What makes chili…chili?
A few weeks ago, my wife and I were discussing chili. You know, as husbands and wives often do. I mentioned to my wife that she should meet me downtown for lunch, and suggested Real Chili (pictured above) as a ...
Streetcars, the State of Wisconsin, and standing up for Milwaukee
Twenty-eighteen was kind of a big year for Milwaukee, wasn't it? Like, an honest-to-goodness, no-kidding, no-hyperbole "transformative" year? Seriously! There was the long-awaited opening of the Fiserv Forum, a...
Milwaukee chef Shay Linkus responds to the death of Anthony Bourdain
The following op-ed, responding to the death of chef, author, and TV host Anthony Bourdain, is written by former Vanguard and current Snack Boys chef/owner Shay Linkus. Milwaukee Record would still like to add ...
Waving the white flag on the “People’s Flag of Milwaukee”
A few weeks ago, a reporter from the Wall Street Journal interviewed me about the ongoing drama surrounding the Milwaukee city flag. What, the reporter wanted to know, was the deal with the "People's Flag of Mi...
So what do we think of this year’s Summerfest lineup?
In A-side/B-side, two Milwaukee Record writers tackle various city issues in an informal, crosstalk style. Insults are hurled, feelings are hurt, and everyone learns something in the end. Maybe.Matt Wild: W...
The new Fuel is nothing like the original Fuel, and that’s fine
My first Milwaukee memories are of Fuel Cafe. I moved here in 1996, three years after the now-iconic coffee shop/cafe opened in Riverwest. Like many of my friends, I spent an inordinate amount of time at Fuel. ...
Gary Sheffield will never make the Baseball Hall of Fame
Wednesday, Baseball Writers' Association Of America named three new inductees to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Houston Astros slugger Jeff Bagwell pulled in over 86 percent of votes, Montreal Expos great Tim Rai...
Young, shy, and snotty: Being an underage music fan in Milwaukee
Beer, cheese, motorcycles, sports—these are the things that a lot of people still think about when they hear the word "Milwaukee." I've lived in Milwaukee my entire life and have never really cared about the ...
No, Milwaukee, it isn’t okay to cheer for the Chicago Cubs
Hey, fans of the Milwaukee Brewers. Perhaps you've been told otherwise by a columnist who insists "we are still part of Chicagoland" before he chases the outdated rehashing of Milwaukee's little-man syndrome ...
Oh great, there’s going to be another Jeffrey Dahmer movie
It seems like Hollywood is plum out of new ideas. Periodically, when they aren't adapting Lethal Weapon into a TV series or harvesting '80s nostalgia to redressed as a Netflix original, television executives ...
St. Francis needs to step up its bench game
Sitting between the bustle of Bay View and Cudahy's thriving industry is a small, sparsely populated section of Milwaukee County called St. Francis. Given its size, the 2.5-square-mile chunk of land is the ty...
Coo Coo Cal’s ‘Disturbed’ is 15 and local hip-hop is in a great place
Yesterday marked the 15th anniversary of the release of Coo Coo Cal's Disturbed. The sophomore record by the Milwaukee rapper (a.k.a. Calvin Bellamy) was his one and only release on Tommy Boy Records, just ...
A-side/B-side: So what do we think of this year’s Summerfest lineup?
//In A-side/B-side, two Milwaukee Record writers tackle various city issues in an informal, crosstalk style. Insults are hurled, feelings are hurt, and everyone learns something in the end. Maybe.Matt ...
Is the “redesign the Milwaukee flag” thing REALLY trying to redesign the Milwaukee flag?
//The official flag of Milwaukee was adopted 61 years ago, in 1955. Efforts to redesign the flag—a flag haphazardly stuffed with barley stalks, boats, and something that looks like a UFO—have been going on...
Was The Spot 4MKE a boon or a bust? It depends on who’s reporting
//Late last week, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel business reporter Tom Daykin broke the news that The Spot 4MKE, a highly touted "placemaking" project from Creative Alliance Milwaukee, had been put on "indefin...
Milwaukee development, the Shops of Grand Avenue, and a requiem for the underdog
//There's a moment early on in Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy when the novel's befuddled protagonist, Arthur Dent, is lying in the mud in front of a bulldozer, protesting the unexpecte...
A-side/B-side: Why is Milwaukee getting so worked up over a Portillo’s coming to town?
In A-side/B-side, two Milwaukee Record writers tackle various city issues in an informal, crosstalk style. Insults are hurled, feelings are hurt, and everyone learns something in the end. Maybe.Tyler Maas: ...
Why Milwaukee could, should (but probably won’t) host Riot Fest
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Last weekend, Chicago hosted its 11th iteration of Riot Fest. The annual festival, which was founded in the Windy City, started as a punk-, ska-, and hardcore-focused affair that bounced around exclusively...
I floated in a sensory deprivation tank at Float Milwaukee and, well, it was something
The first thing to know about Float Milwaukee—the city’s newest and only sensory deprivation flotation tank business—is that the folks who run it have heard all the Altered States jokes before. The 1980 sci...
Why do some Milwaukee musicians leave? Why do others stay?
On Saturday, August 29, glistening electro-pop outfit Dream Attics will mark its impending relocation to Austin, Texas by playing a goodbye show at Linneman’s. Milwaukee bands packing up shop and heading elsewh...