Chicago -
By J.J. Tindall
DREAM DIARY
I was an extra
in the new Batman movie
along with Amy Sedaris,
and we were filming a scene
in the rain near Wayne Manor
(a Mock Tudor mansion in West
Humboldt Park, south of Fullerton)
featuring Benicio del Toro.
Posted on April 13, 2009
The Beachwood has had readers from 30 countries so far this week. Here they are in ascending order.
1. United States
2. Canada
3. United Kingdom
4. Netherlands
5. Sweden
Posted on April 9, 2009
With Richard Roeper celebrating 20 years as a Sun-Times columnist, we thought it would be fun to look at his last 20 tweets (as of about 1:50 a.m.) and try to figure out how he’s lasted so long. Beats us.
20. I guess Barack knows his Barackets . . .
19. MSU might pull off the miracle win – against the spread. They’re getting 8.
18. This is like a father/son game.
17. Spartans are shell-shocked. This game is over. And the over/under will be Over.
16. This is brutal.
15. Come on Spartans!!!!
Posted on April 7, 2009
By Sam Singer
Concerning the print industry’s uncertain future on the web, Sam Zell, Chicago’s newest media mogul, asked this: “If all the newspapers in America did not allow Google to steal their content for nothing, what would Google do? We have a situation today where effectively the content is being paid for by the newspapers and stolen by Google . . . That can last for a short time, but it can’t last forever.”
That was in 2007, back when Zell was still an infant in the newspaper industry. For a man accustomed to opening his mouth and moving markets, Zell likely was startled, if not a bit humbled, when media insiders dismissed him as unversed and out of his element. Google, they reminded, is instrumental for newspapers in their struggle to survive online. The familiar storylines went on from there: Google doesn’t steal content, it aggregates it; Google’s retrieval programs don’t copy stories, they sort them and compress them into hyperlinked headlines; those hyperlinks provide valuable pass-through traffic for news organizations, which can then turn around and raise advertising rates. Most importantly, Google’s aggregating model is not directly profit-driven. Google News does not solicit advertisements, which puts it on cooperative footing with news sites in their efforts to raise their ad profile. In short, Google is the digital hand feeding hundreds of struggling content providers, and here was Zell, three days into the job, biting it.
Posted on April 6, 2009
By Stephanie B. Goldberg
1. G-20 etiquette pointers: When meeting her royal Corgi-ness, do not pat her on the back.
Also, do not blow air kisses or make jokes about inbreeding or tell her that she’s much more attractive than her stamp or say “Why the long face?” to Camilla Parker Bowles while brandishing a carrot or lump of sugar.
2. Rebuffed in her attempt to adopt yet another Malawi child with living relatives, Madonna consoled herself by adopting her 22-year-old boyfriend Jesus Luz. We can’t wait to see their Christmas cards.
Posted on April 3, 2009
By The Beachwood Bureau of Comedy Assessment
This is no joke, folks. On a couple levels. The Tribune Company actually, truly, really issued this press release on Wednesday as an April Fool’s Day prank. We ask you: Is Sam Zell’s Tribune the least funny company in the history of America?
*
Tribune to Unveil Revolutionary Communications Tool
Alternative Info Super-Highway Created, May Render Internet Obsolete By 2010
Content Delivered to the End-User More Directly Than Ever Before
CHICAGO, April 1 – Tribune Company today announced detailed plans to introduce a high-power, low-cost communications device designed to make all media, including the Internet, obsolete by next year. The device, tentatively being marketed as “The Accelerator(TM),” uses patent-pending nano-technology to aggregate the sum of all human knowledge – everything from where you put your keys last night to the genetic sequence of field mice DNA – and deliver what you want, when you want, directly into your brain. A prototype of the device and a description of its features can be found on the company website at www.tribune.com.
Posted on April 2, 2009
Prior to a March 24 town hall meeting about the state of the New Maxwell Street Market, ardent market advocate Steve Balkin, a Roosevelt University professor, issued a statement proclaiming that the the market “has been killed off by City Hall and aldermanic indifference, ineptness, and ignorance.”
At the town jall, the vendors had their say, accusing contracted workers of acting “in a disrespectful, harassing manner toward them, leaving vendors worried about getting hefty fines written for small infractions,” according to a Chicago Journal report.
“[I]t was the repeated invocations of poor treatment from Jam and its subcontractors that caught some of the aldermen’s attention.”
Indeed.
After the town hall, Ald. Bob Fioretti (2nd) wrote this letter – obtained by the Beachwood Reporter – to Ald. Walter Burnett Jr. (27th), Ald. Manny Flores (1st) and Commissioner of the Mayor’s Office of Special Events Megan McDonald. Fioretti, Flores, and Burnett sit on the city council’s special events committee.
Posted on April 1, 2009
