Second and Below

“Milwaukee is basically Chicago with like, you know, fucking half the population. All the same stuff, all the same great views, without the traffic. I love it.”- Bill Burr I got a thing for small Midwest cities. Most things are cheaper, the people are more relaxed and there is an obscene amount of parking. All these things are true about Milwaukee and I had been neglecting it for far too long. I went to Milwaukee one time when I was a kid. The only thing I remember was drinking a Squirt and my older brother telling me I’d explode if I burped. This led to an epic tantrum that went down forever in my family history. I am labeled as the overdramatic little shit while my psychopath brother comes off as gem. Fuck that dude. I didn’t go back until I was 21 when the band I screamed for played in a shitty basement somewhere near Marquette University, then later to feature at a poetry slam. Both times I arrived just in time to set up, get onstage, then dip, leaving the (ins...

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Hey Gang! I'll be posting a longer entry in a a week or two about the raging metropolis of Tulsa, Oklahoma. For now, in honor of my show in Bloomington, IN with Dan Sully, here'a a poem I wrote about my first trip to Lübeck, Germany in 2011. Dan Sully and I were the features and J.W. Basilo managed to place 2nd in the slam. This was J.W.'s first trip to Europe and he was extremely concerned about not being the asshole American which is ridiculous because he is the biggest asshole I know. After the slam, J.W. ended up with the bottle of champagne which set the tone for the rest of the evening. This poem owes a lot to Derrick C. Brown's "Last Night in Paris". I'd post a link to it but I can't find it online. Derrick thinks it's in his collection "Year of the Butterfly Knife" but he is old and his memory is unreliable. Apologies to Lübeck When given the choice between a bar that has women or a bar that serves whiskey ...