Hear me yap about "Milwaukee's Live Theater" tomorrow on Lake Effect

Tomorrow there's a special books edition of Lake Effect on WUWM. I've been told by Executive Head Honcho Mitch Teich that my conversation with him about "Milwaukee's Live Theater" will air towards the end of the show. They're talking about serious books, summer beach type reading, and my book. Perhaps my book falls into the "good read for the bathroom" variety. Listen tomorrow and find out. Better yet, buy the book.

(F.Y.I, "Milwaukee's Live Theater" is sold out at Boswell Books on Downer! Don't worry live theater book fans near Downer Avenue, they have ordered more.)

You can help shape the Milwaukee Downtown Plan

Okay, so we all flared up over the Janet Zweig flap, and then the arts community (well, really the whole community) won a major victory when 12 Alderman voted to keep the project chugging along, and 2 Alderman showed that they will vote nay because it's their civic duty to be short sighted on this matter. I'm allowed to be a little snotty about this--I was in council chambers, I saw Aldermanic short sightedness.

To avoid further flaps, it's time to do preemptive strikes. This week the Department of City Development is holding a Downtown Plan Workshop. The intention of this workshop is to allow residents of Milwaukee to give input on how they think Downtown Milwaukee should look, feel and function. Sounds like a good time to say, "Hey, the arts need a place in downtown Milwaukee, and we can help out with that." We being the arts community.

I plead previous unalterable plans this week, but I hope to share my thoughts with some moles who can attend. Here's the details for you:

Downtown Plan workshop
Thursday, April 23, 6 - 8 pm
Todd Wehr Conference Center
MSOE campus, 1047 N. Broadway

The City of Milwaukee is updating its downtown master plan to guide development over the next decade. All residents, business-owners, employees, and anyone with an interest in the future of the downtown are invited to participate in a two hour community workshop. The workshop will provide a hands-on opportunity for you to meet the downtown plan team, envision the future of downtown, and contribute local knowledge to the plan as the City strives to provide a framework for development that encourages investment and builds a unique sense of community and place.

You can also find out more by visiting the City of Milwaukee Department of City Development Website.

I also need to give a shout out to Radio Milwaukee for tipping me off to this one on their Twitter feed. If you haven't listened to or supported Radio Milwaukee, you really should. They are quickly becoming one of the most important voices in the "making Milwaukee a better place" mission. Their arts and community coverage and support is unparalleled in Milwaukee radio. They also spin some pretty great tunes.

Do you love your daddy? (Answer is "yes" or I'll never let you out of your room)

"Do you love your Daddy?" was the first question that Dorothea was asked the other day when she was Special Person at K-5. The make-or-break question did not come out of the blue. I was the equivalent of a Star Wars action figure show-and-tell ktoschke when my eldest daughter chose to bring me in to share as the "special thing" part of the honors of being special person for the day. The other honors include opening doors and being first in line for marching through the hall. Being special person in K-5 is the equivalent of being "Concierge For The Day".

Dorothea thought I would be a good choice as her special thing of the day for three reasons. First, her special day also happened to be Pajama Day at her school. Knowing that I have many fine soiled underwear and t-shirt combos that serve as pajamas, my daughter thought I'd have clothes for the event. I ultimately decided pants would be my best option, and left the p.j.s to the kids.

Second, she does love me. She is six years old, so she has not yet gained the knowledge that I am simply a middle-aged man with limited skills who has no need for a comb because of a rapidly receding hairline. So her answer to the lead off question was a resounding (if not shyly stated in front of her pals) "Yes!"

The third reason that Dorothea decided I was better than a puppy (impossible, too, since the only puppy in our house is held in a tin filled with ashes) was that her special day coincided with the on-sale date for my book, Milwaukee's Live Theater.

This is where a guy like me tears up. Faced with an honest assessment of love from my kin, I did the only thing a guy can do. I got embarrassed and tried to turn and run the other way. When she asked for my participation in this storied affair, I tried to think of other things she could bring in. A stick from the yard? Some of the random solo socks that we have collected from laundry folds gone wrong over the years? Last night's stir fry? Me? Surely Mommy has written a book, right? Knowing that my wife, despite all her many virtues, would find the prospect of writing a book about as pleasurable as performing her own oral surgery, I realized I was the guy left standing with publication bragging rights in our house.

It then dawned on me that this would be one of those father daughter moments I would probably recall on my death bed someday. I know I'm going to need some good memories to nudge out all the "gin stories" that are bound to haunt me in my final moments, so I agreed to be the "special thing".

A couple of pointers for other would be "special thing" authors. When talking about a pictorial narrative with a group of six-year-olds avoid discussions of the rich tradition of German language theater in Milwaukee. You can completely pass over references to Yiddish theater pioneers The Perhift Players and Theatre X's THE HISTORY OF SEXUALITY. Just show the kids the pictures of yourself dressed in the lion costume (you'll get a special treat if you buy the book and find that picture of me--not like chocolate or anything, but a good, shiny feeling inside).

I consider this my first book signing. Without the signing part, of course. I looked into the faces of an audience who had all assembled to hear something about my book, and they walked away with a look that suggested intrigue over the fact that a man like me could actually spell or connect words together to form sentences. I assume I will get used to these looks when promoting my book to adult audiences.

It might have been Dorothea's special day, but that day will forever be one of my best of all time. I plan to write many more books (and the ones after this one will tilt to a more smart ass readership, believe me), but this event will always stick out as the best way to announce your book is on-sale. I'm the one in the picture with pants, if you couldn't guess.

Present Music gets all present-like for Gallery Night

Present Music is having an after hours gig thingee that they are saying will kind of make you feel like you're in SoHo in Manhattan. I'm guessing they're going for the 24-hour party thing, rather than the outrageous rents and ludicrous club kids roaming the streets (I can write this because I proudly like one block North of SoHo for several years in a beat up old tenament apartment I'm certain was controlled by some low-level wise guy named Nunzio).

They're billing it as The Unofficial Gallery Night After-Event. They are also getting very fancy promoting the event with videos like this:



I think it looks worth a drop by if you're one of those night owl types. Here's all the info for you late night roamers.

Join Present Music for a Gallery Night after-event at the Wherehouse in Milwaukee, WI with musical sets by Present Music and Nobot, video by Beeple, and dance with WMSE’s BTS.WRKNG.

$10, Friday April 17th / Doors open at 9pm, enjoy a free drink before 10pm, stay late.

WHEREHOUSE DIRECTIONS:
Water turns into 1st Street just south of the Third Ward. Go East on National Avenue until it dead ends at the harbor. Turn soft right and park in the parking lot.

9:00pm Doors open to video by Beeple
10:00pm Main show, Present Music vs. NOBOT
11:30pm Dance with WMSE’s BTS.WRKNG

promo video: beeple.com
more info: presentmusic.org

Coffee with The Council

You've probably heard this by now through some reputable media or social networked source (yes, even Mike Brenner is reputable from time to time), but there is a public meeting to talk about Janet Zweig's public art project this coming Tuesday, April 14. Here's the official notice:

The public art project will again be heard at a special meeting of the Public Works Committee on Tuesday (4/14) at 8 a.m. in advance of the full Council meeting at 9 a.m in Room 301-B of City Hall. It will be important for those supportive of this initiative to be present and offer their input on this project.

This is an important one. Maybe more symbolically than as a way to sway last minute dissenters onto the plus side of getting out of the way of letting this fantastic public art project actually happen, but important nonetheless.

I will be there, fueled on coffee and optimism. I hope you will, too. This is a first step in what I believe needs to be a continuing process of the arts community getting further entrenched in civic activism. It is my belief, and one I know held by other artists I have talked to on this subject, that this whole Janet Zweig flap never really needed to happen. But we were such a long way from the table to public discussion on this one in a historic sense that you almost can't blame certain members of the Public Works Committee for being so short sighted. In other words, we as an arts community are not what you might call constant voices heard around the corridors of City Hall. We get loud when we need to react, but not so much when there is early tinkering proactive work to be done behind the scenes. We need to get into the kitchen and start learning how they make the sausage, folks.

One of the ways that we can avoid these types of situations in the future, is for the artistic community to take more of a stake in public debate and assistance on other civic issues that aren't solely arts related. Think of the respect and leverage we gain as an organized community of creative types if we also lend voice and support to things like public education, commuter rail, and residential recycling programs. And, hell yeah, we need to fight more for a prevailing public assumption that big ideas in arts and culture are ultimately big wins for Milwaukee.

I hope that room 301-B of City Hall looks like a clown car on Tuesday morning. It's time to represent, and represent in a reasonable, supportive manner that shows our Alderman that we are serious about this project. More bodies helps us make that case.

If you want to catch a cup of coffee post meet-up, I'm always game for coffee. Tap me on the shoulder as we're going out of Room 301-B, flush with a sense of victory and civic pride.

(By the by, I've heard from Alderman Zielinski (my guy, good guy) and Council President Hines. Add them to the "I Support Janet Zweig" list.)

Shipoopi - The Music Man

This is for Iowa! Nice move corn and pig people!

Janet Zweig--the internet phenom!

I'm wondering how Janet Zweig is feeling today having become a Cause?

Anyway, here's something more to do on the interweb.

This from Melissa Musante at MARN:

Hi,

Please consider joining this group to Save Milwaukee's Janet Zweig Project:
http://apps.facebook.com/causes/263431/27914736?m=cc366e79

This is an important work. The $$ is approved (and will be used to hire LOCAL artists). The public art process was followed, if this project is blocked I feel it sets a dangerous precedent.

Thanks,

Melissa Musante
Executive Director MARN

By noon today, send letters about Zweig Project to JSOnline!

Okay, it's 11:20am right now, but I know you all can do this. The Journal Sentinel is publishing a big thing on this Janet Zweig brew-ha-ha this weekend. Send your letters of support to them to jsedit@journalsentinel.com.

Here's all the policy stuff that The Journal Sentinel has posted on their website about this kind of discourse. Do it now, please!

The Journal Sentinel welcomes readers' letters. Timely, well-written, provocative opinions on topics of interest in Milwaukee and Wisconsin are given first preference. All letters are subject to editing. Letters selected for publication in the newspaper will also be posted on JSOnline.com.

Guidelines

1. Generally, we limit letters to 200 words.
2. Name, street address and daytime phone are required.
3. We cannot acknowledge receipt of submissions.
4. We don't publish poetry, anonymous or open letters.
5. Each writer is limited to one published letter every two months.

Write: Letters to the editor, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel,
P.O. Box 371, Milwaukee, WI 53201-0371
Fax: (414)-223-5444
E-mail: jsedit@journalsentinel.com

A lesson in civics and how it can help Janet Zweig's art project

We elected these officials, now it's time for us to mobilize and give them some positive words about the Janet Zweig public art project.

The Aldermen on the Common Council's Public Works Committee are a group of five people. A couple of them support the project (Bob Bauman in particular who went off script at this morning's Downtown Achievement Awards Breakfast to tell the large group of business leaders to contact their Alderman to urge them to support the project), a few of them are so far away from understanding this that they may never be swayed, and then there are some who haven't shown their hand yet. This is why it's time to talk to all the Aldermen (and women) about their need to support this important project.

This is the math part of politics. Counting votes. Yeah, math! Think of it like role playing, WEST WING-style.

The full Common Council will vote on the project on April 14. 8 of 15 Council members need to vote in favor of the project. This is why urging your own individual friendly neighborhood Alderman is crucial.

Here's the numbers break down:

Council Members firmly in support of Janet Zweig's art project (3):

Give them props and praise!

Bob Baumann (District 4): rjbauma@milwaukee.gov
Nic Kovac (District 3): nkovac@milwaukee.gov
Michael Murphy (District 10): mmurph@milwaukee.gov

Council Members Probably Not Gonna Budge too Much on this one (3):

But you can still give them a nice note encouraging them to see the light!

Bob Donovan (District 8): rdonov@milwaukee.gov
Joe Dudzik (District 11): jdudzi@milwaukee.gov
Willie Wade (District 7): wwade@milwaukee.gov

Council Members who need to be in favor of this thing right now (9):


It's time to write that grand and eloquent persuasive letter you've been dreaming about!

Milele Coggs (District 6): mcoggs@milwaukee.gov
Joe Davis (District 2): jldavis@milwaukee.gov
Jim Bohl (District 5): jbohl@milwaukee.gov
Ashanti Hamilton (District 1): ahamil@milwaukee.gov
Willie Hines, Jr. (District 15 and Council Prez): whines@milwaukee.gov
Robert Puente (District 9): rpuent@milwaukee.gov
Jim Witowiak (District 12): jwitko@milwaukee.gov
Terry Witkowski (District 13): twitko@milwaukee.gov
Tony Zielinski (District 14): tzieli@milwaukee.gov

It takes about ten minutes to write a letter. It will probably take you ten more minutes to e-mail all these Council members. These 20 minutes well spent will, I believe, result in endless hours of joy experiencing Janet Zweig's project and celebrating the fact that you actually do live in a kick ass city.

Next Chapter Bookshop--they're open and cool!

Totally cool that they are open! I think so because I'll be doing a book signing there soon for my book Milwaukee's Live Theater. (More shameless pandering on that to come.)

You go Lanora!

Can we save Janet Zweig's art? We need to try.

I'll admit, I didn't really know who Janet Zweig was until a few weeks ago. You can read more about her through Mary Louise Schumacher's really superb background on Janet's public art project and the whole debacle of how it might be squashed without some proactive movement from the arts community at ArtCity. Thank goodness for MLS. She's really the biggest arts advocate we've got in Milwaukee (the smartest and the best written, too, if you ask me).

The issue is this: the arts community has a responsibility to get involved in policy decisions on the city level. This is a policy decision. We are deciding if we want to be a creative city, one that vigorously takes an attitude about having art as a part of our everyday life. Janet Zweig's project does that perfectly. She integrates art into the mundane street life of Milwaukee. The money has been approved, there is nothing to gain by killing this project, but much to be lost if we as an arts community do not take affirmative action and tell the aldermen on the Common Council's Public Works Committee that Zweig's project is important, and has everything going for it as a real potentially engaging public arts project.

So, what do we do. Let's make our pleas reasonable and personal. Let's contact the people that matter as a big, growing force of positive advocates As a member of the Creative Coalition task force, I am also sending the following short letter to my fellow members immediately stressing the importance of all of us to take some immediate action:

Dear Task Force Leaders,

I'm not above writing this letter and saying that if we do not take immediate action as a group in terms of the debacle going on over Janet Zweig's public art project, that we are only going to be seen as a toothless group that likes to meet and discuss things and never take action. This is an important moment in the creative future of our city. Let's figure out a time when a good number of us can meet and City Hall and organize face time with alderman to help explain why this is an important project to support.

Let's do it. Let's take a chance. It's time to get in the game.

We are talking a lot on an organizing level as a community about changing the rhetoric about arts advocacy in this community and its value in the lives of all our citizens. Talk is good, but there comes a time when you finally have to say, "I don't know if I can run the marathon, but I sure feel like trying." It's that time.

Individually, I strongly urge you all to contact the members of the Public Works
Committee for the Common Council. These are the names and addresses of the alderman to contact:

ALderman Robert Bauman: rjbauma@milwaukee.gov
Alderman Robert Donovan: rdonov@milwaukee.gov
Alderman Joe Dudzik: jdudzi@milwaukee.gov
Alderman Robert Puente: rpuent@milwaukee.gov
Alderman Willie Wade: wwade@milwaukee.gov

If you're looking for inspiration on what to write, I'm including the letter I have sent.

Dear Aldermen Bauman, Donovan, Dudzik, Puente and Wade,

As a concerned citizen and a member of the Milwaukee arts community, I am writing to strongly urge you to not block the implementation of Janet Zweig's public art project.

Ms. Zweig's inspired project puts into form the essence of what is great about our city: a celebration of the old and the new. Her planned project shows a great understanding of our civic personality, a joy for the rich traditions that have made our city one of the finest places in the nation to live and work, and an unambiguous expression that Milwaukee is a place where creativity fundamentally exists on every street corner and city street.

Her work on this project will ultimately be supported by local artists and arts enthusiasts. It is a tremendous example of a well-reasoned plan for civic pride through creative interactivity. The project has already been evaluated by a group of our state's leading arts professionals, and I see it as a thrilling way for our city to continue to promote itself as a metropolitan area that prides itself on creativity and community building.

Ms. Zweig's project is an important one that I believe in strongly and hope you will ultimately support.

Sincerely,

Jonathan West

All we can do is try. If we don't we only have ourselves to blame.