Wisconsin Foodie. Watch it.

The goal of Wisconsin Foodie is to educate, entertain and connect Wisconsinites to their food. Each show dives into Wisconsin’s culinary world - profiling local food treasures and unique travel destinations. Wisconsin Foodie artfully blends all three show facets (food, cooking and travel) to create a national-style program, yet completely local and all about Wisconsin.

My 5th cousin Arthur Ircink is the creator, co-director and editor. We connected when I moved back to Wisconsin in September 2009 but had been emailing each other for a couple years prior to that. Above: Arthur, with his wife, Dana, and me. Do we look related? We DO have the soul patch thang goin' on...

Wisconsin Foodie website.

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Oscar Observations (by Jeff).

Billy Crystal had a nice tribute to Bob Hope, who hosted the Academy Awards for 18 years. I miss Bob. He was a great host. Watch this video. Classic. Irreplaceable.

With that, here are my Oscar observations:

1) Kirk Douglas. Cool. Melissa Leo. Shut up.

2) Kirk Douglas. Spartacus. Justin Timberlake. Not Spartacus. Not even Spartacus' lingam. And we don't care if you're Banksy or not (Banksy is an anonymous British graffiti artist). And your little quip, "you know", before you announced your winner (an obvious nod to the several "you know's" uttered by Douglas' earlier)? Disrespectful. Douglas had a stroke and is 95-years-old, you fuckin' asshole. You're not Banksy.

3) Brolin & Bardem. Your white tuxes were not flattering and they looked small.

4) David Seidler. Phenomenal. Might be the oldest winner for Best Original Screenplay (The King's Speech). Bravo!

5) Anne Hathaway. Stop the "whoooing" after every guest introduction.

6) Christian Bale. Very cool. Won for Best Supporting Actor for The Fighter. Only award I cared about. Check out this clip. You know, I faintly remember him being British, but I must've blocked that. Everything I've seen him in he's speaking with an American accent...I forgot he was British. Odd to hear him with that guttural accent. See The Fighter.

7) Loved the varied angle shots of the winners at the podium.

8) Randy Newman. Yawn. Never liked him since his Short People song days. He won the Oscar for Best Original Song - his 2nd in 20 nominations. I'd rather listen to Tom Waits' voice.

9) Gwyneth Paltrow. I don't wanna hear you sing anymore. Not on Glee. Not at the Oscars. No more.

10) God of Love. Winner of Best Live Action Short Film. Cool. Means there's hope for Pass the Salt, Please (click here for PTSP info).

11) Jennifer Hudson. It's "lyricS" - not "lyric".

12) Halle Berry's tribute to Lena Horne. SHAME! How did Lena Horne get a special tribute following the tribute to the other movie folk who had passed away? Did Robert Redford come out and speak on Paul Newman's behalf last year (was it last year?)? No. Lame.

13) Staten Island Public School 22 chorus. Singing "Over the Rainbow" at the end of the Academy Awards. Cheese.

Fin. Who doesn't love the glitz and glamour of Tinsletown? Speaking of movies.....hey, if you're interested in becoming a producer on our short film, Pass the Salt, Please, click here to find out how you can help. 15 days to go and we're getting closer.

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"BILLY" review at AussieTheatre.com!

"(Billy Balfoor Wants An Apology)...saw the reprisal of Chris Turner from Separating The Dust in a very similar role which could have been slightly distracting for some, but at the same time gave the audience the chance to see the demands on some of the performers. It was difficult to pinpoint which character should garner the audience’s sympathies and perhaps this was the charm of the project – the premise of whether there could possibly be a truly evil child was one that was difficult to settle definitively in the short timeframe. Strong performances contributed to this compelling complexity."

-by Leisa Woodman

(Which character is in the "right" is exactly the question I wanted to put to the audience.)

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Summerstage Delafield's Break A Leg Gala.

Above: Board member Mary Pat Halaska and myself.

I've been assisting Summerstage Delafield's artistic board ever since President Stephen Davis attended the staged play reading of my one-act, "Reveille!", this past September. The Break-A-Leg Gala is Summerstage Delafield's yearly fundraiser and it was very successful. Met some nice folk, networked a bit, sat at the "producers'" table at Stephen's invitation...very nice affair. I was impressed.

Check out the Summerstage Delafield site here, as well as Stephen's web design page and Mary's marketing website. Anyone else got a site to plug??

Stephen Davis, President of Summerstage Delafield. Click on READ MORE for pics from the event.

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"Billy Balfoor" @ Short+Sweet Sydney, mate!

Left to right: Steve Warwick (Laird), director Grant Wilcox and Chris Turner (Billy).

My short play, "Billy Balfoor Wants An Apology", had its world premiere at Short+Sweet Sydney / The Biggest Little Play Festival in the World. Grant and I communicated via email (and me 16 hours behind him) for much of the casting and rehearsal process leading up to our week of production, February 16-20.

All I've wanted for three years was to get a play to the production phase of this festival. There's a series of ropes to jump through before you get there - like the 750 submissions received. Once those are read and pared down, 12 plays get a one-week run over the course of 8 weeks = 96 plays total in the festival. The judges top play from each week goes to the Gala Finals which is two nights in March. That's where they award the prize money for Best Play, Audience Favorite, Best Actor and so forth.

"Billy" was not selected to the finals. Fuckin' Aussies. Ha - I'm kidding. I had no expectations going into this. However, there's a bit of a silver lining. See, there's also a People's Choice selection which - at the end of the 8 weeks - determines the People's Choice play to advance to the finals. Long story short, "Billy" placed 5th out of the 11 plays my week (one play was dropped). Interestingly, the People's Choice vote selected "Billy" over the play the judges selected for the Gala Finals (that short placed 6th in the People's Choice).

So - the audience overall liked my play over the judges’ vote for best play (and 4 others…but who cares about those plays). Very cool. Grant had some nice things to say as he saw the play unfold in front of an audience:

"…I'm very happy with how the week went."

"…we all really enjoyed working on "BILLY" . It was different and it had impact."

"…it received one of the biggest ovations of the night. A guy sitting behind me…said 'that was fucking brilliant'."

"…you could hear a pin drop…the tension is palpable."

Everything Grant said is what I wanted to achieve with this play, so I’m very happy. If you wanna check out some previous Short+Sweet posts on "Billy", there's one of the show poster Grant made up and a blog post on the actors.

More pics from the production to follow once I order them from Sydney - and a DVD of the production. It was a wonderful experience - only wish I could've attended. Next time. I'll always submit to Short+Sweet. Great festival. Great people. Thank you Grant, Steve and Chris - for becoming involved with this play. And thank you, Alex Broun (playwright and coordinator who heads up Short+Sweet Sydney...and Malaysia, Singapore, Melbourne, Canberra, Auckland, New Castle, Delhi, New Castle, Rockhampton, Brisbane and Adelaide)!

And thank you "Billy" and "Laird" - you crazy motherfuckers. Next time.

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Thanks Tom, Tony, the Celts, Minnie and Lowen & Navarro!

My parents were over to Teachín Ircink in Greendale tonite (Friday) for their first dinner here. (I used to say "Casa Ircink" but I'm done with the Spanish - now using the Irish Gaelic version = "tah-heen") The music fare above (now that's clever) ran the gamut. Dad thinks Tom Waits sounds like James Brown. And he never heard of Minnie Driver.

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TGIF! presents...Carl Palmer of ELP on the drums!

Impressive. Palmer is credited with being one of the foremost drummers who emerged from the 1960's and is currently on tour with Asia, the 80's band he co-founded. You may recall this Emerson, Lake & Palmer tune.

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What's wrong with these protest signs? Part Deux.

I hate to follow up one post with a "Part Deux" so quickly, but when this was brought to my attention by my brother, I surfed the web and, lo and behold, he was right. Now, I have five more posters to show you, so...bear with me. The best one's are the last two.

I suppose the left isn't concerned with "turn the other cheek" but more with "do onto others". That's all well and good. But then they shouldn't bitch about the right or the Tea Party members when they protest. Right? No? Ok - here we go.

I'm just gonna shut my mouth and say it's all about the beauty within. It is.

I hate repeating myself. I mentioned this in a previous blog post. According to Urban Dictionary (and pretty much a huge percentage of our society), "teabagging" refers to "the insertion of one man's sack into another person's mouth. Used a practical joke or prank, when performed on someone who is asleep, or as a sexual act". So - a "teabagger" would logically be a person who participates in this action. Yes. See - these protesters think they're being funny. If you want to refer to a member of the Tea Party, refer to them as "Tea Partiers" or "Tea Party Members". Your local open mike down the street probably has available slots for you to sharpen your wit. Making this point at a protest is not making your point. Lemming.

Now this is sad. This guy could be a grandpa. Or someone's husband. To stoop this low...how embarrassing. And to bring Walker's mother into it? If I held up a sign at an anti- illegal alien rally saying, "All Illegals Out! *Not incl. Obama's Auntie", wouldn't that be inappropriate? I think it would. And "swallowing"? This is in bad taste - even for me - in a public forum. The next two posters are the biggies -

Either the Tea Party or anti-Obama protesters were chastised by the left for portraying our president in association with Nazi swastikas and Hitler moustaches. But it's OK to put the same 'stache on Walker? OK.

A few months ago, the left were all over Sarah Palin (who I can't stand, by the way) for inciting violence/attempted murder with a graphic that placed "cross hairs" over some congressional districts? Then there was that shooting in Arizona.....but it's acceptable to put this cross hair over Governor Walker's face (not the Madison capital or a WI district) ?

The left accuses the right of this. The right accuses the left of that. One side says the other side is skewing the facts. The other side says, no - they're skewing the facts. The bitch in Bel Air thought she was so fucking high and mighty that if it were a sunny California day and she deemed it to be cloudy, it was cloudy. Didn't matter. So, does anyone really know what the fuck is going on? This stat, that stat, this source and that source, Fox says this, MSNBC says that, screw Rachel Maddow and screw Glen Beck....

We don't know shit. Now I've said many times that I don't trust politicians. I don't. The only difference with Governor Walker is that I know Scott personally...since the early to mid-80's. Haven't talked to him in a while (I've been outta the state, he's been entrenched in politics) but if we happened upon each other at some public event (or in the bathroom at the Milwaukee Art Museum, Brewers' game...wherever), we would hug and talk like it was 1985 and we wouldn't miss a beat. He's a good man. And I have to trust that what he's doing - no matter how shitty it comes across - is what's best for the state of Wisconsin. The STATE of WISCONSIN.

What else can I tell you? I got nothin'. Who knows who's really right and who's wrong. But I do know Governor Scott Walker...

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What's wrong with these protest signs?

Just a few protest signs in Madison as various union folk gather to voice their disgust with Wisconsin Governor Walker's budget initiatives, which include severely limiting collective bargaining rights. The first two signs, I'm assuming, are being held by teachers.

On the surface, what kid wouldn't want to be taught by this lady? She exudes warmth, caring, kindness. But who cares what your working conditions are, ma'am...you're not in class teaching the children so your sign is a mute point. Go back to school.

No one's son is in your class. You're not teaching him. You're not protecting him. And you're not inspiring him...because you're not in class today. (Unless you're trying to inspire children to be irresponsible - well, then fine. You are inspiring children.)

Then you've got this dude. I hope he's not a teacher. I won't even comment.

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Sven's Cafe in Bayview.

I'm hanging here before my audition at The Alchemist. That's owner Steve Goretzko. Check it out if you're in the area.

I have no idea where Sven is. But this tune is playing on the radio.

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Dirty black cap.

I was looking for an appropriate hat to wear to an audition Wednesday night and I happened upon USA Family Thrift on Hwy 100 in Greenfield. I grabbed this standard wool, military, black hat. When I checked out, I said to the cashier, "You washed that right? You wash the clothes here...". She said, "No." "No?" I quickly responded. The woman stated, 'People just bring their clothes in and we put them out on the sales floor."

Really? It was probably washed by the previous owner. But I can't be sure. I washed it before my audition.

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Governor Walker protesters can be a nasty sort.

Unless you live under a rock, you're aware of the protests in Madison, Wisconsin regarding newly elected Governor Scott Walkers' budget plan to shore up our state's fiscal status by widdling down public employees' collective bargaining rights.

"Nasty sort". Course, the anti-Walker contingent can say the same about the pro-Walker contingent - Republicans, the right, conservatives, pro big business, etc - that we're nasty. The point is Trevor Teeters (above) is proof in the pudding that no one is an angel.

I got on the FB page, 540,000 To See Scott Walker out of WI, to monitor the anti-Walker buzz. I posted a link to a Politifact article, a fact checking resource, that stated Rachel Maddow's take on Wisconsin's budget was false. Trevor thinks my link was bullshit and that Politifact has a Republican slant. And he told me so by using words like "cunt", "asshole" and "poop".

I might add that I found another Politifact article that stated a Wisconsin Republican senators' statement on a related issue was false. I wondered if Trevor still thought Politifact was biased toward conservatives. Trevor disappeared off Facebook.

And...I'm no longer allowed to post on 540,000 To See Scott Walker out of WI.

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Muammar Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi. Just die, will you.

Reminds me of a line from a John Wayne movie.

"You look like the vermin-ridden son-of-a-bitch you are." — John Wayne (Wil Andersen) to Bruce Dern (Long Hair) from The Cowboys (1972).

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KFC even tastes like chicken in China.

But Colonel Sanders looks a tad different in Beijing, don't he? Can they do that? Click here for more on KFC's influence in China.

This reminded me of when, in the 1990's, the musical "Miss Saigon" moved to Broadway and the Actors' Equity Association (AEA) barred actor Jonathan Pryce from starring as the "Engineer" (the character is Asian - Pryce is caucasion) because, according to the AEA executive secretary, "casting of a Caucasian actor made up to appear Asian is an affront to the Asian community".

Should I be offended?

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Be a producer! Support the film, "Pass the Salt, Please"!

So this is the short film you've heard me talking about. The one my friend Tat directed which is based on my award-winning short play. The one I blew my retina out while filming in California. Yeahhhh - that film.

Well here's your chance to become involved. For as little as $10, you can become a producer on the film. Click on the name of the film below the video and Kickstarter will tell you how. Hey - one project raised close to a million dollars....all online. Tatjana is looking to raise $10,000 for post production costs and she has 25 days to do it in. If she falls short of her goal, she gets nothing and you pay nothing.

Watch the video. Check out some of the other projects on Kickstarter - and follow this link to our film project. It's a very cool premise.

(And my retina is fine now. Thanks.)

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TGIF! presents....Arcade Fire's "Wake Up! (2005)"

2011 Grammy winner for Album of the Year. Not Eminob. Not Lady Googoo. Not Katy Spareme. (Even not Lady Antebellum, though they did get Record of the Year).

Arcade Fire.

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Somewhere in the Wisconsin bush.

Just my brother and I. And the dogs. Not too cold outside. The cabin was 42 degrees when we got there. A roaring fire, a few brandy old fashioneds and an hour or so later it was hovering around 70. Snow up to our knees. I'm tired.

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BILLY BALFOOR hits Sydney!!!

BILLY BALFOOR WANTS AN APOLOGY by Jeffrey James Ircink. Newtown Theatre. Sydney, Australia, Short+Sweet - The Biggest Little Play Festival in the World. Directed by Grant Wilcox and starring Steve Warwick and Chris Turner. February 16-20.

Fifteen years after his failed attempt at ridding the world of the most evilest boy on the planet, Laird finds himself in a bind - Billy Balfoor wants an apology.

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Drunken orgies with hookers. No - not Charlie Sheen's autobiography.

The last munchkin passed away in April 2010 and I watched The Wizard of Oz for the first time in years with Grace and Gwyneth while in Cali in January. Then, for some reason, I was looking up Charlie Chaplin's studio on the Internet - long story short, I ended up reading about how the munchkins stayed at The Culver Hotel in Culver City (where I lived the last 3 years I was in Cali - the city, not the hotel) while filming Oz.

Not "angels" - those munchkins, according to some connected to the movie.

Judy Garland said, "They got smashed every night and the police had to pick them up in butterfly nets."

Cowardly lion Bert Lahr stated, "Many of the Munchkins were midgets who, in fact, made their living by panhandling, pimping and whoring."

And MGM Studios producer Mervyn Leroy commented, "They got into sex orgies at the hotel. We had to have police on every floor."

Those silly, damn, crazy munchkins!

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