I\’m just finishing up Charles R. Cross\’ excellent but intensely depressing biography of Kurt Cobain, entitled \”Heavier than Heaven.\” It\’s an unflinching look at Cobain that doesn\’t spare any detail about his drug use, cruelty, and selfishness. And now I\’m completely bummed out.

Reading this book has kind of given me a glimpse of how book reading will probably be in the near-future. I read a big chunk of it while hooked up to the internet and logged on to YouTube. So when something happens in the book, rather than taking the author\’s word for what it was like, you can often go right to the clip and see for yourself.

For instance, take the time when Nirvana appeared on the British \”Top of the Pops\” show. The producers made the band play \”Smells Like Teen Spirit\” over a pre-recorded sound track, while Kurt sang live. Not quite lip-synching, but close. This irritated Cobain, so he made a mockery of the performance, performing it in a crooner-type style. After the performance, the band had to scramble out of the studio, as the show\’s producers were livid. Later, Kurt said he was merely trying to pay tribute to Morrissey.

Thankfully, in one click, I was able to find the clip:

You can also find a now-infamous clip from British television where Kurt announces that Courtney Love is the\” greatest f*** in the world.\”

This seems to be an interesting opportunity book publishers can use to augment their written texts. When they publish a book, they could have video clips and other materials online to broaden the readers\’ experience. In fact, when I finally write my book exposing Cap\’n Crunch as a war criminal, I\’ll be sure to provide plenty of online supplementation.

Some other observations, as long as we\’re on this topic:

I\’m not really clued in to how books like this are written, but I imagine it takes a lot of cooperation from friends and family of the subject. As a result, the book gives a fairly glowing assessment of Courtney Love. I imagine she allowed Cross access to all of Kurt\’s materials, and it appears the author may have taken it easy on her as a result. This, after all is a woman who admittedly used heroin before, during, and after her pregnancy. While Kurt was missing the week before he killed himself, Courtney was trolling drug houses looking for more heroin, instead of searching for her suicidal husband. All of this is mentioned, but only briefly. (At one point, Cobain\’s manager is quoted as saying something like \”it\’s so unfair that people think you can\’t be an addict and a good parent at the same time.\”)

People forget that Courtney Love essentially wrote the blueprint for the drug-addled, self obsessed train wrecks that we see today in the likes of Britney Spears. She was a crazy addict before it was cool. In fact, the Foo Fighters are still good for one anti-Courtney song per album. (\”How can it be/I\’m the only one who sees/your rehearsed insanity,\” from \”I\’ll Stick Around,\” for instance.)

What also struck me while reading the book is that the Nirvana Era might be the last time we\’ll see the best music being made that also happens to be the most popular music in the world. Since then, the music industry has fractured, with many of the best acts having to settle on being marketed to niche audiences. One could argue that Radiohead has gotten close, and I\’m not too much of a music snob not to appreciate some of Dave Matthews\’ best work, but I can\’t think of a recent time when critical and commercial praise were so far apart (with all apologies to Lou Bega.) I am open to being debated about this.

The book also briefly details Nirvana\’s time in Madison, where they laid down some of the first tracks that would eventually become the \”Nevermind\” album – widely considered one of the best albums of the past 25 years. It blows my mind that somewhere in Madison, these tapes are sitting there collecting dust. For music fans, these tapes are like the Shroud of Turin – and they\’re right here in Wisconsin. This should be front page news every day. If these were the original tapes for \”Abbey Road\” or something, Madison would be crawling with poorly dressed Europeans, pining for a peek at them. I demand that the State Historical Society recognize this fact and that we get a day off from work in remembrance.

It\’s also remarkable that the three month-old baby featured on the cover of the Nevermind album is now 17 years old. Spencer Elden\’s Wikipedia page says he was accepted to Princeton for next year (so it must be true). Oddly, I feel some strange affinity for this kid. Not like he\’s my child, but the child of my generation. So I wish him the best in college, as long as he doesn\’t call me and ask for beer money.

UPDATE: A friend e-mails me with a story about the Nevermind tapes in Madison:

\”An old friend/acquaintance of mine who had a band was doing some recording at Smart Studios. He invited me and another friend to the studio. He showed us around, and was talking about all the amps they had that they could just grab and use for the recording. Then he showed us the tape archives. He picked up this tape and said look, this is the original tape of the Nirvana Nevermind sessions. It was labeled Nirvana Master Tape or something like that. The tape was just sitting there on the shelf, like the CD\’s in my basement.\”

For 34 years, I\’ve tried to live a good life. I\’ve (often times) been kind, courteous and giving. Yet this video alone has shaken my belief that God exists. I can forgive typhoid fever and tsunamis. But no benevolent being would ever allow people to see this:

On the one hand, this makes me want to go vote for Obama. But on the other hand, I now know what being a Vietnamese prisoner of war must be like.

MAJOR UPDATE: The McCain Girls have a special, heartfelt message for me.

Back in 2006, the proposed Wisconsin smoking ban was still a hot issue. Those of us working in the Legislature had to field all kinds of calls from people angry that the government was going to take away their right to smoke in bars. Generally, these calls came from people physically present in a bar at the time of the call.

The real gems, however, were the voice mail messages you heard in the morning, when you got into work. Inevitably, some guy would call from his barstool and leave a completely incoherent message at 2 AM.

Here\’s the best one I heard, from the voice mail of now-deposed State Senator Ron Brown. At the time, Brown had sent out a newsletter looking for input on the smoking ban, and this gentleman would like to register his feelings on the matter. This is just one of many that we heard, and I assure you it is 100% representative of the anti-smoking ban calls that we got.

The audio is a little rough, since it was taken off an office phone, but stick with it. And it is not safe for work, unless you work in a bar.

The anti-smoking forces have to be shaking in their boots with a lobbying effort like this. Nice to see this guy exercising his right to petition his government for the redress of grievances. Unfortunately his grievance happens to be the desire to get BLAZED!

So within the same week, my sister gets home from Iraq and her alma mater, the Kansas Jayhawks, win the national championship. Not bad.

More importantly, I picked Kansas to win when I filled out my bracket, which was the only thing I managed to do right. After two rounds, I was ranked 92nd in a pool of 104 teams. With the KU win tonight, I finished a respectable 26th – although dead last among people who picked Kansas to win.

And while Derrick Rose is probably crushed at the Memphis loss tonight, just imagine how excited he\’ll be later in the year when he\’s drafted by the Bucks.

(Actually, I take that back – someone might want to make sure there aren\’t any sharp objects near him on draft night.)

Oh, and Billy Packer is still an insufferable prick. That\’s just a little bonus observation.

For months now, I have passed the frozen foods section of our grocery store with an eye on a product that it seems couldn\’t possibly be any good: White Castle microwavable burgers. But having put down six Whiteys sliders after a concert in Chicago a few weeks ago, I thought it was time to give them a try, if only for the sake of my own amusement.

Surprisingly, they\’re not really all that unhealthy. 17 grams of fat per two burgers, which is the same amount as one hot dog. You have to wrap a pack of two burgers in a paper towel, and microwave them for 60 seconds.

Admittedly, when I first had the idea of doing this post, I thought I was going to go into great detail about how disgusting they are. But I have to admit – they\’re actually not half bad. Perhaps the main benefit they have going for them is that the actual food they are meant to replicate is so bad to begin with. Whiteys sliders are good for a 3 AM after bar meal, but aren\’t exactly a delicacy at noon. So because the bar is so low to begin with, they actually meet it easily.

In fact, given the microwave directions, the heating is just perfect. The meat gets hot, while the bun warms up, but doesn\’t get soggy. Naturally, you\’re better off having plenty of ketchup nearby to make the taste more tolerable.

So if you\’re looking for a 60 second snack that takes you back to the old days of getting hammered at the bars and scavenging for food (\”old days\” = \”last week\”), you could do a lot worse than White Castle frozen burgers.

Four out of five trousers.

I\’m working on a couple hours of sleep, but I feel like I should say something about last night\’s elections.

First, I am positively giddy about the Frankenstein Veto Constitutional Amendment passing. As many people know (and as I have been happy to mention about 20 times), I worked for the State Senator who authored this amendment at the time she initially introduced it. And while the amendment passing with 70% of the vote makes it seem like a no-brainer, consider this: the bill\’s authors got a Democratic Senate to vote for a constitutional amendment to limit the veto authority of a governor from their own party. It\’s hard for people to understand how much of a long shot that was. But in the end, reason won out. Arguments actually carried the day. Yesterday was a day that people could truly be proud of their Legislature, both parties included.

With such a big project, there are a number of people that deserve to be thanked. First, State Senator Sheila Harsdorf for introducing and pushing for the bill. Her staffers Jack Jablonski and Matt Woebke for crafting the strategy (Jablonski was able to overcome his mental defect of being a Viking fan and actually do some great work). Senator Scott Fitzgerald and his staff, including the now-departed Mike Prentiss, who is now practicing his vigilante brand of public relations in Cincinnati. State Representatives Don Friske and Jeff Stone pushed for the bill in the Assembly, with their staffs Tim Gary and Michael Pyritz. And yes, Democratic Senators Russ Decker and Fred Risser deserve credit for standing up to their governor and passing this restriction on his power.

As for the other races, I\’m not sure what I have to say. I\’m still stunned about Mike Gableman\’s Supreme Court win. When I sort out what I think, I\’ll probably post them over at the WPRI blog.

However, the biggest win of the night was Jill Didier\’s victory as mayor of Wauwatosa. I take 100% full credit for this win, and I expect to be offered a high-level job in the Didier administration. I will just sit here and wait for my phone to ring.

….

Nothing yet…

….

UPDATE: My thoughts on the Supreme Court race are up at the WPRI Blog.
Any minute now…

As hour two of Sunday\’s Jens Lekman concert started, I could only think of two things: 1. Do Swedish people really dance that badly?, and 2. Where\’s the bathroom? You see, for the last week or so, I have had to \”go\” constantly.

At first, I thought this might just be a by-product of getting old. I\’ve never been in my mid-30\’s before, so how am I supposed to know how often someone that age has to pee? The rest of my body aches, why would my prostate be any different? I just accepted that I had the bladder of a 132 year-old nun and decided to move on.

I talked to another friend of mine who is the same age, and he said he was having the same problem. I hate going to the doctor, so I told him to go see a doctor and find out what I have. At the very least, I was hoping I had a tapeworm, since it\’s nice to have someone to talk to occasionally. I could buy him a little Brewer hat and take him to baseball games and such.

Finally, I relented, and today I went to see the doctor. When they asked for a urine sample, I just pulled out one of the samples that I keep in the trunk of my car. Who knows when it could have been from.

Even as I dreaded the exam which I knew was coming, there were more surprises. Apparently, for the first time in my life, my blood pressure was a little high. It wasn\’t fatally high, but I had moved out of the \”circulation of a f\’ing racehorse\” phase to which I had become accustomed. Even when I started putting on weight, I could always fall back on the fact that my veins were golden. In that respect, I was deceptively fat. Chunky but fit.

So this was really a shock to find out that the innards are starting to go. My body\’s kind of like an old Ford Pinto – a little rough on the exterior, but the engine of a Ferrari. But now my doctor was telling me my spark plugs aren\’t firing the way they used to. I attribute this to my attempt to set the world caloric intake record from the beginning of the NCAA tournament to now.

As part of the exam, they made me step on the scale. The digital number that came up was a number that had previously been unknown to me. I quickly tried to calculate the weight of my boots, belt, wallet, phone, clothes, hair gel, and sandwich I had for lunch. Even if I was carrying a bowling ball in my pants (not unlikely, incidentally), I was still about ten pounds on the scary side. So either I\’m fat or my tapeworm now weighs ten pounds.

During part of the exam, the doctor started asking some pretty personal questions. He asked if there was any blood in my stool. \”No, not accidentally,\” I said. Then things got touchy:

Him: \”Are you sexually active?\”

Me: (Fighting off urge to make a joke) \”Uhhhh, yeah.\”

Him: \”With your wife?\”

Now what the hell kind of question is that? I totally should have said, \”No, actually with your wife.\”

Naturally, nobody wants to know the actual remaining details of the exam. They are what they think you are. I generally have an \”exit only\” policy for my rear, but it\’s really more of a guideline than a rule. I was hoping he\’d find a t-shirt I\’d been missing in there, but no luck.

As it turns out, I do have some sort of prostate/bladder infection. They sent me down to the pharmacy to get some pills that the pharmacist told me might make my eyes extra-sensitive to light. I threw the pills on the desk and yelled, \”But they\’re for my grumpy wiener, not my eyes!\” The cops then escorted me out.*

I just wanted to mention this as the beginning of the end for me. I\’m heading downhill from here. Keep this post in mind when I am inevitably found keeled over dead while in line at the Culver\’s drive through. (Anyone who dies at a McDonald\’s runs the risk of becoming part of the menu.)

Sadly, there will be no telethon for people like me. It is the bladder infection victims who suffer quietly, often with their legs crossed, afraid to cry for help. When aid is finally given to these poor souls, it is often too late – and a mop and bucket on aisle 6 is necessary.

Fortunately, I hear there are pills you can buy online to help your wiener. I don\’t care if it takes months; I am going to hunt down one of these rare pill buying opportunities and turn my life around.

Oh, yeah – and the Jens Lekman show was good. Here\’s a song of his:

*-This did not happen.

I have been booked to appear as a guest on Milwaukee Public Television\’s \”Fourth Street Forum\” show, which films on April 10th. It airs on MPTV on April 11, then again on April 13th.

The subject of the roundtable is \”Wisconsin Taxes? What\’s Enough? What\’s Fair?\” Other guests include State Representative Jason Fields, State Senator Mary Lazich and Jack Norman from the Institute for Wisconsin\’s Future.

Fortunately, they podcast full episodes of the show – so in the highly unlikely event that you miss it, you\’ll be able to go online and catch it.

Lifelong military man, lawyer, father of 5, husband of 38 years. My dad had done it all – until today, when he turns 60. Happy birthday, pops!

(Interesting side note – my dad was actually born the same day as Al Gore: March 31, 1948. Ironic, given that in giving birth to me, my dad has done more to pollute the planet than Al Gore has ever done in cleaning it up.)

I got word from the Capitol today that my favorite annual governmental publication has been issued: the State Directory of Private Postsecondary Schools.

Two years ago, in my previous incarnation, I spent a lot of time going through this publication and describing the various private schools the state regulates. I just went back and read it, and I have to sheepishly admit that I think it\’s probably one of my best posts ever.

Have a look here.

At her Kansas City blog, my pal Christa made a point I had wanted to write about for a while. (In fact, I kind of did a little here.)

Her TV station aired a report about a controversial strip club siting that repeatedly called stripping \”adult entertainment.\” So sayeth Dubill:

A typical adult could do any number of things for entertainment: basketball, knitting, cooking, reading, kayaking, thumb wrestling competitions…

So why does a business allowing strippers, selling unmentionables, upsetting neighbors and city leaders alike, become what we describe as \”adult entertainment\”?

She then goes on to quote \”a guy\” who e-mailed her with some more outstanding observations:

Okay, I\’ll make the back story quick:

About two months ago, I was picking pizzas up. I parked, went in the pizza place, and walked back into the parking lot, just as another car was backing up towards my car. As it got closer and closer, I dropped the pizzas and started yelling \”stop!\” Clearly, they didn\’t see my car, and backed right into the rear passenger side. There wasn\’t a lot of damage, but I called the cops and got an incident report just to be safe. Actually, I was most miffed that I was out 30 bucks worth of pizza, which was frozen solid by that point.

I called the woman\’s insurance company, and they told me she preferred to handle it out of pocket. It took me a while to get an estimate, and when I finally did, I found out a new bumper was going to cost $500. That\’s really not any surprise, because everyone knows that any time any body shop has to lay a finger on your car, it\’s going to be at least 3 hundo.

Which brings me today. I had delayed calling this woman back, because I dreaded breaking the bad news. As it turns out, my intuition turned out to be uncomfortably correct.

When I told her what the repairs would cost, she acted as if I was asking for ransom money in exchange for one of her children. At first, she called me an \”opportunist\” who goes around looking to rip people off. Clearly, she was on to my scheme, whereby I park my car at various pizza places and wait for it to be backed into. Jackpot!

Then it got weirder. When were were waiting for the police officer to arrive, I must have told her that I went to grad school at Marquette. On the phone today, she actually called me a \”bad Catholic\” for asking her to pay for the damage she caused. (As it turns out, I accidentally ate meat on Good Friday – but there\’s no way she could have known that.) For some reason, she saw fit to mention to me that she and her husband are both pro-life, which will only be relevant if one day she runs over a fetus crossing the road.

Then, she accused me of getting into another accident and trying to pin it on her. At this point, I was thoroughly amused. I spent eight years in the Legislature fielding angry constituent calls, so I pretty much just let people go when they want to vent. She asked what insurance company I had, and I told her I had Progressive. \”Only bad drivers have Progressive,\” she said. \”So I guess it\’s only good drivers that back into people\’s cars, then,\” I retorted.

There were many other puzzling accusations weaved throughout the conversation. But at the end of the call, I just told her that I\’d be filing a claim with my insurance, and that was that. I don\’t care if the bumper costs $1 or $1,000, I just want a new bumper. I was thinking about selling my car soon, and a banged up bumper is going to cost me money, so I want it fixed. I actually would feel bad about asking them for money and not repairing the damage with it, so I absolutely will. But a small part of me now wants to get a check from them, then send them a picture of me giving a \”thumbs up\” with my brand new iPod and swim trunks.

So here\’s my \”Springer\’s Final Thought\” to this whole thing. If I had called her, and she thought the repair was too expensive but offered to work with me, I would have done so. I could have gotten another estimate or bargained a little. I realize $500 is a lot of money. But since she went nuts on me, I have absolutely no problem going after her for the full amount. She made it easy for me to file a claim against her with a clear conscience. Or, at least as much of a clear conscience a bad Catholic can have.

Interesting article in the Washington Post today about how Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama tend to overstate their role in certain legislative accomplishments. This certainly isn\’t anything new – in his book \”Congress: The Electoral Connection,\” political scientist David Mayhew actually makes the case that \”credit claiming\” is one of the three most important roles of members of Congress. He defines \”credit claiming\” as \”acting so as to generate a belief in a relevant political actor that one is personally responsible for causing the government, or some unit thereof, to do something that the actor considers desirable.\”

In any event, the Post article uses several sources to clarify the two senators\’ roles in the formulation of certain legislation (apparently, Arlen Specter has a lot of time on his hands to talk to Washington Post reporters.) Of course, when discussing Hillary Clinton\’s travel schedule, the Post goes to the only definitive source on Clinton travel:

Clinton also has her share of colleagues only too willing scrutinize her claims. Her campaign Web site describes Clinton\’s \”successful effort to create\” the popular State Children\’s Health Insurance Program during her husband\’s tenure in the White House, and she has placed herself in the middle of major international events, including the Northern Ireland peace process and the Balkan conflict.

But prominent Democratic senators, Irish historians and even Sinbad the comedian, who accompanied Clinton to Kosovo, are challenging some of her assertions.

Wait… what?

So the Post was like, \”We think Hillary Clinton is full of it. Get Sinbad on the phone!\” Was it Sinbad\’s role in \”First Kid\” that made him an expert on presidential travel?

For those still questioning the veracity of Sinbad\’s story, just remember – HE AIN\’T LYIN!

Discussion with my 4-year old daughter while watching the Marquette-Stanford game:

Her: \”Daddy, what\’s Stanford?\”

Me: \”It\’s a school that really smart people go to.\”

Her: \”Like you?\”

Me: \”No, I couldn\’t get into Stanford.\”

Her: \”That\’s because you\’re too silly.\”

So it is now official: My wife and I have given birth to my parents. My philosophy of \”silliness\” was a major talking point of theirs as I was going through high school, and now I still get speeches, just from my own kids.

As for the game itself, it\’s a pretty bitter pill to swallow when everyone in the arena can draw up Stanford\’s winning play and Tom Crean can\’t devise a defense to stop it. This ballbreaking final play was actually enough to get me on the treadmill, to burn off some frustration. I also needed to see if I still remembered how to walk after spending three straight days in a catatonic state. I think my wife snuck up and put a mirror up to my mouth a couple times to see if I was still breathing while the tourney was going on.

I also happened to notice that during the Marquette game, the Indiana Pacers were playing the Chicago Bulls. As you may know, former Marquette great Travis Diener plays for the Pacers. Now it just so happened that in the first half of the Pacers game, Diener dove into the stands and sustained an injury that forced him back into the locker room. Miraculously, Diener was back on the court in the second half, finishing out the Pacers\’ win. I\’m sure it was purely coincidence that Diener just happened to be in the locker room for the end of the Marquette game – and I\’m happy that that he healed so quickly from this devastating injury.

During this NCAA tournament, we also got to learn that Kyle Korver of the Utah Jazz has a brother named Klayton that plays for Drake and a brother named Kaleb who plays for Creighton. While I\’m not a big fan of government intervention in family life, I would have no problem with calling social services on the type of parent who slaps their children with matching initials. We also got to learn that this father is one of the \”most outstanding clergymen in the Midwest.\” How exactly do they determine this? Is he ahead of Jeremiah Wright? Did he get to the Sweet 16 in the \”Midwest clergymen tournament?\”

The most ubiquitous commercial during the tournament has to be the ridiculous DirecTV commercial featuring a hot babe trying to make signing up for satellite TV seem sexy. It\’s pretty over the top when she promises the \”ultimate hookup.\” They should have just gone the extra step and had her discuss when they \”plugged the cable into her box.\”

Oh, and congrats to the Badgers for their trip to the Sweet 16. Trevon Hughes had a huge game against Kansas State, who I thought might actually give them some trouble. I actually talked to Hughes at a bar once – a friend of mine mentioned to him that I was a basketball manager at Utah. He asked what year, and I said I started in 1993. \”Oh. I was four years old,\” he said. I then spent the rest of the evening with my head in the oven.

I\’m still wondering why they even play NBA games this weekend. The Badgers have now given me basketball fever, while the Bucks gave given me basketball syphilis.

As of this writing, I am excited to announce that my 4 year-old daughter has now picked more NCAA tournament games correctly than I have. In fact, in today\’s afternoon action, she picked Davidson, Western Kentucky, and San Diego all to win. (She liked San Diego because they mention the San Diego zoo in her favorite movie, Madagascar. She also has them in the Final Four.) Her bracket is kind of hard to read, since she took the scoring marker I was using and drew flowers all over the sheet of paper.

Next year, I will be charging for her services. Oh, and did I mention I spent four years working for a major Division I men\’s basketball team?