Advanced Storytelling

Downer Avenue comes to an end at the Lake. You think you can see Michigan in the distance, but you really can’t. It’s that big. Makes Lake Harriet look like a puddle. But it smells like dead fish on the beach, which is why I took this photo from on top of the bluff. Continuing along the bike trail along the lake, we hit downtown. For you arts people, this building is the art museum. Which building, you ask? The ugly one or the pretty one? Both, actually. They stuck a graceful, award-winning building onto the side of that brown monstrosity. Like transplanting a swan’s head onto a trout. I guess the front view’s not so bad, but the view from the lake is just a wall of brown. Now downtown, we find ourselves at one of the city’s hottest after-work happy hours- Flannery’s, named after my cousin. If my uncle hadn’t admitted his drug habit and gone into rehab, he’d still own it. Of course, he probably would have spent all the profits on drugs and overdose, so I guess it’s better this way. Fl

So, first off, what we have here is the Milwaukee skyline as seen from my roof off Oakland Avenue. Yes, my roof. I climb up on my roof. Because I can. Next, we bike down Oakland to UWM. Here’s your definitive proof that I’m in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. When I was a kid and my mom was getting her masters, I would sit in on the computer science classes she TA’d and take notes. Apparently, I took better notes that some of the students. Turning down Downer Avenue, we have the iconic green Milwaukee trashcan. This is a classic specimen, reading “Keep Milwaukee Clean” on one side, and “Drugs Are Trash” on another. Continuing down the street, we enter Sendik’s Grocery, where I sneakily took a few photos of alcohol in a grocery store to highlight the differences between Wisconsin and Minnesota. I much rather would have gone into the liquor store across the street, where the cute guys work, but I was on assignment. Across the street is Gil’s café, site of my first real date. I was madly in love wit