Aren’t we glad that Super Tuesday, like Leap Year, only occurs once every four years? In the other three years, you might even get someone to reach out with that phone call? But St. Patrick’s Day, by comparison, is omnipresent.
— Politics or pizza? A Tuesday night patron at Green Mill said that she was going to call her father earlier, “but the caucuses just got too crazy.” (Just maybe that’s if they were talking about all the political things related to Green Cards, and that’s not to be confused with the grill and bar’s email gift club). Despite the hubbub, it obviously didn’t keep her from finding time to border-hop on Super Tuesday, and try out a stellar establishment at night — after trying to be anti-establishment all day?
— Is this a four-for-one? Some local places on Feb. 29 announced a Leap Year special for items such as a slice (of pizza) and a salad that occurs only, well, once every four years. And it wasn’t required to have a table for four.
— A visiting friend named Mark is a member of a fast-becoming-prominent Irish song circle in Milwaukee. I don’t know that much Irish music, but I asked him if he knew “Whiskey in the Jar-O,” (the only reason I am familiar with it is that it was covered by Metallica, often performed as a cover locally, and is friend Dan’s by-far-and-away favorite Metallica song). Mark replied that he knew the song well, and that it also was covered by another Irish rock band, Thin Lizzy, although both cover songs are among the lighter ones played by those particular groups.
— Only Rich, the flamboyant Pizza King himself, can get away with singing the bawdy backup lyrics to the song by GNR that goes “I used to love her, but I had to kill her.” (Don’t get too upset, the song is about having to euthanize a female dog). Or so I thought only The Rich Man could pull it off.
Jeff “One Man Band” Loven surprised me the other Sunday by asking that I sing the backup vocals in the absence of Rich, who has reprised the role for years. So, like Rich and his improvisation, I just had to put my own punny stamp on it … “She drove me nuts. That the squirrel had buried right in my backyard.”
To which all the while, my wingman Tom did his swaying with imaginary microphone, dead-on Axl Rose doo-rag impersonation of that same singer. Maybe he was drinking that beer being hawked on a sign behind him, fittingly called Fat Squirrel.
And from a while back, one more Rich story: He is also known for his tongue-in-cheek, sign language treatment given to a popular Steve Miller Band song while Jeff sings and says this one is for the hearing impaired. One night a somewhat older gentleman thought the music was too loud and put cotton balls in his ears, thus becoming one of the beneficiaries.
— The other night, I talked to the bartender who helped blow the whistle on those awful Minnesotans who tried to illegally export our special Badger State, Spotted Cow beer. On this particular night it was the Bacardi booze in question, as her thusly named shirt was just low-cut enough to obscure the top of the letter “a” and make it look like Bacurdi. As in cheese curds? Or am I having a cow over this?
— A local bartender was in a blues-bordering-on jazz band, now in hiatus, that was his full time gig for the first half of the current as-far-as-it-has-played-out millennium. They have snaked their way all the way down to New Orleans, playing various venues in-between, including a recurring engagement at a prominent juke-joint festival. No stranger to music, his uncle was in a band that opened for Creedence Clearwater Revival, among others. A newly surfaced fan asked if he could get a copy of one of their old vinyl recordings, but was told that these days, such a Gold LP would run for about $500 on Ebay, the nephew said.
— This is a tale of throwing both darts and dice. The bartender at Guv’s Place in North Hudson took a few moments out to do something you’d only be able to at a place such as this, which specializes in tournaments of the type. Upon the invitation of a patron, she tossed a couple of darts from standing behind the bar rail and even came close to hitting a triple. But there were other things also on her mind, like the next evening. Since she hadn’t had a night off in a long time, she was really looking forward to crossing the highway the next day and participating in the high-profile and potentially lucrative Casino Night at the Village Inn.
— A local suppertime stop of the History Happy Hour at Dick’s Bar and Grill was attended by about 60 people, who learned about Wisconsin’s dozens of brews and, I’m guessing, designed hundreds of new beer labels as a related activity, before loosing count. Well into the evening, the crowd that lingered was getting a bit tipsy — like the one at the chili contest a few days later — which in both cases had it serve as a happy hour of historic proportions.
— One more punny reference about the Grammys/Oscars made at Dick’s, where a crowd had gathered to watch the academy awards and cheer on Leo Dicaprio, to a favorite bartender into the Old School metal. I asked him, with tongue in cheek, if his fave Slayer had gotten the lifetime achievement award? We then shared info about the idea that Pantera had actually gotten one of the statues that night. What that actually was about, the two of us concurred, was an indie movie about a regular guy who lived out his fantasy and started drumming to the songs of, well, Pantera. Which brings me to the woman I’d met there a few nights back who was a deejay for five years in Red Wing and raised some hackles by often finishing off the night with a Pantera standard. She was now living in Hudson and was looking for a local club that could be a new haunt “where she could make this world my own.” As for any rock star status, she said that deejaying had just been a job, like any other.
— At Agave Kitchen, the second story marquee during the middle of a week read “Wednesday spelling test,” but all the letters were posted backwards. How did they do that?