Road Trips : Road Trip 98 : Detroit - Milwaukee
Monday 26 October 1998 (Detroit MI to Milwaukee WI)
Odometer: 86376
I made it out pretty early. Would have been even earlier, but there was cruising to be done at the motel. Seems the "high school/homecoming kid" we'd noticed earlier was (a) a couple of years older than originally pegged, and (b) cruising me really hard. Unfortunately, we never completely connected and we didn't get to fuck to a background of Judge Judy. Pity...
Southern Michigan is not the most exciting place in the world. There's Ann Arbor, the cute college town, Battle Creek, the depressed cereal town, and Kalamazoo, the town where I couldn't stop singing that song about "I got a gal..."
I made it through pretty fast, ate somewhere, and all of a sudden I was in Indiana again. There was cheap gas. There were cheap cigarettes. And I made my way through Gary, the dowdy gateway to Chicagoland just a little too close to rush hour for comfort.
Logistics (OK...money...) kept me from spending any time at all in Chicago. I didn't even drive through the city since I arrived so late in the afternoon. I flew through the far western suburbs on I-294 and didn't stop 'til I was in Wisconsin.
Somewhere along the way, I realized I was running a day early, and I was hoping this wouldn't screw up my chance to meet up with Dave in Milwaukee. Fortunately, it didn't. We met up at the bookstore where he works part time and were soon joined by boyfriend Doug and roomie Davee. At this point, there were far too many Davids in one room. We survived.
I'm told Milwaukee has more queer bars per capita than any other city in the country. This is a pretty reasonable notion since Milwaukee is traditionally "Beer City USA". Strange thing is, all of the bars we hit were tiny sleazy little corner bars. Of course, I liked this aspect of the place. There was This Is It, with the big booth an the strange man who wanted to escort me to the bathroom. At C'est La Vie, Dave and Doug won a lovely porn video playing pob-ball. At the Ballgame, there was wood panelling, strange statuary, and a security camera. And there was also this straight bar which I really loved. Cheap beer all around. I really loved that too...
And (again) it was really cool to meet people and instantly feel like old friends. We hung out. We drank beer. We watched demolition video. I was in awe of all the techno toys in the house. I was in awe of all the HOUSE in the house. After Detroit (where I lurked in a house being purchased for an obscenely low price) and Milwaukee, was becoming increasigly impatient with the walk-in closet I call home.
Tuesday 27 October 1998 (Milwaukee WI to Madison WI)
Odometer: 87217
A mildly hungover moring in Milwaukee, cured by a big lunch at a great old-school Italian restaurant. This place was really incredible, with the kind of Italian food I grew up eating (in other words, none of your foofy "light trendy pasta of the month" bullshit...). The host was a classic "mama" of the sort who pinches your cheeks at the table and asks why you didn't finish everything. Great.
In addition to a tour of the city, I met the neighbor kid, a very out 14-year-old queer who was about to give a class presentation on Truman Capote. I saw the "Laverne and Shirley" building. I saw what used to be the Schlitz brewery. We drove by some Milwaukee resident's own personal version of the Cadillac Ranch. Pretty interesting place. Milwaukee. I should have given it more time.
It was almost 4:00 by the time I left. I was worn out from too little sleep and too much lasagne. It was starting to rain. I was offered crash space for the night, but I was determined to make it to Minneapolis, so I hit the road.
I got as far as Madison. That big indention in my butt was the result of kicking myself (hard) for being so stupid.
I didn't even go out in Madison. I checked into the Motel 6 from hell (this place was REALLY bad), got dinner from the sub shop across the street and settled in for some strange voodoo incest movie on HBO, followed by a PBS documentary on the history of the ACLU. All in all, I guess it was a pretty good low-impact rest break. All in all, that's a pretty good descrition of Madison in general.