Yowsers, it looks like Obnom (Old Boys Network of Minocqua) is doing its springtime recruitment of younger members.
Just tapped to Obnom’s Junior League—Charles Miller, disgruntled conservative who refuses to do demolition work for progressives, and Bill Fricke, owner of the Boathouse and Obnom’s newest poster child for obstruction.
Before we tell the tale, however, let’s remember what got us up to this point, focusing acutely on the alt-right zeitgeist of Minocqua, a small tourism town in Northern Wisconsin, during Covid 2020.
--June 2020: Encouraged by Fox News, our President, and our know-nothing Republican State Legislature, a majority of our town turned a blind eye towards science, mask wearing, and social distancing in order to make proverbial “hay” during the short tourism season—to the disbelief of the Minocqua Brewing Company, consumers of real news, and those that are able to manifest empathy as an emotion.
--Misogynist publisher Gregg Walker of the Lakeland Times threatened to sue us when we called him out for harassing our County Public Health officer for trying to do her job.
--We publicly rebuked a hairdresser at Taglio Salon for calling our lunch guests and voter registration volunteers “terrorists” because they were driving in a bus adorned with a Black Lives Matter slogan.
--We landed Tom Bird, top selling realtor of First Webber in Minocqua and wannabe cowboy, in anger management classes for threatening to run our owner out of town and telling him to “keep his eyes open” as he went to bed.
--We publicly threw up our hands when our police chief and county sheriff refused to enforce Governor Evers’ mask mandate, which further endangered the lives of our residents and tourists.
--We lamented having to close for three days and losing $30K in revenue after hearing that a freedom-loving town board member threw a Covid super-spreader party for the local waterski troup that spread rapidly throughout the ranks of summer restaurant workers.
-We hung a big Biden sign on our building after laying off our staff because we were pissed that our government overrun with Trump cultists didn’t give a crap about small businesses: especially bars, restaurants, and brewpubs.
-We virally-skewered the Oneida County board for illegally threatening to fine us over hanging our aforementioned Biden sign.
-We lambasted the owners of Coontail Market in Boulder Junction for succumbing to Obnom’s overtures and going over the head of their manager to cancel his order of #progressivebeer which would have allowed local supporters to celebrate the salvation of democracy.
-And finally in the last episode, we covered the Obnom-backed and politically-motivated removal of Minocqua Brewing Company's owner and perfect renter from his house on lake Minocqua.
Now that you're caught up, its time for yet another episode of "As Minocqua Turns...Red."
The last edition to this story started about 3 months ago, when we attempted to buy a cute little old gas station and revert it into a tap room after selling our old building as part of a pivot away from dining towards production brewing.
“It’s cheap, but it will need some work,” said Bill Fricke, who along with his dad, a real estate agent, was the current owner.
“And we’ll demolish the dilapidated house on the lot right away to give you time to renovate before the summer tourism season,” said Fricke, also owner of the Boathouse, a local restaurant, who knows all-to-well that businesses have to be full-tilt by Memorial Day Weekend to take advantage of their super-short tourism season.
“That’s great,” said Bangstad as he signed the contract to purchase the building. “That’ll give us three months to put a new roof on and get the permits necessary to sell beer.”
In a normal town, without the ever-present Obnom breathing his halitosis of obstruction through the lungs of Minocqua’s economy, the building would have been demolished in early March and all parties to the transaction would have happily went their own way.
“Not so,” said Obnom. “We MUST not let the Minocqua Brewing Company exist in our town—it’s too much of a threat to our power.”
So Obnom started working on young acolyte and house demolisher, Charles Miller. “If you back out of demolishing this house, the deal won’t close, and the Minocqua Brewing Company won’t be able to start renovation until it’s too late.”
“Yes, Obnom, you have been there for me every step of the way, I will do as you say,” said Miller as he watched the light side of the force drain out of his veins forever.
“And young Fricke,” said Obnom, “Once apprentice Miller takes leave of his demolishing duties, you must delay, delay, delay, so that our nemesis won’t be able to get the proper permitting in time to sell beer this summer.
“Yes, Obnom, you have always paved the way for my business success thus far, so I will do as you say,” said Fricke, as he saw an ominous red tail grow from his backside.”
And that, dear reader, is the story of why it will be next to impossible to sell beer from our proposed Tap Room during this summer tourism season.
Since we’ll need that money earmarked to buy the gas station to TRY and lease a building in Minocqua to sell beer this summer, we’ve offered to let Fricke keep our $5,000 down payment in order to dissolve the contract to purchase, which would be much easier and faster than going to court to prove lost revenues due to bad faith negotiations.
So far Fricke has rejected our generous offer, potentially because his new tail has diverted the blood usually used for rational thought from his brain.
So what do we do from here?
If we can find a building in Minocqua to rent and sell beer in a month or two, we will. We are the Minocqua Brewing Company and we would prefer to locate ourselves in Minocqua.
If we can’t, then we will continue to offer the Lac du Flambeau Tribe exclusive rights to sell our beer at their Country Market. The Tribe saved us when Coontail Market let us down, so why wouldn’t we continue to direct our customers their way?
What can you do, dear reader? Well if you have a lead on a building to rent in Minocqua, we’re all ears. If you would like to encourage Bill Fricke and his dad to peacefully allow us to find another way to make money this summer, we’d appreciate that as well.
And if any of you reading this is a filmmaker, we think we have a story for you that might make for a great movie.