I’m a firm believer that we’re repeatedly presented with a simple choice in life, every day: “Go big or go home.” And as door-to-door salesmen, Jehovah’s witnesses and curious Alderpeople can attest, you’ll seldom find me at my home.

So I’ve got to respect the 25-year-old Antigo man whose going big at the Mifflin Street Block Party last weekend landed him in Madison Police spokesman Joel Despain’s stack of incident reports – to a point, and not nearly as much as I respect Joel for going out of his way to tell the story simply for the sake of being able to write what he did. Joel’s a busy guy, but he clearly subscribes the the mantra this blog takes its name from.

The story is as such: Antigo was among the hoards of revelers that packed Mifflin for the annual beer blast and got themselves good and overserved. Except, unlike the vast, vast majority of partiers, Antigo wasn’t out to just have a good time. He wanted to start something.

He was “obnoxious” and “rude,” and went out of his way to start a fight. Keeping with the “Kumbaya-Over-a-Kegger” atmosphere of the celebration, the attendees of the house party Antigo was at didn’t let themselves get provoked, but did show him the door in no uncertain terms.

Hellbent on finding a fight and now with a sizeable chip on his shoulder, Antigo set off down West Wash, only to bump into a group of three guys that were happy to oblige him.

The next thing he knew, Antigo was waking up at the hospital, still drunk, still surly, and now with a respectable goose egg to boot. But he wasn’t about to let respect for medical professionals or common decency stop his rampage. And here, I’ll let Joel Despain’s masterful storytelling take over.

From incident report 2010-116431:

“When he regained consciousness, he became very combative, to the extent that three hospital security staff members were needed to restrain him. An officer tried to ask the man: What happened? How were you injured? How did your tooth get chipped?

“The victim responded by swearing at the officer, indicating his injuries occurred when he had sexual contact with the officer’s mother.”

You’ve got to admit, the guy has spunk. I say we award this man a medal for “going big,” and then make him “go home” by banishing him from the city forever. And while we’re at it, Joel Despain gets a ribbon for greatest paraphrasing in the history of police incident reports, ever.

A $172 ticket… for stringing a hammock between a couple of trees?

I think there are very few guys my age, particularly in the city of Madison, that haven’t toyed with the notion of becoming a cop at some point in their lives. Let’s face it — it looks pretty glamorous on TV, you carry a loaded firearm and you get trained on the proper techniques to disobey traffic laws.

But for me, and I’m sure many others, one of the aspects of the job that scares me away from it is the powerful influence police have over the lives of the city’s citizenry. For instance, I’m prone to having what some would term “bad hair days,” and what I like to call “days I’d like to bite the head off anyone who gives me a damn excuse.” But for a police officer with a case of the Mondays, the degree to which they’re able to take out their frustrations on innocent bystanders is magnified tenfold.

Case in point, one Branton Kunz. He’s a 25-year-old resident of State Street in Madison, working as a supervisor at a respected downtown hotel, and according to the Madison Police Department, he committed a heinous crime Saturday night. He tried to relax in public.

Specifically, Branton is accused of stringing a hammock between two trees outside his apartment on State Street. He explains that he got the hammock while he was in South America recently, but doesn’t have anywhere to hang it in his apartment, and after a long day of, first, work and, later, the Mifflin Street block party, he was aching to get it out.  

Within a half hour, Jane Law rolled up in her squad.

“An officer came out and she asked me if I had a permit,” Branton explains. ”I said, ‘No, I wasn’t aware that I needed a permit to lay in a hammock.’”

Now, before I continue the story, I must banish the notion of editorial neutrality from any reader’s mind. It’s true — I’m quite partial to hammocks myself, and have been known to string them up in odd but satisfying places. Perhaps more importantly, Branton is a friend of mine. I can personally vouch for the fact that Branton has a clean record, a very laid back demeanor (a hammock, man) and, while he has a wry sense of humor, he’s completely lacking any sort of “attitude problem” prone to rubbing law enforcement the wrong way. 

When these events transpired, I was in fact upstairs in his apartment napping after a day of absorbing sun and beer at the Mifflin Street Block Party. But until he came upstairs with a $172 citation in tow, I was not involved.

The ticket he was issued was for an alleged violation of city ordinance 10.25(1), a prohibition on placing “articles” on the sidewalk or terrace. What qualifies? “Any cask, box, crate, wood, stone, plank, boards, goods…, wares, merchandise, ashes, bottles, cans or other substances or materials.”

“The ordinance seems to clearly be talking about storefronts and them kind of colonizing the area in front of their business,” observes Branton, who admittedly is “no big-city lawyer.”

Neither is police Sgt. Rachael Peterson, who’s worked the State Street beat for 15 years and wrote Branton his ticket Saturday night. She clearly put some thought into the matter at the time.

“There are several other citations that could have been issued,” she told me this afternoon, ”such as hanging things in public trees. Basically everything that (Branton) was doing was not okay.”

Peterson says she even warned Branton he could be cited for disorderly conduct, due to the attention she accuses him of drawing to himself.

“I think a reasonable person would assume that would be unusual and not okay to be tying up a rope to city trees on State Street,” Peterson said. “Call me crazy, but I guess to me that a reasonable person would think that’s a little odd, which is why several people were stopping and taking pictures of him.”

So what would a “reasonable person” in a position of authority do in response to an alleged violation of an obscure city ordinance by an affable working man on an unofficial city holiday? What would a “reasonable person” dole out as a penalty for getting comfortable and having a few laughs? 

“(At that point) I expected I would get a warning because I wasn’t causing any harm,” Branton says. ”I was cooperating.”

Peterson even admitted to me that Branton was exemplary in his willingness to cooperate with the police “investigation.” He answered all her questions, didn’t lip off, provided identification when asked and was more than willing to take the offending hammock back upstairs to his apartment. So is there just a “zero tolerance” policy when it comes to alleged sidewalk obstructions?

Nope. There was just an officer burned out after a long day corralling drunks at the Mifflin Street Block Party, and someone that inexplicably became the focal point of her frustration long enough to catch hell for it.

“We do (issue warnings),” Peterson told me, ”but unfortunately due to the nature of Mifflin, people receive warnings all day long, and so I think people were done getting warnings for the day. It’s at every officer’s discretion (that warnings are issued), but there’s no statement that says we have to give somebody a warning.”

Peterson even admitted to me that in cases involving the homeless, who often find themselves in violation of city ordinance 10.25(1), police are wont to issue several warnings before writing a ticket. So, like any “reasonable person,” Branton plans to fight his ticket in court — and not just for the sake of his checkbook or his record, but for hammockers the world over who are tired of being kept down, literally and figuratively.

“Of all places, this is Madison,” he says. ”You would expect to see something like that on State Street.”

That’s it, I’m putting my foot down. I’ve had it with the teen-vampire craze, particularly the Twilight novels and movies. I propose an immediate Madison police policy of threatening any eyeliner-sporting pale-skinned guy with a wooden stake to the heart.

Think my reaction’s a little extreme? I bet you the jogger in this Madison police report would agree with me:

You read it here first — either some member of the lunatic fringe is convinced he’s a character in one of these crappy vampire stories that are suddenly everywhere, or the daywalkers are really among us. Either way, sound public policy dictates that we hunt down anyone who looks suspiciously emo, whose skin is just a bit too pale or whose clothing is too strategically disheveled, and we stake ‘em.

As for this poor jogger’s mystery assailant, I’ve rounded up the usual suspects and put together this lineup. Male? White? Twenty-something? Slender? Spiky brown hair? Gray T-shirt? Propensity to hiss? I think we have our suspect.

Stake 'em. All of 'em.

The next time you encounter one of Madison’s finest out on the street (or get hauled off by one at the Mifflin Street Block Party), do yourself a favor. Ask the officer what he or she did in his or her past life.

You might raise the cop’s eyebrow, particularly if the officer assumes you’re referring to some sort of Buddhist thing, but more than likely you’ll be pleasantly surprised and a little taken aback. Depending on the officer you’re asking, the answers could run the gamut from basketball player to blackjack dealer, teacher to lawyer, or business owner to bus driver. One thing’s for certain — since Sergeant Mike Koval took over recruiting for the Madison Police, the department has an impressive number of officers who never expected they’d be wearing a badge for a living.

I was pleased to see in today’s State Journal an article by cops reporter Sandy Cullen detailing the diverse assortment of backgrounds many of our boys and gals in blue come from. It’s part of the department’s effort to reinvent policing, as they will tell you, and it makes sense.

The need for police is an unfortunate reality in society. It’s tough to argue against it. The question then becomes, who should a city entrust with the abilities to carry a gun and Taser in public, give orders in emergencies and cuff anyone to drag down to the station? Are we better served by a police force that grew up with dreams of kicking in doors and knocking out teeth, or squads of enforcers who use problem-solving and effective communication as their primary weapons, while keeping a can of whoop-ass in their back pocket as a fallback?

Surprisingly, Madison’s technique is as unique as it is.

I had the pleasure of being introduced to Sergeant Koval about a year back by Public Information Officer Joel Despain, and he’s since proved to be a valuable font of information and the source of a few good chuckles. When we met, it was to talk about the city’s latest class of recruits. I was taken aback by the strange brew of backgrounds they brought to the table, but he explained that diversity is part of the department’s strength.

The logic makes sense. You can teach any trained ape to fire a gun and swing a a billy-club, but Koval told me the traits they’re interested in are level-headedness, intuition and a legitimate desire to help people. Coupled with the department’s incentivized plan to continue officers’ education, it almost hearkens back to the warrior-scholars of old.

Could it be that Koval isn’t building a police force, but a Jedi order?

After the interview I’d come for, our conversation turned to area high school basketball (which I confess, Koval — a local boy — has a better grasp on, in spite of the fact that I was doing color commentary on some games at the time), and then he tried to recruit me.

“Excuse me,” I spluttered like a female bar patron who’s just been told her dress would look better on some frat boy’s floor. If you had made a numbered list of things I was expecting when I walked into Koval’s office, a job pitch would have ranked somewhere in the neighborhood of ten-thousandth.

“You should apply to be a Madison Police Officer,” Koval repeated. “You know, I used to be a reporter, but here I am now.”

Guy could sell ice to the Inuit. If I hadn’t had another pressing appointment, he might have had me in a half hour’s time. The notion still crosses my mind, from time to time, though it’s usually followed in short order by a temporarily crippling bout of maniacal laughter.

As persuasive and vivacious as Sergeant Koval is, it’s no surprise the Madison Police Department gets more than a thousand applications for a dozen or so openings every year. I don’t envy him the task of sorting through those resumes, but in the end, it’s the city that’s benefiting from his dedication and his open-mindedness. I certainly wouldn’t be surprised to see him invited by some institution or another to spread his school of thought to other cities in years to come.

Oh dear God, here we go. I guess we’ll address tales from vacation another time, because there’s a whole mess about to blow up.

Seems Madison police got a call this weekend from a concerned Sconnie in the vicinity of State Street. What had this intrepid Madisonian so frazzled was that he or she had witnessed a young man out for a stroll sporting a holstered handgun hanging at his side.

This isn’t a regular sight in any city, especially in Madison, but in recent months it has become more common. You see, while Wisconsin is one of two states that bans its residents from carrying concealed weapons, there’s no law on the books barring residents from strapping some iron to their hip and openly flaunting it for all the world to see, as long as they don’t use it to raise a ruckus. 

Last April, his honor the Attorney General, JB Van Hollen, inexplicably released a memo stating that it is, in fact, legal to wear an openly visible firearm. Uh, thanks, we knew that.

Now, that right to carry a sidearm in plain view isn’t bulletproof. There are plenty of places where both the law and common sense dictate it would be inadvisable to allow just anyone to pack heat. Schools, taverns and a handful of public buildings are all off limits. Wearing a gun is an automatic grounds for police to stop you and ask you what you’re up to, though they can’t haul you away without further cause. And if you’ve tired yourself out after an afternoon of hefting that .357 all up and down State Street, you’ve got to take the bullets out and put the gun in a case before you get into your car and drive home.

But while AG JB’s memo that the sky was blue shouldn’t have turned a lot of heads, it somehow became a rallying cry for Wisconsin’s pro-gun crowd. Over the course of the summer, open carry advocates started getting giddy with the sheer number of options they had at their disposal to celebrate Van Hollen’s opinion. Some have even gone so far as to host open-carry picnics, which my old WSUM buddy Lou Hillman had a chance to document in Green Bay this weekend.

I’ll tell you one thing. While I’d have been inclined to check out the grub and meet the folk, you couldn’t have paid me to be the poor sap that tried to start a friendly game of Frisbee at that picnic.

As with any sort of activists, what these open carry folks are really gunning for is attention. For frig’s sake, they have a web forum dedicated to discussing their experiences carrying firearms openly.

And now, you can probably expect to read 28-year-old Travis Yates’s account there, about how he was out for a stroll on a fine Saturday evening, sporting his sidearm, when he was accosted by Madison’s finest, detained and written up for disorderly conduct.

Yes, when police responded to the concerned citizen’s call in the State Street area Saturday, they found Yates proudly “celebrating” Van Hollen’s memo just a few short blocks away from where most of our state’s elected and appointed leaders make their living. Instead of asking Yates a few questions, hearing he was “making a political point” and letting him go on his merry way, the officer loaded the nutter into his car and drove Yates to his own house, where he was instructed to put the gun away.

And then the officer damned us all by writing Yates a disorderly conduct ticket because “his actions disturbed other citizens.”

If I may: Madison General Ordinances 24.02: Disorderly Conduct. (1) (applies to anyone who) “In a public or private place, engages in violent, abusive, indecent, profane, boisterous, unreasonably loud or otherwise disorderly conduct under circumstances in which such conduct tends to cause or provoke a disturbance.”

While it’s a broad definition, trying to make the argument that Yates commited disorderly conduct by “disturbing” passersby on the street would never stand up in court. I see more disturbing things than a guy with a holstered gun almost every time I walk down State Street. It’s why I keep coming back.

The city needs to drop the municipal ticket immediately, or they’re giving Yates exactly what he wants. They’re making him a “martyr of the movement,” a moth crushed against the wheel of the liberal machine, Madison.  

Full disclosure: I’m a gun owner (and a decent shot), I sit the fence on concealed carry and hesitantly support open carry. I look at a gun as a tool, and as a former boy scout, it’s my duty to “be prepared” for anything. When it comes to carrying in public, I figure if somebody’s really interested in self-protection and not secretly hoping they get mugged so they can pull their piece and gak the bad guy, they’ll be tough enough to wear the weapon where it’s obvious. After all, when it comes to protecting one’s self from violence, what’s more likely to scare off the bad guys: a tool that’s plainly visible, or one that’s tucked into a shoulder holster?

I’ve certainly never felt the need to carry a firearm in Madison.

So if dopes like Yates want to tote their rods about town in some imagined act of defiance, why do people like the initial complainant and the police officer give them just what they want — someone to defy? What would have just been one harmless nutter on the street who thought he was making some sort of point will now be a crowd of armed, angry people with a legitimate grievance.

If you don’t think it will happen, it’s already started. The readers of that very forum I linked to are already discussing an open-carry rally to protest Yates’s ticket. ”Persecute” one of their herd, and the pro-gun crowd will show up in force.

And much to my chagrin, in this case they’ll be in the right.

I find it a little disheartening when Madison lives up to its supposed “reputation” – ”Madistan” and “eighty square miles surrounded by reality” and ” the People’s Republic of Madison” and all the other spiteful cliches we hear the city called.

Because of this event, which is likely to escalate, those of us who just want to call Madison “home” — who don’t like it when peaceable citizens doing nothing illegal are detained and don’t care for armed angry mobs with a point to prove — we’ll never hear the end of it.