Things are looking up!-- oh, no, I was wrong.

This is a building on the corner of Wisconsin and Broadway in downtown Milwaukee, and there is a national chain sub shop there. A lot of that crappy brown material is cheap facade, added to the building at some point-- why? To make it look crappy brown? Anyway, at some point the brown crap came off or was removed from the support column revealing that the column underneath was decorated with cheerful green and white ceramic tile. You can see the one row of tiles still visible above the brown facade. While the tiles were exposed, I walked by there and was elated, hoping that they were going to remove all of the crap facade and make the building beautiful again, as it must have been at one time. Then a few days later, the brown crap was put back up.

People love the ugly and the uninspiring, I guess. They enjoy being angry and shat upon. If all I wanted to do was make money, I'd open a fluorescently lit slaughter house, play an endless loop of Harley engine noise, instruct the employees to insult customers and beat them with gravel filled socks, and serve feces on moldy white bread. But what would I do with all the money I would make? Buy a condo to store my ugly clothes for three months out of the year?

Liquid Lunch

I was recently asked to write an occasional article or review for this new, local, Milwaukee online journal called Lunch is just Life. http://lunchisjustlife.blogspot.com/

It's new, there's nothing there yet really, but whenever I write something, if I do, I'll make a note of it here.

It's about restaurants, mostly, though I suppose that could include bars that have food, or particularly wholesome drinks.

The main focus is Milwaukee, but I guess they are open to some out of town stuff, too. We'll see. I don't know how much longer I'll be in Milwaukee. I long to return to the Venice Cafe, but I'm not sure it still exists.

Diagram for a Shitty Drink

I walked by the new steakhouse, Mason Street Grill, again yesterday and noticed a couple of banners hanging above the doors that said, “Discover the Hangout before it’s the Hangout.” This kind of turned my stomach and made me not want to go there, which is too bad because I had almost gotten over that stupid cocktail sign they had up before they opened. Martini parts: vodka, vermouth. It’s hard to have confidence in a place with a sign like that. I mean, you could order a steak and it’s made with compressed turds or something.

But I really like the Pfister, it’s such an old-fashioned hotel. And I’m still kind of exited this place opened. But I don’t know… then they do something stupid like put up those banners. I guess I’ll just have to go there sometime and see what’s up. But at this point, I’m expecting the worst.

An admission of guilt

I have to admit something. I have been in a weird state since I quite drinking. I have spent most of my time on weird obsessions. The most unexpected and bizarre one is this obsession with Frankenbury and Count Chocula cereal. I have no idea what this is all about.

Quit drinking and it nearly killed me!

I'm still in Milwaukee. Well, I haven't been here all this time, but this seems to be where I've ended up for right now. The Venice Cafe isn't in Italy, or Venice Beach, by the way, it's in Kent, Ohio. I don't even know if it still exists. It's conceptual at this point, especially because, at best, it's there and I'm here. I had to quit drinking for awhile, and that was a drag. But my New Year's resolution is to start drinking again, eat at a new restaurant at least once a week, and... well, I have a lot of them, but I'm not sharing them. Okay, I guess to write something for this piece of shit blog once in awhile.