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February 28, 2007

The [Wednesday] Papers

Jottings.

* How long until Darcel Beavers shows up on the county payroll?

* Dock Walls' predicted landslide came true - in his mind. Today he is preparing his inauguration speech.

* 38,060 people actually voted for Walls. He's more popular than the Blackhawks!

* Dorothy Brown is eating lunch alone today.

* It's a good thing Arenda Troutman has transferrable skills she can put to use tonight right there in the neighborhood. Pays better, too.

* Daley won with the support of just one in five voters. How? Seventy percent of 30 percent turnout is 20 percent.

* Can we make Santo not getting into the Hall an annual holiday? asks Beachwood reader Mark Bazer.

* Yes, we know the Veterans Committee votes every two years, but we'd like to make Santo Day an annual commemmoration for the sake of the kids.

* The good news: The Detroit Cobras will play an absolutely free show with The Blacks at Logan Square Auditorium on Friday. The Cobras new album, Tied and True, is due out on Bloodshot on April 24.

And now the bad news.

Even on what the Tribune rightly described as "the worst election night for City Council incumbents in more than 15 years," it would be wise to tamp down any latent hopes of democracy coming to Chicago based on evidence of a weakened Daley Machine and a more independent city council to come.

True enough, as the Trib reports, "the results in wards across the city showed that the mayor's popularity - and his once-powerful patronage armies - no longer could be counted on to pull along council allies."

But the incumbents who lost their seats were more the victims of their own special circumstances than hacks punished for doing the Daley Machine's bidding.

Natarus, for example, is a buffoon whose ouster was inevitable if not this time around, in four years. That's not to say that an infusion of union money didn't help challenger Brendan Reilly, but Reilly, after all, is an AT&T lobbyist and former Michael Madigan aide; not exactly reform credentials.

(Daley also outpolled Brown and Walls 8,249 to 880 to 450 in the 42nd Ward, clearly indicating voters aren't at odds with the mayor - and an alderman who is may not survive to see another term.)

Darcel Beavers fell to the resources and relative sophistication of the Jesse Jackson Jr. operation, and disgust with her father's machinations may have led in part to her defeat, but Jackson's only other candidate, Kenny Johnson in the 2nd Ward, finished fifth in a six-candidate race against an extremely vulnerable Madeleine Haithcock. So far, then, Junior is running a two-ward operation - his wife in the 7th and his man Anthony Beale already ensconsed in the 9th.

Arenda Troutman's shaky tenure was over when FBI agents knocked on her door with a warrant and she refused to let them in. Willie Cochran won because he wasn't under indictment.

Meanwhile, George Cardenas, who voted for the big-box ordinance before he voted against it after an arm-twisting by the mayor, won re-election in the 12th despite a union campaign fronted by Carina Sanchez.

And stalwart Virginia Rugai won easily in the 19th despite speculation that she was vulnerable.

As many as a dozen other races may go to run-offs, and a few incumbents are bound to fall, but the prediction that a more activist city council is on the way is a stale favorite of pundits that never comes true.

Theme Park
If there is a connecting issue in this year's council races, it's not Daley or corruption but unbridled development that is remaking Chicago's neighborhoods in ways that has many residents outraged.

According to news reports, for example:

* Natarus was attacked for "being beholden to developers."

* Ted Matlak, apparently headed to a runoff, "faced a pair of opponents who said [he] pandered to developers."

* Vi Daley faced, apparently headed to a runoff, faced a campaign in which "development proved to be a hot-button issue"

* Development was also a major issue in the campaigns against Haithcock, Dorothy Tillman, and Bernie Stone, all apparently headed to runoffs.

Development is the issue that the media understands least and residents care about most.

Pundit Patrol
* John Kass comes up with the day's only must-read, "Day of Reckoning at Shrine of St. Richie."

* Neil Steinberg lives in Northbrook now, but says had he still lived in the city, "I would have voted for Daley, warts and all. I always did. The corruption doesn't bother me - what city doesn't have corruption?"

A) All that fulminating about the Strogers apparently doesn't include Daley pushing John across the finish line while knowing he was too ill to serve and blessing - if not initiating - the scheme that installed Todd as Cook County President.

B) I'm confused. Is Chicago corruption part of the unique local character that we take perverse pride in, or just something that happens everywhere?

C) What city doesn't have systematic corruption emanating from the mayor's office? Start with New York and L.A. and go from there.

* Now that Debra Pickett no longer has a column at the Sun-Times, there's not much rationale for her to be doing commentary on Chicago Tonight. I mean, that credential - not her blazing insight - is what got her on the air. And yet, there she was last night, offering her view of the elections. Which, of course, are all about her.

She opened with a sly reference to her recent parting of the ways with her old print employer: "Let's just say that, for whatever reasons, you haven't felt like reading the local papers lately. I know I haven't."

Because, see, she's not in the papers anymore. So why read them?

I'll spare you the bit about how she's tired of having a "Church Lady-caliber conscience," the real kicker was how much trouble it was to vote. "I barely made it out the door and over the slushy puddle to the polling place . . . Apathetic cynicism seems like only sane response."

Yeah, life's a bitch. Off to Starbucks!

Breaking News!
* "Does Your Washing Machine Have a Dirty Little Problem? Washed Out, a Target 5 Special Report with Lisa Parker."

* "The Telltale Signs of Inhalant Abuse. Find out how 'huffing' can turn common household items into a deadly drug. Cover Story, with Steve Sanders and Allison Payne."

Broadcast News
* Carol Marin on Channel 5 last night went through a host of aldermanic races scoring which ones could be considered wins for Daley and which ones losses. After describing Sandi Jackson's surprisingly easy victory over Darcel Beavers, Allison Rosati said "So does the mayor get that one?"

Marin politely said no.

* As the numbers coming in made clear that Beavers couldn't win, all CLTV's Regina Waldroup could think to ask Darcel was if the race was a clash of political families - a question that has been asked ad inifinitum. Then Waldroup asked Beavers if she thought voters had made the right decision. After Beavers deftly handled that one, Waldroup said "Wait and see, good attitude!"

* Daley told Jay Levine that the corruption endemic to his administration could be blamed on just a few individuals - and Levine let it pass. Apparently Jay was out of town with the Pope or something when that whole Sorich thing came down.

* Daley media manager David Axelrod was interviewed by several reporters but none that I saw asked him why the mayor was afraid to debate - or if he's ever advised a candidate to attack an opponent for refusing to debate.

Time Warp Again
Fran Spielman and her editors at the Sun-Times decided to wait until after the election to tell us the mayor's plans for CTA chief Frank "Brownie" Kruesi, as well as the coming issues that would face any mayor, such as a possible teacher's strike, the coming retirement of the police superintendent, and the fact that Daley "has yet to name a permanent replacement or do anything else to improve the image of the [police department's Office of Professional Standards], which investigates police wrongdoing and has been a lightning rod for criticism in the black community."

You know, campaign issues. Would have been nice to do a compare-and-contrast with all the candidates on the paper's little laundry list of matters facing the city. Maybe that's coming tomorrow.

Our Hero
"Daley, 64, doesn't have time to bask in the glow of Tuesday's landslide victory," Spielman writes. "There's way too much on his plate."

A) After 18 years? Has this guy been slacking?
B) Unlike any other mayor, who would somehow find a light agenda awaiting.
C) Unlike Spielman, who somehow found time to bask.

Crosstown Classic
* David Roeder says the sooner the proposed Crosstown Expressway dies the better. "The mayor's grasp of this business is lacking. Despite his accomplishments as he sails toward his father's record tenure in office, he still has to answer for letting the CTA rot down to its railroad ties."

Um, did the Sun-Times's office calendars show the election happening next month?

* Urban planners John Norquist and Jackie Grimshaw also think the Crosstown is folly.

Third World Class
Daley repeated his recent claim last night that no city does anything better than Chicago. Not everyone agrees. Read it and weep.

Holy Writ
The CTA Bill of Rights.

Wormhole
"Mayor Daley shook off three years of corruption scandals to earn the right to make history," Spielman writes.

For some reason, the lengthy list of scandals that occurred before 2004 - the Duffs, O'Hare contracting, the Pat Huels affair - are off the table.

"Many people do not understand the magnitude of the crime and corruption that has occurred in this administration, " Dorothy Brown said.

Including some who cover it.

Except Nobody Died
"IT FELT LIKE A PLANE HITTING A BUILDING AGAIN."

- Chicago trader's quote ill-advisedly used as the lead and headline to a Sun-Times story about the Dow's fall Tuesday.

The Beachwood Tip Line: Underground but above-board.

Posted by Lou at 07:54 AM | Permalink

Barista! Annoyances Large and Grande

Customers say - and do - the darndest things.

"Grande Large"
A woman orders her coffee this way every single time she comes in. And then she gets mad when you don't know what the hell to do. Lady, you just ordered two sizes and no actual drink there. Every time she comes in, I correct her and tell her how to order her medium coffee in a large cup, but she would just assume go through this frustrating routine each and every time she comes in and says it to somebody new.

"Blueberry"
Blueberry what!? There are rarely less than four blueberry somethings in the pastry case at any given time. Pointing your finger while you say, "Blueberry," also doesn't help. We speak a common language for a reason. And again, we take the time to put those little labels on the pastry trays for a reason too. Put the two together and let's keep this line a-moving. Likewise, "Coffee cake," is not sufficient information. There are three of those. And guess what? One of them has blueberries!

The Regulars
Our store, like any, has its share of regulars. Certain people visit the store so reliably that I often run shifts and administer breaks not by the actual time, but on the basis of customer sightings. When 2% Latte Guy comes in, I can predict that my next barista will be arriving to work within the half-hour. If it's Friday afternoon, and the customer we call "Wolverine" just got his pre-train coffee, I know the kids are about to swarm - weekend adrenaline and sugar coursing wickedly through their awkward pubescent bodies.

Anyway, two of our regulars seem to show up separately at the same time every day. One is Jack, a retired truck driver, tea drinker, and overall lover of oatmeal-based cookies. The other, Norm, gets a decaf blended coffee drink, with caffeinated espresso shots added. Weird, he knows.

The other day Jack arrived first, to a warm welcome of "Jack!" cheers from all the baristas. After settling in his usual corner table, Norm walked in to a similar greeting. As an onlooker noted, it was like Cheers in our store, complete with an actual Norm!

"Hey!" someone observed, "We also have a postal worker that stops in!"

"But he only comes in to shit in the bathroom," added Velma.

""Yeah," I continued, "So it's not like we call him Cliff or anything."

No Small Talk Allowed
I'm not a huge fan of small talk. I'd rather make drinks in silence than generically discuss how cold it is outside, in winter no less, for the 238th time of the day.

And so, a recent over-the-bar conversation I had with a woman I had never seen before ended with me saying, "And so the moral of the story is, if your coffee tastes like metal, someone is trying to kill you."

I won't bore you with the story's contextual details, but let it be known that there will be no obvious cold weather discussions had over my bar!

Banditry
I mentioned before that our beloved Refill Bandit arrives very early in the morning, making it even more comically apparent that he is not, in fact, getting a refill. Lately, we have made an unofficial deal with him. He brings in our newspapers and arranges them on the rack, we gratefully give him his $.50 refill for free. He digs this new role. He doesn't have to be an ashamed scammer; we don't have to bring in the papers. Everybody wins.

What I find especially funny about this new agreement, though, is that he still asks for a double-cup in order to be ready to fiddle for a refill later . . . on coffee he doesn't even pay for in the first place. So he's getting a free cup of coffee and then only being charged $.50 for the next one too. Some might say that he is making out like a - oh, it's just too easy.

*

Maude Perkins is The Beachwood Reporter's pseudononymous service industry affairs editor currently serving time as a store supervisor for a large, publicly-held corporate coffee chain. Catch up with the rest of her heartwarming tales from the front here.

Posted by Lou at 01:45 AM | Permalink

February 27, 2007

Obit: Kirk Rundstrom, Hardcore Hillbilly

It's always a shock to lose part of your foundation because it makes your whole house tremble, and that's what happened to the structure of contemporary roots music on Feb. 22 when Kirk Rundstrom died of cancer at a tragically young 38 years of age.

The man who in recent years achieved his greatest success as part of the Kansas-based "hillbilly hardcore" punk/metal/bluegrass band Split Lip Rayfield was a cornerstone upon which the alt country edifice was built. In the mid-1990s when alt country was just emerging - with Chicago as one of its crucial hotbeds - Rundstrom was a regular on the city's bar stages, then playing mostly with his former band Scroat Belly and as a solo act. I can fairly say that he, along with Wilco, Son Volt, the Old 97s and a very few others, were the folks who most firmly convinced me then that "country" music wasn't necessarily an evil thing, and that, done in the kind of truly alternative way they personified, actually represented the purest modern-day representation of the spirit of 1960s rock 'n' roll.

The thing that most attracted me, and everyone else, to Rundstrom was the way in which he brought a dangerous, out-of-control intensity to the bluegrass musical form, making an acoustic guitar, a banjo and a one-string, gas-tank bass more truly "rock 'n' roll" than anything getting airtime on WXRT or the college rock stations. His wild, staring eyes, which drifted off into the heavens in a kind of dark religious ecstasy as he attacked his guitar, really kind of gave me the willies. You seriously wondered if his next move would be to fall to the stage spasming and speaking in tongues. But he always held it together as he and Split Lip bandmates Eric Mardis, Jeff Eaton and Wayne Gottstine time and again executed their athletic, intricately timed riffs with astounding efficiency.

Rundstrom called Split Lip Rayfield a cross between Del McCoury and Motorhead. And so it was. His brand of bluegrass was the first I had heard that so decisively made the leap allowing rock fans such as myself the license to even think of delving into old-timey country music. He found the sweet spot that both honored pure, countrified pickin' and grinnin' while simultaneously messing with its image and message so completely that you could hardly tell what it had always stood for. It was an accomplishment so important that it helped launch a whole musical movement.

Now he's gone, dying an uninsured death and leaving behind a wife, two kids and a too-short life full of hard drinking and furious creativity. His memorial service was held Monday in Wichita. Like so many true pioneers and musical visionaries, his albums never sold much because mainstream radio wouldn't touch them. They were too country for rock stations and had too much rock attitude for country stations. He was one of Bloodshot Records' first and most important artists, and will always have a strong identification with them - and Chicago.

Contact Don Jacobson at don@beachwoodreporter.com.

Posted by Don at 04:41 PM | Permalink

Red Carpet Recap

What we saw on the red carpet.

Cameron Diaz
Cameron seems to be overdoing the spray tan these days. Her skin's a shade of orange somewhere between "Irish setter" and "basketball." Why is she standing like that? Did she just get over a bout of rickets? Cameron, did you know that cheese, fortified milk, herring, and mackerel are all good sources of vitamin D? The worst part is that Cameron's dress seems to be made from a linen tablecloth and napkins. You're going to be pretty embarrassed later in the evening at the Governor's Ball when a waiter tries to rewrap a champagne bottle in your neckline.

Reese Witherspoon
I actually liked this dress, mostly because it looks like it's made out of crepe paper and it's the color of a nasty bruise. However, the fact that it looks like the heavily shingled "before" picture of a stripped hair cuticle from the Pantene Pro-V commercials reminds me to schedule a conditioning oil treatment at my local spa.

Jennifer Lopez
. . . and so I was like, "You want to just use a few, right?" and she was all like "No, I want to use all of them." And I was all like "You don't mean all of them." And she was all like "Yes, I want you to use every single one of Liberace's bicycle chains for this dress."

Sally Kirkland
Like most Cirque du Soleil productions, Sally Kirkland is the story of an alienated woman who withdraws from reality into a dream world of fantasy and imagination. She embarks on an epic journey where she meets fantastic creatures, levitating emperors, clowns, fire-jugglers, and evil erotic opponents. In the end, will she step out of the dark fantasy world and finally embraces the light of reason? Reserve your tickets online now. All third-party billings must be done directly through the Bellagio ticket office.

Gwyneth Paltrow
"Oscar Presenter" is one of the more than 20 whole-body plastinates featured in the BODY WORLDS exhibit. While walking the red carpet, the Oscar Presenter demonstrates the movement between the superficial and intermediate layers of muscles. This plastinate shows in detail how muscle lengths differ according to their contracture degree.

Beyoncé Knowles
Please exercise some restraint next time you visit Carson City. Hey, my grandfather loved collecting turquoise belt buckles, too, but he didn't wear his whole collection at the same time.

Meryl Streep
Ms. Streep is wearing the same smock every hair salon has clients change into to get a haircut. Too bad, Meryl high-tailed it out of there before they could fix her hair. Hey, what's that around your neck? A Wiccan talisman bag? A Cheyenne spirit pouch? A Dungeness crab? It's what? Oh Meryl, that's not how you wear a dress sporran.

Cate Blanchett
As far as galvanized-blacktop couture goes, this isn't horrible. But it saddens me to think that, somewhere, a salty seafaring Castilian rogue has sacrificed the bejeweled silver bowl guard of his trusty cutlass to protect the shoulder of a mere slip of a girl. Arrr!

Anne Hathaway
That's an odd place for a bowtie, Anne. It seems to have fallen down. It's what? Your tropical butterfly collection from Papua New Guinea? Oh, and I see you have one on your ass, too. What's that? You left the killing jar in the limo? Well, I'll ask Harrison Ford to stop by your table and give you a Voight-Kampff test during the commercial breaks.

Naomi Watts
Place a small amount of wasabi on the underside of the tamago, and then place the tamago on top of the rice ball. Wrap a 1-cm wide strip of nori around each piece of nigiri. Wrap it tightly enough that the nigiri won't fall apart, but not tight enough to tear the tamago or cause the rice ball to separate. More sushi recipes can be found at www.sushirecipes.org.

The Pinkett-Smith Family
Tip #1: When you are invited to an award ceremony, make sure you do not dress like the award.
Tip #2: Remember to drop your electric bill in the mailbox before you come to the Oscars. That way you won't have to carry it around in your top left pocket all night.

Nicole Kidman
Merry Christmas, mate! I knew just what you wanted. It was my head, right? I wrapped it myself.

Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna
The memories come flooding back; the cold, rubbery chicken and syrupy fruit cup, the awkward lurching dance steps, the half a bottle of Southern Comfort, the finger-bang in the limo, the vomiting afterward, and these two, with their uncombed hair, unbuttoned jackets, beltless trousers, four days' beard growth, unwrangled ties, and combat boots. Somewhere between the two of them, is my dream date for Senior Prom. But unfortunately, it's Oscar night, and they look like drifters. But seriously, have you seen Y Tu Mama Tambien? Was I the only one hoping they would make out with each other on the red carpet?

Djimon Hounsou
I told you he'd be too sexy for his shirt.

-

For another view of the red carpet - and the rest of the festivities, see Beachwood TV correspondent Scott Buckner's special Oscar edition of What I Watched Last Night.

Posted by Lou at 02:59 PM | Permalink

The [Tuesday] Papers

The report card issued by the Developing Government Accountability to the People project that we've excerpted from these last two days is a pretty amazing document.

For example, for all you hear about the mayor's vaunted remakes of Chicago public schools and public housing, the DGAP gives Mayor Daley a C on education policy and says "Chicago Public Schools are headed in the wrong direction," and issues a D+ on housing, finding that the city ranks 22nd nationally in affordable housing and that CHA's Plan for Transformation is, quite frankly, a mess.

It almost goes without saying that the mayor grades out at an F on ethics and corruption - and shouldn't that be enough to toss him out on his ass? - but he also gets an F in criminal justice. The report's summary of the problems within the Chicago Police Department only reinforces the fact that we're not that far from the days of Jon Burge - and that the mayor doesn't seem to care.

So what is the mayor good at - besides using power to bully, dominate, and co-opt dissent?

Well, he's really green, right? He'd like you to think so, but as Mick Dumke put it in the Reader recently, he's more accurately described as greenish. DGAP gives him a B+ for environmental policy - his highest grade. (The project didn't evaluate flowers, downtown power-washing, or mushroom-like condo development.)

In transportation, the mayor received a C, but that sure seems like grade inflation to me. After all, the CTA is in a state of utter meltdown, city streets are in a state of utter gridlock, and the O'Hare expansion project is in a state of utter contract cronyism as it sails ever higher overbudget with no hope at all of actually reducing delays or improving the area's air traffic management.

The mayor received a C+ for economic development. Did you know that one in five Chicagoans lives in poverty? One in five. These folks don't think the city has never looked better. And as Ben Joravsky has heroically and exhaustively shown, TIF districts are driving up your taxes while supplying the mayor with a secret slush fund.

The litany of corruption in 18 years under this mayor hardly needs repeating, nor the laundry list of world-class blunders, from Soldier Field to Meigs Field.

Perhaps what's worse than all of that, though, is the mayor's utter contempt for democracy. His refusal to debate any of his electoral opponents since 1989 is only of a piece with his refusal to honestly engage the media and the public in the most basic, fundamental discussion of city issues. He is, perhaps, the most cynical mayor in America.

(The next time you make fun of Todd Stroger's antics as Cook County President, remember that it was this mayor who put him there; Bill Beavers isn't the hog with the biggest nuts.)

The DGAP report isn't just a bitch list; it includes policy recommendations (including making Daley pay the fines for Meigs Field out of his own pocket) in its discussion, and also sheds light on who owns the city council - aside from the mayor. (The next time you make fun of the City Council, remember that the mayor either appointed or retains through his political team almost everyone one of 'em.)

Bored Press Corps
* Sun-Times columnist Mark Brown admits today that he's been "treating the mayoral race as an afterthought."

Perhaps that means it's time he gave up his column. After all, he's the paper's page two city columnist. You know, the one who's supposed to write about the mayor and stuff.

"That doesn't mean I've lost interest," Brown goes on, "but honestly, what is there to say?"

Honestly, I don't have enough room here to answer that. Should I send you my ideas?

"If you live in Chicago," he continues, "you know as much as me about your choices, about what's right with the city and what's wrong."

Then why are we reading you? Shouldn't they hire someone with some insight to do your job?

"Whatever insights I have were offered long ago."

Oh. So, this is your retirement speech?

* The Tribune's Eric Zorn also pleads "guilty" today to ignoring the campaign. 'I'm not complacent, but I am resigned," he writes, though in the midst of a spirited column about why he's voting against the mayor.

It's a spirit that's been missing in most of the Chicago media for far too long.

Daley's Contempt
"Daley defended his own low-profile re-election bid, saying that he is very busy on the campaign trail, but doesn't always invite the news media along," Brown writes.

"I don't need press to campaign," Daley said.

He prefers to campaign in private. You know, leave the public out of it.

CTA Blue
The CTA Bill of Rights written by Lamont Lynn of Evanston and sent to the Sun-Times is an inspired work I would have been proud to publish here. And I will if it still doesn't show up on the paper's website by the end of the day.

UPDATE 6:30 P.M.: Here is the link.

Photoshopped Britney
The amazing versatility of Britney Spears' bald head.

History for Dummies
Olbermann takes Condi to the woodshed.

"Use the Google!" he urges.

Poser Posters
This is one reason, but not the only one, that I'm uncomfortable with - and increasingly against - anonymous posters on news and commercial websites.

Cause and Effect
"Stroger Won Budget Battle - Now Wage War On Patronage," the Sun-Times editorialized on Monday.

How - using a time warp machine?

Groupthink
"Meetings Make Us Dumber, Study Shows."

Memo to Sun-Times editorial board: Meet less.

Welfare Rolls
"If the goal of welfare reform was to get people off the welfare rolls, bravo. If the goal was to reduce poverty and give people economic and job stability, it was not a success."

In Today's Reporter
* Cate Plys's open letter to Macy's about the Walnut Room.

* Scott Buckner on last night's episode of Wife Swap, pitting the Princess Party set against Deer Family Robinson.

* Bethany Lankin's brilliant Oscar fashion preview proved all too true.

* Jonathan Shipley's weekly magazine roundup spans Spin to Bon Appetit.

Election Day
The Replacements don't care who gets elected.

The Beachwood Tip Line: Plenty to say.

Posted by Lou at 07:29 AM | Permalink

What I Watched Last Night

It's Monday night, undisputedly the worst night of the week for TV watching. So I figure: Screw it - if you can't beat 'em join 'em. Next thing I know, I'm sitting high atop the nation's TV programming landfill with ABC's Wife Swap. It took awhile for the dog with the brandy keg around its neck to lead me back down, but I can tell you this: I have been to the mountain, and if bad TV was bread raining down from the heavens, I'd have enough yeast to give every woman in the Northern Hemisphere a really uncomfortable infection of some sort for months. Or the ability cure every case of the clap that arises during the next 150 years, whichever.

In case you've been living on the moon for the past year or two, Wife Swap follows two families with values as mixable as oil and water in a two-week exchange of husbands, children, and lives to discover just what it's like to live in the other woman's world. Fourteen days, which is four more than the washed-up celebrities on VH-1's The Surreal Life have to endure without strangling each other in their sleep. And the wife swapper folks are real people with real lives, so a lot less slack gets cut.

Anyway, here's the stats on Monday night's mismatched families with behavioral habits you should be glad you don't have:

Family 1: The Hamiltons. They live in Ohio. There's mom Angie, husband Tim, and 14-year-old daughter Chastity. Angie believes all girls (and wives) should be treated like princesses. Literally. She even holds - and participates in - "princess parties" for Chastity and her friends, and believes that princesses (including princess wives) don't do chores. Or anything much else constructive, either. Shopping, designer labels, manicures, and pedicures totally rule, dude.

Angie could probably pull off that brand of nonsense if she and her daughter didn't look and act like they were from Winnetka - if Winnetka had the kind of train tracks to be from the wrong side of. Hell, even the Hegewisch social register would dust these two in a heartbeat if Hegewisch was classy enough to have a social register. Oops, almost forgot: Angie's an obsessive-compulsive clean freak, and on any given day Chastity spends up to five hours idly yacking her monthly cell phone bill into the $300 stratosphere. Which her parents gladly pay.

While I was debating who on which side of adulthood ought to be smacked with a big stick, we were introduced to dad Tim. He snores like hog at bedtime, so he's been banished to a separate bed in Chastity's room with the dog while Chastity and her mom share their "princess bed" in Angie and Tim's room. Tim has also been brainwashed into enjoying a lifetime of servitude as beck-and-call chauffeur, bag lugger, housecleaner, cook, and Lord-only-knows-what-else the program didn't bother to show. He smilingly accepts the whole arrangement, and does it all while working a full-time job. In fact, Tim is incredibly offended by the notion that there's something distinctively unusual about his role as houseboy.

Good thing Tim doesn't live in Alabama or northwest Florida. I've lived there, and men down there don't cotton to such nonsense. He'd be at the bottom of a swamp somewhere just on general principles.

Family 2: The Lowes. These beefy, overalls-and-Beanie-Weenies folk live in Pennsylvania. There's mom Anita, husband Rick, 19-year-old daughter Brandie, and 17-year-old son Brandon. When Anita's not busy outfitting the family with incredible bargains from the town resale shop, the family's existence centers around the household serving as Ohio's clearinghouse for the hunting world's supply of deer piss. They have a backyard corral where they collect deposits from their herd of deer (thankfully, the program didn't show how the whole process works), and Anita wakes up at 2:30 a.m. every day to spend 20 hours of her day alternately waiting on Rick hand and foot (she lays out his clothes, makes his lunch, heats up his car, cooks, cleans, washes their clothes by beating them against a rock in the middle of a creek, and so on) or hunkered down in the basement funneling deer piss into bottles and labeling them for deer hunting consumers.

Not surprisingly, Anita and Rick think nothing of the fact that their house - and everything in it, including them - smells like a giant piss factory. They also kill, dress, cook and jerky their own fresh deer meat because, well, have you seen the prices they're charging these days down at the Jewel for just a stupid fucking head of lettuce?

So in true Wife Swap fashion, we watch both families spend a two-week shipwreck cruise shoving square pegs into the round holes their lives are becoming:

Deer Woman Anita ("I really hope this family likes deer meat, or it could be a problem") and Spoiled Princess Chastity square off immediately over makeup and resale shop clothing issues.

Chastity: "Can we check out the clothes you brought?" After seeing them: "They're hideous."

Which sets up an Anita-Chastity "mother-daughter" shopping spree to the nearest thrift store.
Chastity (fingering clothes on a rack): "It's gross." And, "I've gotta touch 'em? These are crappy clothes."

Anita: "What's this?"
Chastity: "It's eyeliner."

Anita and Chastity (after Chastity notices that Tim missed a few crumbs while cleaning the countertop):
Chastity: "(Mom says) you can always be cleaner."
Anita: "You know, there's counseling for people like this. You know, neat freaks."

While Anita was off teaching Chastity the value of housework by confiscating her cell phone and making her prepare deer meat dinners, Princess Mom Angie and Deer Girl Brandie were grating on each other's nerves over assorted princess and shopping issues:

Brandie (trying on a dress during a "mother-daughter" shopping spree): "I like jeans, and these aren't freaking jeans."

However, crass consumerism wins out in the end when Brandie discovers the mall is full of really bitchin' makeovers and clothes that didn't once belong to dead people or crackheads when you're hanging with someone who has a no-limit credit card. A few states over, Anita's finding the whole princess thing "kind of strange." Says she: "I think someone's on crack with all this princess (shit)."

The women have their jobs of whipping their newly-acquired men into shape cut out for them as well. When she's not approaching the preparation of deer meat dinners like she was just plopped into the middle of an autopsy, Anita's busy disinfecting the biohazard that is the Deer Family Robinson's basement, and browbeating Rick and the family into moving the whole deer-piss operation into the backyard - where there's moving air - into a plastic shed someone has purchased from Menards. When Angie's not doing that, she's browbeating Rick into getting off his dead ass and maybe start moving some dust around. Which naturally leads Rick to comment, "If I had to pick between a wife like her and prison, I'd pick prison."

Fortunately, Rick is able to head off any sort of prison experience by forcing Angie to clean out wooden deer coop stalls for a few hours every day and learn firsthand how people who actually work for their money spend their daylight hours.

In the meantime, Anita busies herself with her own project of browbeating Rick into a life of being waited on hand and foot, making time for golf, and having nothing expected of him beyond taking a nap in the La-Z-Boy whenever and wherever he pleases. But this Life of Riley comes with a price: Rick has to grow a spine. Especially when the impulse to coddle Princess Chastity kicks in:

Anita, to Rick: "You're the man of the house and you're supposed to stand up for yourself."

Anita: "Act like a parent."
Rick: "I am the parent."
Anita: "Then say 'no' to her once and awhile."

Anyway, the whole thing wraps up rather anti-climactically by everyone finding out that the cure to everyone's ills lies with everyone spending more time with each other. Tim connects with Princess Chastity after she carts him around a snow-covered golf course, and the Deer Family connects with each other while assembling the plastic backyard deer piss factory shed from Menards. Rick admits that it wouldn't kill him to lift a finger around the house, and Tim discovers that the world doesn't erupt into flames when he takes an afternoon for himself at the golf range.

Curiously missing from most of the program was Deer Hunter son Brandon. Either I missed something while taking notes, or nobody mentioned why.

-

See the What I Watched Last Night archive.

Posted by Lou at 02:32 AM | Permalink

The Periodical Table

A weekly review of what's on Shipley's nightstand.

Worst Best Poll Ever
The reader's poll results are in, according to the new issue of Spin. Best Band? Panic! At the Disco. Worst band? Panic! At the Disco. Best Album? The Black Parade, by My Chemical Romance. Worst album? The Black Parade, by My Chemical Romance. Best Internet phenomenpn? YouTube and MySpace. Worst Internet phenomenon? MySpace and YouTube. Best reader's survey ever done? Not this one. Worst reader's survey ever done? This one.

Forest Grump
According to the March issue of Utne Reader, mass urban tree plantings may not only beautify cities but also save them money. According to the Center for Urban Forest Research, each dollar spent on a tree in Los Angeles recoups benefits worth $2.80. Further, there are various studies going on in the Los Angeles at the Center for Urban Forest Whittaker Research on how much return-on-investment he will yield now that he's won an Oscar.

Devil Dreams
An untreatable cancer is raging through the world's population of Tazmanian Devils, and if the tide is not stemmed soon they face extinction, according to the March issue of Scientific American. Fortunately, the Devils already have a poster boy who can help raise funds (and revive his career at the same time) from a sentimental public.

And Chinese physicists, using sound wavelengths the same size as their tiny subjects, have created pressure sufficient to levitate small animals without squishing them. They also tried to levitate Jennifer Hudson using her own voice on the Dreamgirls soundtrack but were less successful in levitating her because, as one esteemed scientist said, "She's got some junk in the trunk."

Money Honey
Fun fact gleaned from The New York Times Sunday Magazine's interview of personal finance guru Suze Orman: "I'm still a 55-year-old virgin."

Yakety Yak
Fun fact gleaned from the March/April issue of Psychology Today: The notion that women talk more than men is a complete fabrication, according to a University of Pennsylvania linguist. An Oxford Universit professor blames "the belief that women really should be silent, as recommended by ancient authorities ranging from Sophocles to St. Paul" and "the popular psychology industry, which loves pandering to stereotypes to sell books."

Just Desserts
Reader survey results are in at Bon Appetit. Favorite dessert? Creme brulee. Which certainly says something about our times. In 2001 it was cheesecake. In 1998 it was apple pie a la mode. In 1914 it was braised calf's liver.

To wit: Take a small calf's liver, wash well and scald. Put in a baking pan, the bottom of which has been covered with chopped onion, carrots and celery tops, add one quart of soup stock with a teaspoonful of salt and a half teaspoonful of pepper, cover the pan and bake in a moderate oven for two hours, basting two or three times while it is baking. In a separate pan, cook two carrots cut in dice and boil a pint of celery. Heat a can of green peas. Dish the liver, drain the water from the boiled vegetables into the pan in which the meat was cooked and bring up to a boil. Take two tablespoonfuls each of flour and butter or bacon fat rubbed together to a cream and add a pint of water from the pan and stir until boiling and thickened. Then add salt, pepper and spice to suit taste. Arrange a pile of vegetables on the ends of the platter, strain the sauce over it and garnish the dish with triangles of toast.

Posted by Lou at 02:02 AM | Permalink

Open Letter

It's been two months, and only now am I beginning to deal with the horrific experience of Christmas at the State Street Macy's, aka Marshall Field's. If I had a therapist, he or she would be pleased with my progress. I don't have one, so this letter will be my therapy.

Now, it is not entirely your fault that the Walnut Room sucks. And suck it does, so royally that the outrageous prices should include one of those minor titles frequently sold off by impoverished British aristocrats to fund rehab for themselves or the ancient family manor. Had I been charged $6.50 for a small glass of eggnog but left the Walnut Room a duchess, I might not complain.

Ever has it been so, and thus, Marshall Field's must take its share of the considerable blame. However, when you made the churlish decision to erase the Field name from Chicago entirely, I had hoped some small good might still come from your corporate ownership. Specifically, I hoped the Walnut Room would raise its standards slightly higher than a combination Dunkin' Donuts/Kentucky Fried Chicken. But no.

Let me also take a share of the blame for my repeated visits to the Walnut Room, which must appear both inexplicable and masochistic. My Walnut Room attendance is of a religious nature. I did not choose to be raised Catholic, and neither did I choose to be raised a native Chicagoan, worshipping at the altar of Marshall Field's holiday windows and genuflecting before the Walnut Room's massive Christmas tree.

These days I'm an atheist and I generally treat the State Street Marshall Field's/Macy's as a heated or air-conditioned corridor leading to the nearby Filene's Basement. But religion has a way of sucking you back in for the holidays.

In my case, I see no reason to put up with ubiquitous Christianity all year long and then skip the only good part, Christmas. Accordingly, my children have been taught, like all good Chicagoans, that the real Santa sees kids at the State Street Field's. Only such inflexible dogma could get my husband and I to blow about fifty bucks each year on a sorry Walnut Room breakfast before visiting Santa.

But this year, I have to tell you, even the kids noticed that it sucked. Normally, so long as there's a big train going around the Christmas tree, they wouldn't notice if the waiter spit on their food after placing it on the table in front of them. That is how bad the Walnut Room has gotten.

Let's start with your tree. The giant Christmas tree not only had nothing to do with the holiday window theme of Mary Poppins, it had nothing to do with Christmas at all. It was decorated instead with blue-and-white fake Wedgwood ornaments, a mercenary tie-in to a store push to sell Wedgwood. Wedgwood reminds me of ancient Greece. It doesn't remind me of Christmas. It would have made as much sense to decorate the tree with golden Buddhas.

Even more inexplicably, a store employee was dressed in a somewhat ratty Cinderella costume and charged with visiting each table to ask patrons if they wanted to get sprinkled with fairy dust. Ah, the logical problems here - where to start? First, are you aware that Cinderella is not a Christmas story? Second, are you aware that Cinderella is not herself a fairy, and so does not, and cannot, sprinkle fairy dust on anyone?

I could only presume that some genius made the Cinderella connection because the Disney Cinderella wears a blue dress approximately the same color as Wedgwood - which, of course, has nothing to do with Christmas.

Even so, the kids may have accepted the strange anachronism if your Cinderella hadn't been so shy that she could barely approach a table. Once standing tableside, she was unable to speak to us beyond an incomprehensible mumble as she stared at the floor. Either she was morbidly shy, or embarrassed at having to dress up as Cinderella for Christmas. It took much repeating before we understood what her container of silver glitter was all about. The whole thing was so insane, I let her sprinkle some on me for a laugh. She was grateful to do it and move on. Sadly, my dreams did not come true. I was still in the Walnut Room, and had not been magically transported to Lou Mitchell's, where someone was handing me some fresh doughnut holes as I waited for a table.

What else. Well, as usual the food was straight off a conveyor belt, possibly manned by Lucy and Ethel. You, Macy's, are so cheap you don't even provide the usual complimentary cranberry walnut muffin (slightly stale) with the menus. The mighty Walnut Room was out of hot chocolate, though we were among the very first customers. Perhaps the Walnut Room does not know that children make up a rather high percentage of its clientele at Christmas, and perhaps the Walnut Room does not know that children in winter invariably want hot chocolate. Perhaps no one at Macy's is personally acquainted with a child.

We noticed that a group of women next to us received giant glasses of eggnog and asked for some of that, instead. The waitress said no, the eggnog was an alcoholic beverage. After pondering why anyone, much less an entire group of people, would need a giant alcoholic eggnog at seven o'clock on a weekday morning, we called back the waitress and asked if we could have eggnog without alcohol. Yes, we were told. We ordered eggnog, which came sans alcohol in tiny glasses rather than the hefty brandy snifters enjoyed by the drunks at the other table. When the check arrived we learned that you can order eggnog without alcohol at the Walnut Room, you can drink eggnog without alcohol at the Walnut Room, but you will pay for both eggnog and alcohol. Even after you talk to several people about it. That's the $6.50 eggnog I mentioned earlier in this letter.

I'll say this for you, however, Macy's: Thanks to the Walnut Room, our family now has a new catchword, a synonym for insanely overpriced items. We say "eggnog" and crack up. On the day of our Walnut Room visit, we enjoyed posing in front of the anti-Christmas Wedgwood tree and screaming "Eggnog!" at the camera. And from now on, the kids have agreed to go to Lou Mitchell's for breakfast. Even the Milk Duds there will be fresher than the crap you serve at the Walnut Room.

Many Happy Returns,

Cate Plys

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Am I nuts, or have you also found the Walnut Room isn't all it's cracked up to be? Horror stories welcome. Open Letter is open to letters at cateplys@sbcglobal.net.

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See Cate's collection of Open Letters.

Posted by Lou at 12:23 AM | Permalink

Grading Daley: Part Two

If it wasn't for all the corruption, Richard M. Daley would be the perfect mayor, right? And let's face it, a little grease is needed to make the wheels of government turn. Hail Daley!

At least that's the way the media sycophants and stenographers tell the tale. And the current "campaign" is no different. Without an opponent the media deems strong enough, the tough Chicago press corps has taken a pass once again at examining the mayor's record, much less his plans going forward into another term. Why bore everyone with the issues when we're trying to land the Olympics?

Policy-makers and advocates in the trenches tell a different story, though. The Developing Government Accountability to the People project consulted hundreds of such civic-minded people and organizations to study the issues over the past year to grade the mayor's job performance. It isn't pretty.

And yet, even the DGAP's report card doesn't wholly reflect the reality of this mayor's tenure. The Reader's Ben Joravsky reports that "some of its members privately confessed to me that they felt pressured to inflate Daley's grades (awarding him, for instance, a C on transportation) because they figured their funding agencies and the media wouldn't take them seriously if they'd given him all the Fs he deserved."

Today we run the second of our two-part series excerpting from the DGAP report card. In Part One, we looked at the Environment, Economic Development, Housing, and Transportation. Today we'll examine Education, Criminal Justice, and Corruption. Read both parts, ehen decide if you really want to cast a vote for this guy - and if he's as great as the media tells you he is.

EDUCATION: C

"Given questionable methods of data collection and interpretation, concerns abound as to whether progress truly is being made in such critical areas as reduction of dropout rates and increases in college enrollment and completion. Test scores in some areas are up, but many believe this is because test instruments have been changed, creating a situation in which reporting has lost credibility and reliance on these standardized tests is widely discredited."

Vaunted Retention Policy Fails
"Chicago students who are held back do no better, and often do worse, than students who are socially promoted.

"The retention policy was quietly modified over the past two years, with no public announcement, after it became painfully clear that the rule was doing more harm than good. Far from narrowing the 'achievement gap,' this policy actually widened the chasm between academically high-achieving and low-achieving students, driving countless scholars out of the school system altogether. The cost to the quality of life of the city cannot be calculated because the exit numbers are unknown."

Military Zones
"While everyone agrees that security is necessary, Chicago's schools are becoming increasingly militarized. CPS has a huge security budget, $53 million in 2003-2004, and armed, uniformed Chicago police officers in every high school. There is a reliance technological devices such as metal detectors, heavy police presence, video surveillance and other prison-style mechanisms."

Budget Busts
"In 1995, using his new powers to repair budget shortfalls of the early 1990s, Mayor Daley boosted new-school construction and renovation, and completed new projects in neighborhoods most in need of new schools. Unfortunately, these initial exertions did not have long-lasting effects. For instance, numerous new elementary schools were added in the densely populated Little Village and Pilsen neighborhoods. But this early spending could not be sustained, because the basic funding formula used by CPS has yet to be reformed. Today, despite a handpicked school board, millions of dollars from the Gates Foundation, other grant money and a powerful board of foundation partners, CPS again finds itself in financial trouble. The administration plans to plug its projected $328 million deficit by reducing expenditures by $87.5, increasing revenues by more than $165 million and securing $75.5 million in transfers from reserves to the operating budget. It also plans to increase the property tax levy by the maximum amount allowed, the tenth time to do so since 1996.

"Curiously, there seems to be no clear explanation for the system's current financial fragility. Moreover, this year's budget is purported to contain ' . . . contradictory, inconsistent and unsubstantiated budget calculations and staffing numbers, contradictory special-education enrollment figures, and hundreds of undercounted central office staff.'"

Renaissance Unfair
"This tactic of replacing large, struggling schools has become all too familiar in many Chicago neighborhoods. As Renaissance 2010 moves toward its objectives, at least 60 existing neighborhood schools are slated to be, or have been, closed. The vast majority have been in African-American neighborhoods that serve very-low-income students.

"Some of these concerns could be overlooked if it was clear that the Renaissance 2010 plan was working, but reports of the new schools' performance are contradictory and confusing."

The Education Mayor
"Chicago Public Schools are headed in the wrong direction."

CRIMINAL JUSTICE: F

"Two years before the 40th anniversary of the police riot at the 1968 Democratic Convention, and decades after Lieutenant Jon Burge led the Chicago Police Department (CPD) in the torture of more than 100 African American men, police abuse continues to plague (and cost) the city of Chicago."

Defending Criminals
"Routinely accused of racial bias, Chicago pays legal fees for defendants and pensions to those found guilty, even of torture. And when police misconduct is charged, city officials invariably trust the officer's word over that of an ordinary citizen. It protects the department and its officers at any cost and makes it impossible to get details of investigations without a Freedom of Information Act request. Chicago's citizen-complaint process is so complicated and intimidating that many aggrieved citizens forgo it altogether. Rather than commit the resources necessary to address these issues, Chicago would rather buy Segways for its community service officers and spend money on bomb-sniffing robots of questionable efficacy."

Secret Police
"The Chicago Police Department is notable for its lack of transparency, openness or willingness to share information, particularly as it relates to instances of serious misconduct. Faced with a 'blue wall of silence' in which 'fellow officers [turn] a blind eye to corruption and later [resist] cooperating with criminal investigations of their colleagues,' community organizers and academics often resort to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) filings to have any chance of getting the information they seek."

Culture of Corruption
"A recently released report by Lou Reiter, a former deputy chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, contends that police officials, including Supt. Philip Cline, have continued a 'practice of indifference' toward corruption that 'makes officers who engage in misconduct feel protected,' and that police officials make 'a conscious choice to not implement a reasonable system to identify and remediate officers who exhibit negative performance, behavior and/or attitudinal problems.'

"Although the department denies fostering a culture that tolerates corruption, little is done to discipline the officers whose behavior exacts such a toll on the city, or to deter others from following their example. Statistics provided by the city in a federal civil rights suit show, for example, that the 10,150 complaints of police abuse in the categories of excessive force, illegal arrest, illegal searches, and racial and sexual abuse from 2002 to 2004 resulted in only 18 officers receiving any 'meaningful' discipline - a suspension of seven or more days.

"More disturbingly, the Chicago Police Department refuses to put in place a system that protects whistle-blowers, and police rules and regulations prohibit transferring or rewarding police who report misconduct by fellow officers.

"According to human-rights law, the state or governing body may be held accountable under international human rights standards when 'abuses persist owing to the complicity, acquiescence or lack of due diligence of the authorities . . . ' 'Due diligence' describes the threshold of efforts a state must undertake to fulfill its responsibility to protect individuals from abuses of their rights. According to this standard, it is Chicago's responsibility as a city to take effective measures against abuse, to investigate allegations of abuse and to prosecute and bring to justice through fair proceedings the alleged perpetrators. The victims of crimes - abuse by police is a crime - must be provided with adequate compensation and other forms of rectification. According to the most recent report and other publicized and anecdotal evidence, Chicago is largely failing in its due diligence."

Blind Eye
The CPD credits I-CLEAR with reducing crime and increasing productivity, and it has been lauded around the country as an innovative and enterprising system. While the city and the CPD have embraced this technology to track criminals, it has been reluctant to use the system to analyze patterns of behavior in its own officers. I-CLEAR can detect patterns of criminality - it also has the ability to implement a personnel performance system that would hold all data related to officer behavior and performance. This software could assist management in early identification of potentially problematic officers through patterns of recurrent citizen complaints, pursuits and traffic accidents, firearm-discharge incidents and the like. Officers thus identified could be provided with intervention (counseling or training) designed to improve problem behavior before it becomes untenable. It also would provide the department with the means to rout out the 'bad apples,' those officers whose habits have become so ingrained that they have become criminals themselves, and there is no other choice but to exorcise them from the force, and perhaps even take criminal action against them.

"Not surprisingly, the department has not put a premium on monitoring the behavior of its personnel. While a computerized personnel performance system today could assist the department in monitoring officers' behavior, previous lack of technology should have not been an impediment. OPS long ago could have adopted a streamlined paper filing system that would have performed adequately, if not at quite the level as this automated system. And indeed, OPS was handling these activities on a manual basis, although the statistics cited earlier show very little intervention occurring in the system. Of 662 officers who have received 11 or more complaints, only about 10 percent have been enrolled in one of Chicago's early intervention programs. Some officers with more than 50 complaints have never been identified. Disturbingly, Chicago never analyzes patterns of accusations against groups that work together, despite strong evidence that officers tend not to abuse alone."

Witness Denigration Program
"Police treat crime witnesses the same way they treat criminals - those who observe a murder, for example, are brought to the station and stripped of their possessions and personal belongings, including cell phones, shoe laces, etc. They are searched from head to toe and placed in locked interrogation rooms, often for hours. Deputy Superintendent James Maloy has said publicly that he wouldn't be surprised if more than 100 witnesses within the last two years had been held in these locked interrogation rooms for more than 24 hours. Further, when lawyers or family members come to the station, police often refuse to let them in and don't report to the witness that the visitor was there.

"Obviously, this practice perpetuates resentment and discourages citizens from reporting crimes. It also hints that police are keeping witness in interrogation rooms until they receive the responses they desire, calling into question potentially thousands of accusations against accused criminals."

CPD is Racist
"There continues to be great perception of racial discrimination and abuse in minority communities. While there is anecdotal evidence to support this feeling, a wealth of factual data substantiates this claim as well. In 2001, 26 percent of African Americans reported having been stopped by Chicago Police that year, compared with 20 percent of Latinos and 16 percent of whites. Reportedly, sixty-four percent of black males are stopped in the course of a year!

"Examining 911 emergency response time, a WMAQ Channel 5 special report aired in November 2006 detailed how getting prompt service depends on where you live. The story involved a radio disposition called a RAP - radio assignments pending, a list of crimes in progress waiting for police to arrive. The report illustrated that South and West Side communities that are heavily African-American and Latino have grossly more RAPs than white areas."

ETHICS & CORRUPTION: F

"Since Richard M. Daley was elected mayor in 1989, federal investigations have continued to uncover widespread corruption in city government, including Operation Silver Shovel (1992-2001) and Haunted Hall (1995), and, most recently, the Hired Truck scandal.

"But it's not only political corruption scandals that have mired Richard M. Daley's administration. Patronage remains a fixture in Chicago politics, and 2005 and 2006 illustrated its machinations as continuing abuse allegations came to light. Some abuses were banal, like discovery that nine employees of the city's water department were paid for time they had not worked by having friends swipe their time cards in and out. But many indicate a deep-rooted corruption that stretches to the Fifth Floor. In July 2005, the Chicago Tribune found that nearly four of every 10 people conducting voter-registration on behalf of groups supporting Mayor Daley's candidacy held city jobs (which prohibit 'electioneering'), and City Hall employees were convicted of rewarding the mayor's supporters and political workers with jobs and promotions. Even more revealing was release of a 'clout list' during the trial of Daley's patronage chief, Robert Sorich, in which the city was accused of creating an illegal list of more than 5,000 names of politicians, powerbrokers and mayoral friends vying for city jobs or promotions for their families, friends and supporters."

Low Bar
"The junior Daley's funds tend to flow not from unions, organized crime, and industrialists so much as from lawyers, lobbyists and entrepreneurs of the new economy, all, at least on the public record, perfectly legally . . . no alderman, committeeman, or candidate since 1964 has been shot, pistol-whipped, kidnapped, dumped in the Sanitary and Ship Canal, or encased in concrete. This is progress."

He Doesn't Care
"It is likely that every administration has issues with corruption, but with a reputation like Chicago's it should seem reasonable for the administration and City Council to make every effort to rout out the systemic base of misconduct. Unfortunately, a high volume of federal investigations, some ongoing, indicates a lack of real interest in altering the pattern of corruption that plagues the city.

"Several questionable activities directly involve the office of the Mayor.

* A lawyer who was a former Daley aide and head of the Hispanic Democratic Organization directed a $1 billion no-bid contract to a development team he represented.

* A top Daley fundraiser has received 90 percent of O'Hare construction work since 1989.

* The Duff family, longtime Daley contributors with known mob ties, has received more than $100 million in minority and woman-owned set-aside contracts - despite being neither minority- nor female-owned. The Duffs were indicted in 2003 by the U.S. Attorney's office on charges of racketeering, conspiracy, mail fraud and money laundering.

* John Daley, the mayor's brother, brokers insurance for a company under indictment for alleged fraud. He earns $400,000 annually in insurance commissions, and the majority of his clients are connected to the O'Hare construction project.

* Brother Michael Daley is paid $180,000 per year as a consultant by Salomon Smith Barney, the investment firm that floats the bonds that generate billions of dollars for city public-works projects."

Lip Service
"Each time there's a [new scandal], [the mayor] makes a little change to the ethics ordinance or fires someone. His theory is that there are only a few rotten apples, but the real truth is that the barrel is rotten, and he's not ready to replace the barrel," says former ald. Dick Simpson, professor of political science at the University of Illinois at Chicago."

The Daley Tax
"[The FAA] fined the city $33,000 for closing Meigs Field without giving the required 30-day notice. Still pending is a proposed FAA order that would fine the city up to $4.5 million for allegedly misspending $1.5 million in airport funds to demolish Meigs Field. Besides the $33,000 fine to the FAA, and $1.5 million in repaid misspent funds, the city's legal bills for the Meigs episode totaled nearly $550,000 through June 26, 2006. To make this event even more of a tangle, the Park District now is concerned that it does not have the money to finish the park that was to replace the airport."

DGAP Recommendation
"Require Mayor Daley to personally pay the legal fees and the fines for the destruction of Meigs Field, and in the future, for any unilateral decision he makes that imposes financial obligations upon the city."

-

See also Grading Daley: Part One and The [Daley '07] Papers.

Posted by Lou at 12:18 AM | Permalink

February 26, 2007

What I Watched Last Night - Oscar Edition

ABC continued its tradition of delivering the most astoundingly lame programming into America's living rooms with a vengeance last night as it presented the 79th Academy Awards. If you come across a bunch of surly co-workers today, cut them a good bit of slack. Not only did the Oscars kill any hope of any of them getting laid at a reasonable hour, but it killed any plans they might have had for watching Tora! Tora! Tora! was on American Movie Classics.

On the bright side, Nielsen ratings history was made when a mass exodus of viewers was noticed emigrating to WTTW. Unfortunately for the folks at Channel 11, it wasn't a pledge night. They won't make that mistake next year.

*

The 2007 Oscars. Yeah. The night of 1,000 stars - and 999 showed up in the most hideous dresses anyone could possibly invent. This was a night that totally begged for the astutely rude commentary we've come to expect and enjoy in the past from Kathy Griffin on E!'s Live From The Red Carpet pre-show. Instead we got a taste of how much tedium lay ahead with E!'s decision to have Ryan Seacrest do the honors.

The top offender was Penelope Cruz, wearing something that 500 pink poodles were sacrificed to make. Runner-up was little Abigail Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine), doing her best to look like a Baskin-Robbins peppermint ice cream cake-topper decoration.

Later, during the actual Oscars show, the adage that the nation's mood is directly reflected by the height of dress hemlines is brought home by presenter Jennifer Lopez, dressed in a something caught painfully between Elizabeth Taylor's Cleopatra and one of those dreadful things bridesmaids get stuck wearing in rural Texas. If the hemlines bit is true, George W. Bush is more incredibly fucked than he could ever imagine.

The best dress belonged to Reese Witherspoon, hands down. Honorable mention to the dress of Best Actress winner Helen Mirren for making an old chick's rack look incredibly awesome.

*

Host Ellen DeGeneres deserves some sort of consideration for her tux cobbled together from red velvet movie theater ropes and the very disturbing pair of white shoes stolen from the corpse of Pat Boone. Unfortunately, she makes a better talk show host than an Oscars host. "A billion people" watching, she says - and every single one of them wondering, "Whatever happened to that nice Billy Crystal boy?"

*

In one of the most glaring examples of precaution since American schoolchildren were ducking and covering, the Academy insisted that Jack Black and Will Ferrell be spayed and neutered in order to appear together on live television. "A comedian at the Oscars is the saddest, bitterest, alcoholic clown," sang Ferrell. Um, not exactly - just the ones who aren't funny.

*

The night's only funny moment, which clocks in at an excruciatingly late 9:45 p.m., happened when Jerry Seinfeld - the only celeb presenter working without a net - showed up to award the Best Documentary Feature. Capping off the night's only funny bit, he introduces the nominated documentaries as "five incredibly depressing movies."

The most incredibly depressing movie, of course, was Al Gore's infomercial-like An Inconvenient Truth.

*

Gore's film also won Best Original Song for Melissa Etheridge's "I Need to Wake Up." Indeed we did, because the show was a snooze, and every Melissa Etheridge song for the past 10 years has sounded exactly the same. If I hadn't been so fucking bored and started to do other stuff at the same time, I might even have bothered to read all the Save the Earth stuff scrolling by on the big screen behind her. "Write to Congress," implored one of the suggestions. Sure. Maybe I'll write to Santa Claus, too.

With all the time devoted to Al Gore and social commentary, I can only imagine that past socio-political activist presenters like Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon (Haitians imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay naval base), Vanessa Redgrave (treatment of Palestinians), and Richard Gere (freeing Tibet from Chinese control) were doing their best not to grind their teeth down to stumps. They were doing politics at the Oscars way before it was cool, and it got them nothing but ridicule But Al Gore - he's the King of the World!

*

If we should be writing letters to anyone, it should be to the Academy to outlaw the contrived witty banter whenever two or more presenters are at the podium. These people are professional, award-winning actors; you'd think they'd be able to pull off natural-sounding witty banter, for chrissakes.

*

The commercial's all wrong: What happens in Vegas doesn't really stay there. Clearly in need of cash for a new deck and bathroom renovations because a bazillion dollars in royalties from Titanic doesn't go as far as it used to, the Academy dug up Celine Dion from the Nevada desert to premiere a song twice as droning and dull as the Titanic theme.

*

Presenting the Best Foreign Film category, Catherine Deneuve looked amazing for someone who everyone thought died a long time ago. Up for next year's "thought you were dead" foreign celebrity presenter: Rula Lenska.

*

Clint Eastwood was pressed into duty to translate the acceptance speech - all in Italian - by composer Ennio Morricone. The task made Clint seem slightly confused or uncomfortable, because he flubbed the real translation, which was: "Does anyone here realize what time it is? Two and a half hours from the beginning and only one Best Actor award! What's wrong with these fucking people? Don't they know there are old people who need to get up early tomorrow?"

*

Lord help the show the year Jack Nicholson dies and there's nobody left in the audience who knows how to take a joke. It wasn't clear, though, whether Jack showed up with his head shaved in support of Britney or because he lost a drinking bet.

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More Beachwood Oscars coverage:

* "I Want To Thank God And My Manicurist."

* Geeks Who Won.

* Our Oscar preview package, including The Oddscars, fashion predictions, and why the Best Song wasn't going to win.

And more of what Scott Buckner watched last night.

Posted by Lou at 01:49 PM | Permalink

"I Want To Thank God And My Manicurist"

A review of this year's Academy Award acceptance speeches, in order of acceptance.

Best Live Action Short Film
Winner Ari Sandel (West Bank Story) explains to America the plight of "little guy" filmmakers such as himself, struggling to realize their vision on a shoestring and a prayer. The camera cuts to Gwyneth Paltrow in the audience, whose dangly earrings alone could finance the production of 200 short films.

Best Sound Editing
In the course of announcing the win (Letters from Iwo Jima), Alan Robert Murray is dissed twice, first when Steve Carell reads only his partner Bub Asman's name, and again when the off-camera announcer spouting trivia to kill time as the winners walk to the stage transposes his name, calling him Robert Alan Murray. Murray retaliates by giving the dullest acceptance speech of the evening, read in a monotone voice and leaving his colleague with no time to speak.

Best Sound Mixing
The theme of the evening's speeches is set - pull out your prepared list of Thank You's while uttering "I know you're not supposed to read anything, but . . . "

Best Supporting Actor
As Alan Arkin (Little Miss Sunshine) gives a sincere and humble tribute to his film, his fellow actors, and his profession, the Oscars director instructs his roving camerman to fixate on costar Abigail Breslin, dressed like an Easter basket, bouncing around in her chair. Cut to a sustained shot of the Oscar Arkin has put on the floor so he can hold his list of Thank You's. Arkin's moment in the sun is reduced to a voiceover. Nice.

Best Adapted Screenplay
William Monahan (The Departed) speaks for everyone in the room when he says, "Valium does work." Another piece of paper comes out from the coat pocket and the reading of names begins. Shouldn't writers give better speeches?

Best Costume Design
Presenters Emily Blunt and Anne Hathaway from The Devil Wore Prada giggle their way through the nominees after a lame skit starring a scowling Meryl Streep in the audience. In the interest of brevity, winner Milena Canonero (Marie Antoinette) thanks everybody who ever had anything to do with the movie. A previous winner for Chariots of Fire and Barry Lyndon, she dedicates the award to her mama, director Hugh Hudson, and Stanley Kubrick, whom she credits as "her great master."

Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award
Chicago girl Sherry Lansing, whose face is one of the better reconstructions in Hollywood, accepts and makes everyone in the audience feel like complete slugs. Get me another beer.

Best Visual Effects
The team from Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest treks to the stage. It sucks to accept your award in a crowd. Know this - unless you're the first to step up to the mike, you can pretty much kiss your 15 seconds goodbye.

Best Foreign Language Film
An excited Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, not believing his good luck in beating Pan's Labyrinth, hugs everyone on his way to accepting the award for the German film The Lives of Others and gives the most breathless speech of the evening.

Best Supporting Actress
Chicago's other hometown girl, Jennifer Hudson (Dreamgirls) wins. Once again, Beyoncé watches as the American Idol reject steals her thunder.

Best Documentary Feature
Jerry Seinfeld announces An Inconvenient Truth as the Academy Award winner in the category of "incredibly depressing movies." Al Gore takes yet another opportunity to preach to the converted as everyone in the audience nods in agreement.

Best Original Screenplay
Winner Michael Arndt proves quitting his job as Matthew Broderick's assistant to write the screenplay for Little Miss Sunshine was an excellent career move.

Best Original Song
The Academy votes Green again, awarding Melissa Etheridge a statue for her theme for An Inconvenient Truth ("I Need to Wake Up.") She gives the conservative right even more reason to hate Hollywood by thanking her wife with an onscreen kiss and reiterating Al Gore's message.

Best Film Editing
Thelma Schoonmaker accepts the award for her work on The Departed. She thanks her frequent collaborator, director Martin Scorsese, who looks more moved than she does. Schoonmaker scores extra points for using the word "panoply" in her speech.

Honorary Oscar
After scoring more than 400 films in a long career, the Academy decides they really can't ignore composer Ennio Morricone anymore. Clint Eastwood, the man who got iconic status from Morricone's scores of A Fistful of Dollars and The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, introduces the winner and translates his acceptance speech from Italian. Morricone's frowsy Italian wife Maria beams.

Best Actress
As expected, Helen Mirren wins. Everyone leans toward the stage, sure that Dame Helen will have something wonderful and witty to say. Those Brits always make the best speeches. She's gracious, crediting her fellow nominees. Cut to Kate Winslet, looking teary-eyed. For the win or the loss? Mirren concludes with a tribute to Elizabeth Windsor and then in an odd note that seems a tad too staged, she strikes a Statue of Liberty pose with the Oscar held high, and pronounces "Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Queen." As the camera follows her offstage, a large split in her expensive frock is clearly visible.

Best Actor
Forest Whitaker (The Last King of Scotland) spans the ages thanking everyone, including his ancestors, and vowing to take this moment with him into his next lifetime.

Best Director
The entire room bursts in a cheer as Martin Scorsese finally wins his Oscar. A huge collective weight lifts off the room as the Academy avoids the embarrassment of leaving yet another legend in the director's chair (think Hitchcock, Kubrick, Altman) Oscarless.

Best Picture
The Departed steals the sunshine from underdog Little Miss when presenters Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton announce the winner. As Scorsese stands in the wings and a bald-headed Jack, looking frighteningly like Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now, beams from behind his dark glasses, producer Graham King makes the routine Thank You's.

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For more Beachwood Oscar coverage:

* The geeks who won Oscars.

* Our Oscar preview package.

Posted by Lou at 10:51 AM | Permalink

The [Monday] Papers

The Beachwood would like to thank the Academy for providing us the grist to bring you the planet's best Oscar coverage.

For example, how prescient was our very own Bethany Lankin, who correctly predicted in her fashion preview that Eddie Murphy would be wearing " a foam-latex, female fat suit by Rick Baker and a short, purple, pareo-style Hawaiian muumuu with floral-shirred sleeve and ruffled neck from Hilo Hattie of Waikiki. Hair by Wig Barn of Beverly Hills. His accessories - advertising fliers for his new movie, Norbit?"

Or that Kate Winslet "will look stunning in a hand-beaded, hand-woven, Bombyx silk Badgley Mischka gown in shades of gendale. Her shoes will be Stuart Weitzman's diamond stiletto sandals studded with 565 platinum-set Kwait diamonds. She will wear two 30-carat, pear-shaped diamond drop earrings worth $8.5 million by Harry Winston. Her hair will be done by Industrial Light & Magic. Her $64,800 Hermes "Birken" bag, adorned with tangerine crocodile skin and trimmed with palladium hardware and a diamond clasp will contain: 2 broken crayons, an expired McDonalds kid's meal coupon, a handful of napkins from KFC, a tube of Walgreen's Chap-ette brand lib balm, and $1.23 in change"?

Our Oddscars predictions were also dead-on - Ellen DeGeneres indeed made the show even longer by joking about the show running long - and we were right when we said the deserving Randy Newman wouldn't win Best Song - even though that Melissa Etheridge tune is abhorrently awful.

We've got the geeky Sci-Tech rundown, and we'll have more in an Oscar wrap-up later today.

Oscar Bulletin
Our Weekend Desk was also on top of late-breaking Oscar news, noting that "the Democrats are trying to give back their 2002 award for Best Supporting Actors in a Foreign Policy Blunder of Epic Proportions."

Inconvenient Truths
* Al Gore won the 2000 election.

* The Electoral College still exists because Democrats lack the guts to dispose of it for fear of looking like sore losers and both parties, which are private companies not enshrined in our Constitution, would rather continue to find ways to game the system than deliver democracy to the nation.

* Even the most diehard Republican cannot honestly think we would have been worse off had Al Gore been president the last six years.

* The best post-presidential careers belong to Democrats; Gore, Clinton, Carter - it's undeniable. Reagan, Bush, Ford, Nixon - compare and contrast.

* That Melissa Etheridge song still sucks. She's brutal, and her career success fairly inexplicable.

* Al Gore was right about global warming, he was right about the Information Superhighway, he was right about the Iraq War, he was right about supporting Howard Dean, he was wrong about rock lyrics. I bet today he regrets the PMRC nonsense.

* If you don't think experience doesn't matter, contrast the Al Gore who ran for president in 1988 with the Al Gore of today. Now tell me which one is ready to be president and which one wasn't.

* What you might not have known about Theresa LePore: "To accommodate the large number of Presidential candidates eligible in Florida, LePore designed a staggered two-page format with candidate names on alternating sides of a central punch button column. In the 1996 election, the butterfly ballot caused an estimated 14,000 votes for the second candidate on the left (Bob Dole) to be miscast."

* Ralph Nader had every right to run, and voters had every right to vote for him. Neither works for the Democratic party.

King Daley
Maybe the mayor's re-election would be in doubt if the police department tortured yuppie financial planners and fat real estate developers instead of black nobodies.

If the mayor really wanted to set the truth of Jon Burge & Co. free, he would have established a Truth Commission 18 years ago when he first became mayor - and presented himself for public testimony. Instead, he's had his Law Department to play games for all these years.

Grading Daley
Today we begin two days of excerpts from a recent assessment of the mayor's performance by people in-the-know, as opposed to your press corps. It's not as pretty a picture as you have been led to believe.

Blame the Bears
According to Fran Spielman, the media was just too caught up in the Bears to cover the mayoral campaign.

Spielman also congratulates the mayor on his strategic acumen for not debating his opponents since 1989 because he saw what happened when Harold Washington bested Jane Byrne in such a forum: "Daley, who finished third in that race, was not about to make that same mistake."

Hey Fran, you're a reporter, not a campaign aide.

"That decision - and his refusal to respond to his challengers' daily charges - left Brown and Walls without a platform to engage Daley," Spielman continues.

Because a newspaper is apparently not a platform for candidates to engage each other, and Spielman certainly wasn't going to engage the mayor herself.

Message to pols: The media admires you when you ignore and degrade them.

Campaign Trip
The Tribune continued its aldermanic campaign coverage on Sunday, introducing us to the contestants in the 49th Ward. Again - why do these stories appear at the end of the campaign instead of the beginning, followed by, you know, coverage of the campaigns?

Because the Tribune is lazy and uninterested. I can't say for sure how the Trib organized its coverage this year, but historically the paper works from a pre-set schedule of "duty" stories in which it assigns a few races to reporters with instructions to write a single story, name every candidate, and include the usual boilerplate. Instead of, you know, covering the campaigns.

As a result, the 49th Ward story (rehashing foie gras as the central issue) mysteriously shows up now when all the action seems to be in wards like the 2nd, 7th, 15th, and 50th.

From the Vault
Up the Academy, our 2006 Oscar report.

Religious Rite
"Using law to define marriage as being between a man and a woman might satisfy the GOP frothful, but it is as if legislators in the 1970s defined a telephone as having a dial and a cord - life is going to thunder by, and go where it's going, whether the politicians like it or not," Neil Steinberg writes (second item).

Except for the inconvenient fact that it takes politicians to make gay marriage - and the legal, economic, and social benefits that would go with it - a fact of law. Gay marriage isn't technology; the private sector can't make new and improved versions. It takes the support of politicians - say, someone like Steinberg's buddy Barack Obama, who could use his influence to great effect on this issue. Except that