Though Arizona is my home, I have spent considerable time in Wisconsin. In my first year out of graduate school in 1996, I lived in the Badger State, splitting my time between Madison and Milwaukee. Since then, I have visited Wisconsin many times, both for work and for pleasure.

The Wisconsinites I have met over the years know only a few things about Arizona: the Grand Canyon is big, the Cardinals are bad, and “you must be stealing water from some other state.” The reverse is not true, however. Wisconsin has made a distinct impression on the minds of Arizonans.

Being a political junkie and a student of history, I am familiar with many of the people and things that one is “supposed” to know about Wisconsin: Tail Gunner Joe McCarthy, William Proxmire, Tommy Thompson, Les Aspin, Russ Feingold, the Progressive Movement, welfare migration, Wisconsin Works, the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, the Wisconsin Idea, and so on. But let me offer a few more personal impressions – things that are probably best appreciated by someone who has experienced Wisconsin as an Arizonan.

First, beer is cheap in Wisconsin. Once, when I was handed a 75-cent draft beer in a small-town Wisconsin tavern, I asked in disbelief, “That’s it?” The bartender said to me, helpfully, “I can charge you more if you like.” (Folksy humor – big in the Badger State.) The cheap suds  got me in trouble on one occasion. I stopped by a Brady Street bar one Saturday afternoon in Milwaukee and had a couple of beers. My tab was $1.50. I left two dollars on the counter and proceeded to gather my things. The bartender looked at me and said, “You come into my place and spend two dollars? TWO dollars? That’s it? Don’t bother coming back.”

As if the cheap beer was my fault!

Second (sticking with the same theme), there is a culture of neighborhood bars in Wisconsin that you won’t find in Arizona. It seems as if every street corner has its own bar, with its own cast of characters and its own unique feel. Just for fun, during my time living in Milwaukee I kept track of the number of different bars I visited. I was above 100 after nine months. Bars are everywhere. When I would go into work on Monday, one of my co-workers would ask what I did over the weekend. I would say, “Nothing much. I just visited a few local bars.” He would respond: “Good, good…you’re becoming one of us.”

(By the way, Milwaukee is the only big city in America where I have walked into a bar, pulled up a stool, placed my order, and been handed a freshly opened beer – in a can. Not a draft beer, not a bottle of beer, not a can of beer poured into a glass, or even into a plastic cup. Just a can.)

Third, Wisconsinites are the kind of people I like – they work hard, but they’d much rather be bowling, or grilling in the back yard with their neighbors, or playing with their kids; they’re friendly but not phony; they don’t try to impress you with who they know, how much money they make, where they went to school, or how godly they are; they eat more fatty/fried foods than they should, smoke and drink more than they should, and exercise less than they should; they’re not vain or narcissistic; they don’t use words like “vain” or “narcissistic;” they’re proud of where they’re from; they don’t have a problem with you if you don’t have a problem with them. And even if you DO have a problem with them, they figure it’s probably not worth getting upset about.

I thought readers might also be interested in the thoughts of Arizonans with less Wisconsin experience than I have. During the past few weeks, therefore, I conducted a variety of highly unscientific focus groups with a non-random sample of respondents in places that serve beer and onion rings rather than coffee and muffins. I discovered that among Arizonans, the word “Wisconsin” calls to mind some of the following things:

•         Cows, dairy, cheese;

•         Bitter cold weather in the winter, helicopter-sized mosquitoes in the summer;         

•         Farms, farmers, and isolated rural communities;

•         A rivalry between Minnesotans and Wisconsinites;

•         Madison – funky, fun, and unaware that socialism collapsed in the 1990s;

•         Green Bay Packers – Ice Bowl, Lambeau Field, Brett Favre; Vince Lombardi (Off-hand question from one respondent: “What’s a Packer, anyway?”);

•         Milwaukee Brewers;

•         Assorted music festivals that “get out of hand”;

•         Beer, especially Schlitz and Miller;

•         Sausage, brats, cheese curds, fish fry; and

•         Laverne, Shirley, and the Fonz.

Cheese-related answers were the most common among my focus group participants. In that vein, the funniest response I got was this: “Don’t they grow a lot of cheese there?” And perhaps the most disconcerting response, at least if you’re a Wisconsinite, was as follows:

Pretty much anything weird that happens, happens in Wisconsin. So, if you read a story about a drunk driver with no legs, or a guy making clothes out of people’s skin, most likely that took place in Wisconsin.

 

Looks like the Chamber of Commerce has some work to do.

To get one other perspective on the question of how Arizonans view Wisconsin, I went to a place in Phoenix called Casey Jones’ Sports Grill. It’s the most popular Packer bar in town (there are a few), billing itself as “Cheesehead Quarters.” I went to Casey Jones to watch the NFC championship game, but also to see how well Arizonans could replicate the Wisconsin experience.

Not very well, it turns out. The guy who owns the place is named Dave. Dave is a Milwaukee native. He runs a great bar, but it feels more like a polite nod in the direction of Wisconsin than a full kowtow. On game day, Dave grilled brats outside. While this was a good start, it was pretty much the end, too. I asked Dave if he served any other Wisconsin delicacies. “No, just brats,” he said. “How about beer?”, I asked. “Do you have Leinenkugel here?” Dave said, “We used to have it on tap, but most Arizonans can’t pronounce it. We finally got rid of it.” Instead, you could fill Green Bay with all the Corona they sell at Casey Jones.  

Corona. Yuck.

As for food, aside from the brats and perhaps the beer-battered fish and chips ($8.99), the fare didn’t call to mind any of the great Wisconsin gustatory traditions. In fact, much of the menu seemed decidedly Southwestern rather than Midwestern:

•          Pollo fundito ($9.99)

•          Macho nachos ($8.25)

•          Spinach dip con queso ($6.95)

•          Chimichanga ($9.99)

  Perhaps the most shocking menu item, however, was this: the low-carb burger ($8.99). I think most Wisconsinites would agree with me here: if you’re ordering a hamburger in a sports bar, you’ve pretty much decided to be fat. You’re not watching your carbs. You don’t believe in good cholesterol vs. bad cholesterol; you think all cholesterol is just fine, thank you very much. Furthermore, you can’t respect a low-carb burger – it wants to be all things to all people. It reminds you of Mitt Romney.

At Casey Jones, though, not only can you get a low-carb burger, you can combine it with a nice glass of Twisted Pig California Pinot Grigio. Undoubtedly, you  could try placing that same order in a Wisconsin tavern. But the reaction you’d get would be about the same as if you walked into a truck stop wearing ballet slippers and a unitard.

If the bar itself wasn’t quite the real deal, the bar patrons had a somewhat more authentic feel. At least two-thirds of the crowd was wearing Packer paraphernalia. Though there wasn’t a single foam cheesehead in the house, there was plenty of interesting headgear. The most creative was a Cat in the Hat-style lid, easily a foot high, but dyed green and gold rather than red and white. As for jerseys, Brett Favre’s #4 was the most popular – particularly with the women. In fact, I saw only one female wearing a jersey other than #4 (Javon Walker’s #84). The men, however, had a variety of names and numbers on their backs, including: Brooks (#87), Chmura (#66), Green (#30), Flanagan (#58), Levens (#25), Nitschke (#86), Hawk (#50), and the most exotic by far, Gbaja-Biamila (#94). (But where, oh where, was Reggie White -- #92?)

Beyond the attire, though, and the presence of many Wisconsin “expats,” this crowd was inescapably Arizonan. For starters, there was a self-consciously hip element in the house, one you don’t find in blue-collar Wisconsin bars. I’m talking about young men with soul patches, $40 haircuts, and tattoos (the kind of tattoos you see at the gym, not in the military or at biker conclaves). There were trashy girls, too: lots of makeup, lots of money spent on surgical upgrades, and clothes chosen to showcase the investment. (Okay, I’ll admit it: I think Wisconsin could use a few more girls like this.) The real giveaway, though, was that the crowd was much thinner in overtime than in the fourth quarter. This is typical of Arizona sports “fans.” They go to a sporting event primarily to see and be seen. Once they’ve taken in the crowd and been noticed by the right people, they’re on to the next venue. Who really cares how the team is doing?

I hope that line made Wisconsin readers cringe. It should. Arizona may have sunshine and beautiful people, but there are large parts of it that feel transitory, tawdry, and inauthentic. That’s never been an issue in Wisconsin. That’s why I go back as often as I do, and why I’ll continue to do so.

So, watch for me at Summerfest. I’ll be the Arizona guy with a $10 haircut and no tattoos, happily eating cheese curds, drinking a Leinenkugel (or two), talking to locals about the Brewers and the Packers, and enjoying the sunshine while it lasts. If you ask me, that’s the real Wisconsin Idea.