2009 Cool City Classic Car Show

The best photo in the bunch. You will notice that there is a car in the foreground as well.

This year's Classic Car Show was another great one. Lots of cool cars, lots of people enjoying the day, beautiful weather, good steady business throughout the day at the shop. Tip of the hat to Rick & Colleen Inman and everyone else who worked so hard and diligently to make it another really fun event. Here are a few images that our pal Jeff Dawson took:

Click here to view Jeff's entire photo stream of the event.

The coolest tail lights are from this era.

Nice crowd throughout the day.

Sweeeeet...

Kim's Wednesday Night Special

Check out Kim's Wine All You Want blog for tonight's special trio of tapas, artisan pizza and wine for only 20 dinero. Featured pizza: Fig, Red Onion and Prosciutto. Call or email to reserve your spot.

Closed for Fathers Day

On the stump...or porch...with Scott Hanson

Tonight at 8:00pm, Scott Hanson of Milwaukee's On the Porch will be here. We're very excited about Scott's gig tonight. It'll be his first at Stumpjack and his appearance was actually booked by our friend Steph Davies (yep, the artist & musician who's work is hanging on the walls of Stumpjack at this very moment).
One of the fun things for me is listening to an artist's music online before they perform and then hearing those songs that I've become familiar with performed live at the café. Scott is super-talented, one of those musicians who you would go out of your way to see perform. Please check out Scott's myspace site to listen to his music: http://www.myspace.com/ontheporchmusic.

Every weekend with live music is a fun weekend, that's the truth, but I get the feeling that this is going to be one of those really special weekends where we get to listen to some great new music and make some new friends. Please join us if you can.

Tony Memmel at Stumpjack tonight

I'm generally not into telling anyone what they should or shouldn't be doing, but in this case I'll make an exception. You really need to be here this Friday night. Singer/songwriter/guitarist Tony Memmel is going to be here at 8pm. Go to Tony's myspace site and check out his music: http://www.myspace.com/tonymemmel.

His folk music is catchy and cool and excellent enough to warrant lots of enthusiastic applause and a loyal following. But the man plays guitar with one hand...by necessity, because he was born with only one complete arm (his right one). Tony is one of those cool stories of a person with talent who didn't let circumstances get in the way of doing what he wanted to do, and doing it excellently.

And the man has a healthy sense of humor too, as witnessed by his promo image above. So yeah, you should come and see Tony perform this Friday. Besides spending an hour or so listening to good folk music (which is always worth it) you might just hit the weekend feeling pretty uplifted and inspired to give your own challenges a swift kick in the crotch.

Performing with Tony will be Connor Sands La Mue. Here's Connor's myspace link: http://www.myspace.com/connorsandsandthewayout

Every weekend with live music is a fun weekend, that's the truth, but I get the feeling that this is going to be one of those really special weekends where we get to listen to some great new music and make some new friends. Please join us if you can.

Wed. June 17 Pizza & Wine Special

Tonight's menu continues this month's special trio of deliciousness...from 5:30-8:30pm.

Appetizer, Pizza, and Bottle of Wine for $20.

In addition, for every pizza purchased (only on Wed. evenings) you will be entered to win a concert ticket for the Sept. performance by reggae star Pato Banton.

Featured tapas selections:

• Caprese Salad
• Tuna, Olive Oil, Caper Crostini

Featured pizza (in addition to our other selections):

• Portobello, Rosemary, Garlic

Suggested wine pairing:

• Von Stiehl's Satin Red

Sunday morning laziness and steak grilled rare

Yesterday was another enjoyable Sunday morning at the Stump. Sundays are generally that way. Most everyone is in a good mood, is relaxed and not in a big hurry, and there's lots of banter back and forth between both friends and strangers. Plus, the pace of the morning is nice for me, by which I mean that it is lazy. I'm basically a lazy person by nature, even though I work 80+ hours a week and even my "time off" always seems to have some work-related component to it. But all in all I much prefer field testing cigars and craft beer while swinging in a hammock, whittling a tree branch or drowning worms at the end of a fishing line.

Sunday mornings at Stumpjack are about as close as I seem to get to embracing my true lazy self each week. I sat around and chatted with Bill and Pat, Jessica and Pat, Larry and Pat, and Pat and a host of other pals of the shop. Pat was on the money yesterday, quick with the one-liner comeback and ridiculous yet timely quips that might be described as Patisms.

Patisms:
Me, experiencing a brain-fart where for no particular reason I call someone by a different name: Mary, I mean Pat... I just called you Mary? That's odd.
Pat: Maybe because I'm wearing her underwear.

Pat, knowing that Larry's guilty pleasure is Kentucky Fried Chicken, inserts "Kentucky Fried Chicken" into any conversational opening that Larry presents.
Jessica: I took a yoga and meditation class in Kohler the other day.
Larry: Oh, I think I know where you mean. It's in that little shopping area, next to...
Pat: Kentucky Fried Chicken?!

Me: What are you reading there, Larry?
Larry: [gives book title] It's about a guy who discovers...
Pat: Kentucky Fried Chicken?!

Me to Pat: I'm doing a series of paintings on Stumpjack peeps. Including one of you, Pat.
Pat: Am I naked in it?
Me: No, I don't think so.
Pat: Paint me wearing Mary's underwear.

(for the record, Pat doesn't wear Mary's underwear, he was just being silly)

Jessica may conduct a yoga, meditation and chocolate class at the Stump. She's someone I might decribe as one of those lighter than air people, who is into poetry and wine tastings, rafia handbags and organic foods, vegetarianism, incense and practical yet stylish shoes. After I wrote that previous sentence I thought I should probably check out her blog profile to make sure I wasn't saying anything so off the mark that she might find it offensive (Raffia handbags?! My mexican hairless was killed in a raffia incident. I hate raffia, you jerk!). I am happy to report that I am pretty close in my description of Jessica, although I do not think Jess is a vegetarian (did a quick blog search for the word "meat" and found that she does indeed eat meat, which gives her another thumbs up in my book).

Anyway, sometime today or tomorrow I'll be shooting out an email to everyone on the mailing list to see how many folks might want to participate in Jessica's yoga, meditation & chocolate class. Watch for it.

We capped our Sunday off by driving up to Green Bay so that Cheyenne, Jesse and Courtney could go mall shopping while Kim and I hung out at Barnes & Nobles for a couple hours. I purchased a CD by Lightin' Hopkins out of the discount bin (what a great find!) and the latest issue of Draft, a beer mag.

Then we went to Prime Quarter for steaks and kitty cocktails. I "earned" my third medal for eating their Beefeater Special. Truthfully, I'm an anti-large-quantities-of-food guy (don't care for smorgasbords or all-you-can-eat dinners, or the "supersize me" mentality). I just think it's a bit crass and the quality of food in those things is almost always pretty lame. But I love a good steak. And Prime Quarter sets the bar pretty low as far as quantity goes...it's only 40 ounces. 40 ounces of steak with salad, bread, spud and drinks is about as daunting as eating a small box of popcorn at the movie theatre. I'm thinking they need to set it up as a legitimate challenge, or at least make it interesting; something like "The Old 96er" in that John Candy movie "The Great Outdoors," where he has to eat 96 ounces of steak, including all the gristle and fat to get everyone a free meal. Something that looks like it would take a couple of guys to carry the plate to your table. Now for that I might have to do a little stretching and limbering up for. Anyway, I get my next steak free for polishing off the 40 ounce Beefeater. I didn't order dessert because that might have been rubbing it in a bit.

Wine All You Want Wednesday night special

Click here to see what's on Kim's menu for this week's Wednesday night special.

A little more Steph Davies

Here's another image of a cool little mixed media piece by Steph Davies. Her art opening is tomorrow night (Friday) at 7pm...music by the most excellent Matt Davies.

Another pic from last Sunday morning. Here's cigar pal Bill behind a bottle of coffee tequila that Mike & Kelly brought in for me to copy the label info off of. I've been trying, unsuccessfully, to find this juice ever since they gave me taste several months ago.

Pals, music, art, gelato, etc

Art opening and live music

Steph Davies Art Exhibition
Friday night at 7pm
with music from folk troubadour Matt Davies

Saturday night at 8pm
Lea Holz
"...something familiar; something ancient; something raw and gentle; a dichotomy here, a polarity there. The sound of something smooth as skin or glass that ripples like water when touched. Lucidity. Liquid. Does spooning have a sound? How about the color red? ...passionate, melancholy, inquisitive, and confessional."

Last Sunday morning was fun. Koz kept his gear here from his gig the night before and performed a bunch of clarinet tunes for a few hours Sunday morning.
Mike & Kelly with Molly.

Lucy; Koz performing in the background.

Started making gelato again today for summer: made
blueberry, chocolate, raspberry, mandarin orange.
Yummy!

Wine & Pizza

Check out Kim's Wine All You Want blog. She is doing a wine and pizza special this Wednesday night, where you can also win a ticket to the Pato Banton superfun reggae concert at the Stump this September.