You've got to speak up.  I went to see Metallica last night at the Bradley Center (and we remember how important they are), and nine hours after they left the stage, my ears still have a distinctive ring to them.

Set List

1. That Was Just Your Life
2. Broken, Beat & Scarred
3. One
4. Harvester of Sorrows
5. Cyanide
6. Sad But True
7. Wherever I May Roam
8. All Nightmare Long
9. The Day That Never Comes
10. Master of Puppets
11. Fight Fire With Fire
12. Nothing Else Matters
13. Enter Sandman
14. (Encore) See You in Hell
15. Stone Cold Crazy
16. Seek and Destroy

As for the concert itself, it is exactly what you'd expect for a concert performed by 40-somethings, aimed at an audience 18 through 45 (complete with the, um, herbal essence, if you know what I mean).  There were significantly more gray hairs and paunchy bellies than I had anticipated.  In a way, I felt much better because my wardrobe does not include black T-shirts and I feared that I would be overdressed.  But once James, Lars, Kirk and Robert hit the stage, everyone was 16 again.

My only complaint?  Metallica went on stage at 9:15 and played until 11:30.  Way to late for 10,000 middle-aged men.  Now, where's my Starbucks?

I voted this morning at Wilson Elementary School on 88th & Orchard.  I got in line at 6:40 AM and was about 30th in line.  By the time 7:00 rolled around there must have been 150 people in line.  I got out of there by 7:15, and the line was even longer than it was at 7:00.

I was 12th in Ward 20, I told the lady my name, and she wrote a "12" next to my name.  Then she found the page for the other book guy and waited for him to also write "12" next to my name.  God bless the election workers, but this elderly gentleman should have been nowhere near an area where speed would have been an asset.  I'm not trying to be mean, but his fingers weren't turning the pages well, and his hand was shaking when writing the "12" next to my name.  Notwithstanding the old guy trying to help America vote, but neither of these two did anything to check my address, nor did they hide the book from me.  As these two were getting their "12"s straight, I could have easily - easily - taken mental note of other people's last names and gotten back in line to vote.  I am sure they wouldn't have recognized me.  I also could have come back later when recognization would have been even more remote.

I look at the rest of the volunteers at the polling place and think of how much more organized and efficient it could have been.  For example, the line was single file on the school's playground until the doors opened at 7:00.  Then a worker came out and said that Ward 20 should use the left door and Ward 19 should use the right.  However there was no map available, and lots of people didn't know where they should be.  Nobody seemed too concerned about being shuttled from one line to the other or "skipping" somebody else in line, but the dual lines should have been set-up (with a ward map handy) at least 15 to 30 minutes before the polls opened.

Now picture a double door, with lines going into both doors.  Do you see this in your mind?  Do you now see people trying to EXIT the polling place?  I didn't have to picture it in my mind.  I did get the honor of squeezing my svelt 300ish pound frame past a lady of equal carraige through a door that she was in no hurry to vacate.  And with the speed of the checker-inners, that line wasn't moving really quickly to assist my egress.

I see the aging-but-trying-hard set running the polling place like it is an episode of The Wonder Years set in the early-70s.  But this is 2008.  Let's work smarter, not harder.  The whole set-up is due for a massive overhaul.  (Side note; please people, I am not picking on the workers.  Don't post comments that I don't want to see the old guy with shaky hands.  Don't tell me that seniors have a right to volunteer.  I get it.  But I think the entire idea of a quaint, small-town, everybody knows each other, "Gee, isn't the right to vote swell?" set up of Election Day should be abandoned at once.  I read JSOnline's accounts of long lines at the polling places, and know this can be improved.)

Let's start at the location.  Wilson School is nice, but the actual part of the building has a major bottleneck at the doorway.  If there isn't a different part of the school that would allow for exiting a different door than entering OR if there isn't a part of the school to allow the lines to be inside the building, then another location is needed. Think big and use the State Fair Park Expo Center.  Certainly the room is available for many, many wards from all over West Allis and even Milwaukee, and there wouldn't be problems both entering and exiting.  And nobody can complain about a lack of parking.

Next are the workers.  Maybe seniors can be used like a Wal-Mart greeter, but what kind of workers get excited about American civics and can also be motivated in non-financial ways?  That's right, high schoolers that can get a day off of school, earn a higher letter grade and also extra curricular credit on college applications.  Lots of high school students - pumped full of Mountain Dew and Rock Star Energy Drink  - will have the energy to work at a high pace all day long.  When a voter comes to his place in line, the voting log (hidden by the counter that would be there) would be out of site and the voter should have to state his name and address to get a ballot.

Now, about segregating the wards (or even the cities).  Think of the type of business that might have many people looking for something.  How do grocery stores do it?  Right.  Big ol' signs suspended from the ceiling or on a pole.  At Sentry, when you know exactly what you want (bread, peanut butter and milk), a quick look at the aisle listings get you to the areas you need to be.  And at checkout time, that "Express Lane" is pretty easy to find, isn't it?  Apply that logic to the polling place, and nobody should be confused about where to go to check-in.

Then we get to the on-site registration.  The fact that Wisconsin allows it is a joke, but the way it is administered is even worse.  At my site this morning, new registrants went to the front of the line.  I understand that the process takes longer, but even if you register them right away, then they should go to the back of the line.  However, in a larger venue with a clearly distinguished location for new registrants to apply, not only would they be "cutting" in front of people, but upon completion of the process the line in that person's ward would be quite short.

Vote fraud is a constant concern, and one of the objections is that there aren't enough officials to be stationed at all of the polling places.  But having many wards in one large venue would not spread election officials out too thin.

Another problem that we hear about on days with large voter turnout is in hardware... the lack of booths themselves, runing out of ballots, ballot reading machine fails, etc..  Having one large venue would certainly require numerous machines, so if one or two breakdown there would be many others on the same site so that the outage would be barely noticable.  And when it comes to reporting the precincts at the end of the day, one location reporting would allow for one large block of returns instead of having them trickle in.

Now, if the large venue couldn't be "donated" for the couple days, how could we pay for this?  Concessions!  Most polling places in schools already have bake sales so people are trained to buy brownies upon the completion of voting.  If the Expo Center won't allow their equipment to be used, you can still set up stands in many locations within the Expo Center for food, drinks, merchandise (what die-hard lefty wouldn't want to buy a donkey-logoed baseball cap?)

I realize that some of my ideas would need some fine tuning, and may not work in other parts of the city (I am thinking that the main concourse of Miller Park could be used, as could the east and west atrium of the Bradley Center, large hotel ballrooms, etc).  But overhauling the entire Election Day Experience is an idea whose time has come.

And I have two teenagers who will be told to happy to volunteer.

The Milwaukee Wave played a game which was broadcast live on Fox Soccer Channel on Friday, December 7th.  Only 2,690 fans thought enough about the Wave to show up.

The Wave really must have papered the house with free tickets in the Bradley Center era.  I am sure that some of the large attendance figures had a large paid gate, but I was at so many of those 15,000+ attendance games where there were hundreds of people in line exchanging vouchers for tickets a half hour before game time.  But with a crowd in the five digits, the game was a blast.  Fans cheering loudly, getting into the action, booing the usually poor officiating, etc.  Ten thousand may have gotten in free, but we had a great time. 

On one hand, when the Wave drew 7,000 with regularity (understanding that many were freebies), there was decent coverage in the Milwaukee Journal and Milwaukee Sentinel - oftentimes with a color game photo on the front page.  All of the TV stations used the Bradley Center video feed, and home game video was on the sportscasts during the evening news.  Having 40 to 44 games helped as well... if a schedule is too short (or too long of a gap in between games) it is hard to gather momentum.  But playing two games a week - and almost always having a home game every weekend - kept the Wave in the public eye.  I think that is a word-of-mouth that the Wave relied on.  (You can get a free ticket voucher and not use it, or you can get a freebie and because the team was in the public conscious, you decide to go to the game).

Then on the other hand, when the Wave moved to the US Cellular Arena, there weren't enough seats available to give out excessive free tickets... if you paper the house and then don't have enough seats to match the number of vouchers, that's not a good thing.  I also think that around the same time, the Major Indoor Soccer League and the team started taking a stand against papering the house.  I mean, moving across the streets cuts the average attendance in half?  Many folks in Internetland feel that the Wave took a step backwards because of the feeling that the US Cellular Arena is minor league.

So although I would gather that almost all of the 2,600 in announced attendance was paid (maybe even a similar number as from the BC days?), the lower attendance has become a negative trend that has gathered momentum... less attendance means less coverage from the media.  No more Bradley Center video, so less news highlights.  Soccer reporter Charles Gardner got promoted to Bucks coverage, and he really wasn't replaced.  Therefore, the MJS coverage is rinky-dink. Now the team plays only 30 games, and there is less "buzz" now that they've taken away five home games.  There might be three weeks in between games, and if you don't see them on the news, then it is easy to forget that they exist.

Honestly, I completely forgot that the Wave had a game the previous weekend against La Raza de Monterrey.  I buy my tickets at the door because they are always available, and I can rattle off more Wave historical and trivia stuff than almost anyone else in the city, and I forgot the Wave was playing a Saturday night game.  Talk about a lack of buzz.

Other than the reduction in free tickets, I think a couple of other things may have cut into the attendance:

(1) There is a full casino in town now that wasn't there in 1984 (or 1994, for that matter).  This is a big 8000# elephant in the room.  It is more likely that mommy and daddy will blow the discretionary income (if not the mortgage and car payment, too) at Potowatomi than going to a soccer game with Johnny and his friends.  Nobody wants to admit that they will deny taking the kids to the game so they can go gamble, but there is a reason that the Potowatomi Nation can't build expansions fast enough.

(2) The gawdawful game day presentation supposedly intended to make it an entertainment event.  When a person goes to a Bucks or Marquette game, and it takes 10 minutes to introduce the players because they show a highlight video, and have the cRAP music behind the introductions, you've forgotten about the intros by tip-off because you are there for a Bucks or Marquette game.  But when you see basically the same introduction at a Wave game, suddenly it looks so bush league.  Now throw in the T-shirt tosses into the stands, the constant PA commercials during the game and the music, the entire experience overshadows the game (Side note, I've gotten to accept music during the games.  My newest kick is the unlistentoable racket that is now played.  The ticket buyers are in the 25-50 range - regardless of the ages of the kids.  How about some sound that I can tap my toes to?  You know that stuff; it is called music, complete with words and actual musicians playing actual instruments.)

(3) Ticket prices.  Call it adjusting for inflation or whatever, but when $16 is your cheapest seat for an event that nobody wants to go to....  Years ago while at a Chicago Fire game at Soldier Field, I ran into Peter Wilt (then the Fire GM who previously was the PR guy for the Wave in their heyday).  We talked about not undervaluing the ticket, because of the prestige that a high-ticket price brings.  When the top-level ticket is $50, it gives the impression that it is a high profile event.  Conversely, if a cheap seat is $8, there is less value associated with EVERY ticket.  Whether I agree with that or not is irrelevant.  What is relevant that is if the Wave is getting 2,600 fans, there isn't a lot of perceived value at all and the lowest price tickets need to go down.  A lot.

I must say that it breaks my heart to see this happen.  Again, I am one of the very few that has been to at least one game in each of the 24 seasons, and so many life memories revolve around indoor soccer games.  One of my first dates was at a Wave game (tickets were $4 in 1984... I could afford that).  As I got older, I got to date a player's wife (well, I call it a date, maybe to her it was someone giving her a free meal).  My son and I started going to games in 1993 when he was too young to know what a ball was, but we still got to go to 10-15 games a year together for the past 15 years.  He and I can remember so many things - both great and silly - and the Wave has really bonded us.  I've gone through one wife (and My-Sugar-Na makes #2) and their divergent attitudes about the Wave. 

But now that the Wave has gotten so irrelevant that I am even forgetting when there is a game... Something has to change, and quickly.