How I got the name Shotski
An indie filmmaker makes a movie about polka fans and 14 years later...
A few years after I moved to Madison, the Wisconsin Film Festival showed a movie by filmmaker Craig DiBiase called “It’s Happiness: a Polka Documentary.” The film is not a mockumentary, but it’s really funny. It chronicles some of the last days of Art Altenburg’s famous concertina bar in Milwaukee and the robust enthusiasm of polka fans around Wisconsin.
There is a scene in the film — which you can also briefly see in the movie’s trailer on YouTube — where people drink shots off of a ski. The ski has holes drilled into it and shot glasses in the holes. It takes a team effort to lift the ski and take a drink without spilling.
A “shotski” is emblematic of what’s great about polka culture. You use a shotski with your friends. You have to get close together and count 1, 2, 3! You take a drink (of whatever… it doesn’t have to be German brandy) and feel warm inside. You do it when winter can be brutally cold and you need to have fun indoors. A shotski is quite a spectacle. It gets attention. People clap and cheer you on.
I thought long and hard about what DJ name I wanted. I skated on Madison’s recreational roller derby team and learned how important creative names are to your alter ego where you can let a part of yourself be free and wild. A DJ name should mean something. All of my ideas at first didn’t feel right, or were multisyllabic German words with umlauts and would be misspelled. Then I remembered “It’s Happiness” as one of the things that sparked my love of polka in Wisconsin.
Of course! The shotski scene. Bingo. DJ Shotski was born.
I can also look to “It’s Happiness” as one of the roots of Polka Tears and the deep desire to keep polka music, culture and spaces going. I remember feeling like I wished I had a million dollars to buy Art’s bar and keep it in the polka family. Fortunately the bar still lives on as Kochanski's Concertina Beer Hall. But there are so many dance halls around the state in varying states of activity or decay. I would buy them all. I would bring them all back to their mid-century condition. But until I win the lottery and get into real estate, I rescue old records and play them on the radio.
P.S. A caveat: I don’t intend for this to all be about alcohol consumption. I recognize that polka music and beer go inextricably hand-in-hand. I know that Wisconsin’s drinking culture has health and safety ramifications. I acknowledge that not everyone drinks alcohol to have fun. If you’re a non-drinker, you’re welcome in the Shotski Lodge. A shotski is just as fun with cranberry juice or kombucha.