Just sitting at Bradford Beach in the morning, thinking about stuff: The Milwaukee Record Review

Ever go down to Bradford Beach in the morning and just sit there and think about stuff? It’s great, right? It’s one of Milwaukee’s finest pleasures.

Timing is key. In the summer months, during the afternoon and on the weekends, Bradford Beach can be a glorious mass of humanity. Sunbathers! Volleyball players! Tiki hut drinkers! A handful of people actually going in the water! (Find current Milwaukee County Beach Water Quality Alerts HERE.) But make your way to the beach in the morning, before 9 a.m., preferably on a weekday, and you’ll find a quiet, serene, and effortlessly beautiful place to sit and think about stuff. It really is great.

What’s not to love? Lake Michigan is beautiful. The beach is beautiful. The 1950s-era Bradford Beach Bathhouse—which everyone thought was going to be privatized a few years ago but totally isn’t—is beautiful. The joggers and dog-walkers are doing their respective things. The guy with the metal detector is doing his. The lady listening to a motivational tape on her phone is getting motivated, hopefully. And you’re just sitting there, thinking about stuff.

Some stuff you can think about:

• Gosh, this is nice.

• Gosh, this is really nice.

• This doesn’t feel like Milwaukee, does it?

• Actually, yeah, it does feel like Milwaukee. This city has so many different facets, so many different sides. It has so much to offer! Sitting at Bradford Beach in the morning and thinking about stuff is just one of a thousand different things you can do in a Milwaukee day.

• Are people still milking the whole “horrible city” thing from last week? I already saw some “horrible city” merch at Saturday’s Summer Soulstice festival. There’s gotta be a beer by now, right? [Editor’s note: Yep!] Are people still trashing Milwaukee in the comments? Must be Monday.

• Speaking of that, am I going to finish that snotty little article I started last night, “You have a miserable opinion about Milwaukee. I don’t think about you at all”? I don’t know. I honestly don’t care that a flood of bots, trolls, and random dipshits seems to drown out any and all of our posts about Milwaukee these days. The people in these social media floods are dull, predictable, and weak. You know who’s putting in the hard work? We are. The people of Milwaukee. The people who live here and work here and raise our families here and recognize all the wonderful and shitty things about the city. The people who are celebrating the wonderful things and actively working to fix the shitty things. Not some dingus upside-down-American-flag Facebook account from Florida who doesn’t even follow our page but is catered to and placated by the dumb-as-ditchwater social media outrage algorithms. So keep commenting, dummies. I don’t think about you at all.

• That’s from Mad Men, right? Don says it to Ginsberg in the elevator. Ginsberg says, “I feel bad for you,” and Don says, “I don’t think about you at all.” But he does think about him, right? He knows that Ginsberg is the up-and-coming guy and that he, Don, is old news. Okay, I’ll definitely scrap the whole “You have a miserable opinion about Milwaukee. I don’t think about you at all” article. Someone would inevitably point out the subtext of that Mad Men scene and yeah, that would pretty much negate the whole piece. Maybe I’ll write about sitting at Bradford Beach in the morning and thinking about stuff instead…

• Gosh, this is nice.

The Milwaukee Record Review: 10/10 Beautiful Mornings On Bradford Beach. Get out there and enjoy them, Milwaukee. And keep up the hard work!

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