As a Simpsons-loving Milwaukee homeowner, the arrival of the "slurry" trucks yesterday morning made me think of two things:
1) The Simpsons episode when Lisa is talked into teaming up with Mr. Burns to help him turn his life around and unwittingly becomes the girl adorning the Lil Lisa Fish Slurry packaging.
2) A special tax assessment adorning this year's tax bill to pay for the steamy black stuff being dropped and swept on the street in front on my house.
The day before the yellow trucks arrived, a yellow door hanger showed up explaining parking restrictions and what slurry seal is.
"An asphalt sealcoat will be applied to your street," it said. "This is a very economical surface treatment that prolongs the life of the asphalt by stopping erosion from water and oxidation from the sun. Timely preventative maintainance like this helps avoid extremely costly street rebuilding in the future."
The results, so far, have been:
1) My son enjoying the rumbling yellow trucks and the workers with brooms sweeping the slurry smooth.
2) The complete blackening of the road, changing the look of the street.
3) The disappearance of the spider web of tar repairs that made our street -- and most others in the city -- look a little like the early days of a late-period Jackson Pollock canvas.
4) The sight of one poor worker ankle deep in water looking for sewers during yesterday's downpour, so he could remove the protective covers placed over them in advance of the slurrying.
Most of our neighborhood has been slurry sealed (is that a verb?) and so have some streets in nearby neighborhoods like Washington Park.
Although Cecilia Gilbert of the DPW didn't respond to my e-mailed question about whether or not the whole city is being slurried, she did reassure me that I'm not paying extra for it.
"Slurry is considered a maintenance operation," she wrote back, "no assessment."
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
