Latest news with #Milwaukeean
Yahoo
15-04-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Get to know Steve Martinez, service journalism editor at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Steve Martinez, a lifelong Milwaukeean and long-tenured veteran of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, oversees the service journalism desk at the Journal Sentinel. The new emphasis, often called Connect, launched two years ago, trying to tackle a simple premise: Let's give the people of Milwaukee answers to their day-to-day questions. That includes parking restrictions, details of upcoming events, consumer-focused stories, weather, lottery numbers, gas prices and simply how the news of the day impacts Milwaukee and Wisconsin. The concept allows us to connect with our readers on a more utilitarian level, and after all, aren't you wondering why that flag is at half-staff? Steve has previously been a reporter and producer, covering crime, courts and breaking news. Here's what to know about him. I've thankfully streamlined my mustache grooming routine to about 5-10 minutes a day. Sometimes it can take longer if I want to do more intricate trimming or shaping, but that's maybe once a week. It actually bothers me how much constant care and attention it needs (laughs), but it's my signature look, so I put up with it. My dad had a great mustache when he was younger, so that's where I get it from. All 33 years of my life. I was born and raised in West Allis, and my parents moved us to New Berlin when I was 10. I've lived in Milwaukee for the last eight years. It's a great city, not without its problems, but probably a little underrated. With some initiative and a lot of help from patient and encouraging editors who graciously tolerate my dark humor and overuse of memes and gifs. I started as a reporter in the Waukesha County suburbs, covered courts and breaking news, among other things, and slowly climbed up the career ladder. I found I had a good head and eye for trending news and saw a lot of potential in using digitally focused journalism to expand the Journal Sentinel's audience in Wisconsin. That's a big part of my job now as the paper's service journalism editor. I define it as journalism that helps people navigate their lives and understand how major, national issues, such as tariffs or immigration policy, can have significant hyperlocal effects. On the Connect team, we also make it a priority to answer reader questions on a huge range of topics, from interesting weather phenomena and road closures to famous Milwaukee Brewers fan Front Row Amy. We definitely cover a lot of the same topics regularly, but I'm weird and don't mind the repetition. Every day, people want to know what the weather's going to be like, and they never get tired of checking the forecast. I hope my team's work has a similar appeal. I want our coverage to be something people think is worth returning to day-in and day-out because it's relevant and important to their lives. I'm partially clairvoyant. I also spend an inordinate amount of time on Twitter. In all seriousness, Google has some very useful search trend information, which can be really helpful during a breaking news event. And other social media in general can give you a sense of what people are talking about or the things that are important to them. I will also, occasionally (and only if necessary), talk to my friends and see what gets them fired up. Men's fashion, the Milwaukee Brewers and the 2016 movie "Hell or High Water." Buy a very expensive bottle of bourbon and pour myself a generous glass. Reach Steve at This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Get to know Steve Martinez, MJS service journalism editor
Yahoo
24-02-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
'Now! More! Yes!' Endearing Film Follows a Milwaukee Used-Car Salesman
One night in early 2022, legally blind neurodivergent car salesman TW Hansen was running the used-vehicle department at a bottom-feeding Milwaukee lot when he drunkenly decided to purchase a janky 1989 Ford E350–based ambulance using his boss's money. "Remember, we're from Wisconsin," Hansen tells Car and Driver, "so casual alcoholism is invariably a part of any story." This action wasn't quite as outlandish as it might seem. In addition to purchasing and peddling sub-$10,000 vehicles to a struggling clientele often one working car ride away from losing their jobs or their housing, he also ran an ad hoc picture-car business, renting out vehicles for local film appearances. Milwaukee isn't exactly the Hollywood of the Midwest, but Hansen had a niche: obscure period-correct vehicles from the '70s and '80s, and/or cars that could be crashed, crushed, or set aflame. He'd had some success renting out to productions a 1983 Ford LTD police car, which he'd purchased for $2800, earning enough to nearly cover the purchase price before selling it to a collector for $6000. So, the similarly priced hospital hauler seemed marketable. A new documentary, Now! More! Yes!, directed by fellow Milwaukeean Max Hey, shows why that mostly wasn't the case. Until it maybe sort of was. The movie, which will premiere at the famed South by Southwest (SXSW) festival in Austin, Texas, on March 8, follows Hansen and a ragtag group of no-budget guerrilla Wisconsin filmmakers, as Hansen buys and borrows vehicles for film sets and attempts to find a home for the misfit ambulance. In the process—and this is what makes the movie such a heartfelt delight—he finds a home for his misfit self as well. "Truth be told, the period of time that the movie covers, in 2022 and 2023, was the most harrowing year of my life,' Hansen says. "Every major component of my conception of self was tested and challenged and torn down to its foundations." While this tension is demonstrated clearly in the film, for car lovers like us this emotional narrative is often supplemented (if not supplanted) by the onscreen vehicular one. In addition to the ambulance—which has no key, and won't start anyway—the movie delights in the destruction of automotive ephemera. A 1990s Cadillac is burned to the frame. An '80s Saab is dropped repeatedly from a crane, then strap towed around town by an Econoline van without a front fender. A Mercedes W123 sedan is driven off a cliff. A 1987 Chevy Citation coupe appears and fades, like an apparition. There is a demolition derby scene. Hansen's personal car collection goes well beyond any oddities we see on the screen. He estimates that he has owned well over 300 cars in the three decades since he got his license. "Some are strange for what they are, and some became strange through quantity," he says. "For example, the 1987-through-1991 Toyota Camry station wagon is not necessarily an interesting car, but between my friends and I, we've owned over 20 of them. The Toyota van from that era—the toaster-shaped van before the Previa—I had, like, five of them. Renault Alliances, those I had a bunch of." Hansen's first car, the 1977 AMC Pacer Wagon? "I had a bunch of those too," he says. Even a serial buyer (and seller) of hundreds of weirdo cars has some vehicles on his unicorn wish list. "I never had an early '80s Ford Country Squire station wagon. And I'd like a 1962 Dodge Dart, a four-door hardtop," Hansen says. "But the one I'm really into is the Renault Avantime. which was a pillarless two-door minivan. It has a deeply peculiar brutalist style. It is weird in the way that only the French can do weird." We won't tell you what happens to Hansen's ambulance. Or to his connection with his boss and the used-car lot. ("I would characterize it as an abusive relationship," he says.) Or to any of the movies-within-the-movie that appear in brief grainy video clips. Those would be spoilers. But we will say that the movie is transcendent, a story that results in redemption—vehicular and otherwise—and that we were cheering for the weird protagonist and his weird cars and his weird cohort the entire time. We are not alone. "For the first time in memory, I feel like I no longer need to dwell in the labor of my own despair," Hansen says of his situation now, nearly two years after the movie's action was filmed. "My life has something resembling direction and purpose to a degree to which is a little bit frightening because I am not accustomed to direction or purpose. These are alien concepts to me." If you're at SXSW March 8–11, definitely go see Now! More! Yes! And if you're not, watch for it at other festivals, and perhaps, hopefully soon, on some streaming service. We feel confident someone will buy it. Just like that ambulance.j You Might Also Like Car and Driver's 10 Best Cars through the Decades How to Buy or Lease a New Car Lightning Lap Legends: Chevrolet Camaro vs. Ford Mustang!
