tell me about milwaukee

And I'll try and get all the stuffy indie kids I know to step outside of their usual coke lined bar bathrooms to attend.

My wife got into Marquette Law and so I think I might have to move here. I know nothing about it. Is it just a smaller, drunker, somewhat colder Chicago?

i almost interviewed for a lawyer job there but i backed out at the last minute because i am tired of the midwest and tired of cold and i'm going to move to baltimore instead. was i wrong?

Is it just a smaller, drunker, somewhat colder Chicago?

pretty much

it's algonquin for "the good land" btw

I know a good dude there, can show you some sights. Definitely more sociable than I am.

Back from Milwaukee. Fun times. Milwaukee seemed really, really quiet.

We did:

1. Went to a brewery...Lakeside? for a tour, but it was sold out, so we bought a couple beers and chatted with a very nice bartender who hinted that we should join the tour w/out paying. We found the group in the bowels of the brewery, and found that the guy who turned us away from the tour was leading it.

We hid behind a few tall guys, and Courtney and I were cutting up a little - pretending to kiss and taking pictures of the guys' butts (that was my doing). As I was showing Courtney the picture my beer slipped out of my hand and both the beer and camera crashed to the floor and sending the battery and memory card flying, and soaking my sleeve, the camera, and most off all, the butt that I had just photographed. The guys were very nice, and they laughed a lot and assured us all was OK.

We LOLed and tried to sneak out, but the tour leader noticed us again. We went back and chatted w/ the nice bartender.

2. Went to Wild Hop and ate maybe the best nachos we've ever had (w/ buffalo meat).

3. Walked around the lake a bit.

4. Went to the casino and lost a few bucks on nickel slots.

Very visually interesting town! Very beautiful in parts.

― milk plasma (Jesse), Sunday, 22 March 2009 04:26 (Yesterday) Permalink

dude on the right:

xp

It is quiet. It is nice for a weekend getaway. If you're living there, you are close to all kinds of recreation for your leisure times. Also, it is nothing like Chicago, which is much ruder.

PleaPlai any idea if that drummer would be interested in playing Grant Hart in an awesome Hüsker Dü style cover band?

if I can manage to get a planning job in The Good Land I might be able to review a property line adjustment or something for the Jeffrey Dahmer memorial vacant lot

Bob Uecker! Brady Street! Polish Flats! The Black Holocaust Museum! Kilbourn Tunnel! The Basilica of St. Josaphat! The Calatrava! Mr. Perkins Family Restaurant! Newly developed Chimney Park featuring actual preserved industrial relics! The Bucks! Harley Davidson shit everywhere! Wolski's! Check out all those exclamation points. That's how excited I am to move here in August.

http://images.todaystmj4.com/images/444268.jpg

does anyone have anything to tell me about milwaukee before i FREAKING MOVE THERE TOMORROW AFTER NEVER HAVING BEEN THERE OR ANYWHERE NEAR THERE BEFORE

me & the wife are coming to milwaukee this weekend, tell us some fun shit to do

you could hang out with me and my girlfriend on friday.

we won't get there until saturday, we have a show in chicago friday night, otherwise we totally would

oh ok. we're probably going to back to madison on sat afternoon, but i'll ask around and see if anything cool is happening that night.

we're going to aim to get in pretty early saturday morning, i think sarah wants to get brunch at beans & bagels ... do you guys want to join us?

beans & barley? yeah that could work (it can get pretty busy on the weekends though).

yeah beans & bagels is in chicago, i meant beans & barley. i think i have yr phone number, i can just text you on saturday morning when we're getting near milwaukee

milwaukee mayor lost teeth in battle with suspect

I was standing around before the start of the Labor Day march the other weekend and Mayor Barrett walks right up to my wife and me with his good left hand extended, all "hey, thanks for coming out." Have to admit I was a little starstruck. Took me a second to register where exactly on the TV I knew this guy from.

I absolutely despised living there in my angsty 20s. But I think it's a fine place to, er, settle down in one's slightly less angsty 30s. Haven't lived there in a while so I'm not sure if any of the below are still in biz but:

Fave bars are At Random (where Peg Bundy would go to meet her secret lover...amaaaazing decor and positively jaw-dropping drinks...share a Tiki Bowl with someone) and This Is It (where Al Bundy would go to meet his secret gay lover...VERY difficult to find even when you're standing right in front it @ 418 E. Wells Street)

Woodland Pattern Bookstore - tons of poetry books but I went for the art music vinyl (e.g. Joan LaBarbara, Robert Ashley, etc.) and the great monthly avant-garde films

The Cactus Club - fave place to see a band like my beloved BRMC (still open?)

Basilica of St. Josaphat - We lived LITERALLY across the street from this and never went in. :(

The Calatrava - Gorgeous but, um, you can't really put much art in it. Soooo Milwaukee. But the art museum is indeed lovely.

Atomic Records - Most of the record stores I loved are prolly gone but I'm sure this one is still going. Tad pricey but always found sooo much great shit in the Compilations section.

Food - The only thing I love about MKE over any other city I've lived in is the food. Your ass gets FED in Brew City! Plentiful and unpretentious for the most part. Love the Greek family restaurants! Jalisco's! Tres Hermanos! Grecian Delight! Shahrazad!

Lots of places that are fine to visit once (The Domes, Pabst Mansion [still open?]) but after that...

Vile, avoid like the plague, should be razed: Summerfest

Cactus Club is still open. Saw Neil Hamburger there last month (and dined at the booth next to him at Palomino before the show).

I'll have to stop in to At Random for an alcoholic goblet sometime. I've walked past it a number of times and would probably have mistook it for a public library if it didn't have the sign on the side.

I love how if you order a bloody mary in this town it is customary to be served with a High Life chaser. The cheddar and sausage garnish was less surprising.

hey, i'm pro'lly going to milwaukee for a few days in a few weeks.

any suggestions?

what are the best venues for live music? are there good milwaukee-area music and film calendars i can check out?

vintage stores? record stores? restaurants? parks?

I'm pretty sure literally every good record store in Milwaukee closed in the last couple of years. Beyond that, I dunno...

I don't know enough to make worthwhile recommendations about live music or vintage stores-- maybe some else here can help you out with that.

The Union Theater on the UW-Milwaukee campus usually shows interesting things but they don't publish their film calendar until school starts for the fall semester. Right now they're closed for the summer, and otherwise the only film venues of note are the Landmark theaters on the east side, which are vintage buildings and really pretty, but just show basic new arthouse releases. If you come between September 23rd and October 3rd, the 2010 Milwaukee Film Festival will be going on at different theaters around town, but they haven't released their calendar yet either.

Any park on Lake Michigan is basically pretty nice. Lake Park and Veterans Park on the lakefront north of the art museum are probably the ones most worth checking out for a tourist.

Restaurants, I dunno. Comet Cafe has good food and drinks but gets incredibly crowded on the weekends. I'd recommend eating fish fry somewhere if you're around on a Friday for the full Milwaukee experience. Also, get frozen custard somewhere, preferably either at a Kopp's location (where you can also enjoy a delicious cheeseburger with the works) or at Leon's on the south side. Jake's Deli makes really good corned beef sandwiches during lunch hours if you don't mind going to the inner city to get it.

What else... The Lakefront Brewery tour is the most fun brewery tour in town and they make the best beer too. If you're a beer snob, I'm pretty sure that the best bars for that are in the bar district along Kinnickinnic Avenue, including Sugar Maple and the Palm Tavern. The best liquor store in town is Discount Liquor on Oklahoma Avenue. Huge, cheap, and they have a really choice selection of beers. And, um, I guess that's it. Milwaukee is a pretty nice place to be when there's leaves on the trees, so enjoy, I guess!

We are coming upon the best time of the year to visit Milwaukee - between the end of the summer into early fall. What types of outdoor recreation are nearby, I can't remember?

I don't get out a ton, but there are a lot of parks with mountain bike trails in southeastern Wisconsin. Maybe the Kettle Moraine region would be the best for that? Or just go out for a drive and maybe go up a hiking trail to a lookout tower like the one by Sheboygan. Also muskie fishing or whatever on any of the lakes in the area. It's the one month of the year that Lake Michigan isn't too cold to swim in, so you could do that or go parasailing or rent a jetski at Veteran's Park. You can also rent rollerblades at Veteran's Park and go up and down all the parks by the beach on Lincoln Memorial Drive. Bradford Beach in Milwaukee has a ton of nets set up for beach volleyball that are open free to the public. Also there are a ton of good public golf courses in the area.

Well, I'm a regular visitor here, but Milwaukee has certainly had its share of visitors. The French missionaries and explorers began visiting here in the late 16th century.

Hey, isn't "Milwaukee" an Indian name?

Yes, it is. In fact , it's pronounced "mill-e-wah-que" which is Algonquin for "the good land."

I was not aware of that.

This is a touristy thing but I thought the Pabst mansion was actually pretty impressive.

Also there's a massive used book store downtown. I don't remember what it's called but it shouldn't be that hard to find. MASSIVE.

If it's the book store I'm thinking of, it's godawful. The owner's a prick; the used vinyl is sealed with tape which ruins the jacket (they honestly think someone's going to make off with a $2 Sa-Fire record with no jacket???); and, worst of all, there's nothing to buy. It's full of disogranized junk, more a graveyard than a store (although the wiki above suggests that it's improved).

Atomic Records - Most of the record stores I loved are prolly gone but I'm sure this one is still going.

Ugh I should have done my research. Atomic closed six months before I wrote that! :( RIP. Here's a Popmatters requiem all about it.

thanks so much, folks, for all the recommendations!

i like going to Roots for brunch. love lisa's pizza too.

oh, and nessun dorma is my favorite bar in town. great food (inexpensive too), amazing beer/liquor list, and by far the nicest atmosphere in riverwest.

I still haven't been to the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milwaukee_Art_Museum, I keep thinking of the Calatrava thing as new. Seems like it would be great to try your camera out on.