LA CROSSE, Wis. (WLAX/WEUX) – How’s about a little “treat” with your “trick” this spooky season?

The Main – An Event Space, is hosting Camp Crystal Lake Comedy Bash: A Friday the 13^th Stabtacular! This horror movie-themed sketch comedy show is a fundraising event for the Mississippi Valley Conservancy. There will be a silent auction and 50/50 raffle the night of the show and proceeds will help the Conservancy to preserve the bluffs, farmlands, wetlands, prairies and streams of Wisconsin’s Driftless Area for the health and well-being of future generations.

At the writing of this article, The Main had just released 25 extra tickets to this event and those were going fast. This one is going to sell out, friends. If you would like to see this ridiculousness live and in person…

However, allow me to introduce the man behind this endeavor of ridiculousness, Nick Peterson. Nickolaus Cabrerra Peterson IV was the 7th of 9 children born to Satchel Paige and Mother Theresa in the wilderness of Crawford County, Wisconsin.

Clearly, I don’t know anything about this man, his background, or his extended family because most of those facts were incorrect.

That is the difference between Nick and me. If he were the one writing an article about me, he would’ve done his research. He would’ve found the people he needed to find and had a detailed picture of who and what I was before he started writing the most eloquent and well-versed passage about mediocrity and “failing to the middle” that anyone would’ve ever read.

I, however, will be relying on my memory and my personal interactions with him. Most of these facts will be correct… I think.

I say with little to no hyperbole, Nick Peterson is one of the most talented people in the world. He is a Special Education teacher at the Holmen Middle School and holds two master’s degrees from the University of Wisconsin la Crosse. He is a musician who has written and recorded (at least) 3 original albums as well as a cover album under the name Defective Electric. He is a woodworker who built (I believe) all of the items up for silent auction during the Camp Crystal Lake event, including a wine rack and an electric guitar. He played baseball for UW-L and still holds many of the DeSoto High School baseball hitting records. He is a winemaker and novice brewer, his garden feeds his family throughout the year, animals answer his calls, he once saved 13 kittens from a burning orphanage, and apple trees grow in the ground he bleeds on…

Ok, the last 3 were fictitious but you have to admit you thought twice about it.

Nick and I met when I was putting together a sketch comedy show of my own. That show would become Live! from La Crosse, a (semi) successful sketch show that ran for nearly a decade in town. Nick was the driving force behind that success. His prolific writing kept us rife with content; (Live did well over 100 all-original sketches and Nick wrote a minimum of 80% of them) his shining talent led by example (Live’s most “iconic” characters are Hot Dog and The Pope, 100% Nicks brain-child) and his drive to keep pushing led us to new and incredible heights.

For example, Nick wanted us to perform in festivals. He set his sights on (at the time) the largest sketch comedy show in the country; Chicago Sketchfest. We applied and were not only accepted but, before the pandemic put an end to it, our attendance was anticipated and expected every year.

He also wanted us to look at getting celebrity hosts. I guffawed and swore that we weren’t established enough for such foolishness. Shane Maus was the first celebrity host we had. Eric Stolhanske and Keith Coogan also hosted the show before it was over. It was Nick who got that done. It was Nick that made us “established enough.”

All of this is to say, on Friday the 13^th of October, you have a chance to see what this talent can do when its wild ideas are given free rein. What a year of planning and scheming can bring to life. How hard Freddy Kruger and Jason Vorhees can make you laugh. And you’ll see just how much talent is hidden in your neighbors and friends.