Part of a four-stop series that will span the United States, Jose Cuervo's Pro Beach Volleyball Series kicks off right here in Milwaukee this weekend.
The tournament will be held at Bradford Beach where eight teams from across the U.S. will compete for a $60,000 payday. Other stops on the tour include Manhattan Beach, Calif.; Miami and Hermosa Beach, Calif., which will be televised.
The series at Bradford will not be televised, but that is not going to stop the competition from roaring into Brew City with fervor.
"I don't want to call it a warm-up for the actual tournament because it's not. It's the beginning of the four-stop tournament so it's coming to Milwaukee full force," says James Leitz of IMG Worldwide, the sports marketing firm that is organizing the tournament.
"Milwaukee will get the full service with a full stadium, VIP seating arrangements, live music, good food and a rock climbing wall."
Local taverns will join in the action with the "Bar Wars on the Beach" competition. The Bar Wars tournament will showcase 24 six-player teams representing various bars, clubs and taverns around the area competing for the bragging rights of best bartender volleyball team.
"The bar tournament will allow the local teams to play on the professional courts that we are setting up down there. It's a great way to combine the pro tournament with all the local events that will be going on at the same time," says Leitz.
The Bar Wars tournament will be played from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Friday, July 22. The pro series kicks off Saturday.
Ever since the day he was the proud owner of a letterbox copy of "Pulp Fiction" on VHS, Casey Buchanan has always been a cinema nut. He has no hang-ups about what type of movie he can watch. The terrible, as well as the acclaimed, are all in the ballpark.
A movie collection spanning over 15 years of digging in Goodwill bargain bins and garage sale shoe boxes to acquire such gems as "The Rock and Roll Wrestling Woman Versus the Aztec Mummy Monster" and "The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed up Zombies," Casey does not discriminate when it comes to anything that can be recorded on film.
When Casey is not hunkered down on the couch for the usual "Zombie Nightmare Triple Feature" the former Army infantryman is on Water Street, either working the door protecting you from dirt balls, or sucking back High Life and cheap whiskey singing all the words to every Dropkick Murphy's song.
It's never a dull moment when you have the "Death Proof" logo tattooed on your leg.
