Nor are we immune from the social ills found in a metropolis like Los Angeles: drive-bys are quite common in Wisconsin, although we call them come-bys, since people generally just roll down the window and threaten to come by the house later. Like gangs in L.A., a lot of guys around Wausau have taken to wearing red or blue plaid shirts and house slippers, although their range of hang signals ("left-turn," "right-turn," and "go-around, we're talking") is admittedly more limited. Graffiti splashed across Wisconsin garage doors, tableaus of whitetails or trout leaping at flies, makes it pretty clear whose turf you're on.

Air quality can be a problem too, particularly when a low cloud over rolling in off Lake Michigan pushes the eau de Usinger's Sausage back down over Milwaukee, resulting in one of a number of "kielbasa warning days" during the summer when Jews and Muslims are advised to stay indoors. Traffic is no picnic these days either, what with the tillers on the road in the spring, and the corn pickers in the fall. Passing two lanes of gleaming stainless-steel teeth is not unlike looking around the table at a breakfast meeting with producers and entertainment lawyers in Santa Monica.

Even film crews are becoming commonplace in Wisconsin, particularly when Milwaukee's striking resemblance to Cleveland or Kenosha's to Gdansk is crucial to the story line. We're all on pins and needles waiting for the Lech Walesa story to happen. And although we don't have the same number of celebrities on the street that you'll find in Hollywood, (just Bob Uecker, actually, and he can't be everywhere), we do have people who look so much like a Burt Reynolds or a Pia Zadora that you want to hop off the bus and ask them what they're doing walking into the Harnischfeger manufacturing plant with a lunch bucket. (Researching a role?) Here, of course, you don't have to be a star to get your footprints in cement, you just have to wait until the crew knocks off for the day.

One thing we don't have in Wisconsin, however, is a commission on sef-esteem. The legislature in Sacramento a couple of years ago established the California Commission on Self-Esteem to ask the big question: Can you be packed in yeast, wrapped in seaweed, and sprayed from helicopters and still have self-esteem? (It's enough to send you in early for your 30,000-mile brain tune-up!) Sure, we take yeast here in Wisconsin, but internally, the way nature intended. We never even got around to walking on coals, except accidentally, after a tailgate party at Green Bay's Lambeau Field (and then it wasn't exactly a mantra that was recited). Californians are different in these respects. They'll jump off bridges wearing nothing but bungee cords, but are afraid to drink their tap water. In fact, they react to someone drinking tap water the way we would to a dog drinking from the toilet. That's why the Perrier scare didn't hit us like it did them: Most of our bottled water goes into the iron. We want pristine water, we get it from when the earth was young, up around La Crosse, made into a complete food with hops and barley.

We tried to form a Self-Esteem Commission here in Wisconsin, but no one felt qualified. You don't want people to think you're better than everyone else. (We have a Republican governor--he wanted to start a Self-Interest Commission, but no one would cooperate.) If we did have a Self-Esteem Commission, I doubt it would be capitalized. Why draw attention to it? It's recommendations would be a foregone conclusion: sheepshead and a glass of beer, Dungeons and Dragons and a glass of beer for the younger set, and for stubborn cases, cribbage. If all else fails, Bingo at the Ho Chunk Reservation Hall. If that doesn't work, you may have untreatable self-esteem and be happier in California.