eight, and I tried one last time to get him to run for President.


I'm still holding out hope for that last part.

February

It was 2:30 in the morning on a January Friday night, and I had just gotten back from the bars when that little tickle started in the back of my neck. That little tickle told me I ought to check my email.

I logged on, and at the top of my inbox was an email from WTDY's news director Tara Arnold, telling me they had decided to hire me on as a reporter and news anchor. I sat for a moment in stunned silence, then started whooping and hollering and tearing up and down the hallway of the two-bedroom flat I shared with my buddy Clinton (pictured on left) at the time.

Then I composed myself, rapped on his door and informed him we needed to go on a vacation.

I booked us on the Carnival cruise liner Sensation sailing a short route from Orlando to the Bahamas. We actually paid more for airfare than the cruise itself, sneaking in under the wire by booking it with about a week and a half to spare. That's the beauty of last-minute cruising -- if they're just trying to fill rooms on the boat, you'll pay less than you would to stay in a Motel 6, and all your food is included.

Our buddy Dan (pictured on right) snagged a room on the same cruise ship, and through some alignment of the planets, we survived serious flight delays and an extra layover in Atlanta, literally the last people to board the ship seconds before they pulled the ganplank up. But the vacation was great and amazingly cathartic. When we arrived at ports of call, our routine was simple and standard -- hail a cab and state, "beach, please."

It was a much-needed escape from the icy hell that Wisconsin became in 2008, breaking snowfall records left and right.

March

Of course, no vacation lasts forever, and I certainly didn't want ours to. I was damn excited to start at WTDY, and I jumped in head first.

With the presidential primaries a hot contest in Wisconsin, February was a busy month to start work in... then again, I haven't had a boring month yet. March rolled around, and I started covering regular shifts as an on-air news anchor. It felt good to be back on the air.

I also had the dubious honor of meeting the King of Sleaze himself, Jerry Springer. I interviewed him before he gave a presentation at the Orpheum, and to this day, I'm not sure how I feel about the man. Does he have some interesting political ideas? Certainly. But can that forgive the 10 points he knocked off America's collective IQ as the host of the trashiest show on television? The jury's out.

April

The snow hadn't even completely melted when I first dragged my old 1982 Yamaha Virago 920 ("Shiela," I called her) out of my garage on Chandler Street, but I didn't care. After the worst winter ever on Wisconsin's books, I was officially stir crazy, and I needed to ride...perhaps a little too much.

Hindsight is always 20-20, and I learned a valuable, albeit expensive, lesson that April afternoon. When a motorcycle sits out through a cold winter, it can be tough to get it to turn over that first warm afternoon. I sat pretty heavy on the starter and produced a couple loud backfires before I had sucked all the juice out of my fresh battery. But rather than put the battery back on the charger and wait for a warmer day when the engine would be more prone to turn, I opted for more desperate measures.

Jumper cables at the ready, I wired my running car to the bike and thumbed the starter, which whined impressively to life again. I swear, I was half a cycle of the pistons from having her running when a loud pop and a noticeable curl of blue smoke announced I'd fried the starter on the bike.

I sold the Virago to a gearhead who fixed her up and got a hell of a deal in the process. I used the proceeds and most of my tax return to buy a 1996 Suzuki Intruder. "Felicity" treated me well all summer long, and I'm already getting a little crazy just thinking about the open spring roads.

May

For everyone who knows Diana and Marcus, their marriage was a long time coming. Everybody was happy to hear it, but no one was surprised when they got engaged. I had the privilege of being one of several guys to stand at Marc's back when he took his vows, and it was a solemn honor we took almost as seriously as planning his last night as a bachelor.

In light of the five years' expectations leading up to the wedding itself, and the fact that Marc is almost unflappable as a human being, we decided the element of surprise had to factor heavily into our festivities for the evening. We set a date, and I informed Marc he was to arrive at my house at a set time to "report for duty." I wouldn't share any more information than that.

We allowed him to get the impression we had an early dinner followed by a round of local bars in store for him, and when he arrived that fateful Saturday afternoon, I told him the rest of the crew was waiting at an unnamed location within walking distance. We set out sauntering down the street, only to have our peaceful afternoon shattered by the squealing tires of a rented black SUV that came tearing down the street.

A couple of masked groomsmen jumped out, sporting a little weaponry as well, and informed Marc he was being kidnapped. A young family walking down the street stared in shock as we stuffed a winter hat over his head and face and loaded him into the vehicle, then tore off down the street.

We drove for about two hours before we let him take his blindfold off... and that's really about all I'm allowed to disclose about the events of Saturday, May the 24th. We had him back, safe and whole, almost 24 hours later, and the ceremony and reception in June were really quite lovely.

June

I'm still not exactly sure precisely when it was that Strutt, Alissa, Clinton, Jeff, Parker and my jam sessions in the basement on Chandler Street coalesced into something that could be defined as a "band." Looking back as a historian at the Facebook message board exchanges between us, I would say it really took shape sometime in the month of June when we started work on a few originals we now have in our lineup.

"Common Swift" has played a backyard, a coffee shop and a bar so far, and then we promptly recused ourselves from the public eye to piece together a demo disk to pass off to a few bars around the Madison area. We're also in the midst of doubling the number of original tunes we bring to the table, and hope to be back out performing for people instead of microphones again sometime later this winter.

But mostly it's a lot of damn fun.

July

If I take one lesson away from 2008, it will be what my good buddy Cam taught me in July: when it comes to rehydrating after heavy physical exertion, energy drinks and power waters are no substitute for a good, cold beer.

Counterintuitive, but true.

I've known Cameron since the sixth grade. We've canoed the boundary waters together, we've ridden the New Mexico highlands on horseback, but racing with my formidable D3 nationals steeplechase champion pal was one adventure I had never planned to undertake.

That all went out the window when we finally bit the bullet and signed up to race in Madison's 2008 Paddle and Portage. I've always wanted to run in a race, and this city is home to a number of strenuous competitions of note -- the Iron Man triathalon, the Crazylegs Classic -- but none but the P&P have ever really appealed to me.

I blogged about the experience at the time, but looking back, it is one of the year's prouder achievements. I'd like to do it again, if Cam doesn't find a partner in better shape than I. Weakest link though I may have been, we did relatively well for first timers, and a little extra training and a little better luck next time around ought to do us some good.

August

The most difficult part about transitioning into the working world for me has been the growing disconnect I feel with the natural world. While some people go to a church to get closer to God, there's nowhere I feel as spiritual than as far away as possible from the buildings and roads built by man.

Whereas I used to find time regularly to get out away from the city lights and revel in nature, staying abreast of the day-to-day activities of Madison's newsmakers leaves little time for quiet contemplation and solitude. Thankfully, my spiritual vaccuum hadn't quite peaked by August, when my Dad, my Grandpa and I fled the civilized world to the northwoods of Ontario.

Following an ugly dispute with my old management company and the move from the near west side to the near east side, and amid a hectic work schedule, that trip likely saved my sanity.

September

If the greatest week of August was one of quiet solitude, September peaked with a weekend of raucous revelry. After my hometown of Monroe's infamous "Cheese Days" festival, I've already marked my calendar for Cheese Days 2010 with a sense of wistful impatience.

In the span of two and a half days, I introduced a dozen friends to another dozen old friends, played a backyard rock show, caught up with my family, stayed up almost to sunrise two nights in a row, listened to live blues and traditional Swiss music in the same 15 minute span, purchased untold volumes of cheese and beer and regrounded myself in Wisconsin tradition.

One of the weekend's highlights was a visit to the Minhas Brewery (call it what they will though, I'll always know it as the Joseph Huber Brewery) to drink from the wellspring of one of my favorite beers. From left to right, Adam, Larry, Tim, Emily, Joe and Pete accompanied me on the tour of Berghoff's proud home, the oldest operating brewery in the state of Wisconsin.

I felt like Charlie in the chocolate factory, giddy as a kid on Christmas.

October

I don't want to say October was all business, but it was a near thing. Tim, Aaron and I really began to buckle down on our job putting together a submission cut of "Your Signs" for the Wisconsin Film Festival's "Wisconsin's Own" category. There were a number of gorgeous afternoons I would just as soon have been outside on the motorcycle enjoying a stunningly mild autumn, but instead, the lion's share were spent with a member of the cast stuffed in my makeshift recording booth, Tim curled up with a script and notebook in a chair or on the floor rocking back and forth, and me hunched over the controls, steadily intoning, "Take it in three, two, one" -- thousands of times.

I'm damn proud of the work we've done on this project in the waning months of 2008. By first converting my closet into a gerry-rigged ADR studio, and then utilizing my entire apartment as a foley studio for several weeks, I was able to contribute some valuable depth to the experience of watching the film. Aaron has worked miracles with his editing, and Tim's dedication to every aspect of the project continues to go beyond anything I've ever seen in a human being.

We turned in our submission cut on December 1. We're awaiting word on whether we'll be accepted, but in the meantime, we're now down to working on the nitty-gritty details of our final cut.

November

Like the morning of September 11, 2001, like the afternoon Brett Favre made his retirement speech, people discussing the night of November 4, 2008 will always preface the conversation with the question, "Where were you?"

No matter your political persuasion, you can't dispute the palpable electricity that ran through our country on election night. Almost everyone I talked to on New Year's Eve mentioned Barack Obama's election as one of the high points of their year. Branton (left), Ben (right) and I discussed it in particular as 2009 rolled in, as we met late that night on State Street in the midst of the gleeful pandemonium that ensued.

It's a night I hope to tell my kids and grandkids about someday.

December

Yes, I neglected my blog in the waning months of 2008. It was an emotionally draining year, and I needed some time to get back in touch with the concept of "me-time" before I went pelting headlong into another year. Please don't "dismantle the fan club," Jessica.

So what did I do with all that time I didn't spend writing? I mostly tried to get out and have fun, seeing a handful of dear friends I hadn't spent time with in ages. My buddy Dalto came back to Wisconsin from what's become a permanent stint teaching in inner-city Houston. BK made the journey back to Madison from California, where he's a software guru for Cisco. The parade of faces has been almost endless, in fact, and it's gotten easy to mix up who's told me which ridiculous new story of some fabulous, alien place.

There was a lot of digging out to be done in December, what with the extreme snowfall we're dealing with once again. But in order to keep from resenting the outdoors this winter, we've taken to the ice of Monona Bay for occasional broomball matches again this winter. Not a week after the ice spread across the lakes, we organized our first pickup game, and seeing as one person suffered a bloodied lip and another was rendered momentarily unconscious, we considered it a roaring success.

We're playing again this Saturday afternoon. Anyone with a winter jacket and a broom is welcome to attend.

I spent a good chunk of time with my family as well over the holidays: my parents, my 16 and 20-year-old sisters, both sets of grandparents, and my aunt. It's been a year of healing for the family, and spending the holidays together was as much fun as it was a blessing. I'm lucky to have them, and I really do cherish the time we spend together.

And I swear to god I'm doing to dynamite the singing holiday clock my mom hangs on the kitchen wall at Christmas time.

So what does 2009 hold? Well, it'll be hard-pressed to top 2008, but I'll take it in stride for what it's worth. I'm having way more fun than any gainfully employed adult ought to, and I hope it continues through my 24th year on this planet. I'm hoping to sneak in a trip to someplace warm in February, to keep from finally losing my patience with Wisconsin's climate and running off to the Cayman Islands. I'd also like to try a "motorcycle odyssey" to someplace remote this summer, with just a tent, a pair of jeans and a leather jacket to get me across the country, just for the stories I'd have to tell.

That, I think, is one of the biggest blessings of 2008 -- the health and happiness of the people I love, and the stories we now have to tell as a result.