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This about all that soft jazz, and a whole lotta related offerings, taking a renewed seat at the table, like a not-seen-for-a-while relative at Thanksgiving dinner, as they have plenty of quick eats or full meal to go with the music too, at a venue that adds another element to the local song scene. It’s an intimate setting, where you can be not much more than an arm’s length or two from one of the players as the regele you with their sung stories — and still stay out of reach and vocal range of that odd uncle, but close...

Business writing, and even life, is like penning a song. It moves through the various seasons, like The Rain Song. (Snow coming soon.) But the very season at which we choose to begin is telling. And it may vary. For each client’s, or band’s needs. Or the second side of an album. They say keep your friends close, your enemies closer, and your bandmates closest, because they are the ones you hole up with for long periods and churn out the creative process. One of those for me, is the pen during the day, and voice at times at night when...

When I first heard that star actor Nicolas Cage was in town for an extended stay to film one of his new movies, it didn’t take too much of a deep dive to discover that the film and its protagonist takes the name of Parish, which made me think it had something to do with things post-apocalyptic and churches, like some of his past flicks. (Spoiler alert: It actually is not a parish in the sense of the name of a church, but has that end of the world and eternity vibe, as it’s about a man who decides to hole up in his adapted...

Mr. Hat, meet Mr. Reality, meet Mr. Mandate. Via Mr. Crowley. If you don’t get that post-election humor, then there’s no hope … When it concerns the latter, check out the Ozzy song and it’s message, “won’t you ride my white horse” and “did you think you were pure,” see if you then get the gag, as a U.S. dictator’s realm falls in a landslide rarely seen. “Your lifestyle to me seems so tragic.” As the last midterm election tallies are being, well, tallied, South Park (and later SNL too) roared on with its satire on Wednesday night, getting going at it...

The divide in politics these days is not still as much left vs. right, with granted little center, it’s become the informed vs. the uniformed or downright ignorant, and by the flyers politicians put out, you can see they are catering to this predilection. So I propose a solution, though radical, as long as these days we’re throwing that word around all over the place even when it’s not merited, and it’s mentioned literally hundreds of times in Republican flyers across the state: If you are not going to educate yourself, don’t vote. If you think about it, this is very Darwin-ish. Another...

Hark Halloween has been buried, as the big inflatables are now being sacked and stored — they were slowly being replaced anyway by some bigger creatures of all, very tall types and rounds lengths of plastic, currently used as the centerpieces, not the ones that often end up laying flat on the ground, strung out. As far as the bigger than gourds, such pumpkins were seen around town at the bars and antique shops, such as three of carefully chosen shades set in a triangle, of all different colors were the shapes painted on — they being squares and circles of...

This Halloween is marked by a spot on the calendar that is truly unusual — it falls on a Saturday, which is the perfect timing just like a zombie suddenly sitting straight up in a coffin, so people can start with the decidedly black revelry already on Thursday, and take Friday off and then go out for a prelim that night, then celebrate the utmost on Vampire King Saturday, (see a summary of such activity below), followed by eat the candy you collected come Sunday. Then there is the Daylight Savings Day debacle, also falling that night. Do we party down for one...

Where do we start? Like what scant space do you choose to squeeze into, if at the wrong sports bar, to get your Miller Lite or Leinies. Like the guy with the Brewer shirt and the cool closer-style-eyeglasses the day AFTER, who I told missed out on it by yes a day, and a pair of dollars if you were to check out something like the $6 special — or maybe it was for the Packers — of Leinenkugel’s Summer Shanty or better yet, Legacy Ale. Across the way were a odd-ball trio talking about the World Series going back to Game One,...

This night was an onslaught of arts patrons who would never go to an alternative rock arena show, mixing with fans like those sporting mohawks, or women with unreasonably short skirts, black seamed lines up the back of their stockinged legs, and nose rings. Mixing together well, and resembling what was on the paintings and other media in front of them. Chris Mars, now an award-winning artist after a ten-year stint with the also award-winning alternative group The Replacements, even as its drummer, was likely to be hit with questions aplenty about his activities with the band, artsy and also ambitious as far as...

The polka fans are revving it up. Convenience and grocery stores, not to mention sports bars, that are sponsors of the Brewers are amping it up, too, even up here in Hudson, 300-plus miles away from Milwaukee. Three-hundred? Was that, in pounds, the playing-day weight of sluggers Cecil Cooper, or George Scott? Has it been that long? Will tonight be the swan song for that World Series foe from Florida, down by the bay, leaving it sitting by the dock, crying in its beer with Jimmy Buffett? No Marguerita-ville. Laturalis, if a Tool fan, since this is at its base,...

When walking down Second Street in Hudson, you may have seen a sign in a doorway saying One Drop Refillery, and like me thought it was a distillery, like a new place to have a drink. That would not fill the bill. Rather, this new shop that’s like a small mill, as in a dispensary, but quickly grew into featuring much more though related goods, reduces one of your steps and will be a first step toward saving the environment. It’s tucked inside the north half of a long existing photography studio by Lisa Buth and being what the former name says, it’s...

The pre-Halloween haunts are now hanging out their hat, and their head if they still have one, to harangue you, with a Witch’s Night Out — warlocks are apparently out of luck, although they can walk the street beside you, though she just might pass you by — on Thursday, Oct. 22, when things and heads really start rolling. (I was caught in a burning ring of fire, the circling flames lift my smoldered hat higher. Then rims settled for grab globs by Godiva, so she came a horseback witch attired.) So this is a night not only of bad lyricism and sometimes...