Sam Zell likes the money
Even the big boys at the daily newspapers can’t seem to figure it out. In a report in Crain’s yesterday, it was announced that the Chicago Tribune, in a possible redesign, might actually bury the news in a second section, with fluffy crap up front.
Beautiful, guys. Don’t worry about, I don’t know, the coverage or anything. Nice work, Zell.
Robert Schneider of Apples In Stereo tells a damn funny pirate joke
So I was so exhausted from my Pitchfork Music Festival escapades that I didn’t bother to update this here blog yesterday. Really, it was hot as hell, humid as New Orleans and the sun was beating down on everyone. Still, a good time was had by all, or at least those who got in free, like me.
Once again, I headed for home at around 7, because five hours or so of standing in the sun has a way of making one see things that aren’t there. I don’t care how many bottles of water you drink. Of course, trying to down fish and chips in 90-degree heat isn’t the best way to keep yourself hydrated either, but whatever.
M. Ward with his bad-ass-looking Gibson electric
Here’s the lowdown:
Items consumed:
One (1) $6 order of fish and chips from the Abbey Pub, most of which I promptly dropped on the ground as I was trying to open up my fourth bottle of water of the day. Damn it!
One (1) free bottle of this stuff called Fuze, which sucked, but it was free, so what the hell.
Three (3) pieces of what seemed to be leftover pizza from the day before, but I didn’t get sick so that was a bonus.
I was able to catch the sunshiney pop of the Apples In Stereo, the convulsive punk of Les Savy Fav, the XTC-lite percussive sounds of the Dodos and the moody (almost too moody for an afternoon music festival slot) tunes of M. Ward and band. I also caught echoes of Ghostface Killah and Raekwon’s set, and maybe a sliver of King Kahn’s show, but that’s about it.
Tim Harrington of Les Savy Fav. Guy's nuts.
By far, I thought Les Savy Fav’s set was the best. Their frontman, Tim Harrington, is a hell of a showman. I’d never experienced these guys before live, but if you ever have a chance to catch them at a club gig or something, go see them. It’s a fun time.
Also, one advantage of the press tent was that, every once in a while, you’d get a chance to run into artists and bands and such. Robert Schneider and John Hill from the Apples In Stereo were hanging out in the press tent. I got to introduce myself to Rob, who seems like the nicest guy on the planet, and watch as he, at the request of a video guy from the Tribune, told one of my favorite, cheesy pirate jokes. Good times.
Above all, a solid festival, and if I had more cash on me (more cash to my name, that is), I probably would have gone apeshit on the poster fair and the record show, too. Plenty of stuff to see and do; just wish it hadn’t been so fucking hot.
Here are some pics from both days that I shot whilst in the “photo pits,” which I seemed to get into with my Pitchfork press pass. Thanks, P-fork!
More Apples In Stereo action
Update: I’ve posted pics on my Flickr site, since Doc doesn’t have a Facebook profile. Doc???
So I hooked myself up with a press pass to the three-day Pitchfork Music Festival held in Chicago’s Union Park this weekend. How, I have no idea. All I did was fill out this simple application, and since I work for a real, honest-to-goodness group of newspapers, they must have figured I wasn’t all that bad. Therefore, I got in for fucking FREE.
A few facts:
Goods consumed -
•Two (2) fish tacos from Goose Island. Quite tasty, and they did it right; they were grilled and not fried.
•One (1) North Carolina-style pulled pork sandwich from Wishbone. Very good. The NC style includes slaw on the sandwich, so it’s got this spicy pork and creamy, cool slaw all rolled into one. A taste sensation.
•One (1) Goose Island Orange Cream soda. Yum.
•Two (2) (at least) bottles of water. It was hot as hell out there, which is why I was home by 7:30 tonight.
I spent around 6 hours at Union Park today, and saw some great performances. I caught Jay Reatard, Dizzee Rascal, Fleet Foxes, Caribou, Vampire Weekend and !!! (Chk Chk Chk). I was going to hit the Hold Steady, but I was exhausted, it was hot and I am going there tomorrow, so what the hell. I also missed Animal Collective, which is performing tonight.
Here’s a bit of a plus - there really weren’t too many “perks” for those with press passes. I tried to get into the backstage area and almost got tased because I wasn’t wearing a “VIP” pass, which I guess is different. However, as I was walking around, I ran into this dude who was looking for the press tent, and as we chatted I noticed that he didn’t have special photo creds despite having just shot one of the bands in “the pit.” The pit, of course, is that area between the stage where the photographers hang out and take great pictures of bands. “Yeah, man,” he said. “I just flashed my press pass and they let me through.”
So yours truly got to shoot both Fleet Foxes and Vampire Weekend (pictured above) in the pit, with my little point-and-shoot Olympus camera. Good times!
More to come tomorrow. I’ve uploaded some pics to my Facebook profile - hopefully you all can see them. Let me know if you can’t.
Well, I’m still writing it. Actually, I’m not writing it at all. Haven’t even started. But I am researching for it. I need to take a vacation day or two and visit the courthouse(s).
The murder trial actually took place at the Winnebago County Courthouse in Rockford, so I might need to take a trip over there, as the folks at the Kendall County Circuit Clerk’s office said there are even more transcripts and other documents from the trial in Rockford.
So far I’ve managed to track down - including the research from the article I wrote last year - relatives of three of the five victims to be included. One particular widow does not want to participate, and that’s fine - there is enough information in court documents and such to piece together some kind of mini-bio about the guy; still, it would have been nice to get four out of five.
I’m still trying to seek some people out. So I put together a blog on the book. Maybe I’ll get a hit or two, I don’t know. At least it’s a place I can send people to if they want to know more about it.
It’s late. I’ve got Pitchfork tomorrow. More on that later, kids.
This is the kind of hate mongering that gets my fucking blood boiling. The question in the title of this post is me kidding around mostly - I know plenty of moderate Republicans who do good things.
But then someone like first class jagoff Steve Sauerberg, running a pathetic race to win against two-time incumbent Senator Dick Durbin this fall. He had the nerve, in a recent WBBM-AM interview, to question Durbin’s patriotism because Durbin actually stood up to the military complex and criticized prisoners’ treatment at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Durbin also fought an unnecessary flag-burning amendment (don’t get me started on that one).
Here’s what the Republican douchebag had to say (I put some of the choice stuff in bold):
In the Republican underdog role against two-term veteran Durbin, Sauerberg, a physician from Willowbrook, repeatedly has sought to label his opponent as too liberal. On one of his campaign’s Web sites, Sauerberg noted Durbin’s opposition to a Constitutional amendment to ban flag-burning and said the nation’s founders never included one “because they never had to deal with ultra-liberal Americans who hate their own country.”
Asked whether he was referring to Durbin, Sauerberg said Thursday, “I think he’s an ultra liberal. Whether he hates his own country, I cannot determine for the gentleman.” Sauerberg said voters “wonder a lot” about Durbin’s patriotism.
Sauerberg lashed out at a June 2005 speech in which Durbin said an FBI report on American treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, could be likened to the “Nazis, Soviets in their gulags” or the regime of Cambodian leader Pol Pot. Days later, Durbin apologized for his remarks and said he did not intend any “disrespect” for the U.S. military.
Sauerberg called Durbin’s apology “weak.”
“I’m not sure what Sen. Durbin thought he was doing here,” he said. “I don’t know if he hates his country. I know they were terrible remarks that have hurt the people of this nation.”
First, the vague statement that voters “wonder a lot” about Durbin’s patriotism doesn’t hold any water - I don’t know if Sauerberg cites any studies or polls, but I’m taking a wild guess myself and saying he probably doesn’t.
Also, I do agree with one statement of Sauerberg’s: Durbin’s apology was, indeed, weak, because he shouldn’t have apologized at all. His knee-buckling at pressure from the right-wing military machine was a sign of typical weakness, and one of the few times I’ve been ashamed of Durbin.
Other than that, he has been a solid senator, and someone who represents the liberal majority of this state. And, as far as I know, he has never said a Republican opponent is an “ultra-conservative” who “hates his country.”
So I must have missed this piece of news about the General Motors plant in Janesville, Wis. GM officials have announced that the plant, which manufactures large trucks and SUVs, will be closed by 2010, or maybe sooner.
The plant holds a special place in my heart as my late grandfather worked there from the late 1950s through his retirement in 1982. I still remember my grandpa taking me on tours of the plant when I was a kid, shortly after his retirement. At one time, it was the largest employer in Janesville - with 7,000 working there at its peak in 1970 - and it’s the automaker’s oldest plant, opening in Janesville in 1919.
It will be interesting to see how the city’s economy reacts to this closing. The automaker has cut jobs from the plant in the last several years - there are now only 2,400 people working at the plant right now. The town has always been a manufacturing burg, like a lot of municipalities in the Midwest.
Another casualty of domestic auto manufacturers not bending with the times and continuing the old school “bigger is better” formula. And just another sign of the times.
Too bad she’s already married, I guess.
Anyway, I caught Tift at FitzGerald’s in Berwyn last night, and the set was stellar. I hadn’t seen her live before, even though I’ve been listening to and enjoying her stuff since I picked up her first LP, Bramble Rose, about six years ago.
Man, that woman blew me away. On stage, she portrayed a vulnerability that to some would find awkward, but I and the rest of the audience actually found charming. I didn’t realize how short and petite she is, but her size belies the talent she has when she straps on her Strat and plays. She played a plentiful variety of stuff from all her records (although she didn’t play “Diamond Shoes,” one of my favorite tracks from Bramble Rose).
After the show, she was gracious as she and drummer Zeke Hutchins greeted folks at the merch table. I snagged an “Austin City Limits” DVD, which she signed after complimenting my “Keith Richards for President” t-shirt (I swear that t-shirt has paid for itself as an ice breaker).
Anyway, she and her band are coming back to Chicago for the city’s Country Music Festival in October, so I may have to head down to Grant Park - despite the scheduled presence of Kenny Rogers, Faith Hill, and Keith Urban.
Brett Favre, good riddance.
I never thought I’d write that sentence ever, in the history of my football fandom, but I just did.
The back and forth, maybe-I’ll-retire-maybe-I-won’t-nope-guess-I-won’t bullshit has gotten out of hand. He’s put his own team in an awkward, unfair position and, lucky enough for the team, they know when to say no to a superstar drama queen.
If he didn’t want to retire, then he shouldn’t have announced his retirement. Short of Packers General Manager Ted Thompson holding a gun to his head, Brett Favre made his own choice, his own commitment. Now he should stick to it.
But it appears that he won’t. Now what will happen? He will either go to a different team, or there will be lawsuits, contract negotiations and everything else that will be a wonderful distraction to a young team that is trying to move on after the alleged retirement of arguably the best player to play the game.
I’ve had friends suggest that the Pack should have brought Brett back on board. OK, but they are assuming that he will bring them to the Super Bowl next year. That is not a guarantee, at all. So what will happen if the season starts, they start Number 4 post-retirement, and the old man starts to suck. Then what happens? Do they bench the Legend for up-and-comer Aaron Rodgers, who was expecting to start in the first place? You can’t bench Brett Favre. So what will happen? Here’s what will happen: you will have two very pissed-off, frustrated quarterbacks, and an acrid locker room atmosphere that will destroy any chances of winning the team had in the first place.
Instead, the team needs to just let him go. He wants to go to another team? Fine. He has no loyalty to the Green Bay Packers or the team’s fans, that much he has shown in the last few months. He wants to go? Good riddance.
So I found yet another place online where I can blow money I don’t really have. It’s called Worn Free, a t-shirt vendor that sells shirts with designs worn by artists, musicians, cult heroes, etc., of the ’60s and ’70s. I’ve found about a dozen that I want right now, but since I’m trying to turn myself into a financially sound human being, I’ll wait.
My friend Doc turned me on to this guy named Dave Ramsey who, despite his constant Bible-thumping and hinted-at socially conservative tendencies, does give some decent advice when it comes to not fucking around with your money. So I’ve been listening to this book-on-tape of his I purchased from iTunes for $11, and it’s at least motivating, to give you a little voice in your head of, “Don’t spend your money, dipshit.”
So I researched for and wrote an article last December on a mass murder that occurred here in Illinois back in the early 1970s. The murders were sparked by a robbery that didn’t exactly go as planned. The murders were committed by a couple - the man did the shooting and the woman apparently egged him on. The woman was released from prison in the early 1980s and has since died, but the man, Carl Reimann, is still in prison. He’s the guy pictured. He didn’t respond to a letter I wrote last year; I’m hoping to continue to try and interview him.
There are all kinds of bizarre characters and personalities that play out in this story that it would be a shame if somebody didn’t write a book on it. So that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to do my best to stick to a non-fiction format, since that’s what I’m most comfortable with. I have a lot of left over notes from the interviews I conducted last year for my story, so I have a bit of a head start in that department. Now I’m planning on meeting with an attorney, getting a literary agent, maybe. I don’t know. Anybody out there a published author who can lend me some advice?
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