Alienation’s for the rich
As we collectively dive headlong into the month of July, it’s useful to reflect on the many striking similarities between Milwaukee summers and director Richard Donner’s 1987 cop-buddy masterpiece Lethal Weapon. For starters, they’re both somewhat overrated and feature a lot of shit blowing up. Digging a bit deeper (and putting aside the fact that Lethal Weapon was actually nominated for an Oscar), we also discover that they’re both hopelessly stuck in the ‘80s, feature a couple of lousy sex scenes and are both over in about 90 minutes. True, Lethal Weapon contains a few more booby-trapped toilets than a typical Milwaukee summer (or was that Lethal Weapon 2?), but you get the picture.
The zany cinematic misadventures of Murtaugh and Riggs also have a personal relevance for me, in that I’m currently about as popular and well regarded as a post-Passion of the Christ, post-Sugar Tits Mel Gibson. Through actions both careless and downright idiotic, I’ve recently fulfilled a long-standing summer tradition of alienating myself from friends, colleagues and the occasional skittish border collie alike. (While Lethal Weapon may be a hard R, this column remains a somewhat family-friendly PG-13; the actions in question, therefore, must be left up to your own sick imagination.) Calls have gone unreturned, rumors have been disseminated, ill will and downright disgust have spread through the streets like Athlete’s Foot. So if you, too, are someone who currently hates my guts, here are a few suggestions for enjoying this – and future – SubVersions columns:
1. If you’ve recently suffered the loss of a small pet, you could use this page to cover their quickly decomposing, yet still adorable carcass. In three days time, you may even be lucky enough to find a ghostly image of your former friend burnt indelibly onto the paper, a la the Shroud of Turin.
2. If you happen to be an actress-turned-Olympic-level-archer with a political persuasion that leans precariously to the left (think Geena Davis crossed with Studs Terkel), you could use the line drawing of my face as target practice.
3. If you simply can’t stand the thought of me, you could just skip ahead and get to the goddamned Sudoku already.
Nonetheless, I’ve decided to put together a short list of suggestions – should you ever find yourself cut off and ostracized from your loved ones – that could very well save your life. Christ knows they’ve been saving mine:
1. You could stop by the Bremen Café every Sunday at 9 p.m. for Trivia Night. Yeah, the whole trivia thing is getting a bit played out these days, but the Bremen has one of the best competitions in town, and honestly, what the hell else are you doing on a Sunday night? While there, you can also to go head-to-head against the feared Team Eagle’s Wings (myself and friend/cousin/bandmate B. David Vollmer) in a fierce battle to prove what team knows more about current events, national monuments and Star Wars minutiae (hint: in a pinch, always guess “Uncle Owen” ).
2. You could drag yourself to Room 434 every Tuesday night for 8-Bit Soul, where you can redefine both “decadent” and “hopelessly-geeky” by playing Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out! in a bar. Along with a slew of old-school Atari and Sega games at your disposable, you can also set aside any remaining shreds of dignity and partake in the Wii Sports competition, conveniently hooked up to a large projection screen for all to see and mock. You can even decide to take me on in an epic game of tennis, though considering the number I’ve hours I’ve sunk into this damn game, it probably wouldn’t be a good idea.
3. Finally, you could rely on the power of rock & roll. You can go see the nearly undisputed Best Band in Milwaukee, The Trusty Knife (July 7 at Art vs. Craft) and enjoy their unbelievably infectious, bassoon-accompanied music. While there, you can even foolishly ask a beautiful girl to write something – anything – on a matchbook cover for inclusion in your lousy little column. You can soon misplace this crucial artifact, of course, and during the next few days you can desperately try to remember what it said – what it all meant. In the end, you can only hope it was something good, something life-saving, something worth knowing and that even though you may be getting too old for this shit, you can still find it in yourself to step forward now and then and beg for forgiveness. VS
Matt Wild is ¼ of the rock & roll band Holy Mary Motor Club
