The Daily Parker

Politics, Weather, Photography, and the Dog

Explorium Third Ward, Milwaukee

Welcome to stop #127 on the Brews and Choos project.

Brewery: Explorium Brewpub Third Ward, 143 W. St. Paul Ave., Milwaukee
2 (of 5) stars
Train line: Amtrak, Milwaukee Intermodal Station
Time from Chicago: 89 minutes
Distance from station: 150 m

The best thing about Explorium is its proximity to the Milwaukee Intermodal Station, as it took me less than 5 minutes to get to my train home despite taking a couple of photos along the way. Otherwise it's a loud, TV-covered entertainment zone that could be anywhere in the US. It has decent wings though.

We tried another flight, including the Lost in the Sauce VX New England IPA (6.6%, 13 IBU), a fruity, malty, not horrible but too sweet beer that my Brews Buddy acknowledged was "very drinkable." The Wayfinder hazy pale ale (5.2%, 24 IBU) was even sweeter, with distinct banana notes, but also drinkable. Captain Kidd's Lost IPA (7.5%, 60 IBU) was...eh? My notes just say "bog-standard IPA." And the On Time IPA (no information) was...also drinkable.

I might go back, depending on what the outside spaces look like. It has an unbeatable location if you have to catch a train. Then again, Wizard Works is only 5 minutes farther away.

Beer garden? Yes
Dogs OK? Outside
Televisions? Unavoidable
Serves food? Full pub menu
Would hang out with a book? No
Would hang out with friends? Maybe
Would go back? Maybe, but only outside

Not the first all-female space shot, but the cringiest

On Monday, Jeff Bezos' company Blue Origin (the one with phallic space ships) sent an all-female "crew" into low orbit for ten minutes, pretty much demonstrating everything wrong with 2020s America:

Blue Origin's all-female crew, which included pop star Katy Perry, completed their trip into space Monday morning.

Along with Perry, the crew included Blue Origin owner Jeff Bezos' journalist fiancée, Lauren Sanchez, who is also a helicopter pilot.

Speaking after touchdown, Perry said she brought a daisy with her into space, in honor of her 4-year-old daughter, Daisy, whom she shares with fiancé Orlando Bloom.

"I feel super-connected to love," Perry said. "I think this experience has shown me how much love is inside of me."

Sanchez described the trip as "profound," adding, "I was up there and you see Earth and then you know it's completely black, but … we got to see the moon and it was in complete and utter darkness and then you look back at Earth and it's like this jewel."

Perry agreed with describing the trip as a 'journey," adding that it was a "supernatural one."

I...I don't even know where to begin. Fortunately, The Guardian's Moira Donegan did:

Once, Nasa was the pride of the American experiment: a testament to how a society dedicated to legal equality and passionate hard work could expand the horizons of human possibility. Now, Blue Origin is a testament to the corruption and circumscribed possibilities of the profit motive run amok. Space used to be a frontier for human exploration, a fount of innovation, and a symbol of a bright, uncertain and expansive future. Now, it is a backdrop for the Instagram selfies of the rich and narcissistic. The Blue Origin flight does not make me feel like humanity will reach new heights of achievement. It makes me feel like everything that is coming is grimly predictable, tailored to the impulses of the richest, least responsible and least morally intelligent people on Earth.

But the flight, and its grim promotional cycle, might be most depressing for what it reveals about the utter defeat of American feminism. Sánchez, the organizer of the flight, has touted the all-female crew as a win for women. But she herself is a woman in a deeply antifeminist model. It is not her rocket company that took her and her friends to the edge of space; it’s her male fiance’s. And it is no virtue of her character that put her inside the rocket – not her capacity, not her intellect and not her hard work – but merely her relationship with a man.

It is not misogynist to say that these women do not have their priorities in order. Rather, it is misogynist of them to so forcefully associate womanhood with cosmetics and looks, rather than with any of the more noble and human aspirations to which space travel might acquaint them – curiosity, inquiry, discovery, exploration, a sense of their own mortality, an apprehension of the divine. These women, who have placed themselves as representatives for all women with their promotion of the flight – positioning themselves as aspirational models of femininity – have presented a profoundly antifeminist vision of what womankind’s future is: dependent on men, confined to triviality, and deeply, deeply silly.

Donegan also points out that, after bribing the OAFPOTUS with a $1 m donation to his inauguration and suppressing the Washington Post's endorsement of Kamala Harris, the OAFPOTUS rewarded Bezos with a $2 bn contract. Because corruption.

The Atlantic's Ellen Cushing thinks Perry was exactly the right celebrity to go on this "dumb stunt:"

The critics have a point. I’ve spent longer waiting for the subway than Perry was up in space. Space tourism is, at best, folly—silly, spectacularly wasteful, pointless by definition.

Beyoncé likely wouldn’t go to space. Taylor Swift probably wouldn’t either. Going to space for no reason—courtesy of a rich guy a lot of people don’t like—is risky in the physical sense, as well as in the sense that it’s an invitation to get made fun of online. And those two women are serious, careful people. They’re disciplined. They are always in control. Swift’s Eras Tour was a meticulously constructed monument to the singer-songwriter’s mythology—a spectacle, sure, but one less of pop loopiness than of precision logistics. In Perry’s Las Vegas residency, Play, by contrast, she sat perched next to a 16-foot-tall toilet and had a conversation with a giant anthropomorphic lump of excrement. If Eras was a novel, Play was a knock-knock joke. It was a psychedelically moronic piece of performance art, and possibly the most fun I’ve ever had seeing live music.

That’s Perry, though: Always misreading the room. She is, in a word, cringe. For Millennials, especially, she’s a reminder of just how embarrassing we all used to be: earnest, straightforward, unencumbered by irony or internet nihilism. With her, what you see is what you get. She’s a performer. She’s an old-fashioned celebrity in the sense that she is basically a clown.

And then there's this take.

There was a time, not so long ago, when we celebrated the people who got us into space in the first place: Shepard, Glenn, Armstrong. And, yes, Valentina Tereshkova. They didn't know if they'd survive the trip. Some of them almost didn't.

But at least Katy Perry "studied" string theory before her trip. And she has a very good tailor.

Wizard Works Brewing, Milwaukee

Welcome to stop #126 on the Brews and Choos project.

Brewery: Wizard Works Brewing, 231 E. Buffalo St., Milwaukee
4½ (of 5) stars
Train line: Amtrak, Milwaukee Intermodal Station
Time from Chicago: 89 minutes
Distance from station: 900 m

Once you find the door to the 19th-century office building housing this quirky magic-themed brewery, head down the stairs and grab a seat. My Brews Buddy and I enjoyed the place thoroughly, though we would prefer it had fewer TV screens.

We shared a flight and went back for seconds. From left to right, we had: Abracadabra English IPA (5.8%, 50 IBU), very malty with a long finish and good bitter notes; Box Jumper blonde ale (5.5%, 24 IBU), also malty and a little sweet for my palate, with honey, apricot, and banana notes; First Rabbit porter (6.2%, 33 IBU), really nice coffee, toffee, and a long finish; and Smoke & Mirrors hazy New England IPA (5.9%, 41 IBU), my favorite, with big juicy Citra flavors and a nice hazy mouthfeel.

We would definitely come back and hang out with friends or dogs, but not necessarily with a book because of all the TVs. Still, it was our favorite stop of the day.

Beer garden? No
Dogs OK? Yes
Televisions? Unavoidable
Serves food? Snacks
Would hang out with a book? Maybe
Would hang out with friends? Yes
Would go back? Yes

Harvard tells the OAFPOTUS to sod off

Before I go through the stories from the last day about how we live in the stupidest timeline, here's a photo of the Milwaukee Intermodal Station I snapped heading to my return train on Friday:

Elsewhere in the stupidest timeline, where maximizing corruption is the defining goal of the Republican Party:

Finally, take a few minutes to read Chuck Marohn's Strong Towns series on how municipalities in the US and Canada routinely hide (or simply don't know) their long-term obligations so as to make building new infrastructure look like a better financial strategy than repairing existing infrastructure. I can tell you that you get no better view of the shitty state of American roads than riding a Divvy down almost any Chicago street, because Americans seem allergic to maintenance spending.

I know we need to put the fire out in Washington before we can fix anything else. But the long-term damage the OAFPOTUS continues to inflict on us will include more failing roads, bridges, and trains. So if you voted for him, you voted for the US becoming a third-world country in our lifetime.

The Copper Turtle, Milwaukee

Welcome to stop #125 on the Brews and Choos project.

Brewery: The Copper Turtle, 330 E. Menomonee St., Milwaukee
4 (of 5) stars
Train line: Amtrak, Milwaukee Intermodal Station
Time from Chicago: 89 minutes
Distance from station: 1.3 km

The Copper Turtle started as a microbrewery, and wants to continue making their three micro beers. That said, they want to be known more as a cocktail bar than as a brewery. Still, they brew on site, and their beers are pretty good.

My Brews Buddy had the Lottie Dottie sour (4.0%), a quirky lactose-fermented ale with guava and lychee. I did not try this beer, which will not surprise anyone who knows me. I had the No Fox Given dark lager (4.7%), which had a lighter mouthfeel than I expected (because it's a lager that looks like a porter), with nice chocolate and malt notes. They were out of the Current Rider hazy IPA (7.2%), so we left having had 125 mL of low-alcohol beer each.

This is the kind of place to pull up with a dog and a book outside. As our second stop on our Milwaukee tour, it worked just fine, knowing we had two other stops to go.

Beer garden? Sidewalk
Dogs OK? Outside
Televisions? None
Serves food? Pizza and pretzels
Would hang out with a book? Yes
Would hang out with friends? Yes
Would go back? Yes

Central Standard Crafthouse, Milwaukee

Welcome to stop #124 on the Brews and Choos project.

Distillery: Central Standard Crafthouse, 230 E. Clybourn St., Milwaukee
4½ (of 5) stars
Train line: Amtrak, Milwaukee Intermodal Station
Time from Chicago: 89 minutes
Distance from station: 1 km

Welcome to Milwaukee, Chicago's stepchild to the north. A relatively inexpensive trip from Chicago Union Station to Milwaukee Intermodal takes a bit under an hour and a half and drops you a short walk from 11 breweries and distilleries.

My Brews Buddy signed up for the Milwaukee Marathon last Saturday, so last Friday I took half a day of PTO to enjoy the beautiful spring weather trying some beers in Wisconsin. But first: lunch, and gin.

As it happens, Central Standard doesn't ferment on site; they distill at an ugly warehouse on the outskirts of the city. So their downtown tasting room technically doesn't qualify for the Brews & Choos Project. No matter; the food was really good, and so were the Guided Trail Gin and the Founder's Reserve Bourbon.

If the temperature had been a bit warmer, we might have eaten on the roof. The restaurant space worked just fine, though. It was a good first stop in the Brew City.

Beer garden? Rooftop
Dogs OK? No
Televisions? Avoidable
Serves food? Full restaurant
Would hang out with a book? Yes
Would hang out with friends? Yes
Would go back? Yes

Half a page of scribbled lines

I may have dodged a virus this week, though I'm not 100% sure yet. I have a lot more confidence in my health than the world has in the OAFPOTUS, however. And the news today doesn't change that at all:

  • Radley Balko, tongue firmly in cheek, satirizes the Republican Party in a way I will not spoil for you. (His takedown of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, made me guffaw.)
  • Yascha Mounk warns that the OAFPOTUS's irrational and malignantly stupid attack on the very things that made America great in service of his demented ego make it likely he'll do other malignantly stupid things in future.
  • Anne Applebaum warns that "this is what arbitrary, absolute power looks like."
  • Jennifer Rubin counters with a view of "when autocrats screw up."
  • The Dispatch editorial board warns that the MAGA crowd's "foreign policy was ancient when Charlemagne was on the throne, and their economic philosophy was hatched in the 15th century."
  • Conservative University of Chicago Law professor Aziz Huq offers up the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection clause as a possible avenue for defeating the OAFPOTUS's personal vendettas.

Tomorrow I'm taking advantage of a ridiculously full PTO bank and cheap train tickets to finally extend the Brews & Choos Project into Wisconsin, so you'll want to watch this space over the weekend for those posts.

Not much of a rally

The markets started slightly up this morning, but whatever optimism traders had before noon has evaporated. Both the S&P and DJIA are technically up, but less than 0.5%, while the OAFPOTUS continues to act like the demented old man he is.

And to think, Twin Peaks turned 35 today.

Meanwhile...

Finally, SMBC inadvertently explains the Republican Party's entire educational policy, complete with a joke I've made for years: if I ever win the lottery, I'll set up a math scholarship for areas that sell the most lottery tickets.