CHICAGO’S FREE WEEKLY | THIS ISSUE IN FOUR SECTIO NS | FRIDAY, JUNE 30, 2006 | VOL 35, NO 40 Overeatingfor Funand Profit Meet PatBertoletti, Chicago’smost gifted glutton.

By KabirHamid

CHICAGO READER

Asmoke-free failure p 12

Abizarre arttheft Section 2

J.R. Jones on LarryClark’s Wassup Rockers p 22 Joravskyonrising property taxes (yes,theyare) p 8

ChrisWare, freshold-schoolsoulfromthe southside, Hopper on Sonic Youth, ourguide to theChicago CountryMusic Festival,and more Section One Letters 3 Reviews Movies 22 Columns Hot Type 4 Larry Clark’s Wassup Rockers What Ozzie meant Music 24 The new Sonic Youth, Lizzy Mercier The Straight Dope 5 Descloux, Lagos Chop Up Has a millionaire ever been executed in America? The Works 8 Theater 26 Time for a taxpayer revolt Franz Xaver Kroetz’s Request Programme Chicago Antisocial 10 at Trap Door Theatre If your wife won’t swap, don’t let her shop Plus What Are You Wearing? 13 Our Town 12 Dustin Senovic at City Soles June 30, 2006 A failed experiment in smoke-free drinking; habitual letter writer Brien Comerford Free Shit 16 Breakfast at the Green City Market Comic Ink Well 27 Chris Ware 17 This week’s crossword: That’s an Order

ON THE COVER: PAT BERTOLETTI BY SAVERIO TRUGLIA

c UGLIA VERIO TR SA Pat Bertoletti Overeating for Fun and Profit One day Kendall College culinary student Pat Bertoletti hopes to run his own restau- rant. But he may never be as famous for his cooking as he is for stu∞ng his face.

By Kabir Hamid

t was ten o’clock on a Saturday morning room at the destination airport, but his flight have to begin shoving as many beef tamales in May and Pat Bertoletti was in the tiny had been delayed and he was getting nervous. as possible down his throat. I bathroom of an airplane, spiking his hair Upon landing in Houston, he’d be shuttled to Bertoletti got to the restaurant just before into a Mohawk with Got2B styling glue. a Berryhill Baja Grill northwest of down- 1 PM, the contest’s scheduled start time. Normally he’d wait to do this in the men’s town, where he would almost immediately Nearly 200 people were continued on page 18 2CHICAGO READER | JUNE 30, 2006 | SECTION ONE CHICAGO READER | JUNE 30, 2006 | SECTION ONE 3

m Chicago Reader, 11 E. Illinois, Chicago, IL 60611 312-828-9926 JUNE 30, 2006 f VOL 35 | NO 40 Letters @ [email protected]

Publisher Michael Crystal of the ground where a street our story was ignored, Libby’s Editor Alison True lamp used to be. Frustrated by improvement over the next few Managing Editor Kiki Yablon More my inability to solve the mystery, weeks became more evident. Senior Editors Michael Miner |Laura Molzahn | Kitry Krause I proceeded home. Last week while I was on the Associate Editors Martha Bayne | Anaheed Alani Stray Jolts On my way home the horror of el and anticipating the “Buster- Philip Montoro | Kate Schmidt Libby’s yelps were screaming in and-Libby hero’s welcome” I Assistant Editors Jim Shapiro | Mark Athitakis | David Wilcox Dear Justin, my ears and a shot of her flying would receive after a long day of Web Editor Whet Moser Thank you for your article into a brick wall and then metal work, I glanced over a woman’s Staff Writers Liz Armstrong | Martha Bayne | Steve Bogira John Conroy | Jeffrey Felshman | Harold Henderson “This Sidewalk Could Kill Your garbage can flashed in my mind. “All of a sudden shoulder and caught a glimpse of Deanna Isaacs | J.R. Jones | Ben Joravsky | Monica Kendrick Dog” dated June 9. Your experi- And then I remembered the Libby started a subtitle to your story “stray Peter Margasak | Tori Marlan | Bob Mehr |Jonathan Rosenbaum ence validated two similar expe- exposed wire. I raced home and yelping and voltage” with the accompanying Mike Sula | Albert Williams riences we’ve had with our four- frantically searched the Internet something picture of a dog. The adrenaline Copy Chief Brian Nemtusak legged kids Buster (Rhodesian for “electrocution” and “side- threw her into rushed through my body as if Editorial Assistants Pat Graham | Renaldo Migaldi | Mario Kladis Michael Marsh | Tom Porter | Jerome Ludwig | Tamara Faulkner ridgeback) and Libby walks, manhole covers,” etc, pray- the brick wall Libby’s incident happened yes- Patrick Daily | Stephanie Manis | Robert Cass | Kerry Reid (Doberman pinscher). ing for answers. Although the of Wrightwood terday and not a year ago. I Todd Dills | Katherine Young | Ryan Hubbard | Miles Raymer One evening about two years search results were few in num- Tap.” rushed home so that I could read Tasneem Paghdiwala ago my husband and I took ber, they offered an explanation your article online. I was happy Typesetters Vera Videnovich | Kabir Hamid Libby and Buster for our evening to the unexplainable. to hear that New York and Archivist Eben English jog on a route that took us by the I shared my findings with my Boston have gone to great corner of Diversey and Halsted. husband, and he insisted that we lengths to eliminate the “stray Advertising Director Don Humbertson On this particular evening it was go back to the scene with a cam- voltage” problem, not surprised Display Advertising Manager Katie Falbo raining. When we approached era to take a picture of the that your story had not been Online Advertising Coordinator Renate Durnbaugh the northwest corner of Diversey exposed wires. While taking the heard until now, and grateful Display Representatives Sandra Goplin | Christine Thiel and Halsted our dogs started picture, he suggested that I point that your article could help to Brad Winckler yelping like I’ve never heard to it with my foot so that it could ensure that stories like ours do Senior Account Executives Denice Barndt | Evangeline Miller Geary Yonker before. Like you, we thought that be clearly identified in the photo. not continue to be buried Account Executives David Dincolo | Nichole Flores | Jeff Martin they were stepping on some- As I did this, my tennis shoe beneath the streets of Chicago. Greg Saint-Victor | Tim Sullivan | Laura Swisher | Dan VanKirk thing. We were immediately able touched the wires and sparks the Kimberly, David, Libby, and Advertising Assistants T.J. Annerino | Kieran Kelley to get them across the street, at size of fireflies flew in the air. Buster Suda-Blake Sarah Nishiura which time Buster seemed Several pictures later and the W. Wrightwood unfazed and Libby totally fren- smell of burnt wire insulation in Art Director Sheila Sachs zied and scared. My husband had the air, we knew that we had the Associate Art Director Godfrey Carmona to carry Libby home all the way evidence to let the local authori- Art Coordinator Elizabeth Tamny to Wrightwood and Racine. The ties know about the problem, cor- A Fickle Production Director Sean Phelan dog who was returned to the res- rect it, and educate our neighbors. Production Manager Bob Cooper cue shelter three times and final- After explaining the situation Situation Associate Production Manager Nickie Sage ly felt she was “rescued” by her to Vi Daley’s office, I learned that Production Artists Jeff Marlin | Jennifer McLaughlin |Mark Blade Benjamin Utley | John Cross | Andrea Bauer | Dustin Kimmel forever family glared at us in dis- she “was aware of a similar inci- Bert Stabler’s rather confusing Josh Honn | Mike Browarski | Nadine Nakanishi belief and distrust as if we had dent that killed a dog on Lincoln article on Intuit’s current exhibi- Editorial Design Jardí + Utensil deliberately abused her. I racked and Wrightwood a few years ago” tion, “Revelation! The Quilts of my brain trying to imagine what (how horrifying) and that the Marie ‘Big Mama’ Roseman,” is Operations & Classifieds Director Mary Jo Madden had happened to Libby and incident involving Libby “was in rife with assumptions and innu- Controller Karl David Wilt Buster. After a week of sleepless Ted Matlak’s ward.” A phone call endos [“The Mystical Other,” Classifieds Manager Brett Murphy nights, horrified by the images of to Ted Matlak’s office seemingly June 2]. While I am employed at Classified Representatives Sara Bassick | Danette Chavez Libby yelping and gyrating on offered a more urgent response as Intuit: The Center for Intuitive Bill Daniel | Kris Dodd | Chip Dudley | Janet Lukasiewicz the street corner and worried “they would send someone out and Outsider Art in the capacity Jeff McMurray | Amy O’Connor | Scott Shehan | Kristal Snow that she would never trust us right away.” of collections and exhibitions Bob Tilendis | Stephen Walker again, we let the incident go and Armed with rubber-soled coordinator, the following is my Matches Coordinator Jane Hanna rerouted our evening jog. shoes, my husband and I own personal critique of Stabler’s Operations Assistants Patrick O’Neil | Alicia Daniel Receptionists Monica Brown-Fielding | Dorie T. Greer One year later we were walk- marched to the scene twice daily article and in no way does it Robert Jacobs |Dave Thomas | Bob Tilendis ing the dogs at dawn after an for several days and kicked the reflect the views or opinions of Bookkeeper Marqueal Jordan evening’s rain on Wrightwood wires in hopes that our elected the organization. Circulation Manager Perry A. Kim toward Jonquil Park—a route officials had fixed the problem. What framed the author’s Circulation Fred Adams | Sadar Bahar | Neil Bagwell we’ve passed for five years since When the sparks continued to fly writing exercise as a muddled Kriss Bataille Mark Blade | Michael Boltz | Jeff Boyd living in the neighborhood. we decided to take our story and article was his attempt to expli- Michael Bulington |Bill Daniel | Tom Frederick Kennedy Greenrod | Nathan Greer |Scott Harris |John Holland All of a sudden Libby started pictures to the local media. cate to the reader a mini-history Josh Hudson | Sasha Kadukov |Thomas Kolinski yelping and something threw E-mails (“Sparks Fly in on how “weird” and “sort of Dave Leoschke | James McArdle | Shane McDougall her into the brick wall of Lincoln Park”) and pictures to creepy” the reception outsider/ John Merton | Dave Miedzianski | Terry Nelson |Gerald Perdue Wrightwood Tap and back to the local CBS, NBC, and ABC self-taught art has had, and con- Doug Scharin | Phil Schuster |Dorian Tajbakhsh |David Thomas Stephen Walker |Dan Worland the other side into the mailbox. affiliates yielded no response. An tinues to have, in Chicago, and This time I didn’t let it go. e-mail to the Chicago Tribune how that affects the contempo- As I was walking home from resulted in a reporter correcting rary art scene of today. Information Systems Director Jerry Davis Information Systems Project Manager Conrad Hunter the el that evening I purposely my usage of the term electrocu- That Stabler equates the rise Information Systems James Crandall | John Dunlevy | Doug Fawley passed by the scene. I surveyed tion, as that apparently means “to of outsider art in Chicago with Special Projects Coordinator Lisa Martain Hoffer the area for any clue that would cause death” and not simply to the demise of a contemporary art Web Developer Brantley Harris explain what happened earlier cause harm or trauma. And while continued on page 20 that day. Broken glass? Thorns from a tree? Nails from National Advertising The Ruxton Group, 1-888-2-RUXTON the rehab construction that New York |Chicago|Phoenix |San Francisco Wrightwood Tap was undergo- ing? As I was retracing the steps and expanding my search CHICAGO READER 11 E. Illinois, Chicago, IL 60611 within a five-foot radius of our 312-828-0350 path, I didn’t realize that I was www.chicagoreader.com about to step on the culprit: a For recorded information on placing classified ads, live, exposed wire sticking out call 312-828-1140 (24 hours).

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CHICAGO READER, INC. President Robert A. Roth Vice President Robert E. McCamant Treasurer Thomas K. Yoder Executive Editor Michael Lenehan 4CHICAGO READER | JUNE 30, 2006 | SECTION ONE

[email protected] Hot Type www.chicagoreader.com/hottype

What Ozzie Meant He picked a crude way to say it, but Ozzie Guillen isn’t the only one who thinks Jay Mariotti isn’t doing his job right.

By Michael Miner year from now someone will ask Ozzie Guillen, A “What about that sensitiv- ity training?” and he’ll say some- thing like “Took a correspon- dence course—my son helped me fill in the answers,” and the world will laugh. Jay Mariotti won’t laugh. The Sun-Times columnist isn’t the type to laugh or be laughed with. He’s a humorless loner. And when the White Sox man- ager called him a “fucking fag,” writers around town wagged a finger at Guillen but sidled away from Mariotti. “I’ve got a lot of reporters jeal- ous of me. To hell with them,” Mariotti told me. “I call those reporters ‘housemen.’ They need to take care of themselves and break some stories in town.” EFF ROBERSON (GUILLEN) /J

Over the years sportswriters TO have complained to me—per-

haps out of jealousy, though I), AP PHO I’ve never thought so—that TT Mariotti takes shots but doesn’t show up in clubhouses. Last Friday the Tribune’ s Rick

Morrissey went public with THAN MANDELL (MARIO NA that indictment. He noted, in Jay Mariotti, Ozzie Guillen Tribspeak, that Guillen had called Mariotti a “derogatory ance in the Sox’s clubhouse. matter of fairness.” departed slugger Frank why the commissioner of base- term for a homosexual.” Mariotti doesn’t believe it’s There’s never been any love Thomas the “Big Skirt.” ball would only give him a fine, Morrissey wrote, “Inexcusable his duty as a columnist to lost between Mariotti and his What about that? host Phil which is probably light, and and indefensible,” then added meet and greet the people he Sun-Times rival, Rick Telander, Ponce asked Mariotti Monday sensitivity training. ...If this context. “Guillen considers has ripped. ...I do know one who last Monday wrote roughly evening on Chicago Tonight. is all Ozzie is going to do, if the same thing: “What Guillen Mariotti replied that “Blizzard this is just a silly little thing, Mariotti recalls “Ozzie Guillen kept bringing up was his old- of Oz” is clever and harmless. then what is Ozzie going to school feeling that something As for “Big Skirt”—it somehow gain out of it?” butt-naked standing behind me in is wrong with the world when vanished in Mariotti’s own Ponce repeatedly asked the clubhouse doing a hip salute” a writer—to wit: Mariotti— blizzard of words. “If you’ve Mariotti to elaborate on some- can write at times personally read my column I haven’t com- thing he’d said on the radio and Thomas “telling me he’s going hurtful commentary about plained about me being called about his own paper not stand- Ozzie and his team without this name [fag],” he told Ponce. ing behind him, but Mariotti to stick the bat up my ass sideways.” ever being physically present “I am detaching myself from wouldn’t. He came across as a in front of them.” Telander help- it and looking at the manager tough guy who’d decided to hang Mariotti a coward for not back- thing: If you’re a sports colum- fully reminded readers that of the White Sox who used a on to his job. ing up his often-angry columns nist, you show up in the club- Mariotti’s column has called slur a year ago and—these are Mariotti told me the day with even an occasional appear- house to face the music. It’s a Guillen the “Blizzard of Oz,” serious issues now, Phil—and Morrissey’s column appeared CHICAGO READER | JUNE 30, 2006 | SECTION ONE 5

® The Straight Dope by Cecil Adams

When I’m feeling cynical about well-publicized criminal trials, I sometimes use the timeworn phrase “they’ve never hung a millionaire in the U.S.” Certainly Ican’t think of one. But is it that he shuns the Sox clubhouse That’s journalism. But witness true? —Timothy G. Merker, Chicago because of a series of “ugly, is journalism’s irreducible core. vicious episodes that went And sportswriters are the most unaddressed.” Then he e-mailed old-fashioned of journalists and f the expression “You simply cannot me a 12-episode list, dating athletes the most old-fashioned hang a millionaire in America,” attrib- back to a column he wrote of other people. Clubhouses are I uted to politician and orator William accusing Sox owner Jerry where jocks and scribes circle Bourke Cockran (1854-1923), is time- worn, Tim, it’s not from overuse—Google Reinsdorf and Milwaukee and sniff each other. Mariotti turns up a big four hits. That tells you Brewers owner Bud Selig— boasts of his sources in other something about U.S. attitudes right there, now baseball’s commissioner— places, but he’s remarkably because the fact is, while a few millionaires of leading a 1992 coup against estranged from this environ- have gone to the gallows (chair, whatever), then-commissioner Fay ment, where the circlers and we haven’t hanged many. Let’s count: Vincent. “I was highly critical,” sniffers ultimately piss on the Labor racketeer Louis “Lepke” Buchalter made millions in the 1920s and ’30s. Under Mariotti told me. “Soon after- same hydrants. investigation for extortion and murder, ward Reinsdorf’s secretary Lepke—head of the notorious organized- called and said I am never to crime hit squad nicknamed Murder, Inc.— talk to him again.” waged a “war of extermination” against potential informants. Dozens died, but the Ultimately Mariotti blames Good News UG SIGNORINO Reinsdorf for everything, scorched-earth policy backfired, encourag- SL ing targets to take their chances with the including “Ozzie Guillen butt- About law; one witness at Buchalter’s eventual naked standing behind me in murder trial in 1941 agreed to testify only and two others at sea without a legitimate and imprisoned but spared the noose. the clubhouse doing a hip the First after being shot in the head on Buchalter’s trial. Though probably not a millionaire in a Texas oilman T. Cullen Davis, acquitted of salute” and Thomas “telling me instructions. Buchalter was convicted 1842 dollars, Secretary Spencer could have the 1976 murder of his estranged wife’s he’s going to stick the bat up Amendment despite spending an estimated quarter mil- mounted a defense for his son worthy of O.J. daughter. a my ass sideways.” lion on his defense. He appealed as far as Because the hangings were extralegal, Real estate heir Thomas Capano, convicted the U.S. Supreme Court but was finally elec- of the 1996 murder of his girlfriend in So sayonara to the clubhouse. The Illinois Supreme Court Mackenzie was later court-martialed for trocuted in 1944. That’s one. murder but got off with a verdict of “not Delaware; death sentence reduced to life “Clubhouse columnists don’t get finally spoke last week in Solaia Perhaps other executed crime bosses proved,” possibly because he had influential without parole. shit in clubhouses,” Mariotti v. Specialty Publishing, deliver- were millionaires. One candidate is drug supporters of his own—his brother had a Robert Durst, another real estate heir, told me. He turned philosophi- ing a judgment that comforted kingpin Juan Garza, exact worth unknown, recently been elected to Congress. acquitted of the 2001 murder of an elderly cal. He said that when Guillen the state’s guardians of the First executed by the feds in 2001 for murder. In 1780 Americans captured Benedict drifter in Texas. And many more. Prosecutors often don’t called him a fag he could have Amendment. At risk in this Call that two. Arnold’s British handler, Major John André. After that pickings are slim. Dr. John even pursue the death penalty against the gone looking for Guillen in the case was the fair-report privi- He wasn’t a millionaire but his father had Webster was a professor at the been, adjusting for inflation. André, not con- rich—think O.J. Simpson, Robert Blake, Phil clubhouse. He thought about it. lege, the doctrine that shields Massachusetts Medical College. Not a mil- sidering himself a spy, voluntarily testified Spector, and John du Pont (of the chemical du “But what would have hap- journalists from legal liability lionaire strictly speaking, Webster inherited without counsel before a board of officers. Ponts). You needn’t hire a Johnnie Cochran or pened? He could have hit me. if they accurately report defama- $50,000 (today worth about a million) but Conclusion: spy. Recommendation: death. a Clarence Darrow to get the treatment. An He could have choked me. He tory statements made in a pub- had squandered it by 1849, when a creditor The British spurned a proposed André- analysis of Georgia cases showed that prose- cutors were almost twice as likely to ask for could have just screamed at lic forum, such as a lawsuit or a came to collect a debt and the strapped Arnold exchange, and the major hanged. Webster killed, dismembered, and partially So the tally is one or two crime bosses the death penalty when the defendant me—best-case scenario. What city council meeting. The court cremated him. Still, he had rich friends who and a few long-ago toffs lacking funds. You couldn’t afford a lawyer. Nationwide an esti- exactly does that serve? I refuse left the privilege healthier than pledged $2,000 for his defense. Disclaiming say the rich don’t commit murders as mated 90-plus percent of those arrested for to be part of this flying circus. If they found it. all knowledge of the body parts found in his often? True, but even a partial list of well- capital crimes are too poor to retain experi- he wants to call and meet like a “Plainly, freedom of the press is laboratory, however, Webster could con- off, well-connected defendants who could enced private counsel. In Kentucky, a quarter of death row inmates were defended by man and not in front of his frat illusory if a cloud of defamation vince no lawyer to defend him, and his have hanged but didn’t is impressive: appointed attorneys couldn’t save him. He a Congressman Dan Sickles, found tem- lawyers who were later disbarred (or resigned house, I’m available. But not in liability darkens the media’s confessed before he was hanged. porarily insane in the 1859 killing of his to avoid disbarment); other states are similar. that circus. That’s the jock men- reports of official proceedings,” Philip Spencer, son of the secretary of wife’s lover. A few states have offices dedicated to provid- tality, and I don’t buy into it.” wrote Justice Thomas Fitzgerald, war, was acting midshipman on the U.S. brig- a Harry K. Thaw, son of a railroad baron, ing a proper defense for capital defendants, I’ve been writing about in an opinion signed by four of the of-war Somers when accused of fomenting found insane in the 1906 slaying of archi- but a Texas jurist summed up the attitude Mariotti since he arrived in six other justices. “We hold that mutiny in 1842. Commander Alexander tect Stanford White. elsewhere: “The Constitution does not say that the lawyer has to be awake.” So is it Chicago 15 years ago. I don’t the fair report privilege does not Mackenzie, fearing more crewmen would a Wealthy college students Nathan turn mutinous and having no place to Leopold and Richard Loeb; pleaded guilty cynical to oppose the death penalty on such think we’ve ever met. yield to allegations that a media securely hold them, hanged Spencer, only 18, to the 1924 thrill killing of a boy in Chicago grounds? Nah. Just realistic. Columnists write all the time defendant reported with actual about people they wouldn’t rec- malice false statements made in ognize if they passed them in the an official proceeding.” The court Comments, questions? Take it up with Cecil on the Straight Dope Message Board, www.straightdope.com, street. Editorial writers offer reversed a 2005 opinion from or write him at the Chicago Reader, 11 E. Illinois, Chicago 60611. Cecil’s most recent compendium of knowledge, coruscating opinions of people Appellate Judge Anne Burke sug- Triumph of the Straight Dope, is available at bookstores everywhere. they don’t know and places gesting the privilege does yield. they’ve never been. continued on page 6 6CHICAGO READER | JUNE 30, 2006 | SECTION ONE

Hot Type

continued from page 5 distant state, seemingly remote editorial worth reading. But the occupies the site: trees, flowers, Burke joins the court in July, and News Bites from the lives of Tribune read- Tribune didn’t think it through. fountains, benches, and occa- journalists and First Amendment ers—an indefensible indulgence. “A false accusation creates deep sionally bands that play noon attorneys wondered how willing a The financial troubles and and lasting damage,” it conclud- concerts. A shorter copy of the the court would be to contradict board struggles besetting the a “So what should we think of ed. “It does not create a license to AMA tower that shares the block her. Because Chief Justice Bob Tribune Company are being cov- Ro Marr Gipson?” the Tribune commit mayhem.” was supposed to be built there, Thomas is pursuing a defamation ered as a business story, but the editorial page wondered on June This was a retreat into ba- and to the relief of lots of people, suit against a columnist for the product of that business is jour- 21. At the age of seven Ro Marr nality. Arguing against a license it wasn’t. But according to Kane County Chronicle, he didn’t nalism. This week’s three-part was wrongly accused of the mur- no serious person would argue Roeder, developer John Buck take part in the case. Tribune series by Steve Mills and der of Ryan Harris; now a 15- for evaded the difficult ques- now hopes to put up a hotel. Justice Charles Freeman dis- Maurice Possley on the 1989 exe- year-old, he’s just been charged tion the Tribune had raised in Roeder hinted at the charm of sented in part. He argued that cution in Texas of a man who was with aggravated battery with a the first place: what should we this space later in his column the privilege shouldn’t protect probably innocent was frighten- firearm. “Is he a victim because think of Ro Marr Gipson? when he called it a “popular journalists covering a suit until ingly good. Few papers would of the trauma he suffered eight outdoor respite for River North some judicial action has been have bothered with the sad story years ago. ...Or is he simply a There’s no building along the office workers.” As he might taken on it, otherwise suits of Carlos De Luna; what’s fright- another teenager accused of a north side of Illinois Street oppo- have noted, it’s a respite from might be filed simply to pro- ening is the possibility that the coldhearted crime?” site the Reader building, but that the cheap beige shoe boxes Buck vide defamation with legal pro- Tribune could turn into one of the But Ro Marr is both. The doesn’t make this space a “long has thrown up around it, turn- tection. But the majority pre- many that wouldn’t, if different or Tribune had proposed a paradox, vacant site,” which is what the ing River North into the city’s ferred a more expansive read- chastened owners decree stories and if the paper had thought it Sun-Times’s David Roeder called most conspicuous wasted plan- ing of the privilege. such as this one—set years ago in a through, this would have been an it in a June 21 column. A park ning opportunity. v CHICAGO READER | JUNE 30, 2006 | SECTION ONE 7 8CHICAGO READER | JUNE 30, 2006 | SECTION ONE

The Works [email protected]

The Tax Vortex The latest round of assessments heralding property tax increases of as much as 50 percent are coming.

By Ben Joravsky ot even 15 minutes into 46 percent—from this year. the workshop on property “Look at your income. Has it N taxes, a man in the back of gone up 46 percent? I doubt it,” the room could contain himself says state rep John Fritchey, no longer. “We cannot continue whose north-side district covers to pay at this rate,” he pro- parts of Lakeview Township. “It’s claimed, his voice cracking as he simple math—we have a tax interrupted a local alderman’s that’s rising faster than our abili- opening remarks. ty to pay it.” More than 300 north-siders As public policy this spells were crammed into the June 20 trouble. Our schools, parks, city, meeting sponsored by Cook and county depend on taxes County assessor James more and more people can’t Houlihan. “We need change,” a afford to pay. woman exclaimed. “Yoo-hoo? Is Even our elected officials are anyone listening?” feeling the pinch. Based on the Taxpayer discontent has been rise in his assessment, my alder- brewing since April, when the man, Eugene Schulter, can assessor’s office began sending expect to pay about $12,000 in out new north-side property taxes, up 74.5 percent. My con- assessments for the next three- gressman, Rahm Emanuel, will year period. “The pitchforks are pay $16,000, up 71 percent, and out, the peasants are restless,” Fritchey, my state rep, will pay cracked one state rep. “I sense about $20,000, up 44 percent. a revolt.” “My taxes were at $4,000 when I How much of a revolt may bought my home nine years ago,” depend on the sophistication of Fritchey says. “That’s, what, a the peasantry. Assessments on $16,000 increase in ten years? the north side are up as much as This isn’t some abstract, theoret- 50 percent. But an assessment ical debate. This is real.” alone won’t tell you what your Don’t blame Houlihan, says property taxes are going to be. To Fritchey: he’s just the messenger. figure that out you need to multi- (By the way, Houlihan figures to ply your property’s assessed pay $28,000 in property taxes value by the “state equalizer” on his Lincoln Park home next (a figure devised by the Illinois year, up 48 percent.) Three years Department of Revenue to even ago Houlihan helped convince out assessments across the state), the Illinois General Assembly to then subtract next year’s home pass a so-called tax cap, which in owner’s exemption of $4,500, fact was simply a temporary then multiply that total by the increase in the home owner’s tax rate. Using this year’s equal- exemption, from $4,500 to izer and tax rate (both vary $20,000; it ends next year. In annually), you can get at least a the spring he lobbied the assem- rough idea of what you’ll be bly to pass a bill, sponsored by asked to cough up next year. Fritchey, that would increase the

For example, the assessable exemption to $60,000 for the T value of my north-side house next three years. Had that bill REWIT rose from $44,500 in 2003 to passed, property taxes through- $55,400 this year. Multiply that out the city would have gone ARCHER P by the current state equalizer of down or stayed roughly the 2.5757, subtract the home same. In my case, I’d be looking ing and inconsistent even by assembly. House speaker Carol Ronen—who represents owner’s exemption, and multiply to pay around $4,800, a 19.4 Springfield standards. Mayor Michael Madigan voted for the Edgewater, which is getting clob- that by the tax rate of 6.28 per- percent decrease. Daley declared his support but bill but also failed to rally his bered by rising assessments— cent, and it looks like I’ll be According to Fritchey, you didn’t lobby for it aggressively— troops behind it. Governor avoided taking a stand by voting liable for $8,678 in property could write a book on why the he was out of the country on May Blagojevich said he favored it, present. (Ronen did not return taxes, up $2,731—an increase of bill failed—the vote was confus- 3, the day it came before the but one of his senate leaders, my calls for comment.) CHICAGO READER | JUNE 30, 2006 | SECTION ONE 9

Blaine School would like to thank all the people and businesses who generously contributed to our Full Day Kindergarten Fundraiser. With your donations, we reached our goal of $120,000 for four full day kindergarten classes!

The bill was not without A special thank you to the businesses listed below. Thank you flaws. As even Fritchey admits, one of its major weaknesses was all for supporting quality education for our children. that it offered no relief for com- mercial or industrial property Casey Morans owners, who are also under Chicago Cubs siege from rising property DePaul Electric Services taxes. Many business groups opposed it on the grounds that Fourth World, LTD it would force commercial Ginger’s Ale House (Chicago Drinking Co.) property taxes up. Hye Bar But the most compelling rea- Landrosh Development son the bill failed to pass is Mark Brown probably the most obvious one: Daley, Madigan, and Blago- Renaissance Vintage Homes jevich can’t afford to cut off the The Homestead Group stream of revenue from proper- UPS ty taxes. Cut the property tax Wrigleyville Dairy Queen take and you’re going to have to either cut programs or replace it with some other kind of tax. “Nobody wants to make the first move,” says one state rep, “so nothing gets done.” The house voted against the bill, the proposed $60,000 exemption vanished, and with the $20,000 exemption revert- ing to $4,500, there’s not much cushion against rising assess- ments, thus setting the stage for “ Home Movie Day is an orgy a taxpayers’ revolt. At last week’s workshop, speaker after speaker decried waste in government and of self- discovery, a chance for vowed to vote incumbents out of office unless the system changes. family memories to suddenly “Where’s the tipping point? When is this going to stop?” one become show business. If you've got speaker bellowed. “I’m told my property went up 50 percent. But I haven’t got that money. I one whip itout and show itnow. " haven’t sold my property!” On the stage 44th Ward alder- man Tom Tunney, 32nd Ward alderman Ted Matlak, and 43rd -John Waters Ward alderman Vi Daley nodded their heads in sympathy. “I’m with you—you want to keep fighting the system, it’s OK with me,” said Matlak, as though soar- ing property taxes were all about rising assessments and had noth- ing to with the fat budgets and tax increment financing districts the council has routinely approved all these years. Fritchey says he’ll resurrect his bill to expand the home owner’s exemption during the assembly’s Find those fabulous old veto session in November. But the political calendar works home movies to show at against any form of systemic Chicago Home Movie Day. relief or change, as one of Houlihan’s aides pointed out to Saturday,August 12 atthe me near the end of the work- shop. Taxpayers will be receiving Cultural Center. It’s sooner their assessment notices, which than you think so start roll out in stages—the northwest side’s up next—throughout the looking now! For more information call: summer. But property owners 773 478 3799 won’t feel the bite until late next summer, when the county mails or visit our website at: the first tax bills reflecting the www.chicagofilmarchives.org new assessments. By then this fall’s gubernatorial and next or visit: February’s mayoral elections will be long over, the winners safely www.homemovieday.com ensconced in office for another CFA is generously supported by: four years. Unless the public Ascent Media comes to understand the mean- Chicago Film Office ing of this summer’s assessment Cinetech notices, there won’t be enough i-cubed anger to force the mayor, gover- Illinois Humanities Council nor, or house speaker to change the system. “I wouldn’t wait for a miracle,” This project is partially supported by a Community Arts Assistance Program grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency remarked Houlihan’s aide as he handed me a tax-appeal form. “I’d file your appeal now.” v 10 CHICAGO READER | JUNE 30, 2006 | SECTION ONE

Chicago Antisocial [email protected]

release. “I’ll go out and spend a thousand dollars and my hus- band will come home and be like, ‘Baby, what did you do?’’’ said the older one. “And I’ll say, ‘Just pay for it.’” I’m no fan of monogamy. Several of my relationships have gone sour because of my polyamorous ways. Almost all my friends are technically swingers— they sleep with one another and whomever, and committed rela- tionships are rare. None of them go to parties like this. I asked the two women why not go to a regular club and flirt, if that’s all it is? “It’s society,” the older of the two answered. “Society doesn’t say it’s OK to do this.” I wonder if that’s the same society that says shopping is the answer to heartache.

Vice Hates Chicago

Vice supposedly recruited its cool friends in town to write the guide to Chicago that circulated last weekend at Intonation, which its record label arm was recruited to curate. But only two short sections are bylined—there’s a travelogue by a New Yorker ER who came for a party once with AU Chloe Sevigny, and the other’s by Arthur Jones, who moved ANDREA B Counterclockwise: Joe Morrone and a guest, the Pyrex dildo, house party guests after the bust, Vice's afterparty at Sonotheque away in 2005. Whoever’s behind it, though, clearly wishes they were in New York—so why don’t they get the fuck out? The places listed in the 66-page booklet can be found here, but the attitude can’t. According to Vice our music venues are lame, there’s nowhere to buy good records or clothes, everything has a dorky name, and we’re all fat. “Chicago is a A Swinging Affair totally depressing town to live in,” begins the chapter on gay nightlife. Of course they make Do sexual explorers really need a party planner? fun of me too. They printed a photo where I look like a bony By Liz Armstrong crack addict, and say I called henever someone demonstrated the most curious (flauntparty.com) “heavy petting, from another mother,” said the myself “THE party girl of makes a promise with item on her table of “bedroom kissing and touching are very older of the two. Chicago”—which maybe I did. W an extremely loud dis- enhancers,” a Pyrex dildo with a common and are not discour- They talked about being At the party in question I was claimer, it should raise a red crank, by lubing up my cupped aged. There’s nothing more erotic exhausted after chasing the kids wasted on $300 pink champagne flag. So when Joe Morrone invit- hands and twisting it inside. than going right to the edge but around all day and what a strain and could feel myself acting ed me to one of his adamantly Looking around the dimly lit having to curb your desires and it was to smile and get dinner on like an idiot. no-pressure Flaunt parties, “a room we saw a handful of well- go absolutely wild after the the table when their husbands But here’s the thing: even Vice monthly party of sensually dressed couples—I’m guessing FLAUNTPARTY!” get home. They don’t want to doesn’t like Vice. Cofounder sophisticated couples and unin- most in their late 30s—sipping Morrone told me he’s been burden their men with more Gavin McInnes, who was in hibited single women who want cocktails and sneaking peeks at married 16 years and doesn’t problems—they have their own town to do stupid skits between to share their interest in erotic one another. Two hot-bodied believe in monogamy. “We’ve stuff to deal with at work. bands at Intonation, told me exploration”—according to the young women walked around in been through a lot,” he said, “but Plus, they add, they’re not he absolutely did not want press release—I imagined glory the tiniest bikinis you could ever all the crazy shit is what’s kept us doing their wifely duties. “My to go to his own afterparty at holes and sex swings. imagine. They were models together.” He said he goes out mom tells me that if I’m not giv- Sonotheque on Saturday. When The theme of the most recent Morrone hired to make people and “has fun” twice a month but ing it up he’s gonna get it some- I said I knew of a house party, he Flaunt was bikinis and sushi. To feel at ease, they said. They were he doesn’t give his wife details where else,” said the younger turned up his nose. His buddy show some spirit, photographer supposed to flirt with the couples because she’s not that into it. She one. “I’m lying awake, the bed’s Pinky, of TV Carnage, came Andrea Bauer and I wore modest and give lap dances and let peo- was there that night, though. He shaking next to me, and I feel though, and had a gay ol’ time two-pieces under trashy clothes. ple rub tanning oil on them. introduced me to her and she really bad, but I’m just not into until the cops showed up. We walked into a private party A Flaunt membership is free, nodded and smiled at me it. I’m so tired.” That’s what’s so great about room upstairs at the Lincoln but you have to have your appli- through clenched teeth. She was “I know I’m not the prettiest Chicago: the cops bust our par- Park joint Tsuki and were greet- cation approved by Morrone. It’s running the sushi table. woman,” said the older one, who ties, sending us fleeing around ed by some man’s waxed bum open to couples and bi or straight I chatted up two women, one was pretty. “I gotta keep my man.” the corner to loiter at the taco bobbing up and down as a busty single women between 21 and of whom has been married for At least when they come to stand, getting in friendly fist- naked brunette gave him a 40; men can only get in with a six years, the other for ten; both Flaunt parties they can see fights and kicking it with gang- hearty blow job. female companion. Morrone says are stay-at-home mothers. They what’s going on. I asked them bangers. Then we can insist we It was a porno screening on a they’re looking for sexually confi- told me they came here for their why they seemed more con- could’ve had tons more fun but laptop—one of the items offered dent extroverts who care about husbands, both of whom work in cerned about their husbands’ the pigs had to ruin it, when in for sale by Monica Rivera, who how they look. No sex is allowed, sales. The two just met that needs than their own and they reality the party would’ve just runs a roving erotic boutique. She but according to the Web site night. “I keep saying we’re sisters said they used shopping as a gone downhill from there. v CHICAGO READER | JUNE 30, 2006 | SECTION ONE 11 12 CHICAGO READER | JUNE 30, 2006 | SECTION ONE

[snip] Ten years of silence. Remembering the 1996 suit against she walked victorious from an Amarillo, Texas, courthouse ...she has Oprah, who’d publicized the risks of mad cow disease, John Stauber of never re-visited the subject of mad cow disease in America on her the Center for Media and Democracy writes, “Ultimately Oprah won program, and her lawyers have even bottled up the April 16, 1996, Our Town her lawsuit, after spending millions of dollars and years of her life program itself so that the historic video footage is not easily available.” defending herself.” But, he adds, “even though Oprah talked tough as —Harold Henderson | [email protected]

way home. Fire can claim a loyal patron base, built up over the years Business through her avid engagement with the community and with niceties like free food on Sundays, but by Up in Smoke March she was in trouble. Smokers headed to the back patio or out onto At Big Chicks, good the sidewalk for a puff, but business intentions ran afoul fell off, on the worst nights by as much as 50 percent. She had to lay of the free market. off a manager and a bartender, and when two other employees left she By Martha Bayne didn’t replace them, trying to cover ichelle Fire’s Uptown bar, their shifts herself. She hoped the Big Chicks, went smoke free arrival of warm weather would M on January 16. Nonsmokers help, and it did. But it brought a loved it, and so did people who were new problem: in the last few weeks trying to quit. Even some smokers the number of smokers outside seemed to appreciate not waking up the bar prompted one neighbor to in the morning reeking of someone complain to the cops. else’s stale Camel Lights. “We almost On Friday, June 16, Fire caved. She did it,” says Fire. “It was pretty darn announced to her e-mail list, after close—we just didn’t quite make it.” thanking her patrons for their sup- When the City Council passed the port through the “tough winter and smoking ban last December, it gave rainy spring,” that she would, start- freestanding bars and taverns until ing the next day, allow smoking in July 1, 2008, to comply, but Fire fig- the main bar after 9 PM. The adja- ured why wait. She canvassed her cent “salon,” a similarly long, skinny, regulars, and the feedback was over- if better-lit room running parallel to whelmingly in favor of banning the main bar, would remain smoke smoking immediately. free, as would her neighboring Long and narrow, with ceiling restaurant Tweet (which has always fans providing most of the circula- been nonsmoking). tion, the 20-year-old bar at 5024 It’s hard to say how many other N. Sheridan was by all accounts bars have tried to go smoke free pretty stinky. On a busy night, one ahead of the deadline. Bucktown’s regular told me, you didn’t even Charleston axed smoking back in have to light up—the secondhand October. Owner Wendy Pick says she smoke was enough. Fire worried lost a few regulars but gained some about losing some customers but new ones, and while business is a lit- thought the benefits were worth tle slower—down about 25 percent at the risk. “My mother was a smoker. its worst—it started coming back up My best friends are smokers, and I this spring. “It’s my bar and it’s my know their decisions are based on decision,” she says. “I love my regu- where they can smoke. But it was lars, but I’m a cancer survivor, and I an emotional decision. One of my couldn’t stand it anymore.”

best friends was dying of emphy- Others have gone for creative com- ARNER sema, and it just seemed like the promise. At Schubas you can smoke ROB W right thing to do.” in the front room only, while the Michelle Fire with patrons Jamie Barton and Paul Haviu On the night of January 15 Fire Hideout has a floating smoking poli- greeted patrons with free cigs cy (front bar only, back room only, fered a drop in business, but they’re Big Chicks caters to a mostly gay and the exhortation “Smoke your outside only) subject to the wishes of also music venues and have some- and lesbian clientele, and gay bars lungs out.” She even encouraged the bartender on duty and the bands thing to offer patrons beyond cock- across town are a bit ahead of the them to steal the ashtrays on their onstage. Neither appears to have suf- tails and clean air. nonsmoking curve. One of the six CHICAGO READER | JUNE 30, 2006 | SECTION ONE 13

[snip] Things that no longer go without saying. Economist Brad DeLong and jour- nalism prof Susan Rasky write at niemanwatchdog.org: “Government is not a glam- orous gathering of celebrities. Government is not a sports cage match. Journalism is not a gossip circle. Report on government as you would report to your siblings on What Are You Wearing? the rental agent your mother hired to handle her Florida condo.” —HH

rooms at Halsted Street’s popular Sidetrack has been smoke free since 2004. The Minibar, also on Halsted, Crusades opened in late 2005 as a nonsmok- ing spot, and the owners are plan- ning to open a smoke-free wine bar The Creatures’ next door sometime soon. But when T’s, in Andersonville, tried to go Correspondent smoke free in January, patrons made their displeasure clear, and Mention the environment, the ban only lasted a few days. animals, or meat in print Smoking’s now allowed at the bar only. “It’s hard to please everybody,” and chances are you’ll hear says a manager. “It certainly would from Brien Comerford. have been easier if the city had just made a complete ban and then we By Patrick Daily wouldn’t have had a choice.” rien Comerford can be count-

Last Wednesday, a few days into ed on to take the bait. All IS the new policy, Big Chicks seemed B kinds of bait. Whenever ani- AV busy enough. Twenty or so men and mals, the environment, or vegetari- JOEFF D a few women hung around the bar anism come up in a publication, he’s Dustin Senovic while members of the Euchre Club sure to fire off a letter. Over the last of Chicago hunched over tables in dozen years he’s written 15 to 30 mis- the salon, wrapping up their twice- sives a week lashing out at what he The Dandy weekly game. Near the door, above considers the mistreatment of ani- a life-size cutout of brassy vaude- mals. “I love to write, so I just decid- ville legend Eva Tanguay that’s ed I’m going to respond to whatever often mistaken for Fire herself, a I read. It’s like a stimulus/response,” Shoe Salesman mirror ball swayed in the breeze he says. “I feel my blood pressure go from the fans. Behind the bar up, and I just have to respond.” stacks of Juicy Fruit and Big Red Despite often feeling powerless ustin Senovic, 21, who sells shoes wearing in the fall a lot. The pants are his philosophy on fashion, to free the shared shelf space with a box of about animal abuse, Comerford D at City Soles by day, is a self-pro- really lightweight, so they’re saving me body. The way I dress is the way I paint claimed dandy by night. right now. myself. Why should I buy baggy jeans Nicorette bearing a little handwrit- believes that “the letters can do some and large oversize T-shirts, or whatever ten sign: 2 FOR 75 CENTS. Maybe good, if they’re read. I don’t think I’m You look very Oscar Wilde. Is that what I remember seeing you last summer in men are wearing these days? ten people were smoking. writing in vain.” His scrapbook con- you were going for? riding boots and a turtleneck. “I think she had a good idea— tains some 300 published samples— I guess you could say I pull some things I’m definitely into being warm. You go into women’s shops and buy she was just ahead of her time” all the ones he could find. He almost from that period, but I wasn’t really women’s clothes? Occasionally. The majority of tight said Richard Wagner, a regular never knows if messages sent to going for a particular era. What do you think you dress like? I think it’s medieval. I like clothes that jeans in my closet are women’s jeans. and a smoker. “Unfortunately, British periodicals, for instance, What’s that crucifix in your pocket? can be worn well by both women and where there’s gay men and alcohol make it into print. That I thrifted. I think it’s made out of men. I like to push limits and buttons. What is a dandy to you? there’s going to be smoking.” Comerford says his tactic for get- antique spoons or forks. The societal idea of a dandy means Wagner stuck with the bar through ting published is going for emotional You’re really into androgyny. dressed how I am, but to me it’s any the winter, huddling on the patio appeal over “intellectual brilliance.” Aren’t you hot? I love it. I kind of think there shouldn’t sort of man who stretches the limits of be any other form of fashion. You know fashion, society, and has integrity to his with the other smokers. He points So he sputters like Jeremiah racking Whenever I think of fashion I’m think- ing ahead. This is something I’ll be the designer Andre Courreges? I love own style. —Liz Armstrong out that even loyal patrons like him his brain for just the right invective. contributed to the bar’s money The world’s resources are threatened woes—when you’re outside smok- by the “tyrannical domination of ing all night you aren’t inside sausage czars and poultry promulga- spending money on drinks. tors,” he declared in a 2001 letter to Another man, who didn’t want me the Reader, adding a la Jesse Jackson Cook County from 1978 to 1994, Comerford. A self-described messed- to use his name, said he lives around that such practices are a “further Comerford grew up on the northwest up nonpracticing Catholic, he the corner and has been coming to indication of a mental aberration side with his parents and two sisters. nonetheless anchors his animal- the bar for years—but when Big delighting in its abominations.” He’s As far back as he can remember he rights activism in the belief that Chicks banned smoking? “I went to railed against “meat moguls and had an aversion to meat—except mammals, reptiles, and fish are all Sidetrack.” He thinks that Fire made poultry profiteers butchering beasts,” burnt hamburger. He says he real- creatures of God. “The thing that a big mistake in January, but that and in regard to cockfighting he’s ized it came from cows only in his really frustrates me,” he says, “is how she’s making a bigger mistake now, written that “anthropocentric propo- teens, and since 18 he’s been a strict organized religions, especially because no one will be happy. nents of the atrocity exhibition are vegetarian. Now 45 and working in Christianity, have completely abdi- “Everything we’re going through is emblematic of impoverished mental- personnel at the Cook County high- cated their responsibility to ever really like a trial run for what the rest ities.” That last bit prompted a way department, he began his cam- speak out against any type of cruelty of the city is going to go through,” response in the Reader’s letters from paign in 1994 when he responded to to animals.” says Fire. “I thought of it as a noble a Brian Cox, who argued that this a Sun-Times reporter’s poll on An inveterate name-dropper in experiment, and everyone’s come was the “finest evidence I’ve seen yet whether people should feed pigeons. support of the cause, Comerford can away from it with a better under- that access to a thesaurus should be (“We should,” he said.) A few days rattle off lists of prominent Christian standing of the other side’s position.” regulated.” But maybe Cox missed later, in the newspaper, he saw his vegetarians, among them John “I feel so guilty smoking in the point. Maybe such indignant dic- letter juxtaposed with assertions that Wesley, Salvation Army founder here,” said Wagner, sparking up a tion deserves its own brand of pigeons are “flying rats and should be William Booth, 17th-century Marlboro Light. bemused approbation. basically killed, and I said, ‘Oh, Dominican saint Martin de Porres, “Smoke ’em if you’ve got ’em,” said The son of Harry G. Comerford, they’re sentient beings and creatures and Seventh-day Adventist Church the bartender with a shrug. v chief judge of the circuit court of of God.’” God comes up a lot with continued on page 16 14 CHICAGO READER | JUNE 30, 2006 | SECTION ONE CHICAGO READER | JUNE 30, 2006 | SECTION ONE 15 16 CHICAGO READER | JUNE 30, 2006 | SECTION ONE

[snip] Headlines from hell. A Journal of the American Medical Association press release at eurekalert.org: “Use of anti-depressant does not decrease risk of relapse for patients with anorexia nervosa.” —HH Free Shit Our Town Read Harold Henderson’s blog, Daily Harold, at chicagoreader.com Farmers’ Market Breakfast

here’ve always been lots of free treats Comerford likes their music, he’s T at the Green City Market, but new this stopped listening to it because of year is the weekly Market Breakfast Club. their meat eating. Applying this stan- The program aims to promote healthy living through good dard to the best of his ability, he esti- Market Breakfast eating: every week an mates that two-thirds of the 4,000 Club at the Green expert from somewhere like recordings in his “little discontented City Market Swedish Covenant Hospital or the world” are gathering dust. 1750 N. Clark Robert Lurie Cancer Center leads a Comerford’s no health nut: he’s not 847-424-2486 or discussion and informal Q & A on the relation- against smoking, he drinks occasion- chicagogreencity ship between what you eat and how you feel. market.org Hang out for at least a little bit and you’ll get ally, and he says his taste for junk a real treat in the form of a free breakfast of food keeps him from being a “lean, pastries, scones, and breads from bakeries like Red Hen and Bennison’s, healthy machismo machine.” (In a plus strong, fresh Intelligentsia coffee. Because really, what could possi- 2000 letter to the Reader about bly be healthier than being happy? The Market Breakfast Club meets organic farming, he asserted that “a Wednesdays through August from 9 to 9:45 AM. —Megan Roberts diet of Jack Daniels and chips is more peaceful than organically culti- [email protected] vated ‘livestock’ served irreverently on a platter.”) And even a hard-liner has his limits. Though Comerford abortion. “I was the only prolife per- says it makes him feel guilty, he feeds son there,” he says. “And I said, ‘How his cat meat because it doesn’t share can you condemn people for eating his reverence for all living things, fish or drinking milk and then say it’s which is also why the cat is never OK to have a partial-birth abortion, allowed outside. And while he which is basically infanticide, or admires People for the Ethical abortion, which I don’t know for a Treatment of Animals, he says its fact, but it may be the killing of a liv- comparison of animal abuse to the ing human being?’ I think it’s very

PEREZ Holocaust crosses a line. inconsistent to condemn people who TY The last time Comerford attended are mean to mice and then say it’s MAR Brien Comerford a local animal-rights meeting he got OK to have an abortion. serious grief for consuming a carton “But then the prolife lobby is all continued from page 13 keeping the faith: R.E.M. singer of skim milk. It comes from a cow, these right-wing Republicans who founder Ellen G. White. He also Michael Stipe dropped the ball when people cried, but Comerford stood don’t care about the environment finds inspiration in the work and he succumbed to a craving for chick- his ground, pointing out that the cow and want everybody to have a gun lives of vegetarian musicians, prowl- en, and Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush didn’t die while being milked. He and go out and hunt. The whole ing the Web to determine who’s also let him down. Though also asked who present opposed thing is screwed up.” v In the print edition of the Reader this page is occupied by a Chris Ware comic. At his request, we do not make his work available online. 18 CHICAGO READER | JUNE 30, 2006 | SECTION ONE

Bertoletti

continued from page 1 ten seconds, Bertoletti smushed gathered in the parking lot, two more tamales into his mouth, By 8 PM Janus had finished his 40th chili sweating in the sun and the hot, bringing his provisional total to sticky air, while a live band 48. But as the clock ran out he dog but was having problems of his own. played Bob Marley covers. He stood with his cheeks bulging, wandered off by himself to do unable to swallow. Minutes He took a break, swabbed ice cubes on his side stretches, listening to passed. Spectators chanted his Chicago punks Mexican name as he sat down and sipped neck, wrists, and arms, and asked if someone Cheerleader on his iPod. In the water. Finally he looked at Nerz, previous month Bertoletti had shook his head, and then grabbed could open a window. His 41st dog popped devoured nearly five pounds of the rim of the nearest trash can, deep-fried asparagus in letting loose a putrid stream of out of his mouth; he pushed it back in. Stockton, California, and 105 barely digested food. The crowd jalapeno poppers in Tucson. But let out a collective sigh. International Federation of in prize money; officials expect valuable lesson: some foods are both times someone else had First place went to Chip Competitive Eating, a circuit to see 100 contests before the harder to eat than others. devoured more. Around his Simpson, who finished 41 started in 1997 by New York City end of this year. Foods like tamales that are wrist was a rubber band that tamales, second to Tim Janus publicists George and Rich Shea. Bertoletti is what you might soft, pliable, and easy to get had held together a bunch of with 38, and third to Rich The Sheas also run the Super call a natural. In seventh grade, down are considered “fast” in the asparagus he’d eaten in prepara- LeFevre with 36. All three, Bowl of competitive eating, the he says, he ate eight burgers at a competitive eating world; others, tion for the California trip—a like Bertoletti, are nationally Nathan’s Fourth of July hot dog neighbor’s barbecue. In high like chicken wings and reminder that second or third ranked competitive eaters. eating contest at Coney Island. school he finished off ten hot asparagus, are “slow,” and their place wasn’t good enough. As they hoisted their oversize The brothers had taken over the dogs at another cookout, and at shape and texture require As the restaurant’s employees checks into the air, Bertoletti long-running event in 1991, and 16 he won a pie-eating contest at strategy. “You gotta practice,” brought out tamales a dozen at a slumped in his chair and wiped hoping to raise its profile they set his dad’s company picnic. He Bertoletti says. “You’ll try dif- time, the competition’s emcee, vomit off his shorts. up a series of qualifiers across loved to eat, obsessed about it, ferent techniques, because Ryan Nerz, introduced the 13 A man in the crowd who’d been the country. Then they added a and it showed: by age 20 he was there’s a bunch of different ways contestants, among them a rooting for him turned to a buddy string of one-offs at restaurant carrying almost 230 pounds on to eat stuff. Like, am I going to female college student, a pro and shook his head. “That’s chains, festivals, and casinos. “It his six-foot-one frame. Cooking dunk the grilled cheese in the wrestler from Baton Rouge, a $2,500 he just put in the trash.” kept getting good results in the school only provided more water and then eat it, or am I retired police officer, and a diesel media,” says George Shea, “and opportunities for gluttony. “We’d going to just take a huge bite and mechanic. Local favorite Levi ertoletti, 21, is a senior at the we got more and more calls from all make dishes, and I would taste take a drink of water after it? Oliver came out to a healthy B School of Culinary Arts at sponsors, eaters, and TV pro- them all, and I’d finish all the You gotta kind of figure it out.” round of applause, and Kendall College with a special ducers.” Over the next few years ones that I really liked,” he says. To prepare for an oyster contest Bertoletti, whom Nerz referred interest in classic French cuisine. the IFOCE began to give its “And then I would eat dinner in in New Orleans in March 2005, to as “Deep Dish,” was Someday he’d like to open his eaters quarterly rankings. the cafeteria along with that.” he ordered a few dozen wholesale announced last. They all took own place, maybe a soup shop. By 2001 the Nathan’s record In June 2004 he signed up for through Vivere, where he was their places side by side at four But he may never be as well- had inched up to 251 / 8 hot dogs. his first real eating competition, working as a line cook, and tables that had been pushed end known for his cooking as he That year a slight 23-year-old a Bacci Pizzeria eat-off his twin slurped them as practice. He got to end, packed together as tightly already is for his eating. from Japan named Takeru sister, Susan, had mentioned to through 19 dozen in ten minutes as the tamales on their plates. Bertoletti is capable of downing Kobayashi, in his first time at the him. He did well against stiff at the competition, which was Almost as soon as the contest more food at a single sitting than contest, ate 50 dogs in 12 min- competition, tying nationally loaded with IFOCE heavyweights. started, all eyes were on almost anyone else in the utes, doubling the previous ranked Rich LeFevre with five The winner, Sonya Thomas, ate Bertoletti. He had rhythm: two country, a talent that’s turned out record and drawing unheard-of slices in 15 minutes. LeFevre 46 dozen, but Bertoletti was chomps, a swig of water, and the to be quite profitable. This year media attention to competitive smoked him in the five-minute undeterred. “I got inspired talking tamale would disappear. Six and alone he’s already won nearly eating. Rich Shea refers to overtime period, but he went to a lot of the other eaters,” he a half minutes later he’d eaten $16,000 at eat-offs. Kobayashi’s feat as the “belch home determined to try again. says. “Deep down I thought I more than three dozen, breaking Bertoletti is one of competitive heard round the world.” He read up on the stars of the could do a lot better.” Oliver’s record from the year eating’s young guns, a rising star In 2002 Fox television aired IFOCE and adopted their pri- Like other endurance athletes, before. The other competitors in the new generation of athletic the Glutton Bowl, a two-hour mary training method: chugging competitive eaters teach them- started to sweat and grimace. eaters whose flair and record- showcase of IFOCE stars, and in water to stretch out the stomach. selves to recognize and push Oliver turned and vomited in a breaking feats have vastly 2004, when ESPN began broad- He started drinking a gallon at a through “the wall.” For eaters, it’s nearby trash can, thereby dis- improved the commercial appeal casting the Nathan’s contest live, time, and a couple months later the point at which “you keep qualifying himself. Bertoletti of the pursuit. The events he and 765,000 households tuned in. In entered a corned beef and cab- chewing the same bit and you just kept eating. his peers compete in are sanc- 2005 the IFOCE put on over 70 bage match in Milwaukee. He aren’t able to swallow it,” As Nerz counted down the final tioned and regulated by the contests and gave out $230,000 came in third, but he took away a Bertoletti says. As 2005 went on CHICAGO READER | JUNE 30, 2006 | SECTION ONE 19

he started to make some real sional eaters: “You can track said at the tamale contest in eled to Pointer’s Pizza in Saint crust and put them back down. progress. That August he won a their records; they’re mediocre Houston. “He’s certainly made a Louis, where teams of two can He did that for every one of them grilled-cheese contest with 21∏ and then something just clicks in name for himself, and he’s been win $500 for scarfing an 11- on his plate. And then he went to sandwiches in ten minutes. In their heads. Suddenly they know to many different places.” pound pie in one hour. Chestnut the soft part, popped those and November he ate 30 Krystal how to keep pushing themselves.” “It’s gross,” Louis added. and Janus played it cool, fin- just got through really fast.” hamburgers (they’re small and As Bertoletti racked up wins he “It is gross,” Deborah agreed. ishing in 48 minutes; Bertoletti The group arrived at the Corner square, like White Castles) in started to attract attention out- The past year of overeating has and Hunt went full-speed and Bar around 5 PM and took over a eight minutes at a qualifier and side the circuit. In March the had one other positive effect on did it in 14. Later that day they booth. Each eater ordered 30 chili improved to 37 at the finals, fin- USA cable network tapped him Bertoletti: being able to ignore the headed across the city to Crown dogs apiece. The waiter laughed. ishing eighth. When the IFOCE for “Show Us Your Character,” a urge to stop eating, he’s also able Candy Kitchen, where customers “Now, you guys really want 30 issued its rankings last winter, he series of commercial-length por- to ignore the urge to continue. “It’s win a free T-shirt if they can dogs?” he asked. “Because if you was number ten. traits of eccentric people, and in weird—through eating I know drink five 24-ounce malts in 30 don’t eat them, you’re gonna Then early this year everything May WCKG’s The Steve Dahl moderation,” he says. “I know minutes. Janus and Chestnut have to pay for them.” seemed to come together. Show became Bertoletti’s exactly what my body needs.” each downed six. Bertoletti “We know,” Bertoletti said. Bertoletti scored his first major sponsor, covering his airfare Between last summer and drank seven in 22 minutes. “We’re hungry. How many people upset, beating Thomas and 22- costs in exchange for on-air this spring, he shed more than Hunt, still full of pizza, decided have done it?” year-old Joey Chestnut, the two appearances. Bertoletti’s been on 30 pounds. to sit this one out. “Not many. A couple big guys top-ranked American eaters at the show five times, once with The final stop on their ram- have come in and ordered 20, the time, with 11 corned beef one of his personal heroes, chef ome of Bertoletti’s new page was the Corner Bar in but they’ve stopped after 15.” sandwiches at a match in Hot and author Anthony Bourdain. S friends came to Chicago for a Rockford, Michigan, where they The dogs came out five at a Springs, Arkansas. In February Competitive eating has also visit in early March: 3rd-ranked planned to win $500 for time. Bertoletti, Chestnut, and he won a chocolate competition helped the normally shy Joey Chestnut flew in from Palo breaking the restaurant’s chili- Janus pressed them into their in Chicago, drinking hot water to Bertoletti become more out- Alto, California, 6th-ranked Tim dog record: 43 in four hours. mouths one after the other, like ease down nearly two pounds in going, and his family has noticed Janus from New York City, and With Susan at the wheel the they were at the business end of seven minutes. In March he went the change. “He has a lot of fun 17th-ranked Hall Hunt from guys, decked out in their a conveyor belt, each finishing to Boston and ate almost six with all the other eaters he’s Gainesville, Florida. They Schiappa’s T-shirts, talked on their first 20 within half an hour. pounds of corned beef and cab- met,” Susan Bertoletti says. “I decided to spend their weekend and off about eating. The subject Then Hunt bowed out. bage, again taking first place. think it’s opened him up to a lot together beating regional restau- of Kobayashi inevitably arose. Customers turned and gaped as Less than a week later he won a of new things and he’s become a rant challenges. “He’s a really smart eater,” the others continued to eat. A spring break competition in lot more independent, traveling On Friday night the four hit Bertoletti said. teenager wandered over. “What Florida by inhaling almost 11 a lot on his own.” Schiappa’s, a pizza place in “Potato skins, did you see what are you going for, 20?” he asked. pounds of key lime pie. By April His parents, Deborah and O’Fallon, Illinois, where they he did there?” Janus asked. Janus’s mouth was too full to the IFOCE had bumped him up Louis, aren’t exactly thrilled with broke into pairs and finished two “Everyone was just eating them speak, so he just pointed up with to number four. Bertoletti says Bertoletti’s new avocation, “but 29-inch pizzas in six minutes, one at a time. He took two of his finger. “Oh, no,” the kid said. his overnight transformation we support the drive he’s using to winning T-shirts, hats, and them, folded them on top of each “You guys are going for the wasn’t unusual among profes- get where he’s going,” Deborah coupons. On Saturday they trav- other, then he ate the outer crispy continued on page 20 20 CHICAGO READER | JUNE 30, 2006 | SECTION ONE

Bertoletti Letters

continued from page 19 totally ruin his day: three young sort of the Larry the Cable Guy continued from page 3 has been in dialogue with Marie record!” A little later a burly guy women, one of whom had seen of competitive eating. scene must be a fiercely personal Roseman’s family and friends, with a beard approached them. Tim Janus on an episode of At 1 PM, in front of about 150 account of the very fickle situa- gathering pertinent information “We’re about to start laying bets MTV’s True Life, invited the guys spectators, Bertoletti cruised to an tion that confronts many practic- about the little-known artist for on you,” he said, “so I’m coming out to a birthday party at a local easy victory, eating 33 hot dogs in ing artists today, but is nonethe- the exhibition. The “conjectures” to size you up.” After a waiter bar. “It was really flattering that 12 minutes, 13 more than the next less untrue. Any perusal of Stabler alludes to (dolls appliqued dropped off two plastic buckets they really like the sport,” guy, a lower-ranked eater named Gallery News shows the over- to her quilts represent the chil- at each end of the counter, a Bertoletti says. “They thought I Sam Vise. He celebrated his win whelming number of venues for dren she delivered as a midwife) manager quipped, “I think I was so awesome even though I by going to the Corndogorama contemporary art in Chicago are all grounded on interviews know what those are for.” blew it at the end.” music festival with some pals compared with only three gal- she has conducted in Benton “Those are tip buckets, for us,” and drinking several 16-ounce leries occasionally exhibiting Harbor, Michigan, and beyond. Bertoletti said. ertoletti has never competed beers. By dinnertime his self-taught and outsider art That Stabler evaluates But a couple hours in, the pre- B at the Nathan’s Fourth of appetite had been restored, so besides the nonprofit organiza- Watterson’s arguments as “mysti- vious days of eating and partying July contest. But this year, he he went to a Checkers Drive-In tion Intuit. Chicago collectors of cal ...primitivism” barely seemed to be catching up with decided, he was going to make it for a burger and fries. this material are small in num- scratches the surface of his own them. Bertoletti complained that to the big show. He started “I felt really good with 33, stom- ber compared to contemporary- rhetoric, assuming that the title he’d only slept for five hours the training in earnest in May and achwise,” he says. “I shouldn’t have art collectors, but it is their pas- itself conjures for the author night before, and after his 28th settled on a technique: sepa- felt so good after this one. That sion for the work that makes images of a “snake-handling seer.” dog he laid his head in his arms. rating two hot dogs from their means I have a lot more room.” To Chicago important in the field. In fact, the title of the exhibit Chestnut tried to stand up after buns, eating both dogs at once, make a showing at Nathan’s on What inevitably spirals out of highlights the fact that this is the his 36th and teetered back and dunking the buns in water, and the Fourth, he’ll have to find that Stabler’s rhetoric is the us-versus- first solo exhibit of Roseman’s forth. Soon he and Bertoletti dis- then cramming in the soggy room and fill it up. them mentality that further alien- quilts and assemblages. Given appeared to the bathroom. remains. It takes Kobayashi’s Takeru Kobayashi, who’s won at ates and suppresses any truly crit- that a majority of her work was By 8 PM Janus had finished method—which is to break each Nathan’s every year since the ical debate on the subject. irreparably damaged due to his 40th chili dog but was having hot dog in half, eat it, and then “belch heard round the world,” is Why, in fact, was and is the flooding, the unique opportunity problems of his own. He took a dunk the bun—a step further. expected to dominate the big city of Chicago a capital for dis- to see a body of her work is rare break, swabbed ice cubes on his At his first Nathan’s qualifier, event this year as well, but cussing, disseminating, and and hence a “revelation.” neck, wrists, and arms, and on June 17 in Minnesota, Bertoletti is hoping to make the exhibiting works of art by self- Stabler’s statements about asked if someone could open a Bertoletti ate 32 hot dogs in 12 same impression Chestnut did in taught/outsiders? What were and Intuit being a “cryptic modernist window. His 41st dog popped out minutes—6 fewer than Chip 2005, when he placed third as a are the conditions of possibility space,” an “anthropological of his mouth; he pushed it back Simpson, the winner of the rookie in a field of veterans. (At a for such activity in one metropol- research organization,” or a “social in. His stomach was visibly dis- Houston tamale contest. He says 2006 qualifier, Chestnut became itan city? What are the issues service agency” that should tended and his face was flushed. he could tell after his first bite the first American to eat 50 hot contemporary artists are facing rename itself an “ethnographic But with just a few minutes to that something wasn’t right—he dogs.) “Even though I’ve been today in Chicago? Such questions museum” if it wants to “provide spare Janus managed to eat half looked over at Simpson scarfing kicking ass no one’s looking for are not easy to answer. Chicago’s more convincing data” on of his 44th chili dog, a new down dogs and knew he was me to be a real threat to anybody,” art history is incredibly rich and Roseman all neglect a central record. He posed for a photo, going to lose. “I think I’m a little Bertoletti says. “They expect me complex, and one that deserves issue: Roseman’s quilts and looking like the Hulk—green and drained,” he said wearily the day to do well, but it’s one of those further research and study rather assemblages. The quilts speak angry. Then he went to the bath- after. “I was thinking I need a things where I know I’m sailing in than glib assumptions. for themselves; how one inter- room—where, he was proud to week or two off after the Fourth under the radar. What Chestnut One paragraph finds Stabler prets their relation to any other say later, he did not throw up. of July just to chill. You think did last year shocked everybody. writing: “It’s in no way obvious artistic movement or institution The tamale contest in Houston about it every day and you That’s what I want to do.” where the ‘Revelation!’ in the is purely subjective. was the one and only time shouldn’t. I mean, I’m thinking Bertoletti plans to spend at show’s title comes from: though The salient feature about Bertoletti has ever barfed during about cooking every day, but I’m least the next three years giving Roseman was a homebody who Stabler’s article is that Roseman’s a match. Keeping food down is a also thinking about eating. I competitive eating everything obsessively cranked out fiber art- work can be a catalyst for analyz- point of pride for competitive think it’s just been too much.” he’s got, but he knows some diffi- work, that doesn’t make her a ing the strife that, according to eaters. “Anyone can just eat and Last weekend he flew to cult choices lie ahead. “I’ve been snake-handling seer. The same the author, afflicts practicing throw up,” Bertoletti says. A real Georgia for a qualifier at Zoo worrying about it a lot actually,” sort of specious conjectures artists in Chicago. eater learns to live with the post- Atlanta—his last chance to earn he says. “Once I graduate I don’t about who Roseman was, relat- With that in mind, I urge contest discomfort. But in this a spot in the finals. Under a big know if I’m going to be able to do ing her to a mystical otherworld readers to visit the exhibit case he thought getting sick was white tent in 95-degree heat, he it as much. If I get a restaurant of feminine primitivism, also and witness Roseman’s work a breakthrough: it meant he’d paraded around wearing overalls job, it’s all weekends. It’s gonna appear in Martha Watterson’s for themselves. finally pushed himself hard on top of his shorts and shirt and suck, because I think as soon as I curatorial statement.” Farris Wahbeh enough to reach his full stomach carrying a cowbell to mock start to get really good I’m going What is elided in Stabler’s cri- Lakeview capacity. And the incident didn’t fellow eater Dale Boone, who’s to have to give it up.” R tique is the fact that Watterson CHICAGO READER | JUNE 30, 2006 | SECTION ONE 21 22 CHICAGO READER | JUNE 30, 2006 | SECTION ONE Reviews Movies Music Theater Sonic Youth, Franz Xaver Kroetz’s Larry Clark’s 24 Lizzy Mercier Descloux, a Request Wassup Programme and Lagos Chop Up Rockers at Trap Door REVIEWS BY JESSICAHOPPER Theatre

REVIEW BY J . R . JONES

a REVIEW BY 22 JUSTIN HAYFORD a 26

Movies

WASSUP ROCKERS ss WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY LARRY CLARK RATINGS ssss MASTERPIECE sss A MUST SEE ss WORTH SEEING s HAS REDEEMING FACET Beverly Hills Cop-Out • WORTHLESS The latest from Kids director Larry Clark forces a group of real-life Latino skaters into a Hollywood narrative.

By J.R. Jones (1971), whose moody portraits of ction, a short-lived Fox sit- thieves and junkies influenced com that satirized the movie Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver A business, once opened with and Francis Ford Coppola’s an elderly director sitting in a Rumble Fish. When Clark made producer’s office dressed as a the transition to movies he skate punk while his agent tries brought to the big screen that to pass him off as a hot young tal- same realism and eye for charac- ent. The gag sprang to mind ter-defining detail, but the docu- when I was thinking about Larry mentary element in his work has Clark, the poet laureate of always mixed uneasily with the fucked-up dramatic demands of commer- WHEN teens, who was cial filmmaking. In Wassup Multiple born in 1943. Rockers the conflict is especially Screenings He was a highly pronounced: the first half is a WHERE respected pho- striking piece of photojournalism Landmark’s tographer when with little dramatic interest, and Century Centre, he made his the second half is a highly con- 2828 N. Clark directing debut trived narrative that forfeits any

PRICE $7- in 1995 with the claim to realism. Y CLARK $9.50 notorious indie The inconsistency seems to be INFO 773- drama Kids, mostly the result of Clark’s 509-4949 which chroni- approach to casting. For Kids he cled the sex life was able to round up impressive

of a callow 17-year-old skate- amateurs, three of whom—Chloe OOK PICTURES AND LARR T L boarder in New York City. To Sevigny, Rosario Dawson, and FIRS some extent, each of Clark’s sub- Leo Fitzpatrick—went on to sequent features—Another Day become successful professionals. especially unfortunate when one and set off for Beverly Hills to do street-gang saga The Warriors in Paradise (1998), Bully (2001), Clark used professional actors for considers what a fine documen- some skating. Pulled over by a (1979), whose title hoods navi- and Ken Park (2002)—has Another Day in Paradise and tary Clark might have gotten out couple of bicycle cops, they con- gate the turf of various rival delved into the secret world of Bully, then mixed professional of the same material. He cap- fess that no one has a driver’s gangs as they try to make their teenagers, leaving writers (Tom adults with amateur kids for Ken tures the kids’ daily lives in inti- license and surrender their vehi- way home to Coney Island, and Wolfe in I Am Charlotte Park; he says the kids were so raw mate detail as they roll out of cle, though that doesn’t stop Frank Perry’s equally strange The Simmons ) and other filmmakers and unpredictable the adults were bed, lift weights, ride skate- them from catching a couple city Swimmer (1968), about a subur- (Catherine Hardwicke in forced to keep it real. For Wassup boards to school, flirt with girls, buses and enjoying an afternoon ban New York man who resolves Thirteen and Lords of Dogtown ) Rockers Clark cast seven teenage and rehearse their punk band in of skating at Beverly Hills High to swim all the backyard pools huffing and puffing to catch up boys he met on the street while the basement. Offering a tex- School. A pair of rich girls invite that lead back to his house. with him. doing a magazine photo shoot, tured sense of a world we might them over for sex, and after that Those models might account for Wassup Rockers, Clark’s latest and the script draws on their real- never see otherwise has always encounter ends in chaos the the episodic narrative, but the exercise in teen anthropology, life experiences. I wouldn’t count been Clark’s gift, and the movie’s rockers scurry from one palatial satire and slapstick (one socialite follows the misadventures of on any of them becoming the next first half is so rich with candid, backyard to the next, trying to tumbles down a flight of stairs, seven Latino skaters as they Rosario Dawson; they’re uniform- authentic moments he could eas- make their way home. At this another is electrocuted in her make their way from South ly awful, delivering their lines in a ily select a few dozen frames as point the movie turns pica- bathtub) are weirdly reminiscent Central to Beverly Hills and back self-conscious monotone and still photographs and publish resque, as the kids run amok and of A Hard Day’s Night , another again. It’s the least impressive of occasionally stumbling over them them in book form. But when the Clark pokes cheap fun at spoiled movie that starred amateur the Clark features I’ve seen (not or glancing at the camera. Even kids open their mouths reality Hollywood types, most of whom actors in a script drawn from including Ken Park, which has playing themselves, they’re unable evaporates, leaving behind a regard the kids as exotic animals their own experiences. Whatever never been released in the U.S.), to create on-screen characters, rickety high school play. or earthy sex objects. its antecedent, the second part of but its flaws are illuminating. which has the effect of making Wassup Rockers abruptly According to Clark, this part of Wassup Rockers takes place not Clark first made a name for him- them seem interchangeable. switches gears when the seven the movie was inspired by two just in Beverly Hills but in self with the photo book Tulsa The stilted performances are friends pile into a rusty Dodge cult classics: Walter Hill’s surreal movieland. v CHICAGO READER | JUNE 30, 2006 | SECTION ONE 23 24 CHICAGO READER | JUNE 30, 2006 | SECTION ONE Music

SONIC YOUTH RATHER RIPPED (GEFFEN) LIZZY MERCIER DESCLOUX BEST OFF (ZE) VARIOUS ARTISTS LAGOS CHOP UP (HONEST JONS) Short Takes on Recent Releases Sonic Youth makes a Kim record, a posthumous best-of from a mutant-disco star, and more Nigerian gold

By Jessica Hopper

coming this fall is supposed to be were flirting with pop as far back grad-school version of “Inhuman,” SONIC YOUTH | Rather Ripped at least three CDs) and adding as Evol. Kim and Thurston actual- with Kim singing “Sweet liberation A quarter century in, it’s clear that new liner notes reaffirming their ly singing, on the other hand—like has come” dry and direct, trying even the slumps—I’m thinking the canonization as ahead-of-their- singing singing, in sweet not to alarm anyone, as guitars pix- early-aughts one-two of NYC time geniuses whose time was the melodies—is far more curious. Not elate and fizz around her. On “Jams Ghosts & Flowers and Murray best ever. (Hey, someone’s gotta that Kim suddenly sounds like Run Free” she sounds more pur- Street—don’t mean Sonic Youth keep Byron Coley off the streets.) Anne Murray—she’s using the poseful than ever, like she’s pressing are out of gas. But who’d be sur- It’s not a bad plan, considering the voice she had hidden behind her a secret code into our cortices in prised if they were? This is band’s notorious archivist tenden- breathy, growly coo all along. At hopes that we’ll understand its America, where we like our prod- cies and their dedicated fan base, any rate she sounds more natural deeper meaning later. The guitars ucts disposable and prefer to pre- which lives to be milked. And SY than Thurston, who’s doing puber- kick up a roiling SOS and her voice tend history never happened. are still earning their keep with ty soul in middle age: on “Do You is grainy with desperation, the Once the members of an estab- new jams too. Believe in Rapture?” he comes words coming in gulps: “I hope / lished band pass 40, their fans I didn’t get into most of the but instead it’s not just poppy but across, probably on purpose, like a It’s not / Too late / For me.” No, it’s practically expect them to turn ter- records avec O’Rourke—just the an actual stab at pop. The majority creepy teenager spitting lines he not. It’s not at all. rible and taint everything precious last one, 2004’s Sonic Nurse, a of the songs are three minutes or picked up from “The Jim Jones that came before. pastoral, poppy flashback to their so, with verse-chorus resolution, Guide to Getting Chicks.” (Lee Sonic Youth are neither sudden- early-90s albums that’s rich with and the guitars make with keep-it- Ranaldo fans, rest assured: he LIZZY MERCIER DESCLOUX | ly sucking nor fading away grace- creamy guitar tones. I was hoping simple drones and pretty, tidy har- sounds the same as always.) Best Off fully—instead they’re putting out that Rather Ripped would be monies that wouldn’t sound out of The great news is that this is by Girls don’t come much cooler than deluxe remastered/remixed edi- deeper damage, a flashback that place on a Yo La Tengo record. and large Kim’s record: boy-girl Lizzy Mercier Descloux circa ’79. tions of albums we already own flashed further back—who doesn’t Still, that kind of thing is only social science and radical body poli- Just check out the cover of her new (the Daydream Nation box set want SY to make Sister again?— moderately subversive for SY; they tics are go. “Turquoise Boy” is like a posthumous collection, Best Off: on CHICAGO READER | JUNE 30, 2006 | SECTION ONE 25

Rhythm Group’s Afrobeat sim- VARIOUS ARTISTS | mer-up “Ebawa Se,” 60s psych- Lagos Chop Up pop Farfisa dukes it out with Has anyone in Nigeria ever writ- heavy horn leads. And the ten a bad song? In the past few modal, bell-like keyboard chords years, a spate of comps and reis- of Victor Olaiya’s highlife num- sues has brought to light the ber “Omelebele” run flush up diverse sounds of that country’s against flagrant James Brown- musical golden age, which lasted isms. Next to all this richly from the mid-60s till the early arranged, electrified funkiness, 80s—sounds perhaps obscured the fuji and apala songs—con- from Westerners by the blinding structed mostly from percussion superstar legacy of Fela Kuti. and vocals—sound beautifully her stomach next to a pool, topless The UK world-music label skeletal. Descended from the tra- and wearing a colorful children’s ditional music of Nigeria’s feather headdress, she’s writing Yoruba, those genres are almost lyrics on hotel stationery and tak- minimalist, and their relative ing the final drag off a pinner, her simplicity makes it easy to hear face obscured by long, messy bangs. their influence on more Her backstory does little to spoil hybridized forms—along with the je ne sais quoi. The New York your dance party, you get a little punk correspondent for the French deconstruction. v magazine Rock News , she settled in the city in the late 70s and became roommates with Patti Smith and Michel Esteban, cofounder of the iconic Ze Records. Immersed in the no-wave scene but not entirely given over to its aesthetic, in 1979 Honest Jons has recently she kicked out her debut full-length released two such comps, Lagos on Ze, Press Color , which was All Routes and Lagos Chop Up, nonetheless very much of its time and there’s not a cut on either and place—angular, yelpy, outre that you won’t want to dance disco. The album’s single, a cover of to—Lagos Chop Up in particu- Arthur Brown’s “Fire,” caused a sen- lar justifies even the frothiest, sation on hipper dance floors most gleeful hyperbole I could worldwide and laid out the pattern manufacture. for Descloux’s work to come: her The disc cracks open the thickly accented singsong, rough Nigerian underground and digs and attitudinal yet coquettish and deep, its 12 sweltering-hot tracks drily self-possessed, jostling against documenting the diverse sounds a refined, percolating dance music of Lagos street life—juju, high- that’s just shy of strange. life, fuji, Afrobeat, apala. The Like her scenemate Arto highlife and Afrobeat tunes com- Lindsay of DNA, Descloux soon bine traditional rhythms, har- began to pull inspiration from monies, and textures—there’s the tropics, and with her next some thumb piano, plus that record, Mambo Nassau (Ze, twinkling, tumbling West 1981), she dived headlong into African river-water guitar—with Brazilian, West African, and decidedly modern flourishes. Jamaican music, coloring it all “Soffry Soffry Catch Monkey” by with downtown dissonance. Her the Ikenga Super Stars of Africa subsequent albums are clashes of is flecked with wah-pedal wonks , traditional French and reggae while on the Nigerian Army sounds (dub + accordions = magic) and percussive, synthetic worldbeat. Best Off skims some of the goodest goods from Descloux’s six full-lengths, including the last, recorded in 1995 and finally scheduled for release this fall as The Lost Album . Any distillation of her vivid and diverse catalog is bound to be an odd package—it’s hard to imagine fans of the albums that made her a no-wave icon sticking around for the polyglot torch songs that dominate the tail end of her career—but that’s just a testament to her artistic brio. 26 CHICAGO READER | JUNE 30, 2006 | SECTION ONE Theater

REQUEST PROGRAMME TRAP DOOR THEATRE When Nothing Is Everything The challenges of dramatizing an hour in the life of a woman with no reason to live.

By Justin Hayford he early “supernaturalistic” puts the glass with the other one-acts of German play- things on the table. The fruit T wright Franz Xaver Kroetz juice she returns immediately to are full of mundane actions that the fridge. Then she sits down unfold in real time: eating, read- and begins to eat.” Still, he insists ing, washing dishes, taking that the play should not provoke showers, using the bathroom, or bore the audience—and by masturbating. This antitheatrical carefully detailing an uneventful approach, which borrows from hour in an apparently uneventful the American Fluxus movement life, he does dramatize the psy- and Austrian actionism, can chology of despair, which ulti- push the limits of anyone’s mately drives Miss Rasch to patience. When Kroetz’s first make the most momentous deci- play opened in Munich in April sion of her life. 1970, the audience had such a Like other pieces Trap Door violent reaction the theater was Theatre has produced, Request put under police protection. Programme is a difficult work by Kroetz’s one-woman Request a seminal European playwright Programme may be even more largely ignored in America (in likely to work an audience’s last Germany, by contrast, only three nerve now than it was in its 1971 years after his debut Kroetz was premiere. Miss Rasch, a factory the country’s most produced liv- worker in her early 40s, comes ing playwright). In this staging home to her apartment and, by artistic director Beata Pilch, without saying a word, goes Carolyn Shoemaker gives Miss through her nightly routine: Rasch a placid schlumpiness— changing clothes, watching TV, which doesn’t prevent key making dinner, checking the moments of harrowing anguish radiator for heat, inspecting from cracking through late in troublesome pimples, reading the evening. When she groans the mail, like a beast while sitting on the WHEN Through taking a toilet, for example, it’s clear 7/29: Thu-Sat 8 PM shit, doing that her life is as painful as WHERE Trap Door needlework, her bowel movement. Theatre, 1655 W. smoking Too often, however, Pilch Cortland cigarettes, and Shoemaker overdramatize PRICE $15, staring into Miss Rasch’s behavior. When two for one Thu space, get- she spies dirt on the window

INFO 773-384-0494 ting ready sill, she scrubs it vigorously for YN SHOEMAKER for bed. a few seconds, inspects, scrubs CAROL Essentially Kroetz’s script is an again, inspects, scrubs one last Request Programme extended, obsessively detailed time. This subtle clowning is a stage direction, which he says Trap Door hallmark, but here acter’s underlying anxiety, but a few centimeters of each ciga- without a compelling inner life should be performed in real it’s only intermittent. Most frequently she seems merely rette she lights, for example. for the audience to glean, Miss time, approximately an hour. of Shoemaker’s gestures feel mindful that she’s being Feeling uncommitted, her Rasch merely idles. “From the sideboard she gets a incomplete, both tentative and observed, “acting like” she’s actions neither reveal nor The meticulous detail of glass, pours in some fruit juice, rushed. She may intend her doing the things she’s supposed conceal the character’s inner Kroetz’s script certainly invites and tops it off with water. She unsettled air to convey her char- to be really doing—smoking only life but simply sidestep it. And physical comedy and other non- CHICAGO READER | JUNE 30, 2006 | SECTION ONE 27

Ink Well by Ben Tausig

46.Character at the center of the That’s an Order Barry Bonds controversy 49.Explosives ACROSS 50.Miniskirts, of a sort 1. Flasher? 52.Conventional states 7. Muslim leader 54.South African succulent 11. Deep black 55.Masala tea naturalistic approaches. A 1982 14.Group founded by Lois Wilson, 57.Spy in Canaan Venezuelan production, set in Bill W.’s wife 61. P.S. org. a subterranean boiler room, 15.“Nuh-uh” 62.Slang term for a Web site’s promi- 16.Chopper nence on a popular search engine split the role of Miss Rasch 17.Male-dominated event 64. Pirate’s interjections between two actresses who 19.Tight-lipped 65.Autograph requestee finished each other’s gestures. 20.Puma rival 66.Use radar, perhaps When choreographer Shirley 21. Naturalness 67.Took a load off 22.Auto ad abbr. Mordine performed and 68. Kitten’s pick-up spot 23. 14th-century Bavarian duke 69. A Midsummer Night’s Dream king Catherine Slade directed the 25.Acronym associated with Billy Blanks play here in 1993, they turned 26.Curse, as a god DOWN it into a kind of live radio 29.Naysayers 1. Habitacion 32.Ouija board, allegedly broadcast, with other perform- 2. Wistful word 34.Player’s goal? 3. Island between Lanai and Molokai, ers providing the sound effects. 35. Hearst kidnapping gp. alphabetically But Trap Door’s production 38.Starts liking 4. Settle securely hovers awkwardly between 40.Nirvana song beginning “I’m so happy 5. Backhanded tribute ’cause today I found my friends” 6. He directed Heath and Jake in supernaturalism and stylization, 42.Hot time in Paris Brokeback Mountain never settling convincingly into 43.“Shyeah . . .” 7. Pro either genre. As a result this 45.Pick a card, any card, say 8. “Where nobody knows your name,” nearly two-hour performance in Springfield 9. Abbey area feels fussy and overly deliberate. LAST WEEK: LIKE LINES 10.Outfielder Lastings Milledge or Ultimately Pilch and Xavier Nady 11. Free musical event Shoemaker give short shrift to 30.Subsequent: Abbr. 50.Spanish nibbles 12.Sprawl by-product the routine aspects of Miss 31. Popular photo-hosting site 51. Very, very 13.Pace of a piece 33. Prebar hurdles, briefly 53. Dead-end service gig Rasch’s evening: instead of just 18.Fed. agency created by the Civil going through the motions, she Rights Act 36.Certain appetite 55.Occasion for closing bars? seems to be continually discover- 22.Vandalize 37.Iowa State city 56.The hole or the bucket, so to speak 39.Gaelic “gold” 58.Perjurer ing her choices, whether to wash 24.Fly that carries sleeping sickness 25.Drilling sites 41. Condiment with kick 59.It means “outside” a stocking or scrub a plate. This 26.Spoil, with “on” 44.Achieve artfully 60.“______there, done that” creates the expectation that each 27.Smell ______47.Ms. Pac-Man ghost 62.Juniper spirit new action will deliver a theatri- 28.Honor the bride and groom, say 48.Growing need? 63. Pop outfit from Birmingham, Eng. cal payoff. But it’s the deadening sameness of her routine that gives the action poignancy. Nothing can pay off for Miss Rasch in any way, which is what forces the tragic conclusion. v