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Isaac had a photo show at Drunken Butterfly over there in Madison, WI and guest blogs up his travels.

Smooth Sailing
DrunknButterfly
Madison, WI
by Isaac McKay-Randozzi

Travel, I fucking love it. Doesn't matter the place, weather or people, fun times and newness will be found. So when Wes at DrunknButterfly asked me to do a show and said they would fly me out, I jumped on the chance quicker than it takes Al Sharpton to leave a KKK rally. Jon Dragonette agreed to help me fill the space with his sweet ass photos and Smooth Sailing became a thing for two SPB creeps to do. A couple months later all of the photos were printed and framed and we were ready to go. Jon could make the trip though, something about having to fight a team of trained llamas in a cage match. Wes and his wife Layla run the DrunknButterfly shop/gallery in Madison Wisc. and since I'd never been to Madison, everything about the trip was coming up golden. Free plane ticket, place to crash and a new town. Perfect.

Bags were packed, supplies gathered and I got to the airport with no problems. Normally this is where the downer would start. Right? Something like the airline lost the bag of my framed photos or they only had half of the bag (due to a bizarre conveyer belt mishap) and the other half was on it's way to New Hampshire. Or the flight was horrible because of 15 screaming babies and only 1 lactating mama. Or I was stuck in the middle seat between two obese garlic farmers. Something always creeps up and fudges the situation, but good. Well, not on this trip.

The flight to the Minneapolis airport was fine, only downside was the two and a half hour layover.

Lots of waiting.

When you're stuck in the airport for a while, even the lighting gets to be interesting.

Wes picked me up from the airport and we stopped off at his bank for a sec. They had drive up tellers and to get your deposit or withdrawal slip to them you had to use the tube. You put your deposit or whatever in a canister and then into the tube and up it goes!

At the gallery Wes painted while I hung.

Smoking room view.

Layla, Wes and a sneaky dog.

Out for a quick skin and it started to snow a little.

Layla

Tools of the night.

After a couple hours everything was done and hung.

The city was sponsoring a charity ski race around the state capitol building so Wes, his brother-in-law and I decided to check the preperations.

The brother-in-law (I'm bad with names, sorry) showed me something he saw while contemplating the artistic variations in public art.

Faces.

Not much activity going on, but lots of man made snow.

Walkie walkie.

During the Civil War a lot of folks from the Madison area volunteered for the Union army.

WWII

With the snow comes the salting of the sidewalk.

The last time I had been in any sort of snow was over 10 years ago when I lived in Boston (hi Meagen!). So if you get tired of the snow photos, sorry.

Nice bike.

Opening night:

Jon Dragonette

My stuff.

Cup Cakes!

They had an Indian cut-out in the back. I dragged it out for a little amusement when things got slow.

There was a steady stream of people through the night.

The fellow on the left is Jacob. A cat I've known via the interweb for a few years now. This was the first time I met him face to face. He does stuff for a midwest skate magazine and works in the Chicago stock market during the day. Thanks for making the 3 and a half hour trip Gub!

Turns out Jacob and Wes used to work for the same skate shop (at different times) in Madison. Small world.

After the show Wes, Jacob and I went to a local bar where Jacob interviewed me for the skate mag.

And I thought California had cornered the market with the crappy license plates.

At the bar we drank the drink of The Dude.

The bar had all sorts of old and odd shit, like this collection of meat grinders and pre-rotary dial telephone.

The next day and my last day, Wes drove me around the local University so I could take photos. The school is heavily agricultural and funded in part with our tax dollars.

Greenhouse.

Ice ice, baby.

I think Madison ducks are a little dim. If you had wings wouldn't you fly to some place warmer?

We stopped in to the student union to get some coffee and warm up. Sweet fireplace, wish it had been lit.

We drove around a little more and Wes showed me this sick fuckin' skate spot. You can't see much of it, but trust me, this place is a skater's wet dream.

The Madison Center for the Arts. Great building.

That's it. I'd like to thank Wes and Layla for flying me out to Madison, putting me up in their home and being two of the best hosts a creep from the Bay Area could hope for. Thanks for everything! {moscomment}