What’s New

Cubs @ Pirates Series Preview: (9/21-9/24)Sean Hollandon September 21, 2020 at 9:37 pm

Cubs Den

Cubs @ Pirates Series Preview: (9/21-9/24)

fb_avatar

Read More

Cubs @ Pirates Series Preview: (9/21-9/24)Sean Hollandon September 21, 2020 at 9:37 pm Read More »

For Southern Illinois, there will be fall football after allBarry Bottinoon September 22, 2020 at 2:38 am

Prairie State Pigskin

For Southern Illinois, there will be fall football after all

Read More

For Southern Illinois, there will be fall football after allBarry Bottinoon September 22, 2020 at 2:38 am Read More »

In 1995, Gillette and 20 Fingers were the rulers of the dance floorSalem Collo-Julinon September 21, 2020 at 11:00 am

click to enlarge
The single "Short Dick Man" also appears on the album On the Attack, by Gillette with 20 Fingers.

Twenty-six years ago, four-man suburban DJ and production team 20 Fingers teamed up with local rapper, dancer, and singer Sandra Gillette on a record that made them all hometown heroes. As 20 Fingers, Carlos “Charlie Babie” Rosario, Manfred “Manny” Mohr, J.J. Flores, and Onofrio Lollino worked primarily with Brookfield’s SOS Records, run by Chicago house-music impresario Frank Rodrigo. In 1994, Mohr and Rosario wrote the single “Short Dick Man” and quickly found a singer in Gillette, an old friend of Flores who was working as a receptionist and living in Berwyn. When Bill Wyman wrote a Reader column about the song in February 1995, Mohr talked to him about it: “Charlie and I wanted to say something that would make up for all the bad things that are said about women.”

Gillette’s sassy delivery of the song’s unambiguous lyrics (“What in the world is that fucking thing? / Do you need some fucking tweezers to put that little thing away?”) and 20 Fingers’s minimalist hip-house beats made for a killer combo. The single took off in the clubs–first locally, then internationally, as Gillette’s subsequent album On the Attack (billed as “A 20 Fingers Production”) climbed European and South American dance charts.

The group enjoyed crossover success in the American mainstream after an enthusiastic program director at B96 (then still a refuge for house- and dance-music aficionados mourning WBMX) asked for a radio-ready version. They complied with “Short Short Man,” and Gillette went on to make numerous television appearances. The most notorious (at least on the Reddit side of the Internet) was on Brazilian show Xuxa Hits, a kiddie-oriented American Bandstand knockoff. Gillette and her dancers do a choreographed number as she lip-syncs to a crowd of cheering youngsters, some of whom appear to be singing along–to the original version, in English.

The song has been a balm for this listener as of late, because it’s funny and ultimately a bit meaningless–a necessary tool for facing the ridiculousness of our COVID-flavored American lives in the year 2020. I wasn’t able to find out what Sandra Gillette is up to these days, and rumor has it she’s retired from showbiz. But “Short Dick Man” lives on at the karaoke bar, or at least it will when we have karaoke bars again. The audience for the February 2014 Drag Carnage show at Hydrate was also privileged to see an amazing lip-sync cover by a pre-Rupaul’s Drag Race Pearl, who mopped up the stage with her neck-tic move locked into 20 Fingers’ beats. v

The Listener is a weekly sampling of music Reader staffers love. Absolutely anything goes, and you can reach us at [email protected].

Read More

In 1995, Gillette and 20 Fingers were the rulers of the dance floorSalem Collo-Julinon September 21, 2020 at 11:00 am Read More »

Hardcore, metal, and punk bands unite for Shut It Down: Benefit for the Movement for Black LivesMonica Kendrickon September 21, 2020 at 5:00 pm

When Racetraitor formed in Chicago in the mid-90s, their uncompromisingly antiracist politics weren’t always warmly received in the hardcore scene, but after their breakup in 1999 their influence continued to spread (especially once drummer Andy Hurley joined occasional Racetraitor bassist Pete Wentz in Fall Out Boy in 2003). More than a decade later, the burgeoning Black Lives Matter movement surrounding the Ferguson uprising and the white surpremacist agenda fueling Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign inspired Racetraitor to reunite to help combat the hate. To that end, front man Mani Mostofi (who also works as a human rights lawyer in New York) has assembled Shut It Down: Benefit for the Movement for Black Lives, a sprawling compilation of metal, hardcore, punk, and noise benefiting the Movement for Black Lives–a coalition of more than 50 Black organizations working together to catalyze structural, cultural, and political improvements for Black communities in the United States. Mostafi says that more artists than he could’ve anticipated were eager to participate in the Bandcamp-only release, which includes a whopping 46 tracks. Along with Racetraitor, the compilation features plenty of hardcore bands who have mixed their interest in music with local grassroots activism, including St. Louis’s Redbait, Baltimore’s War on Women, San Antonio’s Amygdala, and Chicago’s La Armada. Among the metal bands are established heavyweights Sunn O))), Rwake (who contributed their first new track in nine years, “Infinice”), and Primitive Man as well as rising names Dawn Ray’d and Vile Creature. Chicago black-metal rattlers of the alt-right cage Neckbeard Deathcamp also make an appearance with “MAGAphobe,” with Hurley as a special guest. The mix of sounds provides vast rewards and surprises, especially if you put the album on shuffle. I keep coming back to the majestic metal angles of “Gaida Taskar Chutkeli” by Nepali grindcore band Chepang, the blistering punk of “Welfare” by Afro-Brazilian New York group Maafa (their name, which means “catastrophe” in Swahili, also refers to the African slave trade, and their vocalist, Flora Lucini, gave Shut It Down its title), the uncharacteristically atmospheric “Screen Door” by Michigan grindpunk band Cloud Rat, and the beautiful cover of “Kerosene” (the Bad Religion song, not the Big Black one) by New Orleans doom-metal group Thou. v

Read More

Hardcore, metal, and punk bands unite for Shut It Down: Benefit for the Movement for Black LivesMonica Kendrickon September 21, 2020 at 5:00 pm Read More »

Napalm Death call for empathy and action in a troubled world on Throes of Joy in the Jaws of DefeatismJamie Ludwigon September 21, 2020 at 1:00 pm

Two days after the 2016 election, when I caught a package tour headlined by British-American grindcore pioneers Napalm Death, the night seemed to encompass the best and worst of the moment: After witnessing a presidential candidate openly lean into hate and emerge victorious, the sound of hundreds of people belting out “Nazi Punks Fuck Off” during the band’s brutal cover of the Dead Kennedys classic felt grounding and cathartic. That relief was eighty-sixed when I ran into an acquaintance who’d been subjected to race- and gender-based harassment in the pit. No show or scene is immune to such vile behavior, but for more than three decades Napalm Death’s unshakable humanitarian politics have been nearly as loud as their pulverizing blastbeats–a combination that’s helped them shape the course of heavy music and endeared them to an international fanbase. Against the backdrop of the election, that harassment felt less like an isolated incident and more like a punch-in-the-gut reminder that the country was in for a rocky ride. And it’s not just the States: since Napalm Death released 2015’s Apex Predator–Easy Meat, most places on Earth have experienced escalating adversity, whether it’s the accelerating impact of climate change, growing poverty and inequality, or the rise of authoritarianism driven by fearmongering and “othering” entire groups of people (if not all three). On their new 16th album, Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism, the band confront that troubling global picture with an unflinching mix of face-peeling grindcore and vibrant experimentalism. The album bursts open with an urgent trio of songs that threatens to break the sound barrier, starting with “Fuck the Factoid,” a takedown of public figures who contort reality to suit their personal agendas. From there, things really twist and turn. “Contagion” is a full-bodied metallic take on the plight of migrants risking it all in the face of exploitation from political leaders and everyday pond scum alike. “Amoral” ventures into the darkly gleaming postpunk of Killing Joke as it ponders the compromises we can fall into when we fall for deception and give in to our basest emotions. The skittering “Joie de Ne Pas Vivre” goes still further, imagining being fucked-up enough to derive ghastly pleasure from others’ pain. And even “A Bellyful of Salt and Spleen,” which pairs industrial skronk and exploratory metal with frankly murderous lyrics, represents another round in Napalm Death’s fight against deadly prejudice. Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism is a force of a record, and its biggest triumph may lie in its staunch assertion that even when things are most dire, we still have the tools of compassion, empathy, unity, and even rage to help us build a better future. v

Read More

Napalm Death call for empathy and action in a troubled world on Throes of Joy in the Jaws of DefeatismJamie Ludwigon September 21, 2020 at 1:00 pm Read More »

Video of fatal police shooting captures intense exchange of gunfire in PilsenSam Charleson September 21, 2020 at 10:31 pm

The agency that investigates uses of force by Chicago police officers released several videos Monday capturing an intense exchange of gunfire in Pilsen last month that ended with a man fatally shot by a CPD officer.

Miguel Vega, 26, was shot and killed by an officer on Aug. 31 in the 1300 block of West 19th Street in Pilsen.

CPD officials said officers went to the block around 10:45 p.m. after someone called 911 to report a “suspicious person.” Responding officers, who were traveling in an unmarked squad car, saw five people standing outside when they arrived.

Once officers got out of their car, someone started shooting at them, striking the squad car, CPD Deputy Chief Daniel O’Shea said at a press conference that night. One officer returned fire, striking Vega in the head.

Video released Monday by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability shows the squad car’s front passenger window being shot out as soon as an officer opens the door, although there is no audio at first.

One of the officers then runs out of the squad car and opens fire, striking Vega, who is later seen lying face-down and motionless, with blood pooling near his head on the sidewalk.

The officer who fired the shots can be heard telling his colleagues: “My whole window’s shot out. Good thing I f- – – – – – ducked.”

The officer later walks over to Vega and says: “We’ve got an ambulance coming to you, brother. Keep talking to me, man. Keep talking to me, brother. You’re going to be all right. You’re going to be all right.”

Vega was taken to Stroger Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

WARNING: The following video contains graphic images and language.

His family was able to view the footage before it was publicly released, though they did not respond to an interview request. All told, COPA released 11 videos, including one from each of the first two officers to arrive at the scene.

Vega’s family had previously cast doubt on the CPD’s version of events. Earlier this month, Vega’s younger brother told supporters that police were “scared” to give his family more information about how officers came to fatally shoot Vega.

Days after the shooting, the commander of the CPD’s Near West District issued a warning to officers that said members of the La Raza gang may be targeting cops for retaliation.

With some exceptions, COPA releases footage of police shootings 60 days after the shooting occurs. If an incident results in criminal charges, a judge will order the footage be withheld.

COPA opted to release footage of the Vega shooting just 21 days after it occurred, and less than a week after the city’s Office of the Inspector General criticized the agency for its occasional failure to release video footage in a timely fashion.

Read More

Video of fatal police shooting captures intense exchange of gunfire in PilsenSam Charleson September 21, 2020 at 10:31 pm Read More »

After the shutdown, Lips is unsealedCatey Sullivanon September 21, 2020 at 6:30 pm

Like many drag queens, Chicago’s Tori Sass has been through it this year. It started with some bang-up success: When the South Michigan Avenue drag palace Lips Chicago made its grand opening in August 2019, Sass landed a coveted showgirl gig at the venue, whose opulent interior is a cross between upscale Victorian bordello and Mad Men-era steakhouse. In addition to Chicago, Lips owner Mark Zschiesche installed Lips in New York City, San Diego, Fort Lauderdale, and Atlanta. Chicago’s is the third to reopen post-COVID, after Florida and Georgia.

Back in the Beforetimes, Sass made bank at Lips, turning heads with her combination of atelier-worthy sewing skills and dead-on celebrity impersonations. But there were bumps in the road for Zschiesche’s latest Lips. Within five months, the Motor Row venue has endured two break-ins and a fire that burned the next-door dry cleaners to the ground. Within six months, COVID-19 accomplished what the fire and the break-ins had not: Lips shut down.

“I’m not going to lie,” Sass said, “The break-ins. The fire. COVID. Months trying to get through to unemployment. The depression is real. And it’s been tough.”

Lips reopens Thursday, September 24 with one of its signature shows, “Dinner with the Divas.” The queens tend their tables until the 60-minute show begins at 7 PM. Sass, Buffalo Grove native Angel LeBare, and a select few of the roughly 20 queens that regularly work the club are whipping out the duct tape, strapping on their heels, beating their mugs, and hoping the venue will be able to survive.

That survival is predicated on whether patrons will return, assured of their safety by Zschiesche’s assurance that the club is “in total compliance” with Illinois’s list of mandatory health precautions for Phase IV reopening of indoor restaurants.

Per those precautions, Lips will be reopening at 25 percent capacity, or a maximum of 50 patrons in the audience. On any given night, staff and freelancers in the venue will include four queens, three kitchen workers, a host, and a general manager, Zschiesche said. Also, he explained, nobody goes to work until they’ve tested negative for COVID-19. The tables will be six feet apart.

The show itself will be markedly different than it was in the freewheeling days of 2019. As Sass put it: “It sucks we can’t leave the stage for our [lip-synch] numbers, but that’s what we have to do so we’ll make it work.” That’s not the only restriction on queen-audience interactions.

Lips’s Beforetimes performance aesthetic could be a manual of what not to do if you want to avoid COVID. Lips, like most drag shows, has long been rooted in audacious audience interaction. Queens sashayed among the cabaret tables, delivering plates of cheeseburgers or penne vodka and glow-in-the-dark shots to giddy bachelorettes and birthday girls. Sometimes they’d plunk down in your lap. Sometimes they’d whisper in your ear, throwing shade with bull’s-eye precision, often at the other girls.

If it was your birthday or anniversary at Lips, you’d get invited on the stage for what Zschiesche describes as “a moment of fame.” Now? All touching is off the table. As they work the room, queens will be masked and in gloves.

Then, of course, there’s the flying saliva involved with lip-synching, when self-styled Britneys and Pinks and Chers subvert the gender binary by making it abundantly clear that gender is as performative as it is determinative.

In COVID’s world, there’s no lip-synching except on the stage, delivered by queens in face shields. Tips won’t be tucked into bedazzled decolletages or bespoke bikini bottoms. Instead, there will be buckets on the tables. The queens’ Cash App handles will be available as well. Offstage, dressing rooms have been redone with plexiglass panels between stations, Zschiesche said. The cabaret tables are six feet apart.

Audiences won’t be let in if they aren’t masked. And while you can remove said mask while you’re eating or drinking, it must go back on if you leave your table.

Zschiesche has learned a few things about enforcement from reopening Lips in Atlanta and Georgia.

“We did get some pushback. Some guests didn’t want to wear a mask. But we’re aggressive about enforcing it. You get up to go to the bathroom without a mask, someone is going to stop you and say ‘Oh darling, you have to put that on.’ And we’ll give you one right there if you don’t have one. I hate becoming a policeman in the sense of enforcing this, but you have to. It’s a safety issue,” he said.

COVID-19 is also, obviously, a financial issue. In February, Zschiesche began tracking the virus’s spread. “I could see this coming. I told all the queens–stop spending money if you can. Save. This is going to be difficult.”

LeBare can verify that. Before the shutdown, she bought a house in Des Plaines with her husband. On an average night, she said she brought in $50-$100 in tips.

“My biggest worry about going back to work is not going back to work, because I cannot keep my house if I cannot work. I’ve been living off my savings and using my credit card. I’ve sold some of my costumes,” LeBare said. “I’m still panicking to be honest. When the shutdown happened, it wasn’t just Lips. I lost all my Pride Month gigs. I had something every weekend in June. It was devastating.”

Sass initially thought the shutdown would be a matter of weeks.

“I was like, OK, cool, I’ll finally be able to get some rest. I’d been doing so much–painting and helping set up the set and working on the costumes, and rehearsing–I was actually glad because I was like I could breathe for a minute. And then the depression set in.” Sass combatted that toxic malaise with hard-core, white-knuckle ferocity. “I quit smoking. I started running,” she said. “The other day I got so angry about something I couldn’t shake. So I ran for four miles. Then I felt better.

“The important thing to do is find things that give you joy. That’s my survival mechanism right now. There is so much uncertainty and fear–you just have to find something you love or that brings you joy and do it,” Sass said.

Both queens say they are satisfied with the “laundry list” of precautions Lips is taking, even though the inescapable uncertainty of the situation unnerves them.

“Will we get 25 percent capacity–which is about 50 people? Or will we get five people? Nobody knows,” LeBare said.

That’s weighing on Zschiesche as well. “For now, all the proceeds from the reopening will go directly to the performers,” Zschiesche said. “We’re hoping it’s safe enough that they raise the limit to 50 percent capacity before too long. I think we can hang on at 25 for a month or two.”

In the meantime, Sass is ready to get to work.

“We’re doing what the state requires for reopening an indoor dining facility, and I feel safe with the way Lips is handling it. I also understand that everyone needs to make decisions that are right for them. I hope we’re able to bring some joy to people, if just for an hour. In 2020, I think most of us could use that.” v

Lips reopens with “Dinner with the Divas” at 6 PM Thursday, Sept. 24 at 2229 S. Michigan Ave. Tickets for dinner and show start at $40. For more information go to lipschicago.com.

Read More

After the shutdown, Lips is unsealedCatey Sullivanon September 21, 2020 at 6:30 pm Read More »

The view from the middlePhoebe Moghareion September 21, 2020 at 3:30 pm

It’s possible we are reaching a limit on how much we can hear about the compounded crises of the past year. An ad for sweatshirts that read “Liquor: the glue holding this 2020 shitshow together” showed up in my feed right in sync with the internal fear that the fast approaching 2021 will be more of the same. My former professor’s advice to writers this year was not to feel obligated to write the current moment, a moment that is marked by so much uncertainty. “Instead,” he says, “try to write work that finds the beauty and explores the depth of uncertainty.”

Eula Biss is a master of uncertainty because she doesn’t seek to claim mastery over it. This has allowed her work to become prophetic. Her three most recent titles look like a roadmap of the vast, hellish landscape that is 2020. COVID-19? Biss’s 2014 title On Immunity: An Inoculation features pandemics, vaccinations, and human interconnectedness. When protests over police brutality and the regime of white supremacy raged across the country, I thought of Notes from No Man’s Land from 2009, a reckoning with race in America. Her latest, this month’s Having and Being Had (Riverhead Books), deals with the minutiae of capitalism as many Americans flounder in an enormous and unusual recession.

Having and Being Had is a loose collection of short, nonfiction vignettes, most just a few pages long, divided up into four sections: consumption, work, investment, and accounting. Some individual pieces bleed into one another seamlessly while others are confounding in their placement. Some are like tight comedic sets, with a punchline at the end that feels more like gut punch. Others simply make you turn the page and keep reading until the point circles around tens or hundreds of pages later. Present through each are Biss’s hallmark leaps between disconnected, everyday happenings, like her son trading Pokemon cards, and the works of economic thinkers (David Graeber pops up frequently), theorists, poets, and artists.

Themes of precarity and security, service and servitude, and what it means to work echo throughout the essays. She diligently searches for language divorced from economic value for the different types of work in life. “Work, if we are fortunate, is rewarded with money, but the reward for labor is transformation,” Biss writes, referencing Lewis Hyde’s definitions of each term. Immediately she inverts the connotations based on another scholar’s interpretation: labor is toil, work is accomplishment.

This comfort with contradiction is what makes the book both frustrating and thrilling. There is no drive to tie a neat bow. Like Maggie Nelson and Annie Dillard, Biss is able to hold many different truths at the same time. Hypocrisy is called out not as a “gotcha” but to show that life is complicated. Even Marx educated his daughters in the trappings of aristocracy, she points out. He just wanted them to have a better life.

As always, she acknowledges her vantage point, most notably in this book by the conscious choice to always use exact figures. Readers learn her income, her husband’s income, and how much they spent on their house. It is a “direct refusal of what I understood to be the rules of polite conversation around money,” as she puts it.

Such transparency makes her trustworthy. But there are times when Biss’s ambivalence seems to show class blindness rather than enlightenment. In one example Biss is reading The Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith during her son’s skating lessons, when another mom asks her outright if she thinks capitalism is bad. “I don’t know what it is to me, in my life in work,” Biss writes as her response. “I’m not neutral so much as undecided.” In this age, is it really possible not to know? Certainly the uninsured who are refused medical treatment or the workers denied bathroom breaks in Amazon warehouses while Jeff Bezos sets new records for wealth every day know whether capitalism is bad.

The very next essay ends on a note that suggests she knows more than she lets on: “We shouldn’t ask our rich to be good, in other words, we should ask our economic system to be better.” Readers turning to Biss for answers will be disappointed. But those who can handle a good honest grappling, with all its requisite disappointments and insights, will leave with a new view of hairline fissures in the system that hide in plain sight. v

Read More

The view from the middlePhoebe Moghareion September 21, 2020 at 3:30 pm Read More »

What To Go See at the Shedd Aquarium This MonthAlicia Likenon September 21, 2020 at 1:40 pm

Well folks, summer is officially over. And while you might not be swimming again anytime soon, you can still partake in aquatic activities at The Shedd! Chicago’s favorite aquarium is open daily from 9 AM to 6 PM but operates at a limited capacity. Make sure to read up on some of the changes Shedd Aquarium has put in place to keep you safe which includes wearing face masks and purchasing timed tickets in advance. Here are just a few of the wild and wonderful things you can see this month! 

Advertisement

Looking for a dose of cuteness? Watch dolphins play and swim while you take in breathtaking views of Lake Michigan! Home to Shedd Aquarium marine mammals, the Oceanarium is where sea lions bark, otters dive, and belugas play. Catch an aquatic presentation featuring curious beluga whales and lovable white-side dolphins.

Advertisement

Now’s your chance to explore the Amazon River basin (the largest river system and rainforest on Earth) without leaving Chicago! Experience a full year along the river. Watch its floodwaters slowly rise to the top of trees then recede back to the banks. See how birds, turtles, tarantulas, electric eels, snakes, and even people have adapted to thrive in this intense environment. 

Time to meet your neighbors. Check out some of the most noteworthy animals that call the Great Lakes their home. Touch a sturgeon (if you’re feeling brave) which is a prehistoric fish that stalks the bottom of Lake Michigan. Or peek into the toothy mouth of a sea lamprey to learn how invasive species can hurt native fish populations. 

Get up close and personal with some remarkable predators and prey. Immerse yourself in a diver’s-eye-view of a vibrant and diverse marine ecosystem, complete with sharks, corals, rays, and fish. Check out the reefs of the Philippines and learn how Shedd Aquarium helps conserve many of these incredible wild animals. 

6 Worst Submissions to the Chicago Winter Dining Challenge

Looking for a laugh in between trips to the Shedd? Check out the 6 worst submissions to the ridiculous design challenge.

View the Worst Submissions to the Chicago Winter Dining Challenge

Put all your senses to work in one of Shedd’s 4-D Experiences! Expect the unexpected—you might feel a breeze on your face, your chair may rattle, and creepy crawlies could scamper behind your legs! Here’s what’s showing this month (times vary): BBC Earth’s Shark: A 4-D Experience, Splash and Bubbles: 4-D Undersea Adventure, and Sea Monsters 4-D: A Prehistoric Adventure. Admission is a $4.95 upgrade per guest per experience or $2.95 for members.

At UrbanMatter, U Matter. And we think this matters.

Tell us what you think matters in your neighborhood and what we should write about next in the comments below!

Featured Image Credit: Shedd Aquarium Facebook

 
Read More

What To Go See at the Shedd Aquarium This MonthAlicia Likenon September 21, 2020 at 1:40 pm Read More »