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Better Xmas song: Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” or Wham!’s “Last Christmas”?

So, which is better? Mariah Carey’s 1994 classic (Fun Fact: Carey and writing partner Walter Afanasieff wrote the song’s basic structure and melody in 15 minutes!), or Wham!’s 1984 classic (Fun Fact: George Michael wrote the song’s basic structure and melody while visiting his parents!) To find out, we conducted a highly informal and slapdash poll of Milwaukee musicians and other folks about town.

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Let’s do this.

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#BREWERS

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We visited the last Blockbuster video store in America

In Bend, Oregon—a lovely town of 90,000-ish lovely people—there are 90,000,000-ish lovely things to do outside. Bend is a destination for hikers, mountain bikers, fisherpeople, campers, rock climbers, rafters, golfers, and those who just enjoy impossibly beautiful scenery and/or good beer. They also have a Blockbuster video store.

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Get a sneak peek at Milwaukee Film’s renovation and restoration of the Oriental Theatre

On Sunday, July 1, Milwaukee Film officially took over operations of Milwaukee’s historic Oriental Theatre. One day later (the Oriental’s 91st birthday, coincidentally), the new stewards are already hard at work on their planned renovations and restorations. The theater, 2230 N. Farwell Ave., will be closed until August 10, but until then, let’s take a behind-the-scenes look at the $10 million project, shall we?

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All 21 Sculpture Milwaukee 2018 sculptures, ranked

Take a stroll down Wisconsin Avenue this summer and you’ll see something familiar, yet different. Yes, it’s Sculpture Milwaukee, the “outdoor art gallery” that first populated downtown with world-class sculptures in 2017. Funded by Steve Marcus and curated by Russell Bowman, this year’s “urban exhibition” features 21 pieces (three of them holdovers from last year) by 22 artists. Once again, Wisconsin Avenue has never looked so good.

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We ate, ranked every menu item at Wisconsin’s only White Castle

Along with the assistance of occasional Milwaukee Record contributor and devoted White Castle fan Corey Baumann, we drove down to Kenosha and bought every type of slider, each breakfast item, and all the sides available—30 things in all—to eat and rate. We averaged our individual rankings to figure out ratings. Here’s how it panned out.

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Rummaging through the wholesale randomness of Jones’s Discount Groceries

Somewhere between a Sam’s Club and a garage sale, between a convenience store and a Goodwill, between a corner grocer and a campground flea market, lies Jones’s Discount Groceries (2093 S. 55th St., 414-688-7553). Located in an unassuming stretch of West Allis, Jones’s is the kind of place that doesn’t exist anymore because it never really existed in the first place. It’s the kind of place that short-circuits your brain with competing impulses of kitschy fun and hard reality. It’s weird. It’s wonderful. It’s uniquely out of time. It’s in West Allis.

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Oh hell yeah one of the options for saving the Domes involves an indoor zipline

For nearly two years now, a county task force charged with figuring out what the hell to do with the troubled Mitchell Park Conservatory Domes has been desperately trying to figure out what the hell to do with the troubled Mitchell Park Conservatory Domes. Now, with the future of the conical Milwaukee horticultural wonders hanging in the balance, the task force has come up with eight options—a few of which involve installing a totally sweet zipline in the Show Dome oh hell yeah.

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Bowling In Place #3: JB’s On 41

We walked into JB’s just as a group of first graders poured in for their little buddy Sam’s birthday party. They were pumped and so were we. Three steps inside the place, we could see that the day’s fun wouldn’t be limited to bowling. There was a sharp-looking bar, luxury lanes and traditional lanes, a pool table, and an arcade that wouldn’t quit. It was a very clean and slick-looking place, but it was still very much a bowling alley.

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Our kingdom for the story behind this sad/weird squirrel grave we found in Lake Park

Lake Park is one of Milwaukee’s best things. The 138.1-acre urban park was designed in the late 19th century by Frederick Law Olmsted (designer of New York City’s Central Park, among many other parks), and has glistened like a jewel above the shores of Lake Michigan ever since. Lake Park is home to the North Point Lighthouse, an 18-hole golf course, a bridge no one wants to fix, maybe a buried treasure, and a memorial marking the site of the Great Pokemon Go Battle of 2016. It’s also home to a disquieting squirrel grave, which is what we’re going to focus on today.

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We went to the Oak Creek IKEA opening at 5 a.m.: A minute-by-minute report

At about 9 a.m. on Wednesday, May 16, 2018, IKEA opened a new store in Oak Creek, Wisconsin—the company’s 48th store in the United States. We had been led to believe that, regardless of weather, the grand opening of an IKEA store would be quite the sight to behold. So, we woke up extra early, grabbed a pair of IKEA-appropriate yellow sunglasses and ventured down to the O.C. to get in touch with our Swedish side. Here is our minute-by-minute report.

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Spirit of Oriental Drugs will live on in Crossroads Collective food hall

In a video from 1987, beloved East Side pharmacy Oriental Drugs is continually described as a “crossroads.” “It’s interesting,” says one woman. “It’s a crossroads. Everyone comes here at one time or another.” Oriental Drugs closed in 1995, leaving the corner of North and Farwell avenues anything but a “crossroads” for decades. Multiple tenants came and went. Ever since the closure of Rosati’s in March 2017, the space has stood empty.

But now, new life is coming to the 7,000-square-foot space—new life inspired by old life. Crossroads Collective, “a unique culinary-driven food hall with multiple micro-restaurants,” is set to take over the former Oriental Drugs this October. The brainchild of New Land Enterprises owner Tim Gokhman, Crossroads Collective intends to revitalize one of the city’s most iconic—and ever-changing—intersections.

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Hey! Here are the 8,000 headliners for Summerfest 2018

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Stream GGOOLLDD’s new summer-jam single, “Secrets”

The perfect summer jam is an elusive and temperamental beast, impossible to track down one minute and blaring from your car stereo the next. Our Memorial Day playlist took a stab at collecting some of the best Milwaukee summer jams of 2017, though that playlist is now sorely incomplete. Enter “Secrets,” the latest single from electro-pop favorites GGOOLLDD. Similar to the group’s past work, the song is sleek, sexy, shimmering, and as catchy as sunburn on a cloudless day. Is sunburn actually “catchy”? Whatever. You know what we mean.

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