Confetti up, arrests down at this year’s Freakfest
flickr.com/j_benson
You want to get arrested by a horse? Didn't think so.
Since sifting through dull newspapers, hyperbolic blogs, and overflowing RSS feeds for meaningful news can be an arduous process, News Net catches and compiles both the amusing and the significant reports that were overlooked over the weekend. Here are Halloween happenings to think about as the workweek begins.
• As has been the case every year since Freakfest was transformed from mobs and tear gas to barricades and “Oh yeah, I kind of like them” bands, this year’s Halloween festivities proceeded smoothly, as planned. The Madison Police Department estimates that Freakfest 2010 attracted around 35,000 people, and despite cuts to police numbers and the removal of the blinding stadium lights, arrests were down from the previous two years.
As for the actual entertainment, OK Go didn’t set up any Halloween-themed Rube Goldberg-style contraptions as part of its act. It did invite some Waldos and a couple of crayons onstage to dance, and played “Here It Goes Again” to remind everyone that it was the band with the treadmill video. Apparently the crowd members needed some convincing, since some of them inexplicably demanded Third Eye Blind’s return ahead of the OK Go performance.
• On Friday afternoon, a group of shoplifters walked into Selective Video with a baby in tow, then proceeded to pile a stroller full of costumes, covering their haul with the baby’s blanket. When the alarm went off on their exit, they pepper-sprayed the clerk, grabbed the baby, and ran, leaving the costumes and stroller as they made their getaway. On the bright side, they didn’t ditch their baby for the costumes. On Saturday, a man attempted to rob the Halloween Express just before closing. The suspect attempted to wrestle the night deposit bag from one employee until the other employees were able to distract him, perhaps with a sexy costume, at which point he made his escape on foot. File these events under “tricks.”
• Things were a tad more serious at the Feingold home on Saturday, when the Dane County bomb squad was called in to check out an unexpected package that arrived at the Senator’s doorstep. After the recent bomb scare involving parcels bound for Chicago, Feingold and the Middleton Police decided to take no chances on this suspicious shipment, which was postmarked from a fake Illinois return address, with the sender listed as Thomas Jefferson. Fortunately, all that was inside was a board game, supposedly sent to Feingold as some kind of political message, but unfortunately, the actual game has been unconfirmed, so that message remains a mystery. Was it Monopoly, a commentary on the sender’s preference for the Ron Johnson approach to business regulation? Or maybe it was just Jenga or something. Who knows?
• In a much less cryptic last-minute message to the Wisconsin Democrat, Justin Vernon a.k.a. Bon Iver has thrown his endorsement to Feingold, despite some major doubts about the current state of government, in a letter posted on his Facebook page.
