VOLUME 11, NO. 30 | AUGUST 25, 2011 by Second Supper

INSIDE...

La Crosse's Free Press

Finding Bachmann in Babbitt Page 4

VOLUME 11, NO. 30 | AUGUST 25, 2011

Bikes and cars, living together? The culture clash of Complete Streets

PHOTO BY ASHLY CONRAD

Page 5

PLUS: PRAIRIE GRASS IN PICTURES • PAGE 6 | Y MARKS THE SPOT • PAGE 7 | SHOT TO HELL'S NEW CD • PAGE 9

2// August 25, 2011

Second Supper

COMMUNITY LA CROSSE’S NEWEST & TRUEST PUB & EATERY WITHOUT THE FRANCHISE!

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WHERE WERE YOU BORN? Duluth, Minnesota

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WHAT'S THE LAST THING YOU BOUGHT? Cranberry juice

IF YOU COULD LIVE ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD, WHERE WOULD IT BE? The Amazon

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WHAT IS YOUR PET PEEVE? People who leave the caps off WHAT IS YOUR BEVERAGE OF CHOICE? Milk CELEBRITY CRUSH: Bruce Willis WHAT BOOK ARE YOU CURRENTLY READING? Severed by Simon Kernic WHAT IS YOUR GUILTIEST PLEASURE? Sleeping

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Prairie Grass 2011 : More on page 6

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It cranks our chain Moon Boot Posse's Patrick Ferry, left, and Paul Matushek shred a little La Crosse love into the crowd at last weekend's Prairie Grass Music Festival in nearby Houston, Minnesota. Our coverage of the second-year festival continues on page 6.

Second Supper

August 25, 2011 // 3

FIRST THINGS FIRST Party like a legionnaire

Things To Do Have a folkin' blast!

Stumped on what to do this weekend? Like folk music? Well we’ve got the perfect place for you to get down this weekend. The Great River Folk Fest kicks off on Friday evening with Grammy winner Loudon Wainwright III at 7:30 p.m. at the Cartwright center at UW-La Crosse. The fest features great acts from around the country like Carrie Elkin, Radosalv Lorkovic and Café Accordion Orchestra. The festival features not just top-notch folk music but craft demos, a dance tent and loads of great food. The food is nearly as diverse as the music, with the Jewish Women’s League (Sunday Only) serving up some Israeli salad, and Jeanluc Rondreux featuring some of the finest Crepes this side of the Atlantic. The Great River Folk Fest has something for everyone including the kiddies. So rain or shine get yourself down to UW-L for some great entertainment and good eats. Tickets are available at the event.

The Top

Bicyclist pet peeves 1. Torn pant legs 2. Broken glass 3. Bike thieves 4. Pot holes 5. Rude drivers 6. Wet seats 7. No spots on the rack

Laugh local

Not to be outdone by SNL, La Crosse has it’s own sketch comedy group and they’re back for another run at the Pump House. Heart of La Crosse is a sketch and improvised comedy group comprised of some local comedians. The group has been around for three decades and is as funny as ever. This year the group is doing nie shows at the Pump House starting on September 1 and running through the 17th. Opening night is half price so come early and come ready for funny. This year’s show, Recall of the Wild or No Harm, No fowl promises to split your sides. All the shows start at 7:30 p.m. and if you get your tickets in advance they’re $21, $24 at the door, unless of course you head out on opening night when tickets are only $12.

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The 6th annual Onalaska Legion Community days opens on Friday evening at 6 p.m. at the Onalaska Legion. It’s no sunfish days but it does combine some of Wisconsin’s finest pastimes into one neat fest. Saturday morning gets started bright and early with a pancake breakfast followed by a softball and euchre tournament. Flashback is set to perform at the Fireman’s dance on Saturday evening and Sunday promises to be just as exciting. There will be a bean bag tournament, Texas Hold’em tournament and a kids fishing derby. There is no button or admission fee to enter the fest so this fest fits into any budget.

Support the troops, and Craig Newsome

There is no time like the present to send some support and jerky (bring a package to send to troops stationed overseas) to our troops. Operation “Summer Salute” runs from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday at the Best Western Riverfront Hotel. There is plenty to keep you busy all afternoon, with the Olson Dunn Band performing as well as former Packer Craig Newsome on hand to sign some autographs and a smattering of games like cornhole, mini golf and ladder golf. There will also be a performance from the always fantastic River City Waterski Team from 4 to 5 p.m. Admission is $10 per person.

Our kind of garden party

It’s nearly harvest season and what better way to celebrate than heading to the Kane Street Community Garden to try some local beer and wine from Pearl Street Brewery, Dutcher Crossing Winery and Vernon Vineyards. There will also be some tasty garden inspired appetizers prepared by local chefs from Pogreba, Hackberry’s Bistro and Nell’s City Grill. Tickets are $50 dollars and all proceeds go to the Hunger Task Force.

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614 Main St., La Crosse, WI 54601 Phone: (608) 782-7001 Online: secondsupper.com Publisher: Roger Bartel roger.bartel@secondsupper.com Editor in Chief: Adam Bissen adam.bissen@secondsupper.com Student Editor: Emily Faeth emily.faeth@secondsupper.com Sales: Mike Keith mike.keith@secondsupper.com Sales: Ansel Ericksen ansel.ericksen@secondsupper.com Graphic Designer: Jenn Bushman Regular Contributors: Amy Alkon, Erich Boldt, Mary Catanese, Jason Crider, Ashly Conrad, Ben DeLine, Marcel Dunn, Brett Emerson, Shuggypop Jackson, Jonathan Majak, Matt Jones, Briana Rupel, Julie Schneider, Stephanie Schultz, Nate Willer, Ralph Winrich Second Supper is a weekly alternative newspaper published by Bartanese Enterprises LLC, 614 Main St., La Crosse, WI 54601

4// August 25, 2011

COMMUNITY

Second Supper

Revelation in the Corn

Our intrepid reporter reads up on Bachmann, Babbit and the resurgent Right By Bob Treu Special to Second Supper Some instinct drove me to buy a copy of Sinclair Lewis’ Babbitt on a recent road trip. Appropriately enough I was standing in Minnesota at the time, which is Lewis’ home state. More precisely, I was in the Monkey See, Monkey Read book store in downtown Northfield, where we had missed by a few days a reenactment of Jesse James’ robbery of a local bank, and where we had just finished strolling around the empty campus of Saint Olaf and trying to guess what there was about the classy old stone buildings that had caused James Gatz to reject the place and turn into Gatsby. Even our road trips have a nasty habit of turning literary. Meanwhile another Minnesotan, Michelle Bachmann, who does at times seem a product of her own fiction, was an hour south of us, rolling back and forth across Iowa like a corn picker, reaping votes and eliminating Tim Pawlenty, a fellow Republican and Minnesotan, from the presidential race. Somehow I thought immersing myself in Minnesota would lead me to some un-

derstanding of what was happening to my country, and perhaps explain how the state that gave us such serious politicians as Walter Mondale, Gene McCarthy and Paul Wellstone had come to embrace Michelle. So there I was in Northfield, staring at the Penguin edition of Babbitt, which displays Grant Wood’s painting of a Midwestern businessman on its cover. The price was $5 and I couldn’t resist it, but the instinct wasn’t exactly literary. Lewis may have been our first Nobel laureate in literature, but no one reads him for his glowing sentences or finely drawn characters. He was, at least in my memory, a so-so novelist with a sharp eye for the American prairies, a place ridden with the gaps and perforations of the absurd. I respected him but hadn’t read him in years. Lewis’ Zenith is the world before the New Deal, a place of glorious free markets where the word of God rules, more or less. It’s the place where the religious right would take us, if they could, and as I read the opening chapters I began to see Babbitt as a 1920’s version of Michelle Bachmann. It’s a small, dumb place to begin, but both Babbitt and Bachmann are obsessed

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with image, and therefore clothing. Babbitt begins his day fussing about choosing a suit of the right color. He finally takes a gray one but proudly decorates it with a purple scarf, as if a real estate agent might be inspired by Oscar Wilde. Similarly, the photographers who were privileged to fly with Bachmann on her private jet were told they were free to snap Michelle in formal campaign attire, but there would be no photos of her in casual clothes. It is all part of our general Midwestern peppiness, or what Babbitt calls “boosterism”--an overabundance of energy and good cheer advocated by people like Norman Vincent Peale in The Power of Positive Thinking. Michelle Bachmann displays it every time she speaks, flapping her arms up and down with such energy we expect her to take flight. And both my characters are well educated. Babbitt has not only graduated from a state university, but has sent his daughter to Bryn Mawr. He even remembers a bit of Latin. There may have been such real estate agents in the ‘20s. I don’t know. Bachmann graduated from the state university at Winona, an upscale river town we passed through on our sojourn to Northfield. It was there she crusaded for Christ and met her husband, but her academic achievements did not end in Winona. She studied something called Christian Jurisprudence at Oral Roberts University, and also worked for John Eismoe, helping him do research for his Christianity and the Constitution, a scholarly tome that argues, without benefit of bibliography or index, against separation of church and state. She had become a Christian activist. It is in their religious attitudes that Bachmann and Babbitt differ most widely. Babbit goes to church because it makes good business sense, but he refuses to join the attack on a local minister who supposedly preaches sedition and free love. Eventually Babbitt defies Zenith’s standards by falling into an affair with the love-fairy he has been dreaming about nightly. I won’t spoil

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the book by telling you how all that turns out, but Babbitt calls himself a liberal, a term which carried no particular shame in his era. In fact, you were supposed to be liberal, even if you were a Republican, because it marked you as a forward looking, intelligent person. If you thought the marriage of religion and free market economics was the peculiar contribution of President Reagan, you will be surprised by the following passage, in which Rev. Drew explains to Babbitt the damage done by the critics of God’s economic laws: “I am certainly criticizing the systems in which the free and fluid motivation of independent labor is to be replaced by cooked-up wage scales and minimum salaries and government commissions and labor federations….What is not generally understood is that this whole industrial matter isn’t a question of economics. It’s essentially and only a matter of Love, and of the practical application of the Christian religion!” When you’ve read this as satire forty years ago, it is a little difficult to take it seriously now, coming from the mouth of a Bachmann or a Perry. Unfortunately Bachmann takes these ideas very seriously. Besides recommending the work of John Eidsmoe, who tries to show how the founding fathers were never influenced by the Enlightenment at all, but solely by the inerrant word of God, she thinks we can learn from J. Steven Wilkins, a biographer of Robert E. Lee. He has this to say: “Slavery, as it operated in the pervasively Christian society which was the old South, was not an adversarial relationship founded upon racial animosity. In fact, it bred on the whole, not contempt, but, over time, mutual respect. ...The credit for this startling reality must go to the Christian faith.” We can only guess how startled Frederick Douglass would have been by this version of “reality,” but it’s fun to guess. It also explains why Bachmann had no trouble signing the Defense of Marriage Pledge, which claims African American children were better off under slavery than in President Obama’s America (the phrase was later deleted). For all its faults, you cannot imagine anyone in Zenith listening to such stuff. Nor can you imagine Lewis’s characters taking Wisconsin’s Governor Walker seriously when he tells us our rights from God, not government. They did not think of the social contract as outlined in The Declaration or the ideas of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address as the voice of secular evil. So yes, Lewis is still worth reading. He’s a better novelist than I remembered, but then I grew up in the bad old days when politicians didn’t sign pledges to special interest groups and simply promised to keep an open mind. All in all, Lewis made the ride home less depressing. If he forced me to measure the depths to which we have sunk since the 1920s, he also reminded me there’s always a way forward, if we’re brave enough to take it.

Second Supper

COMMUNITY

August 25, 2011 // 5

Putting our two-wheeled future forward —into law La Crosse leads with 'Complete Streets'

By Emily Faeth emily.faeth@secondsupper.com

On an average weekday morning during the fall and spring of the past several years, my routine was usually the same. Roll out of bed, curse at the clock, brush my teeth, throw on some clothes, head out the door and hop on my Schwinn. My morning commute to campus took me up Fifth Avenue to Market Street, where I’d turn right and pedal toward West Avenue. Most mornings, this stretch was a pleasant ride, despite my anxiety over getting to class on time. But by the time I’d hit Market and West, the smooth serenity of biking would be broken. “Get out of the road!” angry drivers, equally as anxious to make it to their destinations on time, would shout at me from cracked windows. “Hurry it up!” Sometimes I’d flip them the bird, but most of the time, I’d just grit my teeth and try to make it through the intersection as smoothly as possible, trying to ignore those flashes of my life in my periphery as I avoided being creamed by their SUVs. I’m pretty sure those early morning bike rides shortened my life considerably, though that’s probably been made up for by the fact that I was biking instead of riding. So you can imagine my relief and gratitude after learning that La Crosse has become the first municipality in the state of Wisconsin to adopt a “Complete Streets” ordinance. Or rather, you can imagine the relief and gratitude I felt after learning what that actually means. In a broad sense, Complete Streets is an ordinance which requires city planners and engineers to examine ways to make the city more bicycle- and pedestrian-friendly. District 8’s City Councilman, Bob Seaquist, who introduced the plan for Complete Streets to the council several months ago, has been an avid bicyclist for much of his life, participating in cross-state rides for more than 25 years. After bicycling for dozens of miles during these trips, participants would explore the towns they visited on foot. “You start to become really critical of towns that have narrow sidewalks — or no sidewalks,” Seaquist explains his reasons for supporting more comprehensive evaluations of our city’s streets. “Another part of it is knowing people who have some sort of a disability — they don’t need any more obstacles. You gain an awareness of that, too, if you’re a parent pushing a baby carriage and you get to a curb.” Some of the changes implemented by Complete Streets are already visible. Bike lanes have been extended to parts of 7th Street, Ward Avenue, and La Crosse Street. And more support for bicyclists — including the new bike racks downtown, as well as the roundabout on 19th and King streets designed to ease traffic flow — have been evident in the city for months already, though not necessarily a part of Complete Streets.

But changes will not take place overnight-instead, city planners will work with the community and engineers to create best-possible scenarios for future city infrastructure projects. The benefits of a program like Complete Streets, which was prominently promoted by the Driftless Region Bicycle Coalition, are numerous and varied. “The ultimate goal is to encourage all modes of transportation,” says Tim Kabat, executive director of Downtown Mainstreet, Inc. “[To emphasize] the diversity of transportation. And I think that’s going to be a great benefit to a place like downtown La Crosse [in terms of business]. Our streets [downtown] are already pretty walkable, and you’ve got your one-stop-shop for all of your daily needs in one place down here. So moving toward a more Complete Streets type of community is going to bring more people downtown, benefit downtown even more.” Kabat also hopes that by making downtown more accessible to bicyclists and pedestrians of all walks (excuse me), more workers will be encouraged to choose healthy means of transportation to the places of business downtown, creating a healthier community overall. Indeed, the Complete Streets ordinance is part of a broader push from the city to make La Crosse a healthier place to live and work, says Mayor Matt Harter, who supported the proposal. In addition to advocating for Complete Streets, the mayor, who says he enjoys biking when he has time, says the city recently moved to make healthy commuting options for city employees even more appealing. “Just last month, we adopted a resolution and set aside funding to construct a shower room in the basement of City Hall to encourage people to bike [or] walk to work...or even [if they] would like to exercise on their lunch hour,” says Harter. Still, challenges remain. While everyone I spoke to agreed that La Crosse is aready a bicycle-friendly community — in fact, the League of American Bicyclists has awarded La Crosse with a bronze-level due to its commitment towards promoting cycling — Captain Jason Melby of the La Crosse Police Department shared some of my concerns regarding inattentive or unaware drivers (bicyclists, too), or those who’d rather see the bikes off the streets. “One of the biggest things with the Complete Streets initiative is that our motorists have never seen these bike lanes painted, and don’t quite know how to...I don’t want to say don’t know how to operate around them, but they need an education on what they are and how they are to be used,” Melby said. “They are intended for bicycle traffic. They are not intended to be used for parking...It’s a designated bike lane, and it’s intended to keep the bicyclists safer.” However, said Melby, the department hasn’t seen any significant increase in bicy-

PHOTO BY ASHLY CONRAD

La Crosse is the first Wisconsin city to adopt Complete Streets legislation that promotes bicycle-centric development.

PHOTO BY ASHLY CONRAD

New bike arrows have been painted on Seventh Street, above, and lanes have been added other roadways. cle-traffic related incidents related to the promotion of cycling in the city. In addition, the LCPD has recently received grants from the state Department of Transportation to put more of a police presence on the street to ensure safety as the upcoming school year commences and more young people hit the streets. Thus, as often is the case, the issue boils down to education. The changes taking place to ensure safety on the roads will undoubtedly take time to be implemented, but hopefully in that time, more members of our community can be educated to understand how cyclists and motorists can indeed share the road--along with pedestrians, folks in wheelchairs, on skateboards, recumbents, or whatever the case may be. As for me, I still hold my breath and hope for the best when crossing West Avenue.

PHOTO BY ASHLY CONRAD

The La Crosse Police Department will enforce bike safety.

6// August 25, 2011

The Big, Terrible Silence By Brett Emerson brett.emerson@secondsupper.com I don’t adapt quickly, but I do adapt brilliantly. I act with the speed of an ice age. My process of learning involves a lot of trial and error, a lot of intellectual probing and catastrophic screwing up before I figure out the scheme, and then, poof, I’m a half-assed expert. I come into the game with everyone around me convinced that I’m the dumbest creature to ever evolve thumbs, but when I’ve hit my stride I suddenly become a sullen, sarcastic, shambling shade of gold. So it’s not surprising to me that, one month to the day since I traded in extreme social claustrophobia for wonderful, titanic freedom, I still haven’t adjusted. The night that I moved into my new place and joined Clarence Clemons’ band, I was too overwhelmed to think. I paced around the planks of my big, beautiful, empty rooms, amazed that things had worked out so wonderfully. But I couldn’t sit down. I couldn’t stop thinking about things I wanted to get for the place and how I wanted to arrange the furniture. The past year of living in paranoia without any sort of permanent, sealable sanctuary had wound me up to the point where, once a place of silence finally swooped in and presented itself, I reacted with something resembling horror, becoming a poster boy for antisocial shell shock. The plan on that first night was that my girlfriend and I would eat pizza and get drunk on screwdrivers — a luxury that I now, in all my total heavenly glory, can once more afford. Only the food happened, and then we sat, both stunned by the new, scary quiet.

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COMMUNITY Sleep — another luxury that I can once again afford — happened, eventually, but we did not ride in triumph to it like Wagnerian Valkyries. Instead, we slithered into it like sluggish mud men. Anticipation, as usual, disappointed. A month later, I still feel like I’m living in a state of shock. The big spaces are being filled out; the place feels less like a void and more like a nouveau riche dwelling of some insipid Ikea socialite or Wal-Martian dignitary. I live like a normal person. I have the den I’ve always wanted, my folding card table desk and lawn chair recliner ready to accommodate my every bargain basement philosopher-king whim. Yet I feel like I’m still waiting for some big fireworks display to happen before I crank the bolt off the fire hydrant in my brain and let the brain-kids dance around in its street corner flood. There’s still terror, and indecision, and intimidation, and solitary agoraphobia. I’m still waiting, and the time for waiting has passed. In the meantime, I’ve been junkie-devouring all the meager distractions that I’ve brought into this Spartan villa. There’s no more cable TV. No internet. No friends. We watch cartoons on my girlfriend’s computer and, on a future day when we’re not too burned out from and/or pissed off about our respective jobs, we have a mountain of board games to fulfill our senses of communal distraction. But, in the meantime, I’ve used some of my new disposable income to acquire and consume — in my usual hyper-obsessive style — a few video games for my portable systems. They’re games consciously chosen, instead of like back when I used to have one night stands with any random stimuli with 16 bits and a boner, but it still adds up to time that could be better spent. It still adds up to more waiting. Yet I also feel like there are cracks in the old wall. Evidence? Well, this, kind of. In my last place, and even back when I lived alone in La Crosse’s Stately Y Manor, I’d get so freaked out — in my usual hyper-obsessive style — over the minutiae of every sentence of even the most inconsequential things I’d ever written that it would take me a day to creak out something that could have taken an hour’s time. Which is how long this has taken, thus far. Thanks, improv. But this column is something structured, something needed from me, requested from an external source, an editor needing material to fill a newspaper. The true test of success in my new, voided ecosystem is whether I start writing things unasked for, works that nobody but me has any vested interest in the completion of. I have a bizarrely reliable work ethic, despite my tendencies to despise the expectations of others. I do what’s needed. The problem is that, for all my narcissism and megalomania, I haven’t yet adapted to the idea that it’s even more important for me to be brilliant when I’m the person who needs something from me. Instead, my earth-shattering ambitions remain optional. That is bullshit. That must change. We’ll see how that goes. I did buy a lamp for my den tonight. Perhaps it will illuminate something.

Muse Theatre hits a 'Blue' note

By Jonathan Majak jonathan.majak@secondsupper.com

It’s safe to say when the North Presbyterian Church was built, the minds behind it never expected the building would see batboys, sweet transvestites, demon barbers and 1950s girl groups cross its path. But that’s exactly what has happened since the former North Presbyterian Church was bought by Vicki and Don Elwood and turned into the Muse Theatre. Now the Muse Theatre is going to add a bevy of urbanites looking for love to its roster of characters as they put on David Hare’s play “The Blue Room” starting today and running this weekend. An edgy play, the show details the trials and tribulations of sex and relationships in a series of two-person scenes. For cast member Adam Fogelson, the frank nature of the script wasn’t something he was scared of at all. “There’s nothing nervous about it,” said Fogelson, who also is a member of the Viroqua improvisation group the Underground Players. “It is odd to kiss two actresses young enough to be my daughter,” he added with a laugh. “It’s not scary, and it’s definitely not horrifying.” According to cast member Sierra Schermerhorn, the lack of a traditional linear plotline and the vignette-centric nature of the show where each character has two scenes creates a different sort of dynamic for both the audience and the performer “It’s a lot quicker,” Schermerhorn explained. “You don’t take an hour and a half to build these relationships. It’s like a snapshot.”

Medium: Stimulus: Anno:

Literature Andrew Potter — The Authenticity Hoax 2010

It took me a while to figure out the precise slant of this criticism of the modern personal vision quest, but once its pieces came together, The Authenticity Hoax became a book close to my heart. The message gets a bit crass at times, and the professionally offended will no doubt get their time clocks punched at Andrew Potter’s criticism of minority cultures. Yet the main thrust of the book, that the modern crusade for authenticity is just another phony pop culture product, is examined as well as a pop culture sociology book could hope to do. Other points made in the book that I really agree with: we’re all bullshitting ourselves by thinking that everyone else is a mindless drone while we’re the only beautiful and unique snowflake in the world; if something or someone is said to be authentic it usually isn’t, and being “real” has become just another form of exclusionary status-seeking. One thing I didn’t quite get was Potter’s defense of the free market. With all of his points about how the world does in fact suck, I suppose he assumes capitalism is the least of all economic evils, but that hardly merits his stating that it does more good than harm (being that this is a very subjective question). There’s something in Potter’s tone whenever

Cast member Katie Bakalars emphasized that in spite of the risqué nature and language of the show, it’s not merely a play meant to shock. “Once you get into, it’s very human,” Bakalars said. “The Blue Room” by its subject matter and plot construction is a very intimate show, which some people assume would make actors want to work with people they are friends with instead of strangers. But according to cast member Paul Hibbard, working opposite someone you don’t know has its own freedoms. “Half of scene work is getting to know your scene partner,” Hibbard said. “When you’re working with somebody you don’t know, it creates a surprise because of how you react to how you’re playing things and how they are playing things.” “Damn us for knowing each other,” interjected a laughing Bakalars. According to cast members, the fact that a show like “The Blue Room” is being produced in La Crosse highlights both the openness of the town as well as the Muse Theatre’s role in the community. “The Muse is helping,” said Hibbard. “It’s willing to take chances.” “It says that La Crosse is a lot hipper than I thought it was,” said Fogelson. The Blue Room” by David Hare opens today at The Muse Theatre and runs through Saturday with 7:30 p.m. shows. Tickets are $15. For more information go to The Muse Theatre website, www.musetheatre.com.

he mentions the free market that makes him come off as a bit of an acolyte, and I’m not sure what capitalism has to do with his general subject. He does spend the book’s conclusion discussing the rise of Soviet nostalgia in former Soviet countries, raising the question that I always love seeing raised: why one genocidal regime of the 20th Century is condemned to be the century’s boogeyman while another equally monstrous regime is softened to rosecolored nostalgia and adorable kitsch. Potter describes his adventures in the thriving Soviet tourism business as well as the bizarre longing from some former Reds to go back to the good old days, when men were men and secret police were secret police. Because, you know, gulags and police states sucked and all, but at least you really knew where you stood! The Retro USSR is the most extreme example of a type of romanticized delusion that Potter takes to task for being silly and, well, inauthentic. Phoniness, as he explains, pervades all aspects of our societies, but that’s no reason to abandon all possessions and live in the woods. He doesn’t really offer any suggestions as an alternative, save this: stop trying to be real and just be real. Which is actually the right answer, I think.

— Brett Emerson

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MUSIC

August 25, 2011 // 7

Prairie Grass catches fire

By Mitch Luehring Special to Second Supper

Once again Prairie Grass Music Festival brought a cast of national and regional talent to the Coulee Region this past weekend at the Outback Ranch near Houston, Minnesota. For a second straight summer, the festival featured three stages highlighting diverse brands of music ranging from bluegrass and reggae to funk and electronic dance music. With a higher attendance than last year’s event and fans traveling from as far as Fargo, Milwaukee, Des

Moines, and everywhere in between, the festival looks to be picking up some momentum. This year’s organizers improved the layout of the grounds to include a larger vending space filled with food, clothing, and art to delight all the senses. They also incorporated dramatic views of the surrounding bluffs into the backdrop of both the side stage and the campground stage. Look for this event to return next summer, get some passes early, and don’t miss the opportunity to camp in a nearby coulee as bands and fans flock to our home turf for a weekend to remember.

Melvin Seals and the JGB, the “keepers of the flame,” filled Friday’s headlining slot with a set of largely original music. PHOTOS BY MITCH LUEHRING

Fans from around the Midwest descended on this year's Prairie Grass Music Festival, easily exceeding last year's attendance.

Michael Travis plays some guitar during EOTO's Thursday night set that also featured Steve Kimock.

La Crosse’s own Moon Boot Posse took advantage of a late Friday night set time to impress festival-goers as they jammed to a blend of prog-rock and reggae. Real troopers, they also played Saturday afternoon before closing down the Popcorn that night.

Roster McCabe brought their signature polished pop-rock sound to a beautiful Friday afternoon show on the side stage.

Steve Kimock, shown here with the JGB, was a multi-show guest star at the festival.

Minneapolis based New Primitives warmed up Saturday’s crowd with worldly flavored rhythms blended with guitars and horns.

8// August 25, 2011

Second Supper

MUSIC

music directory // August 26 to September 1

FRIDAY,

August 26

GENE WEEN // September 10 Pabst Theater • $20-$22 YO GABBA GABBA // September 16 Riverside Theater • $35.11-$45.67

CHILDREN’S MUSEUM // 207 5th Ave. S. Ugandan Orphan’s Choir (African traditional) • 10:30 a.m.

Cheech & Friend (good time jam) • 5 p.m. PIGGY'S BLUES LOUNGE // 501 Front St. S. The Pumps (rock, blues) • 8 p.m.

596,974

ALISON KRAUSS // September 10 Riverside Theater • $89

CARTWRIGHT CENTER // 1725 State St. Loudon Wainwright III, Trina Hamlin (Great River Folk Fest) • 7:30 p.m.

PEARL STREET BREWERY // 1401 St. Andrew St.

Milwaukee population

BODEGA BREW PUB // 122 4th St. Julica Rose (R&B, rock, blues) • 10 p.m.

FIELD HOUSE // W5450 Keil Coulee Rd. Burnt Brownies featuring Cheech (rock, jamband) • 8 p.m.

just a roadie away

SWANS // September 21 Turner Hall • $20 Last summer, we here at Second Supper were deeply saddened to hear of the news of the death of local author Andy Revels, creator, founder, and host of Planet Revels (PRTV). But we’re overjoyed to see the community coming together to support his mission, under the motto of “Live Long, Live Strong”, to eliminate juvenile diabetes. On Saturday, head up to Sher-Bear’s on French Island for a benefit in Andy’s honor featuring local favorites Rich Wooten, Ed Fagen, Dan Berger,T.U.G.G. (pictured), NEON, Spinoff, Geared Under, My Lady Four, Abbey Lane and the Backbone, Journeymen, Cardiac Radio, Rick Weeth, The Quick Are the Dead, and Deadset. Your $10 admission includes food, beer, and contributes100 percent to The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

GORDON LIGHTFOOT // September 22 Pabst Theater • $45 CUT COPY // September 22 Turner Hall • $22.50-$25 STS9 // September 30 Riverside Theatre • $22.25

POPCORN TAVERN // 308 S. Fourth St. POPCORN TAVERN // 308 S. Fourth St. POPCORN TAVERN // 308 S. Fourth St. Evergreen Grass Band (bluegrass, Som’n Jazz (som’n) • 10 p.m. Kin Pick'in (jam grass) • 10 p.m. noodles) • 10 p.m. THE JOINT // 324 Jay St. THE SILVERADO SALOON // 158 S Leonard St. RIVER JACK'S //1835 Rose St. Adam Palm's All Star Jam (last Palm Shoeless Revolution (debut West Sa- Olson Dunn Band (rock, country) • 8 p.m. Sunday of the summer) • 4 p.m. lem performance) • 9 p.m. SCHMIDTY'S // 3119 State Rd. SHER BEARS // 329 Goddard St. THE WATERFRONT TAVERN // 328 Front St. Rich Wooten, Ed Fagen, Dan Berger, Orrico Brothers (bluegrass) • 5:30 p.m. Michael Patrick Trio (jazz, R&B) • 8 p.m. T.U.G.G., NEON, Spinoff, Geared Under, My Lady Four, Abbey Lane and the Backbone, Journeymen, Cardiac MONDAY, SATURDAY, Radio, Rick Weeth, The Quick Are the Dead, Deadset (benefit) • 10 a.m. CARTWRIGHT CENTER // 1725 State St. DEL’S BAR // 229 Third St. Lynn Biddick, DitchLilies, Bryan BowOpen Jam with Cheech • 10 p.m. ers, Two Many Banjos, Susan Werner, THE JOINT // 324 Jay St. Trina Hamlin, Radoslav Lorkovic, Joe Ya See Three (blues, rock, jam) • 10 p.m. POPCORN TAVERN // 308 S. Fourth St. Gow, Don Harvey, Johnsmith, CheezShawn’s Open Jam • 10 p.m. land Uke Band, Carrie Elkin, Jim Knut- THE WATERFRONT TAVERN // 328 Front St. Michael Patrick Trio (jazz, R&B) • 8 p.m. TUESDAY, son (Great River Folk Fest) • 11:30 a.m.

DEL’S BAR // 229 Third St. Brownie Recipe (chocolate jam) • 10 p.m.

HOG WILD BAR //3210 State Rd 35 (Ona) Back Home Boys Country Band • 9 p.m.

FIELD HOUSE // W5450 Keil Coulee Rd. Brownie's Open Jam • 7 p.m.

POPCORN TAVERN // 308 S. Fourth St. Paulie (one-man band) • 8:30 p.m.

NORTH SIDE OASIS // 620 Gillette St. Shawno & Echant (acoustic jam) • 9 p.m.

August 29

August 27

NELL'S CITY GRILL // 1111 S. Third St. Karl Friedline (baritone, guitar) • 6 p.m. NEUIE'S VARSITY CLUB // 1920 Ward Ave. The Trunk Monkeys (rock, blues) • 9 p.m. PIGGY'S BLUES LOUNGE // 501 Front St. S. The Pumps (rock, blues) • 8 p.m.

SUNDAY,

August 28

FIELD HOUSE // W5450 Keil Coulee Rd. Michael Patrick (acoustic jam) • 6 p.m. CARTWRIGHT CENTER // 1725 State St. Radoslav Lorkovic, Cafe Accordion Orchestra, Carrie Elkin, Johnsmith, Dan Sebranek, Michelle Lynn, Two Many Banjos, Lynn Biddick, Dan Newton (Great River Folk Fest) • 6:30 p.m.

August 30

WEDNESDAY,

August 31

BOOT HILL PUB // 1501 St. Andrew St. Jerry Anderson & Neil Duresky (variety/lounge) • 5:30 p.m.

POPCORN TAVERN // 308 S. Fourth St. Dave Orr (man about town) • 10 p.m. RECOVERY ROOM // 901 7th St. S. Kin Pickin' (jam grass) • 5 p.m. RIVER JACK'S //1835 Rose St. Journeymen (classic rock) • 6 p.m. THE WAREHOUSE // 324 Pearl St. Modsun, Good Problems, Small Town Hope, B-Rolla, Another Exoneration (hip-hop madness) • 6 p.m.

THURSDAY,

September 1

BOOT HILL PUB // 1501 St. Andrew St. Gary Urness & Paul Leithold (jazz) • 5:30 p.m.

THE STARLITE LOUNGE // 222 Pearl St. Kies & Kompanie (jazz) • 5 p.m. TREMPEALEAU HOTEL // 150 Main St. Elliot Arms (acoustic folk-pop) • 7 p.m.

Second Supper

August 25, 2011 // 9

MUSIC

By Jason Crider jason.crider@secondsupper.com It’s a little bit country and a little bit rock and roll. Well, that and a little bit punk, a little bit garage rock, a little bit rockabilly and a little bit grunge. All of these pieces fused together form an immense sound a decade in the making, a sound that local rock/country/etc. act Shot To Hell has managed to perfect into an effortless sounding energy on their upcoming release Somehow Forever. The image on the album’s cover (cowboy boot-covered feet dangling from the album’s upper edge, implying someone who has been hanged) sums it up best: rock and roll sloppiness and bluntness, with a country twang and noholds-barred punk rock delivery, depicting some very dark subject matter in an indirect and sometimes lighthearted/cartoony way. The opening track “Life in Vain” starts off the album’s theme softly with stories of a family’s broken tractor and failing crops, referencing a severe frustration with futile nature of life, “another life/ lived out in vain,” before abruptly putting things into perspective with the line, “listen mother/your son is not here now/off to war in a foreign land/another life/taken in vain.” Letting that sink in, you realize that the initially typical bar-band sounding track that follows is anything but, and that this band has

quite a lot to offer, it’s just hidden behind the blistering guitar work, catchy rock anthems and almost overwhelmingly direct delivery. It’s refreshing to hear a rock group be so down to earth and abstain so completely from cheesy metaphors and tired clichés. Instead, Shot To Hell mainline their lyrical creativity straight into the I-don’t-give-a-fuck vein. “Different Stroke,” possibly the album’s strongest track, starts out with a clean, catchy guitar intro before exploding into an even catchier melody that reminds me a lot of older The Presidents of the United States of America, singing “got a gun but I feel alright/I only get restless when it’s late at night” in a charmingly demented way before laughing, then half screaming “I feel pretty good/but I don’t know what’s in my soul.” At this point the song shifts to a lengthy guitar solo that’s half '80s power rock, half '90s angsty grunge that’s the perfect example of the admirable controlled sloppiness and chaos that this band seems to thrive on. If you like your rock dirty and don’t mind a little raw country influence, definitely do yourself a favor, support this band and pick up a copy of Somehow Forever.

Somehow Forever

Shot To Hell will be playing a CD release show this Saturday at The Frequency in Madison, along with a release show on September 9 at local rock staple Yesterdaze in downtown La Crosse along with local act Lustrous Mud, followed by a performance on Setp. 10 at the Cavalier Lounge’s 5th Avenue Block Party Benefit Concert for the fire victims.

The Paulie Report

The Majak Mixtape By Jonathan Majak jonathan.majak@secondsupper.com Politicians must be, in one degree or another, the biggest collection of foot fetishists we’ve ever encountered; it’s the only way we can explain why they seem to delight putting their own foot in their mouths on such a regular basis. While the United States continues to battle a ballooning debt, the one thing we’ve had a surplus are stupid moments from our leaders. From Christine O’Donnell’s offense at being asked questions about her book while promoting said book to President Obama’s vacationing in Martha’s Vineyard during a stock market meltdown to Mitt Romney’s, well, whole existence, it’s been a gaffe-a-thon of late and what better way to celebrate that than with a mixtape. Isn’t that right, Mixtapers? Of course it is. Behold this week’s Mixtape we’re dubbing, “I Was For the Mixtape Before I Was Against It.” We kick off this mix with MacGyver Knife’s song “Stumble” in honor of Christine O’Donnell’s side-eye-inducing appearance of “Piers Morgan” when, seemingly shocked at the idea Piers would question her beliefs about gay marriage that she writes about in a book she’s on the program promoting, allegedly cut the interview short. Now, to be fair, we’ve watched enough of Piers Morgan’s show that we too

By Paulie Special to Second Supper One-man-band wonder/guitar wiz Paulie (a.k.a. Paul Matushek) delights many every Tuesday night at he Popcorn Tavern. He employs complicated and diverse soundscapes that leaves the audience pleasantly confused and wanting more. Tuesday, 08-16-11

Bizarro Masterpiece Theatre

Set One (1:11)

Medium: Film Stimulus: Gentlemen Broncos (2009) Director: Jared Hess Cast: Michael Angarano, Jemaine Clement, Sam Rockwell Written by: Jared and Jerusha Hess

Jam-> Ghostbusters* Lunge# Etchings-># Midnight at the Oasis$ Set Two (1:17) In The Summertime% Rundown#$$ Lunch-># Starry Night-># Snowflakes in the Sand-> Belly Button Window Set Three (:17) Push on til the Day-> Sleep** # Paulie original * first Ghostbusters since 5-22-05 (a 574 show gap). Also, this well jammed out Ghostbusters was over 15 minutes and featured a "ghostly" disco jam. $ Midnight at the Oasis featured an outro jam that got very dissonant and included chanting recreating the feeling of being lost in the desert, and calls for "agua" and wondering if life is a mar-rage.

PHOTO BY STEVEN OXLEY

% this Mungo Jerry song was played in a grooving 4/4 time signature instead of its usual shuffle. $$ Rundown ended with a reference to Karch Kari, a 90's beach volleyball star. **Sleep ended with a chanted suggestion to "go do something awesome."

Imagine what would happen if Napoleon Dynamite — the film in total, not only the frizzy-haired embodiment of geek irony — was plunged into a barrel of toxic ooze, then set loose to shamble around as its cinematic flesh rotted and peeled from its body. Along with recreating an excellent scene from Robocop, you’d also get something very similar to Gentlemen Broncos. This is one of the most hideous films I’ve seen in a while – and I mean that in the best way. This film sees director Jared Hess attempting to return to the suburban freakshow style that made him a mint with Mr. Dynamite. Yet instead of legitimizing the fringe as he did in his former film, Hess dives into it. While Gentlemen Broncos has more of a plot than its more Seinfeldian predecessor, that fact almost seems secondary. Instead, Broncos feels like it’s trying harder to freak out its audience than to make it laugh. The plot of a boy au-

would be shocked at his fluke moment of being a competent interviewer, but that’s no excuse to not answer questions. When you concede the high ground to somebody who used to be the editor at the allegedly phone-hacking-prone “Daily Mirror,” you’ve failed miserably, Christine. Our next song is “Tourist Trap” from Bright Eyes. President Obama decided to continue with his vacation plans to Martha’s Vineyard in the midst of the stock market’s volatile weeks, so extreme in its ups and downs that we’re pretty sure that Disney is going to turn it into a ride and then turn the ride into a film with Johnny Depp. We’re not saying the President isn’t allowed to take a vacation. We’re just saying it’s like Kim Kardashian wearing white on her wedding day — just because they can, doesn’t mean we ain’t going to make a joke about it. And our last song is “Finally Moving” by Pretty Lights. Oh Mitt Romney, the gift that keeps on giving. As he battles to maintain his frontrunner status and appear as an Everyman to voters, what does he go and decide to do? Demolish his $12 million home in order to build a new one that is quadruple in size. We don’t know what’s more shocking: the fact that he would do that in the midst of a campaign or the fact that his $12 million house was a two-bedroom. Somebody needs to watch their “House Hunters” more often. Buy: YouTube: Read:

The Muppets: Green Album The nominees for this weekend’s MTV Video Music Awards One Thirty BPM www.onethirtybpm.com

Get your daily dose of all the wig-snatching antics of The Majak Mixtape at The Majak Kingdom blog, www.majakkingdom.blogspot.com

thor being plagiarized by a famed sci-fi novelist (played with great baritone self-importance by Flight of the Conchords’ Jemaine Clement) pales in comparison to the terrible spectacle of a bowl-cutted, Nosferatu-mouthed Mexican kid (far and away the film’s most hideous creature) blowing into a girl’s ear for way too long. Or a snake suffering diarrhea on a frizzy mulleted creep’s shoulder. Or the hero’s mother — a ridiculous caricature of a Mormon woman — getting hit by blowgun fire. Or a vomit-caked kiss. Or the plagiarized story in question, a scifi gem named Yeast Lords in which, depending on each author’s fantasies, Sam Rockwell prances around as either an unkempt carnie or a gay Edgar Winter, riding flying deer and romancing a bald woman. Napoleon Dynamite — ligers, bad hairstyles, and all – comes off as positively Hollywood in comparison. Hess has always played fast and loose with unnerving characters and situations, something which, combined with his films’ generally optimistic tones, lent his first film the goofball accessibility that made it such a cultural phenomenon. Gentlemen Broncos has no such designs at widespread acclaim, and whether one enjoys this film or not depends entirely upon what connotations one puts upon the word freakshow. Unsurprisingly, it works for me.

— Brett Emerson

Visit us online at www.secondsupper.com

10// August 25, 2011

The Beer Review Cran-Bic Ale New Glarus Brewing Company New Glarus, Wisconsin This week we continue the beer festival hysterics that I could barely contain in last week’s column. If you’ll recall, I attended the 25th annual Great Taste of the Midwest earlier this month and discovered a veritable bier garden of earthly delights in Madison’s Olin Park. There were over 500 brews from over 125 breweries, and the sheer exultation of the senses could not be condensed into 500 measly words. So right now, as I sit in my living room sipping from my complimentary tasters cup, a 5-ounce wine glass sporting the 25th anniversary logo, I’m flashing back to all the great beers I sampled two sunny

Saturdays ago. This would be a lot easier if I had my official Great Taste program, but I stupidly left that in Madison — right next to my official reporter’s notebook that contained all my tasting notes. I was especially fond of the Real Ale Tent, where over 60 cask-conditioned kegs poured wonders like a Wild Rice Brown Ale with Licorice Root from Minnesota’s Barley John’s Brew Pub. And I bestow my creativity award on Minneapolis’ Town Hall Brewery, whose eye-opening LSD blended lavender, sunflower honey and dates to delicious effect. But as for a beer that I can actually review this week, I’m going to select the CranBic Ale from New Glarus, which you can find in most local grocery stores. There’s a good chance the Cran-Bic was poured at the Great Taste, but with so many fine microbreweries in the park, I didn’t feel the need to patron-

ize Wisconsin’s largest. Upon further reflection, that’s a real testament to the Midwest beer scene. Because if an inventive, locally sourced, oak-aged, Belgian-style Lambic ale is considered unremarkable, then we are certainly living in a region spoiled with beer. Purchase: Four-pack of Cran-Bic Ale from Festival Foods, $8.49 Style: Lambic/fruit ale Strength: 6 percent ABV Packaging: A returning offering from New Glarus’ boundary-pushing Drink Indigenous line (formerly “Unglugged”), Cran-Bic bottles come topped with red foil and bear the Wisconsin “thumbprint” logo. Appearance: The beer pours an unfiltered pinkish gold color with racing carbonation bubbles like champagne beneath a fluffy white head. Aroma: Tart cranberries and green cher-

The Best Food & Drink Specials in Town LOCATION

SUNDAY

BODEGA BREW PUB BROTHERS

CLOSED

306 Pearl St. 784-0522

CARLIE'S ON THIRD

$5 domestic pitchers

1914 Campbell Road 782-7764

FEATURES

W3923 State Highway 16 786-9000

FISH'S BAR & GRILL

Bar Menu

TUESDAY

WEDNESDAY

2-Fers, Buy any regularly priced food item and get one of equal or lesser value for free

$4 Rueben Sliders

$1 Wells, $5 Domestic pitchers All specials 9 p.m. to close

Wristband Night: AUC2D domestic taps, rail mixers, Long Islands. All specials 9 p.m. to close

15-cent wings, $1.50 Keystone Lights, $1.50 rail mixers; $2.50 call drinks. 2 For 1 Captains All specials 9 p.m. to close.

Wristband Night: AUC2D, Domestic taps, rail mixers and Long Islands. $2.50 SoCo & Jack. All specials 9 to close.

Mug Club 9pm-12:30pm $5 for filled mug $1 Domestic Taps, Rail & Long Islands 12:30-Close Ladies night Free Taps Rails & Long Islands *excludes premium long islands.

5 domestic taps for $1; $2 domestic pitchers

$2 domestic pints and $2 rail mixers; $1 shots of Doctor (3 flavors);

All specials 9 to close.

$3 Bacardi mixers; $3 Three Olives vocka mixers (8 flavors); $2 domestic pints and $2 rail mixers

CLOSED

1125 La Crosse St. 784-7400

IMPULSE

214 Main St. 782-6010 www.impulseoflacrosse.com

Free Beer: 5:30-6:30 p.m. Free Wings: 6:30-7:30 p.m. Free Bowling: After 9 p.m.

Taco buffet 11-2; $1 Pabst bottles and $1 bowling after 9

All you care to eat pizza buffet, 11-2 (Holmen)

All you care to eat fish fry 4-10; un- Prime rib dinner 4-10; limited Glow-N-Bowl $9.99 unlimited Glow-N-Bowl $9.99

Bar Menu

La Crosse's Best Tacos: Beef $2, Chicken $2.50

La Crosse's Best Tacos: Beef $2, Chicken $2.50 Dog in a Diaper, $5

Fish’s Fish Taco $3.50

La Crosse's Best Tacos: Beef $2, Chicken $2.50 Chimis and Burritos, $5

9 p.m. to close: $1.25 rails, $1.75 bottles/cans

9 p.m. to close: $2 Captain mixers, $2 bottles/cans, $3 Jager bombs

9 p.m. to close: $2 Bacardi mixers, $2 domestic pints, $1.50 shots blackberry brandy

Free Wing Night (while supplies last); $5 AUC2D wristbands: domestic taps, rail mixers, Long Islands, 9 p.m. to close ($7 after 11p.m.):; live DJ

$5 AUC2D Wristbands 9 p.m. to close ($10 after 11p.m.): Domestic Taps, Rail Mixers, Long Islands; Live DJ, Dancing 9 p.m. to close

Happy Hour 5 to 7 p.m.

Bar Menu

Ladies Night, $1 off all drinks, 4 to All you can eat boneless wings, inclose; Pint-Aritas $3 (lime or straw- cludes a choice of potatoe, slaw and berry) a frosted pint, 4-9:30 p.m., $8.99

Happy hour 4 to 9 p.m.; 9 p.m. to 9 p.m. to close: $3.50 domestic 9 p.m. to close: $1 rails, $2.50 pitch- $5 all you can drink close: Night Before Class - $3 pitch- pitchers ers, beer pong ers of the beast CLOSED

SATURDAY

Fish Tacos: 1 / $2.50, 2 / $5.00, 3 / $6.50.

Happy Hour: 2 for 1 domestic bottles Karaoke 9 p.m. to close and rail drinks, 3 p.m. to 9 p.m.

All you can eat wings, includes a Wisconsin cheese steak sandwich choice of potatoe, slaw and a frosted with a pint of beer, $8.99 pint, 4-9:30 p.m., $8.99

400 Lang Drive 784-2242

HOWIE’S

CLOSED

FRIDAY

$1.50 domestic taps and rail drinks, Bird Brain Trivia 8 p.m.; $1.50 do- Wing Night - 25-cent wings (dine- $1.50 domestic bottles and rail 4 p.m. to close mestic bottles and rails 4 p.m. to in only); $1 Miller High Life silos and drinks, $2 craft bottles, 4 p.m. to close PBR silos; $1.50 taps and rail drinks; close $2 craft taps. All specials 4 to close.

1452 Caledonia St. 782-6446

FLIPSIDE PUB & GRILL

— Adam Bissen

$2 BBQ Pork Sliders

CLOSED

115 3rd St. S 782-7550

THURSDAY

ries are strong on the nose, but it has a sweat bready backbone with notes of rose water. Taste: The cranberries are a nice addition to this beer, as they cut through the cloying sweetness that weighs down many Lambics. The Cran-Bic is puckeringly tart when it hits the tongue, sweetens on notes of peaches and more rose water, turns tart again on the rear tastebuds and finishes clean and dry. Mouthfeel: Light-bodied and bubbly Drinkability: This beer is supremely drinkable and delicious, but I’d recommend saving it until after a good meal. Ratings: BeerAdvocate grades this an A-, while RateBeer scores it an impressive 99. Cran-Bic is just that tasty, so even though we’re living in beer paradise, try not to take it for granted.

MONDAY

122 4th St. 782-0677

EAGLES NEST

Second Supper

YOUR GUIDE TO CONSUMPTION

CLOSED

$5 AUC2D wristbands: domestic taps, rail mixers, Long Islands, 9 p.m. to close; ($7 after 11p.m.): karaoke 10 p.m. to close

JB’S SPEAKEASY

$1.75 domestic bottles, $1.75 Dom Monday Madness: $1.75 domestics bottles and rails, $2.50 Bombs and rails, $2.50 Bombs, $1 off all top shelf and specialty beers

SCHMIDTY’S

$1.79 burger (after 8 p.m.) Breakfast 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.

SLOOPY'S ALMA MATER 163 Copeland Ave. 785-0245

$1.50 Tacos, $4.99 nachos;: $11 Tacos: $11 buckets during pro and 12-inch pizza $8.99 buckets during pro and college foot- college football games. Happy Hour Happy Hour 2 to 6 p.m. ball games. 2 to 6 p.m.; $2 pints all day

14-inch pizza, $2 off; Wings Happy Hour 2 to 6 p.m.

$1.89 hamburger + toppings Ladies Fish Dinner Special-$7.89 night, 2 for 1 drinks (6-close), Happy Hour 2 to 6 p.m. Happy Hour 2 to 6 p.m.

$1.50 Tacos, $4.99 nachos; $11 buckets during pro and college football games.

THE LIBRARY

Wristband Night

$5 Wristbands and $2 Cherry Bombs

$2 bottled beer, double rail mixers & JUMBO long islands, $3 double call mixers & $2.50 shots of Jack Daniels, SoCo & Tuaca

$5 Mug Club (gets you a cup and first drink) with $1 refills & $2.50 Miller Lite bottles and 16oz. silos Ladies Night after 12:30AM, Check it out!

TOP SHOTS 137 4th St. 782-6622

$5 Pitchers/$2 bottles of Miller prod- $1.75 Miller/Bud Light Taps, $2.25 $1.75 Rails, $1.50 Domestic Taps, $2 domestic bottles, $2.50 Skyy/ ucts (11-4pm) $2 Corona Bottles, $2 MIcro/Craft Taps, $2.50 Cherry $3.50 Jager Bombs Absolut mixers, $2 Dr. shots (7-1 Kilo Kai Mixers , $3 Bloodys (7-1 a.m.) Bombs (7-1 a.m.) (7-1 a.m.) a.m.)

5 Domestic Bottles for $10, $5 $2 Captain Mixers, $2. Long Island Micro/Import Bottles $11.50, $7 Mixers, $3 Effen Vodka Mixers (7-1 Micro/Craft Pitchers (7-1 a.m.) a.m.)

$5 Miller/Bud Light Pitchers, $2.25 Leinies Bottles (7-1 a.m.)

POPCORN TAVERN

$2 Lost Lake cans

$1.75 PBR Bottles $2 Lost Lake cans

$2 Miller Light Bottles $2 Lost Lake cans

$2 Grain Belt $2 Lost Lake cans

$2 Coors & Coors Light Bottles $2.50 Skyy mixers $2 Lost Lake cans

$2 Lost Lake cans

WHO'S ON THIRD

Happy Hour until 10 p.m. $1.50 domestic taps, $2 rails from 10 to close

$1.50 taps PBR, $1.50 rails

$2 domestic bottles, $3 call doubles

$2 taps, $3 Jack and Captain doubles

$2 Miller products, $8.50 fish bowls

$2 domestic taps, $3 Three Olives products

717 Rose St. 796-1161

3119 State Road 788-5110

Hat Night: Buy 1 drink, get 1 free w/ Rail drinks $2 (4:30 to close); Buckets of beer $10, Boston Bobby's Margaritas $4 (Straw, rasp, mango, hat (4:30 to close); $1.50 chili dogs After 8 p.m. specials: $5 skewer of drummies 10 for $2 (4:30 to close), peach and reg); After 8 p.m. specials: (after 8 p.m.) shrimp,l $1.79 burger, $1.50 chili dogs $1.79 burger (after 8 p.m.) $5 skewer of shrimp, $1.79 burger

$1 domestic taps and rail mixers and 1/2 price tequilas

123 3rd St. 784-8020

308 4th St. S. 782-9069

126 3rd St. N. 782-9467

Tuesday Boozeday $1 off all liquor Happy Hour 5 to 7 p.m. drinks and 50 cents off all shots, $2 Bombs

Breakfast 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.; lunch buffet 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., $6.99

Second Supper

August 25, 2011 // 11

DIVERSIONS

By Matt Jones

ACROSS

"We Now Interrupt Your Ads" with even more ads

1 "Buddy on ___" (Buckethead song) 6 "Pierrot le ___" (JeanLuc Godard movie) 9 Sheet music header for the viola or bassoon 14 "Drag Me To Hell" director Sam 15 Neighbor of Greece: abbr. 16 Pimiento's place 17 Make an escape 19 Hot dog option 20 Really, really integral baseball stats (or a hair stylist ad interrupted by a cookie ad)? 22 "Annabel Lee" author 23 Alum 24 Hip-hop label "Respecting DJs since 1984" 28 Nat ___ (documentary network, for short) 29 Spooky mammal 32 Native Alaskan 33 Took to court 34 E pluribus ___ 36 Dubliners add liquor to the circle (or a soap ad interrupted by a furniture store ad)? 39 ___ Maarten (Caribbean island) 40 Feels under the weather 41 Sunni's faith

42 One way to wager on horses: abbr. 43 Dachshund diagnoser 44 Ron who's changing his name 45 "Clan of the Cave Bear" author Jean 47 Dept. of the Interior org. that employs forest firefighters 48 Reynolds' impressions of an MTV dimwit (or a cosmetics ad interrupted by a rental car ad)? 54 Stephen Vincent ___ 55 King Arthur's sword 57 Scrabble 3-pointer 58 "Go team!" 59 Circumvent 60 Horny mythical beast 61 Baseball execs 62 Final decision

11 Bellybutton stuff 12 Days before the big day 13 Palin impersonator 18 Gift tag word 21 Wear away 24 Speaker's platform 25 "The river," in Mexico 26 Fakeout move 27 By a hair 28 Remorseful feeling 30 Like an old lady (anagram of ELIAN) 31 Sushi fishies 33 Director of 2011's "The Adventures of Tintin" 35 Band with the 2010 album "Congratulations" 37 Comes to the rescue 38 Money in the sky 44 Thomas Edison's middle name

46 Speak 47 Family of classical composers 48 Test release 49 Student's daily workload 50 Big test 51 Lead single from The Smashing Pumpkins' "Gish" 52 Place to do your bidding? 53 Brew 54 Little bullets 56 Rock's ___ Speedwagon ©2011 Jonesin' Crosswords (editor@ jonesincrosswords.com)

Answers to August 18 puzzle "The Orcs Are Here"— No one will escape

DOWN 1 Wall St. worker 2 Health scare of 20022003 3 "In ___ of flowers..." 4 "___ of the World" (Pat Metheny album) 5 Dirt trail in a park 6 It's a travesty 7 Muffin spread 8 They make techies look tame 9 Hot chocolate 10 Thunderous event

MONDAY 9-BALL TOURNEYS!

Check out our new Beers on Tap!

STARTING: Monday, April 18, 2011 TIME: 6:30 Sign-up, 7:00 Start FEES: $7.00 Entry, $3.00 Greens Fee FORMAT: Handicapped by the ball. Race to 5 - Double Elimination. Player Ratings may change based on performances. 6-7 Rating Levels. 16 WEEK TOURNEY: All who play in at least 6 Weekly’s will be eligible for cash added tourney after 16 weeks.

Good People, Good Drinks, Good Times

SUNDAY

$5 Pitchers $2 Bottles of Miller Products (11-4 pm) $2 Corona Bottles $2 Kilo Kai Mixers $3 Bloody’s (7-1am)

MONDAY

$1.75 - Miller/Bud Taps $2.25 Micro/Craft Taps $2.50 Cherry Bombs (7-1am)

TUESDAY

$1.75 Rails $1.50 Domestic Taps $3.50 Jager Bombs (7-1am)

SATURDAY

WEDNESDAY

$2 Domestic Bottles $2.50 Skyy/Absolute Mixers $2 Dr. Shots (7-1am)

THURSDAY

5 Domestic Bottles 4 $10 $5 Micro/Import Bottles $11.50, $7 Micro/Craft Pitchers (7-1am)

$5 Miller Lite/Bud Light Pitchers $2.25 Leinies Bottles (7-1am)

FRIDAY

$2 Captain Mixers $2 Long Islands Mixers (7-1am)

12// August 25, 2011

Second Supper

THE LAST WORD

The Advice Goddess By Amy Alkon amy.alkon@secondsupper.com Guru, Interrupted

My husband is extremely analytical, to the point where he has a negative or argumentative response to almost anything I say — including positive or even insignificant things. Then, when he makes some remark, unless I respond with “I agree” or “uh-huh,” he debates me. I’ve repeatedly asked him to stop making everything an argument, but he insists that he’s just giving his “honest opinion.” I go for counseling, but he refuses to, saying he won’t talk to “some stranger” about us. He’s turning my happy self into a miserable, depressed self. — Always Wrong Nothing brings out the eighth-grade debate champion in a man like being asked to weigh in on life’s big philosophical questions: “What is death, and should we fear it?,” “Why is there something rather than nothing?” and “More orange juice, dear?” How fun that you never know whether you’ll be enjoying breakfast with your husband or petitioning him for a new trial. Of

course, he knows, as we all do, that there are remarks that aren’t meant to be responded to as if one were testifying before Congress. “Nice weather we’re having”? Just say “Yes, dear.” No need to counter with data on sunspots, cloud cover, and death rates of baby polar bears. A man doesn’t make his wife’s every innocuous comment a springboard for an intellectual death match because he’s “analytical” and “honest” but because he feels like a skin tag among men. What your husband’s showing you isn’t love; it’s narcissism. The term “narcissist” comes from the story of Narcissus, who fell in love with his reflection in the water — how he appeared, not who he really was. Narcissists are self-absorbed, manipulative users. What they lack in empathy they make up for in a sucking need for admiration. To a narcissist, other people aren’t so much people as they are staging areas for the narcissist’s greatness. A loving husband understands that there’s a right answer and a more-right answer — the one that doesn’t leave his wife feeling depressed and beaten down. You need to decide whether staying married is more important to you than being happy, because if he is a narcissist, he’s unlikely to change. Narcissists rarely agree to therapy, as they can’t take the challenge to their manufactured authority or let anyone expose them as the tiny little people they actually are. You may be able to control your husband’s behavior by giving him boundaries for what you’ll put up with and being truly willing to walk if he keeps crossing them.

But, if that’s what your marriage comes down to — a husband who acts like less of a bully so you won’t leave — is that enough? You could actually have love in your life… if you’re with a man capable of loving. That man will watch you as you sleep — because he can’t take his eyes off you, not because he’s waiting for you to talk in your sleep so he can shake you awake and correct you: “Honey!...Honey! You are the weakest link.” Wait Training Use of technology in dating is leaving my single girlfriends bewildered and annoyed. For example, one went on a date with this guy. The date went well, then silence … for two weeks — until he texted her, inviting her over for dinner. She’s irritated that he didn’t even call, and that he waited so long, and is considering not accepting. Is texting instead of calling a valid reason to write a guy off? — Wondering Not every guy’s a talking-on-the-phone person, and that’s OK, but there’s much to be said for polite timing. Texting a girl the day after a date (even just “great time, call u soon”) says a guy’s interested. Texting two weeks later says he’s explored every other option, including hookers and suicide, and settled for her. Unless this guy followed up his text by calling from a hospital bed and explaining “A dog ate my iPhone — and part of my arm,” he should no longer be in the running. Behavior predicts behavior. It also illustrates character (like an interest in

others’ feelings). But, let’s say vanishing for two weeks without a word (or even a “wrd”) is out of character for this guy. He might’ve redeemed himself if he’d just manned up — called to express some remorse for disappearing and apologized. At least then he’d be telling your friend “I know I don’t get to do this to you” instead of “You seem like a woman who lets men walk all over her. My turn Tuesday at 7:30? And don’t worry, I promise — no hard-soled shoes or muddy hiking boots until the third date.” Got a problem? Send an e-mail to AdviceAmy@aol. com (www.advicegoddess.com)

Have an opinion? Send your letters to the editor to Second Supper, 614 Main St., La Crosse, WI 54601 or by e-mail to editor@secondsupper.com. Letters should be signed and include phone number for verification purposes. Please limit letters to no more than 300 words. Second Supper reserves the right to edit letters for length, clarity and grammar. For more information, call (608) 782-7001.

$80 for 80 Days h t 80

Starting Aug. 1, 2011, every day for 80 days we’ll pick a daily winner and deposit $80 into their Altra Savings account. Must be an Altra member to enter. Get complete details and enter to win at www.altra.org. Not an Altra member? It’s easy to join. Most people who live, work, worship, or attend school in the area are eligible! Open an account in person or online in minutes at www.altra.org and discover better rates, lower fees, and all the financial services you need.

La Crosse • Onalaska • Holmen La Crescent • Winona • Nationwide

608.787.4500 | altra.org Sweepstakes is open to Altra members 18 years of age or older who reside in the United States. By entering, you give Altra permission to publish your name as a winner. One winner will be selected in a random drawing each day for 80 days starting August 1, 2011. Altra will deposit $80 into winner’s Altra Savings Account. Winner’s names will be posted on Altra’s Facebook page and Altra’s website. Chances of winning are dependent on the number of entries. Altra employees, board members and immediate family not eligible. Void where prohibited.