7/25/07

Summerfest '07








For those who don't live in Milwaukee, Summerfest is a big-time music festival that boasts about a dozen stages and about 50 music acts a day for two weeks. You can hear everything from jazz to funk to indie rock to, well, Lyndsey Buckingham. As you can guess, beer is flowing everywhere. Even the cool-off fountain for the kids has some sort of lite pilsner flowing from the fixtures. I'm sure of it.

They make you drink there. Seriously, they have security people conducting 'round the clock patrols to identify any and all non-drinkers and immediately escort them to the nearest Leinie Lodge for a Berry Weiss i.v.

My good pals from Chicago drove in to experience Summerfest with me. Mike Voss and the McCool drove in Friday night. I wanted to give them a good tour of Milwaukee so I took them to the Miller Brewery, followed by one of the most curious places I found: The Aqua Lounge. How this place escaped being a setting in a Miami Vice episode escapes me. But I always take out-of-towners there because it's funky and fun. The Aqua Lounge deserves its own entry, and I won't go into detail in this post, but I can say we got to bed between 4:30 and 5.

UP AT 9:00 FOR MIKE O! Our good buddy Mike O also made the trip from Chicago and rang the bell to get us up. Breakfast consisted of a bloody mary made with torpedo juice and fine vodka. We then proceeded to drink ourselves out of the house, with the last Sprecher and Miller High Life going down at around 1:30.

I can give a foggy hour-by-hour rundown of what happened next:
1:35 - we frantically search for a "to-go" cup
1:45 - we frantically search for a "to-go" cup
1:50 - vodka, lime juice, orange juice, and -- "oh the hell with it, just cut the f*&king lime up and drop it in there already."
2:10 - a head-on collision is narrowly avoided
2:20 - we tour the ruins of the Pabst Brewery. Mike O makes the rent-a-cop nervous by shouting out unintelligible gibberish out the window, like a Ukrainian with Tourette syndrome. We contemplate stealing the giant, 12-foot tall blue ribbon sign off of the building and fastening it to the Hyundai, rescuing it from the demolition and indignity it has suffered over the years. Damn you Budweiser!!!!!!
2:30 - we find FREE PARKING 4 BLOCKS AWAY FROM SUMMERFEST. Did I mention how much I love Milwaukee? We all pee indiscriminately in an alley atop a mound of wood chips. what the hell?
3:00 - we're in the park. we pass 3 miller lite stands and 42 sausage carts to find our way to a stage where a Who cover band is playing. We order 2 beers apiece. At one point, I take off my shirt and hump the lawn. Mike-O eats a spider. Voss laughs and smokes. McCool pretends to not be acquainted with us. It's going to be a great day.
3:30 - Mike O and I shout between each other in the port-a-john, even though we're 50 feet apart. I walk out looking confused and mad, glancing around to see who the shouting a-hole is.
4:00 - I share a big Italian sausage sandwich with Mike O. We then get our 3rd beer since gate entry.
4:15 - we see a lame indie band
4:20 - the dude abides
4:30 - 5:30 I don't know what the hell happened. I think we went to the other end of the park, engage in 3-4 more miller lites and shout out eagles tunes. The Eagles cover band, by the way, was simply amazing. Seriously, if you turned your head, you'd swear they were playing the radio. I'M NOT JOKING HERE. THE BEST COVER BAND I HAVE HEARD. TO THE NOTE.
O.K. - enough shouting. You get my point. It had to be made. We also discover Berry Weiss at this point, and head to the Briggs and Stratton lawn stage. Oddly enough, there is no grass in sight.
6:00 - 2 more lites and 2 more berry weiss consumed in this hour. We hear another amazing cover band, only to realize that it actually WAS the radio this time. We decide that maybe food is a good idea. We stop for a smoke break first, having a couple more lites. We find some plastic, quarter-operated miller barrels that vibrate the fillings out of your teeth, while providing a much-needed foot massage. I think it vibrated a bowel movement out of me without my knowing it. I find traces of it later.
6:30 - we find the most awesome falafel stand, and go hog wild with the hot sauce. 2 more berry weiss please!!!
7:00 - we see what I can best describe as a soul-gospel revival. people jumping all around. I'm dancing my ass off. Mike-O feeds Voss a falafel sandwich by hand. O then proceeds to mash up the remnants into what looks like pink couscous, and proceeds to eat it like Indiana Jones in the Indian camp in the Temple of Doom. I shudder and get another berry weiss. I point out "the loaded shirtless dude who's trying to dance like Cliff Huxtable" to my buddy Voss, who replies, "which one?"
8:00 - some dude in an afro asks if he can dance with me. At this point, i have been dancing nonstop for an hour, even when we're walking to another venue. I look like a white Dave Chapelle on ex. I spot an inflatable trampoline-kiddy thing, and proceed to bolt full speed towards it, and jump on top of the inflatable wall, only to find that IT WAS DEFLATING. I felt like I landed ass-first on a granite boulder. my tailbone is now 1/4 inch shorter. By now almost everyone in the park is lit, because about 50 people see this, then continue walking like they just passed the "AquaMassage" table at the mall. It's curious, but not enough to make you stop in your tracks.
8:40 - alkwenmacrei zkdvn nemf sdznc ferfa grknzv niuna qwe zasdf asdfnkjvn zvcrka ra
8:41 - if you have been to Summerfest, you understood that last entry
8:50 - HEEEEYYYY - ANOTHER BERRY WEISS FOR ME AND MY FRIENDS!!!! TO ALL MY FRIENDS!! YEAH!! GET POURIN' GET POURIN'!!!
9:00 - we're closing in on Lindsey Buckingham time. for the next hour and a half we consume 432 miller lites and 78 berry weiss, along with 896 smokes.
10:00 - we all sing Buddy Holly, Al Green, and one of my favorite songs from Led Zeppelin 3. The temperature is 70 degrees, the breeze is beautiful, and we're singing and dancing under the I794 overpass. Someone hugs us. We don't know who they are. This rules. We find a picnic table to stand on for the show.
10:15 - The music starts. It's so loud it hurts. I sneak away from time to time to catch Filthy children at the Chipotle stage. These white kids are TEARING IT UP!! I'm torn between the two shows before I realize, "Hey, I can take in about 4 shows at once!! THIS RULES!!!
12:00 - shows over, we get kicked out.
12:01 - 12:15 - HOT SUMMER........................HOT SUMMER NIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (repeat this 628 times and you'll get the idea).
12:15 - 2:00 - We get sucked into a bar offering 1/2 off drinks for ladies. I try to jump high enough to get my head caught in a ceiling fan going full tilt in the bar area. I get into a shouting match with a guy about Chet from Weird Science. I pretend to ride a chopper and wipe out, repeatedly falling out of my chair. People think I'm loaded, and I explain I'm not, even though I am, but not enough to fall out of my chair. They think I'm a total clown. They're right.
2:20 - a new phrase is coined by Voss: "perhabst" or "perpabst"
2:25 - Mike O says "I'm nothing but a 7-layer dispenser." I dive out of the car window. A guy says "Hey, cool it!" and points to a car at the drive-thru menu board. I push myself back through the window into the passenger's seat in time to see a squad car pulling around to the drive-thru window. I give the guy a thumbs-up for the heads-up. We pull out and go home.
2:30 - another new phrase is coined: "MIOS DIOS!!" This puts me into the bushes with laughter.

So that was Summerfest. The shirtless guy count stood at 46, with a medallion count of 2. I regret not bringing a camera, but my buddy Brian has pictures from last year, and they pretty much could be my photos from this year. Enjoy.

As for Summerfest and the city, it was really, really great. Beer, sausage, and shirtless guys with medallions. All for 15 bucks admission.
Milwaukee, you have won my heart.