I’m a gay man who recently came out to my friends, mostly because I met someone with whom I wanted to pursue a relationship. I had never experienced this feeling before. After much courting and pursuing, we met enough times that he remembered my name–then came love. Eight months later, despite a few indiscretions on both our parts, I’m happy as can be. But I don’t think we’re in the same place emotionally....
I love your column; it’s always a good read. But don’t ya think last week’s was a tad bit . . . bitter? And the one before that? I think you should be allowed to get married, Dan. If a stand-up family guy like you isn’t allowed to marry the man that he’s been with for–what, seven, eight years?–then I don’t know what this world is coming to. Irresponsible heteros like me and Britney Spears are allowed to make a mockery of marriage, while committed families like yours are denied the basic rights that come with marriage....
I’m a 20-year-old woman going to school in New York. Recently I admitted to myself that I’m either a lesbian or a strongly female-oriented bisexual and ended my first-ever relationship with a boyfriend. Mitchell was slapping me down for suggesting that you, as a relatively inexperienced young woman, were in the right place. I mean, is there a better spot on the planet for a woman to explore her sexuality than fucking New York City?...
It was obvious to anyone who knows anything about Chicago politics why Mayor Daley tapped state senator Miguel del Valle to fill the vacancy for city clerk. But over the years del Valle steadfastly refused to endorse Daley–not even in 2003, when the mayor’s only opposition was a lackluster assortment of no-name oddballs. So the obvious question is what’s happened to make him join Daley’s team now. The hired truck scandal?...
While not the towering retrospective that the title suggests, this is a finely tuned revue of sketches from the Second City’s vast repertoire plus a smidgen of improv. Director Jim Carlson mixes and matches an impressive variety of diverse but identifiable characters: the ingenue (Rebecca Sage Allen), hunk (Alex Fendrich), imp (Nicky Margolis), Belushi-ish dude (Craig Uhlir), sultry vixen (Lori McClain), and regular guy (Andy St. Clair). Given the rich archives, it would have been great to see material from the perspective of a non-Caucasian, nonstruggling actor....
On a recent Sunday morning, Chicago Public Schools chief Arne Duncan and school board president Michael Scott sat down for breakfast with Congressman Danny Davis and state senator Rickey Hendon in the back room of a soul food restaurant on the west side. They must have expected a quiet discussion in the otherwise empty space, but the party was crashed by some activists with a video camera in hand, and the 11-minute tape they made–part Roger and Me, part Punk’d–is now circulating around town as an example of classic behind-closed-doors politicking....
The place was spooky enough before the goth bands loaded in: low ceilings, walls padded with crude tapestries, the air funky with incense. And there was, of course, already a cross hung prominently behind the stage. The opening act, a local duo called Leper, added a couple candle-topped pillars, a smoke machine, and a red light, and one warm Saturday in February the Chicagoland Community Church became a sounding chamber for a dark night of the soul....
Logan Square politics used to be a lot more entertaining, back in the days of alderman Richard Mell. Throughout the 70s and 80s, Mell ran the show. He did things his way, and only his way. If you didn’t like his way, well, tough. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » He built up his organization, using clout and connections to get his workers hired by the city, county, and state....
Madonna’s always been a terrible disco singer: she lacks the suitably brassy gospel pipes, and she’s rarely been willing to make herself an anonymous part of the music’s cheesy grandeur. In fact, one of the notable achievements of her earliest hits was the reduction of dance music to a human scale, where even her squished little voice could dominate. So while her latest album, last year’s Confessions on a Dance Floor (Warner Brothers), indeed revisits the 80s, it’s not exactly a throwback to “Borderline” or “Lucky Star....
“A day may come when the promoters of intelligent design wish they had left well enough alone,” writes David Brin. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Intelligent design advocates make the case that their position should be taught in schools not because the Bible says so, but on grounds they share with scientists and most thinking people–fairness, completeness, and open-mindedness. They disregard the overwhelming weight of the evidence, of course, but most of us don’t understand the case for Darwinian evolution as well as we do bedrock principles....
On Saturday and Sunday the Hyde Park Art Center will host a symposium connected to its exhibit of ephemera from Sun Ra’s sojourn in Chicago, where panelists will consider the cultural import of his work, but the odd hybrid lineup of the quartet put together to kick off the weekend says as much as any lecturer could about his influence on the world of music. Bassist Rollo Radford and drummer Avreeayl Ra, veterans of Sun Ra’s Arkestra in one or more of its many incarnations, have worked in innumerable jazz ensembles both straight-ahead and avant-garde; keyboardist Jim Baker has played hundreds of free-improv gigs, as well as with acts as diverse as Freakwater, Nicholas Tremulis, and Ken Vandermark’s Territory Band; and of course guitarist Thurston Moore is in Sonic Youth....
It seems unlikely that someone who once took the name Bitch Lap-Lap while working with electroclash raunch princess Peaches would become one of the finest contemporary torch singers. But Canada’s FEIST, nee Leslie Feist, has made a habit of nonchalantly switching gears: her terrific new album, Let It Die (Cherrytree/Interscope), is a long way from her first punk band, which made its onstage debut after winning a contest to open for the Ramones....
Imagine some 20 tap dancers performing in unison in a room that’s, oh, maybe 30 feet by 30 feet. The floor was bouncing so hard during the rehearsal I watched I couldn’t keep my pen on the paper. But the experience was undeniably thrilling. Chicago Tap Theatre, made up of artistic director Mark Yonally and 11 female dancers, is joined this weekend by Tapage, a French company from Toulouse. The troupes will perform some works together (like Liaison, set to hip-hop by DJ Food), others separately....
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » My co-panelists were Elizabeth Elmore, front woman for Sarge and the Reputation, now a sometime entertainment lawyer and teacher; Jenny Lizak, WLUW DJ and Metro publicist; Alexis Wilson-Castaldi, a photographer who brought postcards of her work to give out; Amy Butterer of Billions Corp; and Liz Bustamante, a sound engineer who seemed to inspire the most awe and who gave out possibly the most appreciated advice—something about experimenting with microphone placement....
Blake Montgomery admits he’s a fool. A year and a half ago the 34-year-old actor and director committed his life savings and an inheritance–roughly $300,000 total–to the Building Stage, a warehouse theater on the near west side where he wanted to present original “clown theater” for free. “I have no company, I’ve had no hit show, I have no reputation, I’m charging no admission, and I have a huge fixed overhead,” he says....
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Fifteen minutes after the event was supposed to start, Brown spokesman John Davis walked into the conference room where we were waiting and surveyed the scene. He looked dumbfounded. “What? No Flannery?” he said, referring to Channel 2’s political reporter, Mike Flannery. “He’s the whole reason we called this thing.” As Brown came in and greeted everyone, Davis got Flannery on his cell phone, chatted a minute, then began shaking his head as he hung up....
First Slice Pie Cafe 4401 N. Ravenswood 773-506-7380 Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Diaz launched First Slice—as in the first slice of the pie rather than the crumbs—in 2002. She signed up paying subscribers for three freshly prepared three-course meals every week—such as salad, veggie lasagna, and peanut butter chocolate pie—then used the income to provide the same meals for free to the needy....
Light in its many forms dominates Molly Shanahan’s Eye Cycle: the light of video projections, one prerecorded, the other two live; the light from incandescent bulbs in unshaded lamps on the floor; light reflected from mirrors placed around the space; natural light flowing in through the Link’s Hall windows; the light from rattling el cars once the room darkens. Even the dancers’ coloring and costumes suggest positive and negative images: Shanahan, who has dark hair, wears white, while her fellow dancer, Kristina Fluty, has blond hair and wears black....
Students and occasional bandmates of reedist and composer Anthony Braxton, guitarist Mary Halvorson and violist Jessica Pavone have made names for themselves by bucking tradition in New York’s experimental scene–rejecting specialization, they play unfussy, broadly inclusive music. Halvorson’s hollow-bodied guitar playing has been a key component in groups led by bassist Trevor Dunn and percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani; she’s equally at ease with clear articulation and dark, abrasive tangles, echoing Derek Bailey’s lacerating jaggedness or Joe Morris’s single-note lines....
Disc jockey Rodney Bingenheimer has been a fixture of Los Angeles rock radio since the mid-70s, and before that he was a ubiquitous scenester on the Sunset Strip, attaching himself to such chart toppers as the Monkees, the Beach Boys, and Sonny and Cher. This absorbing documentary by George Hickenlooper (Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse) spends too much time on the celebrities in Bingenheimer’s life for its analysis of fame and fandom to rise above the banal....
