Those who are about to experience their first Madison Halloween missed out on last year's itinerary, which included such popular events as the 500-block bonfire, the drunk asshole punching a horse and the tear gassing of several hundred \sexy cops"" by the much more heavily armed and less sexy ""actual cops.""
However, they're unlikely to miss out on this year's offering, rumored to include both a drunk asshole kicking a horse and a workshop on the use of portable fencing as a battering ram.
Of course, if the zero-visitors policy, early bar closing and inflated price of citations have their intended effect, the drunken mob revelry will be replaced by drunken mob hugging, but if that is not going to happen should I be selecting a costume for its flame retardancy and resistance to TASER rounds?
The patience of the city and university for certain aspects of Halloween is understandably wearing thin. While desperation has driven both entities to consider every idea from declaring a state of emergency to clearing people off State Street with street cleaning machinery, they have repeatedly quashed a strategy that is both less militaristic and less likely to crush people under a giant spinning brush-live bands.
In past years the city has rejected the idea of using live music to spread out the Halloween crowds, citing the risk of drawing even more people to the city. Past experiments with it were, admittedly, less than successful.
While bringing in bands to Union South may not have lessened the amount of property damage on State Street, it's not too likely that the people climbing trees and throwing debris were music fans from out of town either.
The thought that bringing a band to Union South would even help mellow out State Street in the first place must have had its birth between the 12th High Life and a tube of model glue, as a concert in a venue that usually holds around 500 isn't going to make much of a dent in the 80,000 or so that show up each year to vent their aggression against mostly inanimate objects (also a product of too many High Life's).
A more sensible plan would be to set up bands closer to State Street. This wouldn't bring people very far from the revelry, but it wouldn't need to. Riots have broken out in past years when the entire crowd has tried to congregate in the same two blocks. Using concerts (or any other events, for that matter) to spread people out more evenly from Library Mall to the Capitol could have a huge effect on the mood of the crowd by simply giving people a little bit of breathing room.
Anybody who is searching for a form of less destructive entertainment over Halloween weekend will have to look elsewhere than the university, which has gone so far as to avoid scheduling any concerts whatsoever.
Fortunately, the private sector has come to the rescue with a clump (as groups of concerts are known) of shows for the weekend.
Friday night, people can see My Morning Jacket at the Annex, 1206 Regent St., and Nikka Costa at Club Majestic, 115 King St. Saturday boasts just as extensive a list, with DJs Mike Carlson and Nick Nice at the Cardinal Bar, 418 E. Wilson St. and the Hold Steady, the Constantines and Thunderbirds Are Now! at the Annex.
It's probably too late to make many changes to the city's plan for handling Halloween this year, but when you're being punched in the face by Joan of Arc while trying to save Che Guevara from a burning building, remember that it didn't have to be that way. After all, music soothes even the most savage beast.
Matt will be rocking out next weekend in the disguise of a rundown apartment. He can be reached at hunziker@wisc.edu.
