Tagged Opinion

June 24, 2019

Sunday afternoon, 41,237 people enjoyed watching the Milwaukee Brewers defeat the Cincinnati Reds 7-5 at Miller Park. Among those 41,000-plus people was local sports radio person Bill Michaels, who most decided...

It’s time to admit that it’s (nearly) the end of the Milwaukee Public Museum as we know it

June 13, 2019

Earlier this week, the Milwaukee Public Museum announced its new president and CEO, Dr. Ellen J. Censky. A Cedarburg native, Dr. Censky started her career with MPM back in 1977, and has served as the interim pr...

What makes chili…chili?

March 6, 2019

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

December 19, 2018

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

June 8, 2018

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”

March 14, 2018

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?

June 21, 2017

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

March 2, 2017

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

January 19, 2017

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

Lauren Keene

January 11, 2017

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

October 25, 2016

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

October 7, 2016

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

September 27, 2016

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

September 19, 2016

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?

June 2, 2016

//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?

March 24, 2016

//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

March 16, 2016

//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

February 4, 2016

//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?