Condomania

    One way to beat the heat. The dawn’s early light arrived early on the Fourth, or so it seemed. July 3 was a big deal on floor 17 of my Prospect Avenue condo, with everyone (except Willie Davis who wasn’t around), opening up their units to party-in the fireworks. One of our more spectacular couples bussed in gazillions of friends (parking is very limited in the lot below) of their closest friends and then rolled out hundreds of sushi rolls. There was also an open bar tended by a young woman who resembled a ’50s New Wave movie…

    Art by Stella Cretek. When we met decades ago and my lips touched you, I knew we were a perfect match because you, slim and trim, gave me the confidence I needed. Yes, I was a mere 18, and though you’d been around for many years, I never noticed you. I felt chic having you near. You answered when I called. And so it began at various events, inside and outside. As I write, I’m feeling a sense of loss, for yes dear, the taste of you lingers. Yesterday (it’s only been one day since you departed) I…

  Inside Milwaukee’s Oriental Theater. Photo courtesy of Shadowlink1014. One of the advantages of living near the Oriental Theater is seeing a Woody Allen movie, in this case “Midnight in Paris.” Only four others watched it with me and no one crinkled candy wrappers. I hate it when they do that. I visited Paris for a month in the late ’80s, so many of Allen’s shots were familiar. My “art” smarts have improved in the past two plus decades, and I had no problems with the many references to artists (visual, writers, filmmakers, etc) from the 1920s, the era that…

  Illustration courtesy of Chabacano. A few years ago a spy eye mounted on the roof of a nearby building, scanned the units of the north side of our building, intruding you might say, on the privacy of residents on the upper floors. It stopped only when a television channel picked up the news and “made a story out of it.” I can see clearly that it’s still in place, hopefully eye-balling the lake to the east and not us. Speaking of eye-balling, I have a problem with “security” cameras, which are only as effective as the person assigned to…

  The author’s Billy Idol look from the ’80s. If you’re slim don’t read this. Last night I assembled all of my HUGE slacks and put them in a plastic bag for delivery to Re-Tique in the Third Ward. If you like Anne Klein And Ralph Lauren pants, and if you wear a size ???, try ‘em on. For a few seconds I thought perhaps I’d take them in, but no, when I drop the final 20 lbs, sometime around my birthday in October, I’m going for the 70s look, not BoHo though. Old women don’t wear BoHo (except Diane…

  Geraniums. How good it was to see Mike Kasun again, lugging pots around at Tiger Lily on the corner of Water & Brady. He’s fit as a fiddle from carrying stuff hither and yon and yon and hither. Mike’s an artist of considerable note, noted for his paintings of feathered friends, several of which I’ve purchased: a robin, a blue jay to be exact. His work has been featured at Portrait Society Gallery in the Third Ward, too. A member of the infamous “Flesh Experts,” he knows his fowl and fleurs. During our endless no-spring of 2011, anyone and…

  President Obama in Moneygall, Ireland. Photo courtesy of Pete Souza and the Executive Office of the President of the United States. I swear it’s growing there … moss on my head. Green is a color that suits me because I’m Irish. I don’t know about you, but seeing Milwaukeeans wearing heavy jackets and wool caps in late May is enough to grow moss on anyone’s head. Now that Obama has lifted a pint in Ireland, and toured Moneygall where the residents had the gall to rake in money during his visit, I’m here to tell you I may be…

  Pretend you’re standing in a desert wishing you had some water. Then pretend you’re in Milwaukee. And so it was with great trepidation that I actually ventured onto my northwest condo balcony to catch a few hopeful rays. Accompanied by a pot of succulents that made it through the winter inside my unit, here’s hoping the pot finds peace and contentment in those few rays sent forth between showers, showers and more showers. Outside my building, to the south, a lusty stand of flowering crabs is doing what flowering crabs do best. Clothed in white blossoms, they have burst…

What a trip south to Missouri, or “Missoura” as any native of the Show Me state knows. My home from age 15 until I left the rolling hills of Kansas City in the late ’50s, bound for adventures beyond my wildest dreams, a cow town on the Missouri River, it’s not. The Amtrak rails took me there for two warm weeks with lots of walking up hills and down and up hills and down again. It’s similar in size to Milwaukee, with similar urban problems, including potholes and a sagging economy. It is also morphing into a city for “entertainment.”…

Attention Noodle. You needn’t eat only spinach salads, or even spinach from a can like Popeye does, no, not at all, though that said, you are ahead of me in the race to drop fat. Speaking of eating, I just finished T.C. Boyle’s The Tortilla Curtain, a 1995 tale (reviewed here and elsewhere) about the plight of Mexican illegals living in the bottom of a California canyon. Known as “beaners,” they were, and likely still are, given to dumpster diving in order to survive. Diets, I guess, are reserved for the overly-fed. Combined with personal trainers, gym memberships, expensive DVD’s for…