Kurt Chandler | Page 4

Kurt Chandler

Kurt Chandler began working at Milwaukee Magazine in 1998 as a senior editor, writing investigative articles, profiles, narratives and commentaries. He was editor in chief from August 2013-November 2015. An award-winning writer, Chandler has worked as a newspaper reporter, magazine writer, editor and author. He has been published in a number of metro newspapers and magazines, from The New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle and Minneapolis Star Tribune, to Marie Claire, The Writer, and Salon.com. He also has authored, coauthored or edited 12 books. His writing awards are many: He has won the National Headliners Award for magazine writing five times. He has been named Writer of the Year by the City & Regional Magazine Association, and Journalist of the Year by the Milwaukee Press Club. As a staff writer with the Minneapolis Star Tribune, he was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and chosen as a finalist for the Robert F. Kennedy Award. In previous lives, Chandler worked construction, drove a cab and played the banjo (not necessarily at the same time). He has toiled as a writer and journalist for three decades now and, unmindful of his sage father’s advice, has nothing to fall back on. Yet he is not without a specialized set of skills: He can take notes in the dark and is pretty good with active verbs.


December 2, 2013Feature Story

Mallory O’Brien

Shots are fired, someone falls, the body count mounts. Mallory O’Brien reaches for her spreadsheets. O’Brien is an epidemiologist, a supreme number cruncher. She developed a violence reporting system at Harvard School of Public Health, then adapted the system in Milwaukee in 2005 by forming the Homicide Review Commission to help tame the city’s mean streets. Think of the system as a social autopsy. To identify root causes of violence, O’Brien’s team examines arrest reports, victim and suspect demographics, and more. Then it works with law enforcement, social service providers and neighborhood groups to craft intervention strategies. The results? Milwaukee…

November 22, 2013The Daily Mil

Star Gazing

About a dozen years ago, I came up with the idea to write a Milwaukee Magazine profile of Benedetta Balistrieri, the oldest daughter of Milwaukee’s reputed crime boss, Frank Balistrieri. The don was done, resting in peace beside his wife, Nina. And their four offspring were fighting over the possessions that father and mother couldn’t take with them, including the historic Shorecrest Hotel. Central to the disagreement was daughter Benny, who had sued her siblings for a piece of the action. Family Feud… Sibling Rivalry… Headlines were already forming in my jaundiced mind’s eye. This, I told my editor, is…

October 11, 2013Editor's Letter

Random Acts

Photo by Adam Ryan Morris There’s a worn cliché I’ve seen around that harkens to the days of bell-bottom jeans, patchouli oil and bad poetry. It’s a bumper-sticker manifesto, short and sugar sweet: “Practice random acts of kindness.” No surprise, there are several Facebook pages bearing the same slogan, inviting people to save the world through kindness. There’s even The Random Act of Kindness Foundation funded by an anonymous donor, promoting World Kindness Day (Nov. 13) and World Kindness Week (Feb. 10-16), and featuring “kindness testimonials” from all around the globe. OK. It sounds all warm and fuzzy and dripping with…

October 7, 2013The Daily Mil

Breaking Bad for Badfinger

The finale of TV’s “Breaking Bad” is trending good for the long-defunct British rock band Badfinger, whose unceremonious demise took place in Milwaukee more than 30 years ago.  The series’ final episode ended last month on a melancholy note with the band’s 1971 ballad “Baby Blue.” The song (a not-so-cryptic allusion to the blue-tinted methamphetamine manufactured by the show’s lead character, Walter White) has dramatically boosted online sales of Badfinger’s albums and singles. This past weekend, “Baby Blue” topped the iTunes best-selling charts for rock songs in the U.S. and in Canada.  The band’s erstwhile hits included “Day After Day,” “No Matter What” and “Come and…

September 27, 2013The Daily Mil

An Introduction and Four Brothers

As the editor of Milwaukee Magazine for a hectic six weeks now, I’ve finally found the time to start a blog. It will run occasionally, whenever I’m struck with a terrifically brilliant (or hopelessly lame) idea, or just the unrelenting need to vent. The blog will run at random, hence the name. (I’m aware there’s a bar with the same name in Milwaukee’s Bay View neighborhood. And I’m hoping they will buy me a Tiki Love Bowl some day.) A brief introduction: Born and raised in the Milwaukee area, I’ve worked as a reporter and writer for several newspapers and magazines…

April 1, 2013Magazine Perspective

Moving Forward

Photo by Sara Stathas Pat Brown and Dennis Kohler are the picture of domestic life in rural suburbia. They live on a hobby farm in Germantown with their triplets – two girls and a boy. They grow a boxcar of vegetables every summer, raise chickens and ducks, and board a pony named Fritz in their barn. They’ve got a trampoline and an above-ground swimming pool out back for the kids. And to give them all a little more breathing room inside, they’ve remodeled their 126-year-old farmhouse. I wrote about the family for Milwaukee Magazine in 2006. The triplets were then…

March 23, 2012Feature Story

Radio Head

Photos by Adam Ryan Morris Marcus Doucette sits at a sidewalk table outside Nomad World Pub drinking a can of Mother’s Lil’ Helper Pale Ale. He’s talking about hip-hop and reggae and rhythmic mashups from Nepal, music he plays as a midday radio DJ. “I am continually wowed by all the music out there,” he says, exchanging nods with passers-by along Brady Street. “There’s always more to listen to. I’ll never get to the end of it.” With a full beard and untamed shoulder-length hair, Doucette is easily recognized in public. He’s mid-sentence when a starry-eyed teenager approaches with her…

March 5, 2012Feature Story

Jim Hazard 1936-2012

  For those of you who haven’t heard, Jim Hazard, a long-time contributor to Milwaukee Magazine, died suddenly on Friday. He was 76. Jim was a great guy and a great writer. His lively, impressionistic features were favorites among readers of the magazine – stories like his lyrical profile of a tugboat operator, his comical feature about Kringles, his goofy Ode to the Potato, his chronicle of his strange bout with amnesia, and, more recently, his compelling and sensitive portrait of Judge Joe Donald’s drug treatment court. “For more years than I remember, Hazard reviewed bars,” dining critic Ann Christenson remembers. “He often…