College radio giant 91.7 WMSE is hosting a chili contest fundraiser in early March. I [heart] chilli and I [heart] WMSE enough to don two bumper stickers on my vehicular, so I guess I will have to attend. Plenty of local restaurants will compete including mainstays like Beans & Barely and Milwaukee Ale House, but also local favorites like the Bremen Cafe, and unknown to me's like Hotch-A-Do. The event has and admission of $6 and $1 charge for chili samples but it's for a good cause.
If you're from Milwaukee and over the age of 30, you know the only place on the FM airwaves you could get the illest in underground, above ground and unappreciated rap beats was 91.7 WMSE. First it was 'K-J the D-J' that used to come on once a week at about 12:30am (only original true masters know what night it was, I'm not giving all the gems away). I was a middle schooler back then and to catch the full broadcast I would have to set a cassette tape to record all night and position my boombox just-right next to the window to get reception. Then Mike J featuring Pitt and the Pendulum took over, they held down the time slot proper through the late 90's until, I stopped following them around the turn of the century. This fool Pitt had the only feature length "black" karate movie at the time, I wonder if you could still get it from somewhere. Now-a-days the Saturday Afternoon Boogie Bang carries the baton for hip-hop heads, with cameos by local legend Doc B.
Ninety-nine percent of the station's programming is non-urban music and worth supporting. You get seldom exposed glimpses of all genres from indie rock to instrumental to Lo-Fi slop rock (it's punk music with a bad show name). WMSE definitely keeps my music diet regular. Too much Daughtry and all that ganster-pop r&b mash that is served on the commercial stations can get you mentally constipated. Thanks to the internet you can tune in anytime and anywhere you can get a broadband signal. Rockabilly Chili Contest will take place Sunday March 9, 2009 from 11:00am to 4:00pm at the Milwaukee School of Engineering Kern Center, 1245 N. Broadway in downtown Milwaukee.
Showing posts with label Milwaukee. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Milwaukee. Show all posts
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
End the Weekend
There is a new comedy showcase in Milwaukee called Funny First Sundays, uh, at Comedy Sportz on 1st Street right south of downtown. You get a little taste of BET Comic View because its hosted by Damon Williams. What? You're supposed to know him. No not Damon Wayans, Williams. Okay lets be serious, you get a little taste of Comic View in Milwaukee. That means they could have used the pudgy referee with the glasses in real life. The funny part was that the first thing Williams said was, "I heard about y'all [in Milwaukee]." The show couldn't even get started before some fool, in the very first row cackling at himself, is yelling 'tomatoes' at a poet who was introducing the event with too many bitter rhythmic words about some pretty light-skinned girl he doesn't think is pretty since she was unreceptive to his advances, or should I say what she thought were his advances.
If you didn't figure it out by now, Blacks now have a reason to be late on Monday mornings, that's if you are working anyway. Straying from its improv roots, Comedy Sportz better retain some security and metal detectors. You got audience members that try to upstage the show by yelling slick comments like they're in MPS again and get mad when the comedian starts roasting phantom hecklers they can't see through the spotlights. That's the best part though, everyone in the room is fair game, even one of the servers got caught "looking like Jack Black". You might get lit-up for just getting up to go to the restroom with the wrong walk or too big of a booty, or especially if you are a raffle winner who has the nerve to come out the house and get on stage with a wrinkled shirt. It went something like this. Between acts Williams goes "...Congratulations man, you won a cd. You got a choice of India Arie, India Arie, ah India Arie. Oh, yeah that's right she got a new album coming out. That's the one you want?... okay good choice Chris, give it up for Chris y'all," (Chris steps of the stage, Williams under his breath) "Man, if you going to use the iron at least turn it on." Aaah, got him! You might even get a glimpse of a couple of, we'll just say, ladies wearing butt length silk napkins. Funny First Sundays is a good way to celebrate the end of the Sunday sabbath. You get to people watch, hear professional laugh artists and get a few chuckles off of both.
Wondering about the 'Aahk' in the title (oh yeah, I changed the title)? Williams let us know that is the sound you get when you do something in bed with your boo that she's not comfortable with (or to refer to you if you're that kind of dude). Funny First Sundays is First Sundays until you see different at 10 o'clock sharp on channel 6 news. I forgot to mention the comedy starts on the flier with 'show starts promptly at 9pm'. If you have 10 bucks and a little tolerance for a dab of tactlessness its worth checking out once.
If you didn't figure it out by now, Blacks now have a reason to be late on Monday mornings, that's if you are working anyway. Straying from its improv roots, Comedy Sportz better retain some security and metal detectors. You got audience members that try to upstage the show by yelling slick comments like they're in MPS again and get mad when the comedian starts roasting phantom hecklers they can't see through the spotlights. That's the best part though, everyone in the room is fair game, even one of the servers got caught "looking like Jack Black". You might get lit-up for just getting up to go to the restroom with the wrong walk or too big of a booty, or especially if you are a raffle winner who has the nerve to come out the house and get on stage with a wrinkled shirt. It went something like this. Between acts Williams goes "...Congratulations man, you won a cd. You got a choice of India Arie, India Arie, ah India Arie. Oh, yeah that's right she got a new album coming out. That's the one you want?... okay good choice Chris, give it up for Chris y'all," (Chris steps of the stage, Williams under his breath) "Man, if you going to use the iron at least turn it on." Aaah, got him! You might even get a glimpse of a couple of, we'll just say, ladies wearing butt length silk napkins. Funny First Sundays is a good way to celebrate the end of the Sunday sabbath. You get to people watch, hear professional laugh artists and get a few chuckles off of both.
Wondering about the 'Aahk' in the title (oh yeah, I changed the title)? Williams let us know that is the sound you get when you do something in bed with your boo that she's not comfortable with (or to refer to you if you're that kind of dude). Funny First Sundays is First Sundays until you see different at 10 o'clock sharp on channel 6 news. I forgot to mention the comedy starts on the flier with 'show starts promptly at 9pm'. If you have 10 bucks and a little tolerance for a dab of tactlessness its worth checking out once.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Non-Obvious takes on Big History through Little Eyes
In plain view under a curved lamppost with a conical fixture beaming down light, sits an endomorphic body-type mannequin postured upright on a wooden chair at the far end of a 20-foot table; it ominously presides over the diorama scenes intermittently placed over the balance of the wooden surface. The main action of Waldek Dynerman’s Train Project lives here. Curious on lookers begin to meander towards this area like cautious deer fawn at dusk, visibility is low. Me being one of them I decide to keep my distance, the diminutive artistic elements could be sensitive to clumsy eyes or just in case that mannequin decides to stand up I will have a clear path to the exit.
Not having read the description of this event, to my recollection, I am beginning to ask myself why I came. It's all so random, even creepy. I have seen it before, weird for weird's sake. I'm from the seminal days of Riddlin prescriptions: ahem, some of us wore mental disturbance like a badge not knowing you could get labeled for it.
A man comes forth subtly, gets the group's attention with a well placed 'auuh...' and reluctantly grants us permission to sit on the floor if we preferred, or otherwise make ourselves comfortable. The gentleman wears a conservative zip-neck sweater that covers an Oxford, and aside from a slightly disheveled bush of hair is markedly non-descriptive; maybe he is the host. Expecting Marilyn Manson incarnate to ascend from the concrete floor below, the gentleman, Dynerman to my chagrin, initiates his talk.
Days of Grace
Born 6 years after the end of WWII to a Polish-Jewish father and Christian mother, Dynerman begins recounting the time period of his childhood in post-war Poland and France. "A lot of what we saw on television and in movies was about the war," as if to understate a great preoccupation of the times, "we used the German words we heard when we played our games." Sometimes Dynerman was a German soldier exhorting a courageous Pole playmate that defied the order to 'halt'. Dynerman's father was a holocaust survivor, doing so with Dynerman's grandparents by living 18 months without leaving a family friend's 10 X 10 cellar room. When the ordeal ended, he recounts that his father found none remaining from his former life and his father eventually moved to Paris where he met his mother before moving to Israel.
The picture slowly comes together during Dynerman’s discussion. The installation features multiple sculptures and miscellaneous tangible elements amply spaced on the walls, floor and on hand-made pedestals. Scanning the installation, heads, malformed torsos and eerily dismembered doll limbs slowly come to focus in the midst of small wooden shelters and platforms. However, small human figurines of laymen, by standers, and soldiers are the stars of this exhibit.
One figurine stands roughly two inches tall and is dwarfed by two quarter pieces of cinder block fused together, to form what looks like a giant high modern building on a European street corner. The figurine lonesomely steps onto a mock curb illuminated by a scaled-down model street lamp. Half-way across the room in the shadow cast behind the large endomorphic mannequin , a crowd of peach colored figurines bunches up when approached by an on coming hoard of evergreen tinted army soldiers with ranks that reach around to the lateral side of the mannequin's wooden throne.
Is any one watching? Certainly not the mannequin who is content to glare forward, certainly not the fortunate peach figurines that are watching the small LCD displays flickering pretty colors in cozy wood enclosures. He reveals that this work's subject matter is the holocaust, among other genocides as they have occurred as recently as this year.
Artist in Our Minds
A painter by trade and training Dynerman decided to deviate from his master craft into sculpture, to satisfy his want to delve into a medium with which he was always fascinated. "I always found mannequins interesting," he utters. While reflecting on his decision not to incorporate several large paintings into to the piece, he wonders into a thought about how he preferred to have a stark white background for the exhibit so that the viewer could "wash their eyes" and refresh their minds before continuing to different parts of the gallery.
His philosophy is consistent and modest. Dynerman's father and his father before him were tin craftsmen. In ode to his memories, fashioned metal street lights in various scaled-states frequently dot the dusky hall punctuating the tiny dramatic scenes in perpetual suspense. His conversation trickles English with an endearing thick native Polish-speaking accent, "I grew up around a shop so I always liked building things... the things you see here, the pedestals, the table.... are all built by hand...and when I build them I craft them to the extent that they serve the purpose that they are built for and not more." He’s right staining the woodwork would look contrived.
There is quite a bit of irony here and the use of scale is apparent in the exhibition. Located on the table opposite the seat-perched mannequin is a 3-foot-tall tin model of the Eiffel tower flanked by miniature coniferous trees. Dynerman shares that his father retained his love for Paris, even while in Israel, and constructed the model of the famous structure as a gift to Dynerman. To use the iconic landmark often revered for its invocation of love and freedom as a backdrop for his mini-theatre, is a brilliant twist on reality. "I have no sensible response," he offers when I asked if there is a deeper meaning to the use of scale in his art. "I think that somehow the viewer may have more empathy [for small doll-like figures]," his tone is somewhat playful when making this remark as if he is omitting something from a secret recipe. I think he has discovered a way to mock human cognition into choosing its own adventure instead of spoon-feeding perceptions.
For Dynerman, by his own admission, simply "painting death" seemed inappropriate. Lucky for us we are able to see Dynerman's motion picture snap-shot of the human condition projected on the adjacent wall, from the point of view of a remote-camera-equipped model train scurrying on the table behind the omnipotent mannequin, alongside the madness of the evergreen aggressors converging on innocent peach crowds, turning with the track to a straight away with a small mirror positioned like a billboard, capturing the face of the mannequin in the reflection, then futilely hustling past a neon blue filament-lit carousel that upon closer examination is housing a series of severed doll feet and legs protruding from the inner cylinder of the amusement park favorite, only to endlessly repeat the circuit as if to take the spectator on a whimsical reoccurring nightmare. If you are paying attention, it is surreal. Train Project is on display at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee Union Gallery from January 26 - February 27, 2009.
Not having read the description of this event, to my recollection, I am beginning to ask myself why I came. It's all so random, even creepy. I have seen it before, weird for weird's sake. I'm from the seminal days of Riddlin prescriptions: ahem, some of us wore mental disturbance like a badge not knowing you could get labeled for it.
A man comes forth subtly, gets the group's attention with a well placed 'auuh...' and reluctantly grants us permission to sit on the floor if we preferred, or otherwise make ourselves comfortable. The gentleman wears a conservative zip-neck sweater that covers an Oxford, and aside from a slightly disheveled bush of hair is markedly non-descriptive; maybe he is the host. Expecting Marilyn Manson incarnate to ascend from the concrete floor below, the gentleman, Dynerman to my chagrin, initiates his talk.
Days of Grace
Born 6 years after the end of WWII to a Polish-Jewish father and Christian mother, Dynerman begins recounting the time period of his childhood in post-war Poland and France. "A lot of what we saw on television and in movies was about the war," as if to understate a great preoccupation of the times, "we used the German words we heard when we played our games." Sometimes Dynerman was a German soldier exhorting a courageous Pole playmate that defied the order to 'halt'. Dynerman's father was a holocaust survivor, doing so with Dynerman's grandparents by living 18 months without leaving a family friend's 10 X 10 cellar room. When the ordeal ended, he recounts that his father found none remaining from his former life and his father eventually moved to Paris where he met his mother before moving to Israel.
The picture slowly comes together during Dynerman’s discussion. The installation features multiple sculptures and miscellaneous tangible elements amply spaced on the walls, floor and on hand-made pedestals. Scanning the installation, heads, malformed torsos and eerily dismembered doll limbs slowly come to focus in the midst of small wooden shelters and platforms. However, small human figurines of laymen, by standers, and soldiers are the stars of this exhibit.
One figurine stands roughly two inches tall and is dwarfed by two quarter pieces of cinder block fused together, to form what looks like a giant high modern building on a European street corner. The figurine lonesomely steps onto a mock curb illuminated by a scaled-down model street lamp. Half-way across the room in the shadow cast behind the large endomorphic mannequin , a crowd of peach colored figurines bunches up when approached by an on coming hoard of evergreen tinted army soldiers with ranks that reach around to the lateral side of the mannequin's wooden throne.
Is any one watching? Certainly not the mannequin who is content to glare forward, certainly not the fortunate peach figurines that are watching the small LCD displays flickering pretty colors in cozy wood enclosures. He reveals that this work's subject matter is the holocaust, among other genocides as they have occurred as recently as this year.
Artist in Our Minds
A painter by trade and training Dynerman decided to deviate from his master craft into sculpture, to satisfy his want to delve into a medium with which he was always fascinated. "I always found mannequins interesting," he utters. While reflecting on his decision not to incorporate several large paintings into to the piece, he wonders into a thought about how he preferred to have a stark white background for the exhibit so that the viewer could "wash their eyes" and refresh their minds before continuing to different parts of the gallery.
His philosophy is consistent and modest. Dynerman's father and his father before him were tin craftsmen. In ode to his memories, fashioned metal street lights in various scaled-states frequently dot the dusky hall punctuating the tiny dramatic scenes in perpetual suspense. His conversation trickles English with an endearing thick native Polish-speaking accent, "I grew up around a shop so I always liked building things... the things you see here, the pedestals, the table.... are all built by hand...and when I build them I craft them to the extent that they serve the purpose that they are built for and not more." He’s right staining the woodwork would look contrived.
There is quite a bit of irony here and the use of scale is apparent in the exhibition. Located on the table opposite the seat-perched mannequin is a 3-foot-tall tin model of the Eiffel tower flanked by miniature coniferous trees. Dynerman shares that his father retained his love for Paris, even while in Israel, and constructed the model of the famous structure as a gift to Dynerman. To use the iconic landmark often revered for its invocation of love and freedom as a backdrop for his mini-theatre, is a brilliant twist on reality. "I have no sensible response," he offers when I asked if there is a deeper meaning to the use of scale in his art. "I think that somehow the viewer may have more empathy [for small doll-like figures]," his tone is somewhat playful when making this remark as if he is omitting something from a secret recipe. I think he has discovered a way to mock human cognition into choosing its own adventure instead of spoon-feeding perceptions.
For Dynerman, by his own admission, simply "painting death" seemed inappropriate. Lucky for us we are able to see Dynerman's motion picture snap-shot of the human condition projected on the adjacent wall, from the point of view of a remote-camera-equipped model train scurrying on the table behind the omnipotent mannequin, alongside the madness of the evergreen aggressors converging on innocent peach crowds, turning with the track to a straight away with a small mirror positioned like a billboard, capturing the face of the mannequin in the reflection, then futilely hustling past a neon blue filament-lit carousel that upon closer examination is housing a series of severed doll feet and legs protruding from the inner cylinder of the amusement park favorite, only to endlessly repeat the circuit as if to take the spectator on a whimsical reoccurring nightmare. If you are paying attention, it is surreal. Train Project is on display at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee Union Gallery from January 26 - February 27, 2009.
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