Did you know there's a Wisconsin guy biking the world? I didn't, until I received an e-mail this morning from a journalist in Italy with whom I sometimes collaborate.
Luigi Angelino on Il Monferrato, the twice-weekly newspaper in Casale Monferrato, in the northwestern Italian region of Piedmont, tells me that Madison's Charles Brigham pedaled into Casale's Piazza Mazzini last Friday.
"Received with great curiosity and enthusiasm, Charles was calm and smiling, making friends immediately with the kids from the Serydarth association which will host him in Casale for a few days," Angelino told me.
Brigham is apparently cycling around the globe and left Madison two years and one day ago, on Sept. 15, 2007. From America's Dairyland, he pedaled to the East Coast and worked for two months to find a boat on which he could sail to England.
He has since been in Wales, Ireland, Scotland, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary and Croatia.
"But his trip isn't even half over yet," Fabrizio Gambolati wrote in Il Monferrato. "In fact, Charles, expects to be at it for another three years before reaching his goal of biking around the world."
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
