Co-founder, Editor-in-Chief, Commonstate.com
Mar. 12, 2023
8 min read
The impetus for Serve came about a year before its founding when Gary took a seemingly innocuous meeting with a woman named Margie Rehm, who was heading a nonprofit called the Shaken Baby Association.
Dec. 14, 2022
8 min read
The things that speak to us are hard to explain and extremely personal. But when you are confronted with some form of art that does it, you know.
Sep. 9, 2022
8 min read
Maybe it’s stating the obvious. But when you are talking to Jason Ilstrup, the door mechanics conjure an image of the state of Wisconsin. And doors, as we all know, need two or three hinges to work.
Jun. 13, 2022
7 min read
Through Michael Hostad’s high school and college years, the world was experiencing unprecedented growth in technology—the internet was a new thing and someone with programming knowledge and a decent business sense could make hay.
Apr. 15, 2022
4 min read
This adventure started innocently enough; I wanted to buy a birthday gift for my wife. She is fond of these bird paintings we had seen at various...
Mar. 21, 2022
6 min read
This could just be the escape we’re all looking for. An escape from the darkness of the pandemic. An escape from the media barrage of negative headlines and doom and gloom of our everyday reality.
Feb. 28, 2022
9 min read
It would be impossible to address all the different projects Paul has worked on over the last three decades. That would not be an article, it would be a novel.
Feb. 3, 2022
4 min read
I not so fondly remember March 2020, at home watching a random NBA basketball game, when Utah Jazz forward Rudy Goebert tested positive for the Coronavirus.
Apr. 9, 2020
6 min read
Mark Fairbanks co-founded Islands of Brilliance with his wife Margaret in 2012. The organization’s premise - to pair children with autism with design professionals who can teach the students valuable software skills
Nov. 27, 2019
7 min read
Is rock dead? When was the funeral? I certainly would have gone and paid my respects. I’ve had a pretty close relationship over the years with rock...
Oct. 22, 2019
5 min read
My good friend and award winning editor Barry Poltermann once told me a story about movie pitches in Hollywood. He told me that if you’re in a meeting...
Aug. 30, 2019
6 min read
One of my favorite quotes is by artist and photographer Chuck Close, who famously said, “Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get...
Aug. 8, 2019
5 min read
August 6th was adult contemporary night here in Milwaukee as suburban couples and twenty somethings hopped in their SUVs to the Fiserv Forum to hear John...
Aug. 2, 2019
3 min read
My 19 year old son and I were walking out of the theater after Quentin Tarantino’s new film Once Upon A Time … In Hollywood and he was clearly dejected...
May. 30, 2019
4 min read
If you’ve attended an event hosted by Milwaukee Film, there’s close to a 100% chance you’ve run into or at least seen Kristopher Pollard.
Apr. 29, 2019
7 min read
We moved our daughter to Brooklyn, New York recently and it was a joyous and profoundly sad journey. So, of course, I had to write about it.
Apr. 11, 2019
2 min read
It’s time for my mea culpa, Vampire Weekend.
Mar. 19, 2019
3 min read
I’m a guy who is only slightly past middle age. And like most people my age I tend to have a penchant for the past. I still think Abbey Road is the greatest album of all time. I think the...
Feb. 18, 2019
4 min read
It was a typically warm summer night in St. Louis, and Phil Sklar and Brad Novak pulled up to Busch Stadium to take in a ballgame. They love baseball...
Feb. 4, 2019
4 min read
Welcome to the Super Bowl of the United States of America. Where “All things to all people” has now reached it’s full self-actualized potential...
Jan. 21, 2019
3 min read
You know the earmarks of some of the best documentaries; they either have a great plot twist or an Insane revelation; devastating developments and brutal...
Dec. 28, 2018
13 min read
The end of the year is a time when sites inundate us with “best of” lists. But here at Commonstate, we’re going to do things a bit differently...
Dec. 6, 2018
5 min read
Let’s go back a year or so, late fall. A group of about 30 employees of Flowers For Dreams meet at one of their homes in Chicago and are sitting around...
Nov. 9, 2018
4 min read
The whole thing started out as a treasure hunt of sorts, an ambitious and industrious young woman named Ashley Town was on a quest. She had written a book.
Oct. 25, 2018
5 min read
I saw an activist that I follow posting videos of people smashing cop cars. I thought, where is this happening? I was like, holy... this is Milwaukee.
Sep. 12, 2018
4 min read
The “discovery” functionality on Spotify can be a harsh mistress. I’m not sure I love it, and it rarely loves me back. People are constantly recommending
Aug. 13, 2018
4 min read
I worked at JC Penney in 1982. Employee #750. Yes, I still remember. My department was ground zero for the sales of hundreds of Sony Walkmen...
Aug. 3, 2018
3 min read
When I met Dan Atkinson in his studio on Vliet Street, I was fully expecting to discuss his work making planters out of cream city brick. And, while we...
Jul. 19, 2018
2 min read
Imagine this bizarre fantasy: Aliens from another galaxy finally decide to show themselves, and they lower their frisbee-like spaceship towards Milwaukee.
Jul. 9, 2018
5 min read
In the pantheon of pop/rock music there are only a handful of iconic duos – those whose voices mesh together seamlessly, whose songwriting and approach...
Jul. 2, 2018
4 min read
There was a something happening in the late 60s and early 70s where bands – and a whole bunch of them – found their own voice very quickly...
Jun. 25, 2018
2 min read
If Lebron James joined the Milwaukee Bucks, it would change the course of a franchise -- most likely from “up and coming” to “arrived.” But how would...
Jun. 11, 2018
2 min read
Harmony guitar parts and beautiful layered melodies are popping out of the speakers in my Volkswagen and I sadly cannot take my hands off the wheel...
Jun. 1, 2018
4 min read
Ian McCullough has released 11 albums since 2006. Every one of those albums was released on his birthday, April 27. This is not by accident...
May. 18, 2018
1 min read
At night, the most iconic part of Milwaukee’s skyline rests in the background in the dark. You can see its shape, lifeless, and sometimes the moon...
May. 9, 2018
3 min read
In the hall of fame of days, Sunday is a first balloter. Plans and obligations be damned. I’m going to mindlessly surf twitter and there’s nothing you...
May. 4, 2018
4 min read
I’m hanging out at The Vanguard in Bayview, waiting for Nick and Ryan from Milwaukee’s Midwest Death Rattle to join me. Looking over the menu...
Apr. 20, 2018
6 min read
It was a moment I vividly remember, circa 1994. Music had not gone streaming yet -- we were still virtually a decade away from those realities.
Apr. 16, 2018
3 min read
Hey everyone, how you doing? Remember me?
Apr. 9, 2018
4 min read
The mismatched mix of tables and chairs in the dining room at La Merenda is slightly unexpected as your host/hostess walks you to your table.
Mar. 26, 2018
4 min read
The Cal-Neva is a casino in downtown Reno, Nevada on 2nd Street. And as I walk through the doors I imagine the hardened gamblers, cowboys...
Mar. 20, 2018
4 min read
There’s an old Nordic Folk song titled “Varulven” which, translated to English is “The Werewolf.” It’s a Little Red Riding Hood type of story...
Mar. 1, 2018
5 min read
The mission of Commonstate is to champion creative thinking in every community, in every field. Filmmakers, musicians, fine artists, chefs, public servants and architects alike are at home here. And just because you don’t make art doesn’t make you less...
Feb. 22, 2018
4 min read
Steve Kodis, one of countless immensely talented people who have willingly traded in a bit of freedom for a lot of responsibility.
Feb. 12, 2018
3 min read
I’m sitting in the back of Buckley's sipping bourbon waiting for Drew Britton to arrive. Drew has just returned from the Slamdance Film Festival.
Feb. 5, 2018
5 min read
As the Eagles claimed their “World Championship” crown after the Super Bowl, the saber rattling began around who led the pack in this year’s commercials.
Jan. 24, 2018
3 min read
When photographer Kelly Bolter said she would meet me in Wauwatosa, I threw out the names via chat of a few of these newer establishments...
Jan. 19, 2018
2 min read
Zach pointed out a few of the product designers in the store when I visited; Kinto from Japan, Most Modest out of San Francisco, Good Thing from Brooklyn. And, if you want to see a pair of Raen sunglasses or a TOPO Designs backpack in person, Commonplace is your spot.
Jan. 13, 2018
2 min read
Approaching the storefront of Brew City Salvage on 5th and National in Milwaukee, you’ll see a stuffed deer standing outside the entrance with a sign hanging around its neck that says “open.”
Jan. 8, 2018
3 min read
I was standing in the recording room at the Exchange Recording Complex on National Avenue, with Brian Wooldridge. He’s pulling his Epiphone Coronet out of its case and I’m salivating at the sight of it; the Coronet has always been one of my favorite guitars, double cutaway, the iconic Epiphone “E” on the pickguard, the grit.
Jan. 1, 2018
3 min read
I’m 51-years-old and have worked out my whole life. I enjoy it. I’ve belonged to every club you can imagine. Getting my 45 minutes to an hour of exercise on a regular basis is important to me. I pretty much work out to maintain my dad-bod and stoke my fake sense of confidence that I have a semblance of fitness.
Jan. 1, 2018
2 min read
Have you met Steve Landish? He’s the guy who runs the bar at Kindred on Kinnickinnic Ave. By all accounts, at least in the three or so times I have talked to him, Steve is kind of brilliant. He talks about ingredients, how they work together, and generally is hush-hush about exact quantities he puts into the drinks. Go with it.
Jan. 1, 2018
2 min read
Mike Alt, sitting to my left, looked over at me, grinning. Then he laid down this gem: “I went to about 8 or 9 thrift shops before I came here tonight.”
![[UPDATED] Michael Rault has harnessed the power and the glory of 70s pop, and it's brilliant](https://images.prismic.io/commonstate/c5ff1803-295b-4304-acd3-d40a47614ad1_IMG_0656.jpg?q=90&w=1334&auto=format)
