Remembering the funniest 30 seconds of 2025

The infamous Milwaukee Boat—a.k.a. Deep Thought, the S.S. Minnow, the S.S. Milwaukee, or just The Boat—magically appeared between Bradford and McKinley beaches on October 13, 2024. (Okay, it didn’t “magically appear”—its Mississippi owners ran it ashore and abandoned it.) And yet The Boat was very much a 2025 story. The thing froze over in 2025. It got seriously tagged in 2025. It became the site of countless photo and video shoots in 2025. It went from local curiosity to local obsession in 2025.

And yes, it eventually got dragged over the rocks and towed away (by All City Towing) in 2025. But before it did, it was the site of the funniest 30 seconds of the year.

On April 23, 2025, Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson held a press conference at the scene of the Boat. Johnson announced that, thanks to a donation from an anonymous donor, the Boat would finally be towed by the end of the day. For real this time.

Salvage expert Jerry Guyer and his team from Jerry’s Silo Marina were also on hand, just as they had been several times before. They worked throughout the afternoon, but they failed to budge the Boat. (Just as they had several times before.)

And it was during this failed operation that the funniest 30 seconds of the year occurred. As Guyer and his team toiled away, a random dude ran into the water and up to the Boat and started tagging the thing in real time. Did the dude write “I CLOSED WOLSKI’S” and “CLOSED FOR THE SEASON” on the port side of the Boat while crews floated off the starboard side? Yes he did. Did various onlookers laugh as the dude did it? Yes they did. Did someone from Jerry’s Silo Marina yell out, “Hey! Hey! Get the hell out of there!” before the dude scampered away? Yes they did. (Later: “Keep an eye on him!” “Motherfucker!” “GET HIM OUT OF HERE!”) Was the whole thing captured by TMJ4 cameras? Behold: