Every Friday, Off The Record looks to other Milwaukee publications for bits of news we missed throughout the week.
• Memo to the Internet: If you need some fast, easy clicks, just write something with the word “Milwaukee” in it. Not only will OnMilwaukee’s Jeff Sherman-Bot 8000 get a Menomonee Valley-sized erection for four or more hours, but every man, woman, and child in Milwaukee will share the shit out of it. Yes, you’ve probably seen Salon’s “Milwaukee is the new Portland” piece by now, and if you haven’t, well, you clearly haven’t been online this week. Beyond a lame, irritating, and misleading headline, the piece is an incredibly thorough overview of the city’s embrace of its natural resources (water), and definitely worth a read. Great job, Milwaukee!
In other fun news, Milwaukee is the 5th most dangerous city in the U.S., apparently.
• Journal Sentinel film critic Duane Dudek has the fall lineup for the UWM Union Cinema. Highlights (and there are plenty) include Under The Skin, The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Zero Theorem, Happy Christmas, Life After Beth, and Godzilla. The Halloween lineup looks awesome, too. (Trick ’R Treat!)
• Lakefront Brewing is planning on opening a second facility, reports the Journal Sentinel. The building will be located near Lakefront’s current headquarters, across the Holton Street bridge at 1890 N. Commerce St. If all goes well, construction is expected to begin in the next few years.
• Tragic news for aging goths: Longtime doom-and-gloom hotspot Club Anything is in the process of packing away the pleather and transforming itself into a new bar and venue called The Local. OnMilwaukee has more info.
• Bublr Bike stations continue to pop up downtown, including locations near Cathedral Park and the 411 E. Wisconsin building. Both the Journal Sentinel and the Milwaukee Business Journal took a few test rides, and lived to tell the thrilling and game-changing tale of riding a bike for a few blocks.
• If standing in line, flashing your ID, and ordering a beer at a baseball game is simply too much work, you’re in luck: The Milwaukee Business Journal reports that self-serve beer machines may be coming to Miller Park. Welcome to a brave, convenient new world of buying a special beer card, finding a self-serve beer station, standing in line, fiddling with your special beer card, asking the attendant for help, fiddling with your special beer card some more, and finally getting a $7 cup of beer.
• Perhaps the Brewers should run any further additions to Miller Park past its newly created “Creative Council” of young professionals. The group of young and young-ish local folks will help the team appeal to other young and young-ish local folks. Strangely, no one from the city’s biggest young professional cabal, NEWaukee, is on the council. Prepare to be visited by some hired goons sporting lead pipes and MilwaukeeHome tank-tops, Brewers.
• Ald. Bob Donovan took the fucking ice bucket challenge, and there’s still no way he’s going to beat Tom Barrett for Milwaukee mayor. Bruce Murphy at Urban Milwaukee has more on the second point.
• Toy Story 2 Last weekend’s IndyFest was okay, reports the Milwaukee Business Journal.
• Evan Rytlewski at the Shepherd Express has a nice piece on local punk dynamos Midwives, complete with four new songs.
• The Shepherd also has the lineup for the 2014 Bay View Bash, set for Saturday, September 13. Highlights include sets from Zero Boys, We Are Hex, Drunk Drivers, Platinum Boys, Midnight Reruns, Tigernite, Like Like The The The Death, and Heavy Hand. Oh, and the Prince Experience featuring Gabriel Sanchez.