Wisconsin Is Open for Beer

Minnesota's two-week-old state government shutdown got real yesterday when MillerCoors was ordered to stop selling beer because of expired licenses.

Can you imagine the mayhem if that happened here? It’d make the Riverwest mobs look like playtime.

Still, as neighbors, I feel that Wisconsin is obliged to help our beer-besieged brothers to the west. We just have to tweak our message a bit:

New Memewaukee! Kramp & Adler Simply Walk Into Mordor

I'm a sucker for Internet memes—viral videos and images such as keyboard cat, sad Keanu, advice dog, imma let you finish and the like.

And I think it's time we added some local flair to these gems of Internet culture:

Stay tuned for more Memewaukee! I mean, moar. MOAR!!1!

Is That a Gun in Your Pocket, or Are You Just Excited to Carry One?

The more-guns-makes-us-safer crowd can now sleep soundly (with a .45 under their pillow, no doubt) after securing passage of Wisconsin's new concealed-carry law.

But having come from Minnesota—which passed a similar law several years ago—I can tell you from experience that concealed weapons have a negligible effect on violent crime. The only tangible thing our legislature accomplished is that now we can look forward to seeing these on the doors of most Wisconsin businesses:

That, and an endless pissing match over whether guns should be allowed in places such as churches, schools and daycare centers.

I can only hope that our gun-loving brethren will respect differences of opinion on the matter... if Snoopy can learn to respect signs, they can too.

Fratricide in Milwaukee Music

I can't image what Milwaukee's Brian Hoffer hopes to accomplish with this Facebook ad:

Really? You just recorded your debut album, and now you're insulting the one venue that might actually give your drowsy pop some airtime? Doesn't seem like a wise marketing strategy, especially from someone whose main gig is, in fact, marketing (for Milwaukee Recreation, if I'm not mistaken).

Maybe there's some bad blood between Hoffer and 88Nine. Maybe Hoffer isn't very serious about his music. Or maybe he simply doesn't care whether Into the Boulevard reaches a wider audience.

If that's the case, don't expect anyone else to care, either.

DPW Adds an Extra Day to June

If you notice a bunch of uncollected garbage on the southside this holiday weekend, I have a pretty good idea why:

There are, of course, only 30 days in June, leaving us to guess whether the city was going to collect on Friday, July 1. The answer, we now know, is "no."


I guess somebody over at the Department of Public Works never heard this rhyme: