by Stacy Riedel
The Brewers are playing the Cubs this weekend. It's a pretty big deal.
To outsiders it's just baseball, and yes, it is just baseball. But you have to understand the relationship Milwaukee has with Chicago, our love-hate neighbor to the South. Chicago considers us a knock-off of themselves. A low-rent version of what Sinatra called "my kinda town." Jayne Mansfield in a Marilyn Monroe world. We are to Chicago what Canada is to everyone else. I've lived in Milwaukee for almost five years now, and I've spent a sizable amount of time in Chicago during my tenure here, and I've got to say, our reputation isn't entirely unfair. We are kind of the buck-toothed step-sister. With a moustache.
It's okay. On the scale of things, Milwaukee is still the best city I've ever lived in and have no desire or intention of ever leaving. I visited for two weeks about six years ago and fell so deeply in love with it that I vowed to come back to stay. Both cities sit right on Lake Michigan, which is giant and ocean-like, and its fingers extend into Wisconsin and Illinois in the form of lakes and streams that seem countless and neverending. As a result both cities boast beautiful bridges and water-related events, sailboats dotting the shoreline like candies sprinkling out of a pinata. The architecture is historic and well maintained, the streets abuzz with hipsters and businesspeople with coffee cups in their hands, all strutting that very distinct midwestern strut. It isn't hard to imagine why one would want to call this place home and blend in with the locals, adopt a really ugly accent.
The description starts to fork off a little bit the closer you look at the two cities. While visiting a friend last weekend in the burbs of Chicago, I noticed how much nicer the cars are down there. Everyone seems so...employed. Like Milwaukee, there's foliage everywhere, even in the city part of the city, but in Chicago it just seems greener, bigger, more dramatic. Anyone who's seen the tulips down Michigan Ave this time of year can vouch for the wow factor involved, but even way out in the boonies there are nature preserves bookending your local Starbucks and a botanical garden abuts your former high school. It really is remarkable and something I think a lot of folks take for granted. I come from Vegas after all. A city of competing rock gardens.
Chicago certainly has its industry, but Milwaukee has noticeably more smoke stacks than we'd like to admit. If you drive down a particular half-mile stretch of the I-94 just off our downtown area, you can smell the very specific yeasty stank that beer gives off during the manufacturing of it. We're proud of our beer, but not that half-mile stretch. It doesn't help that six miles away from our biggest skyscraper are rolling farms with what is not a myth, Wisconsin dairy cows. There are as many cheeseries as there are breweries in this neck of the woods, and the proximity of them to our city hub sort of takes away any chance of cache we're shooting for. And let's not forget that while Chicago is teeming with professionals in the areas of finance, broadcasting, and internationally traded companies, Milwaukee's state bird is the college kid. They're everywhere. And they're habitually drunk.
So naturally when Chicago, the Junior who just got her braces off, comes up to visit us, the eternally dorky Freshman with the hand-me-downs on, for a good ol' baseball game, we tend to have a bit of a grudge. Most years the Cubs are a better team than the Brewers, possibly because they're better funded and because players would much prefer to live in a cool city like Chicago. The Cubs and their fans love coming up here and reminding us who's the boss, patting us on the head and calling us cute. These past few years though, the Brewers have come up a notch, our players earning their paychecks while the Cubs languish in their piles of hun-dos. It's like that Freshman kid took karate over the Winter. Or got boobs.
While the Cubs are patronizing us this weekend, we'll be busting our asses. Oh, yeah, almost forgot. That's something Milwaukee is proud of. The locals here are 106% German. Every last one of them. Even the Koreans are German. And with that comes the German work ethic. They, we, do everything turbo-charged. Work and play are taken very seriously here. The only thing never overreached on is sleep. Just not a necessity. Other great quintessential Milwaukeean characteristics? We're cool as shit. I lived here two weeks and knew not a soul and already had an invite to a birthday party. That could be testament to my awesomeness, but it's also very much evidence of the big fat hug this city gives to outsiders. And did I mention the cheese? It's not a food, it's a religion up here. It's a religion because you live your life praying for just one more day without a heart attack. Not today, God, not today.
So bring it on, Chicago. We can take it. You may have radness points, but our stadium is nicer and allows for great tailgating. We have Ueker, and we have the ghost of Chris Farley whispering in the ear of your shortstop. So suck on that.
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