Last Monday, I blogged about a few things I had to get off my chest. Just silly stuff that wasn't blog-worthy on its own; rather, it was a compilation of the random ideas floating around my head.
Maybe it was a sleepless Sunday night with an infant, but I'm in a much worse mood today. And three things are getting my goat this Monday afternoon. Read, if you dig, then Talkback amongst yourselves:
Anarchist asshats: I'm sure I wasn't the only one who was temporarily amused when I read about the "ninja attack" Friday night on Milwaukee's East Side. The thought of 20-30 ninjas pouring out of a Honda Civic and tossing around smoke bombs is visually entertaining, but my bemusement turned to anger as I read on. First of all, vandals are among the lowest form of scum; their "victimless crimes" certainly do have victims: it's not cheap to repair their damage for great local businesses like Qdoba, and their cowardly antics engender respect from no one.
Secondly, if these masked losers are actual anarchists, then they are as stupid as they are spineless. No matter what your politics leanings are, anarchism is preposterous. I doubt the ninjas really are anarchists, but if they are, I'd root for shipping them to Somalia, so they can duke it out with the pirates in that lawless cesspool. And oh yeah, I used to draw little anarchy symbols on my Chuck Taylor's while listening to the Sex Pistols first album -- when I was 14.
Shut up, hecklers: I reviewed both Milwaukee visits from the Flight of the Conchords, and I simply can't say enough good things about the New Zealand duo. Talented, witty and down-to-Earth, they put on a great show Saturday night at the gorgeous Riverside Theater. But I'm still fuming about the idiot hecklers that again tried to ruin an otherwise awesome show. FOTC handled these blabbering, drunken fools with ease, better than they did last year. But crap like this makes Milwaukee look bad, and it's pretty obvious what's going on.
The Pabst, Riverside and Turner Hall are amazing venues, and Milwaukee is so very lucky to have them. But $3 tall boys of Pabst equals trouble at a show like this. Simply, the audience was hammered, and management needs to do a better job keeping its crowds from getting sloshed. Yes, it's all about personal responsibility, but the Riverside isn't Summerfest. The name of the game isn't drinking as much as humanly possible, it's to see great bands at a great facility. I don't know what FOTC shows are like in other cities, but if I were them, I'd never come back to Milwaukee.
Much ado about nothing: Any publicity is good publicity, I suppose, but this month's Milwaukee Magazine did a "Pressroom Confidential" column they titled "Web War I," which was a trumped up story about how we're reacting from new competitors in the online media game. Racine freelancer Erik Gunn interviewed me for almost an hour, but he took only a few quotes and inserted them out of context with snarky comments like, "Yeah, right" when I said, "Competition is a good thing." (I recorded the interview, too, for posterity). Apparently, Gunn did the same thing with The Onion, and didn't even bother to get comment from the Shepherd. The good news is that he declared us the winner in the end -- but we don't consider it a fight. We all enjoy The Onion and its work, and the Shepherd's online endeavor isn't a product we view as serious competition for ad dollars. Ironically, I can't provide you with a link to Milwaukee Magazine's article, since they don't publish it online (Gunn didn't do much self-reflection when writing this, I guess).
If anything good came from this inflammatory column, it's that I finally got to meet Decider Milwaukee editor Steve Hyden and have a cup of coffee with him. Turns out he's a great guy, and he deals with many of the same challenges we do -- and neither of us consider each other competition. In fact, we plan on collaborating in the future, and Thursday I'm running a Milwaukee Talks interview with him on OnMilwaukee.com.
So, thanks, I guess, Milwaukee Magazine, for introducing me to a new colleague. But it's not OnMilwaukee.com vs. TheOnion.com. It's online media versus old-school, dead tree print publications. Call me back, Gunn, when you want my opinion on that battle.
Andy is the president, publisher and founder of OnMilwaukee. He returned to Milwaukee in 1996 after living on the East Coast for nine years, where he wrote for The Dallas Morning News Washington Bureau and worked in the White House Office of Communications. He was also Associate Editor of The GW Hatchet, his college newspaper at The George Washington University.
Before launching OnMilwaukee.com in 1998 at age 23, he worked in public relations for two Milwaukee firms, most of the time daydreaming about starting his own publication.
Hobbies include running when he finds the time, fixing the rust on his '75 MGB, mowing the lawn at his cottage in the Northwoods, and making an annual pilgrimage to Phoenix for Brewers Spring Training.
