Category Archives: Chicago Sun-Times

03/08/2014
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Ben Carson, Chicago Sun-Times, CPAC, Dave Hoekstra, John Lewis, Rand Paul, Selma Alabama

Hot Air

Criminal Behavior

This day, 49 years ago, Alabama state state troopers and Selma city police kicked the living bejesus out of a large group of people who had the nerve to violate the Deep South’s most cherished and rigidly reinforced system of laws.

That is, Jim Crow.

Led by folks like John Lewis, now a Democratic member of US Congress from Georgia, that group of people wanted to be allowed to vote. That urge, in the Deep South in those days, was more heinous than the urge to molest a child or assassinate a president. Lewis, for one, paid for his depravity by getting his skull broken by a trooper’s nightstick.

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Today, the benighted Right has more subtle methods of prevented dark skinned Americans from voting.

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Storytellers

So, as expected, Rand Paul is the darling of the CPAC wingnuts again this year, winning the ultra-conservative fap fest’s annual straw poll of fave prez candidates.

And, in a shocker, coming in third was the fabulist, Dr. Ben Carson, whose claim to fame is his bestselling book, America the Beautiful, a treatise that informs us that this holy land is really heaven on Earth and things like poverty, racism, sexism, and any other purported sins of our nation are commie lies.

These two guys are the Tea Party wing of the GOP in a nutshell. While telling us this is greatest, most perfect nation in  the history of all humankind, they warn us that it’s populated by a bunch of lazy, immoral, dependent-on-gov’t, Hollywood-liberal-loving, crypto-socialist takers.

Paul/Carson

Darlings

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I believe the psychologists and psychiatrists of the world would call that type of personality schizophrenic.

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A Real Storyteller

Above all else, Dave Hoekstra is a Cubs fan. That alone makes him, in my eyes, a human being worthy of esteem.

Add to that, though, the fact that he’s spent the last 29 years telling stories about Chicagoans. He was more Studs Terkel than Mike Royko. He wasn’t going to raise his morning readers’ blood pressure by exposing an outrage perpetrated by a petit tyrant in some city office. He didn’t tackle the broad and terrifying issues of the world. No, he simply went out on the streets of the city and met its residents.

And then he told us their stories.

More, Hoekstra was the only white media being I can think of who’d talk to and write about black people who weren’t exclusively drug dealers or street prostitutes or somehow being terrorized by a soulless, racist world. He introduced us to black people who were, well, people.

Hoekstra also intro’d us to musicians, entrepreneurs, poets, lawyers, salespeople, weekend athletes, and all the other occupations and vocations people can be. If you wanted to know the city of Chicago, you read Dave Hoekstra.

Hoekstra

Dave Hoekstra

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Now, no more. The Chicago Sun-Times, in yet another in an endless series of cost-cutting moves, has laid off a pile of people. One of whom is Dave Hoekstra.

That’s it. You give an outfit 29 years of your life and, boom, they tell you to take a hike because, well…, because shareholders’ needs are paramount to all things. (I’ll ruminate more on that in tomorrow’s post).

Hoekstra’s pushing 60. He’s not rich. He plods along, financially, just like you and me. And now he’s out of a job. A job he is great at. A job he did admirably and consistently for three decades. A job he ain’t got anymore.

You say newspapers are dying? This is one good one reason why they should be.

[BTW: You want to know how much of a Cubs fan Hoekstra is? When the Cubs opened the 2000 season in Tokyo, as part of a Major League Baseball effort to expand the reach of the game beyond international boundaries, he flew to Japan to catch the game. That’s a fan.]

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07/22/2012
2 Comments
Amy Goodman, Aurora Colorado Mass Shooting, Chicago Sun-Times, Democracy Now!, Guns, Harriet Hall, Joe Paterno, Joseph Conrad, Lynda Barry, Morehouse College, New York Times, Penn State University, Rebecca Watson, Roger Ebert, Sarah Sandberg, Skepchick, SkepDoc, Susan Sandberg, Tariq Taylor, Toles, Tony Robbins, Washington Post

The Pencil Today:

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THE QUOTE

“The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.” — Joseph Conrad

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THE STRONG CAN BE LAID LOW

Sarah Sandberg commandeered her sister’s Facebook account last night at about 9:30pm to pass on some alarming news and to issue a warning.

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I’m hoping Sarah’s prediction that Susan will be back to work soon is a lot more than wishful thinking.

Susan Sandberg is royalty among Pencillistas. Join me in hoping her doctors have a lot of tricks in their black bags.

Pencillista Queen

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MY GUY ROGER

America’s best movie reviewer and an incisive cultural observer in his own right, Roger Ebert, has weighed in on the Aurora, Colorado atrocity.

Check his take in the Chicago Sun-Times. Here’s a quote from that piece:

“The hell with it. I’m tired of repeating the obvious. I know with dead certainty that I will change nobody’s mind. I will hear conspiracy theories from those who fear the government, I will hear about the need to raise a militia, and I will hear nothing about how 9,484 corpses a year has helped anything.”

Or you can read his New York Time op-ed piece. Here’s another quote, this one from that piece:

“Should this young man — whose nature was apparently so obvious to his mother that, when a ABC News reporter called, she said “You’ve got the right person” — have been able to buy guns, ammunition and explosives? The gun lobby will say yes. And the endless gun control debate will begin again, and the lobbyists of the National Rifle Association will go to work, and the op-ed thinkers will have their usual thoughts, and the right wing will issue alarms, and nothing will change. And there will be another mass murder.”

This ain’t no movie, kids. This is life. Guns are designed to take it.

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TRUTH IN HUMOR

Toles Cartoon From The Washington Post Syndicate

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DOWN WITH JOE

Penn State University is doing the right thing.

Workers Tear Down The Paterno Statue At 9:30 This Morning

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Now, maybe the people who run the institution can refocus on something novel: the development of students’ minds.

Joe Paterno made a lot of dough at the school. He signed a three-year contract in 2008 that called for an annual salary of a half million dollars a year. He made piles more — several times that amount per year — from ancillary sources.

The late unindicted co-conspirator was responsible for nothing more than the likes of instructing running backs on which way to turn when linebackers were approaching. It seems to me that particular aspect of the education of young men can be done by any number of “teachers” who’ve studied football (read: “have sat in front of the TV on Saturday and Sunday afternoons”).

Me? I’d spend half a million bucks on five teachers of a different sort, say:

  • Lynda Barry, creative writing and cartooning — The creator of “Ernie Pook’s Comeek”, “The Good Times Are Killing Me” and other works of reality-based fiction and visual art, Barry has transformed the struggles of an outsider into brilliantly funny and therapeutic entertainment. Think of what a role model she’d be for geeky, self-deprecating teenaged girls.

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  • Rebecca Watson, general science — The founder of Skepchick, she works tirelessly to upgrade the status of brainiac girls and female scientists around the world.

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  • Tariq Taylor, Humanities, black studies — As a Morehouse Collage grad student, Taylor visited Thailand after having never traveled in his life before. His experiences in that country were documented in the video “The Experience,” which reveals how travel can profoundly affect young black men who’ve been cloistered in racial and economic ghettos their whole lives.

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  • Amy Goodman, journalism — The boss of Democracy Now!, Goodman digs deeper than just about any reporter alive.

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  • Harriet Hall, MD, philosophy — The SkepDoc, Hall strips away the masturbatory bullshit that passes for curiosity and inquiry in the New Age and alternative medicine worlds today.

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Wouldn’t you think a hundred G’s a year would be good pay for each of five individuals whose words and guidance might affect literally thousands of students a year? Oh, and none of those students would have to be winners of the gene pool lottery wherein they’d have been born bigger/faster/stronger than 99.9 percent of their peers.

Call me a dreamer.

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WHERE THERE’S SMOKE…

As if anybody needed more proof that Tony Robbins is a con artist:

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Or that people who buy into his brand of fraud are dopes?

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Here’s how I waste my time. How about you? Share your fave sites with us via the comments section. Just type in the name of the site, not the url; we’ll find them. If we like them, we’ll include them — if not, we’ll ignore them.

❏ I Love Charts — Life as seen through charts.

❏ XKCD — “A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.”

“What If?” From XKCD

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❏ Skepchick — Women scientists look at the world and the universe.

❏ Indexed — All the answers in graph form, on index cards.

❏ Flip Flop Fly Ball — Baseball as seen through infographics, haikus, song lyrics, and other odd communications devices.

❏ Mental Floss — Facts.

❏ Caps Off Please — Comics & fun.

❏ Sodaplay — Create your own models or play with other people’s models.

❏ Eat Sleep Draw — An endless stream of artwork submitted by an endless stream of people.

❏ Big Think — Tapping the brains of notable intellectuals for their opinions, predictions, and diagnoses.

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❏ The Daily Puppy — So shoot me.

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Electron Pencil event listings: Music, art, movies, lectures, parties, receptions, games, benefits, plays, meetings, fairs, conspiracies, rituals, etc.

◗ Twin Lakes Recreation Center — American Softball Association Slow Pitch State Tournament; all day

◗ IU Wells-Metz Theatre — “The Taming of the Shrew”; 2pm

◗ IU Willkie Auditorium — Cultural fair: Silk Road Bayaram Festival; 3-6pm

◗ The Player’s Pub — Benefit for Margery Sauve; 6pm

◗ Bryan Park — Sunday Concert: Steel Panache, steel drum band; 6:30pm

◗ Bear’s Place — Ryder Film Series: “Oslo, August 31”; 7pm

◗ Buskirk-Chumley Theater — Big Brothers Big Sisters fundraising gala; 7:30pm

◗ IU Wells-Metz Theatre — Musical, “You Can’t Take It with You”; 7:30pm

◗ IU Auer Hall — Summer Arts Festival: Pipe organ faculty recital; 8pm

◗ The Root Cellar at Farm Bloomington — The Size of Color, Minus World; 9pm

◗ The Bishop — Daniel Ellsworth & the Great Lakes, the Shams Band; 9pm

Ongoing:

◗ Ivy Tech Waldron Center — Exhibits:

  • John D. Shearer, “I’m Too Young For This  @#!%”; through July 30th
  • Claire Swallow, ‘Memoir”; through July 28th
  • Dale Gardner, “Time Machine”; through July 28th
  • Sarah Wain, “That Takes the Cake”; through July 28th
  • Jessica Lucas & Alex Straiker, “Life Under the Lens — The Art of Microscopy”; through July 28th

◗ IU Art Museum — Exhibits:

  • Qiao Xiaoguang, “Urban Landscape: A Selection of Papercuts” ; through August 12th
  • “A Tribute to William Zimmerman,” wildlife artist; through September 9th
  • Willi Baumeister, “Baumeister in Print”; through September 9th
  • Annibale and Agostino Carracci, “The Bolognese School”; through September 16th
  • “Contemporary Explorations: Paintings by Contemporary Native American Artists”; through October 14th
  • David Hockney, “New Acquisitions”; through October 21st
  • Utagawa Kuniyoshi, “Paragons of Filial Piety”; through fall semester 2012
  • Julia Margaret Cameron, Edward Weston, & Harry Callahan, “Intimate Models: Photographs of Husbands, Wives, and Lovers”; through December 31st
  • “French Printmaking in the Seventeenth Century”; through December 31st

◗ IU SoFA Grunwald Gallery — Exhibits:

  • Kinsey Institute Juried Art Show; through July 21st
  • Bloomington Photography Club Annual Exhibition; July 27th through August 3rd

◗ IU Kinsey Institute Gallery — “Ephemeral Ink: Selections of Tattoo Art from the Kinsey Institute Collection”; through September 21st

◗ IU Lilly Library — Exhibit, “Translating the Canon: Building Special Collections in the 21st Century”; through September 1st

◗ IU Mathers Museum of World Cultures — Closed for semester break

◗ Monroe County History Center — Exhibits:

  • “What Is Your Quilting Story?”; through July 31st
  • Photo exhibit, “Bloomington: Then and Now” by Bloomington Fading; through October 27th

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06/05/2012
2 Comments
Chicago Hot Dog, Chicago Sun-Times, Cigna, Dave Hoekstra, David Cordani, Equal Pay, Golda Meir, Income Gap, Paycheck Fairness Act

The Pencil Today:

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THE QUOTE

“Whether women are better than men I cannot say — but I can say they are certainly no worse.” — Golda Meir

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IT’S DOWN TO YOU

Wait a minute!

You mean to tell me that the average woman still is making about 77 cents to the average man’s dollar?

And the Senate and the House aren’t in any particular hurry to rectify the situation?

Here’s a personal message to my friends who possess different plumbing than I do:

Do something about it! Because men sure as hell aren’t gonna do it for you.

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Would it be so godawful for women to stage a Euro-style general strike for, say, a day or even two after congressional Republicans, as expected, squelch the Paycheck Fairness Act?

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DO NOT FORGET

Click the logo to find out what’s going on in Bloomington today.

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GOT ENOUGH?

I’m not against people making piles of dough. I dream about it and, most likely, so do you.

But when is the pile big enough? Does the job that Cigna CEO David Cordani does warrant a paycheck that amounts to more than $50K a day?

What talents bordering on magic does he bring to the office that would impel his company to devote that much of its financial resources to him lest he up and work for somebody else?

And who else would pay him that kind of dough?

All I know is, I have a friend who visits a food hub once a month. Each time she visits, she is able to load up a single bag, for which she pays nothing. Some months, she’ll haul in several Marie Callender’s frozen dinner entrees. Other months, she’ll have a couple of boxes of granola bars among her swag.

She does this because she has to.

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My friend is hardworking. The outfit that employs her would suffer if she left. She has certain talents that are unique.

Yet she doesn’t make $50k in two whole years.

Maybe I just don’t get this whole economics business.

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A MIGHTY HOT DOG MAN

Dave Hoekstra of the Sun-Times points out that the guy who brought Paul Bunyan to Cicero, Illinois, has died.

Hamlet Arthur Stephens ran a hot dog joint called — what else? — Paul Bunyon’s [sic] on Ogden Avenue, once designated US Rte. 66, for many years. He got hold of a nearly-20-feet-tall fiberglass statue of of the legendary woodsman in the early ’60s and had an even more outsized hot dog built to be cradled in the big lug’s arms.

I used to pass the statue regularly back in the mid-’70s when I had a girlfriend whose family lived in nearby Berwyn. It always bugged me that Bunyon was misspelled, but now I learn that Hamlet purposely replaced that A with an O so he wouldn’t be sued for copyright infringement.

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And the funny thing is, the towering man — yep, even taller than Bloomington’s own Tall Steve — wasn’t meant to be Paul Bunyan in the first place. He was one of dozens of similar such statues created for gas stations and car repair shops. The story I always heard was that Cicero’s big guy originally had a muffler in his mitts.

Anyway, I was saddened when I learned that the hot dog gargantuan was taken down nearly ten years ago, back when I still lived in Chi. Paul Bunyon’s had closed and had been replaced by a Mexican restaurant.

Coincidentally, a scant two weeks ago the local newspaper for tiny Atlanta, Illinois, ran a piece about area volunteers cleaning up that town’s biggest “man.” Yep, it was the same statue that for some 40 years had beckoned hungry drivers to pull off Ogden Avenue and stop in for a wienie or two.

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BTW: here’s the makeup of the traditional Chicago hot dog:

  • Boiled Vienna or David Berg tubesteak
  • Steamed Mary Ann brand poppyseed bun
  • Yellow mustard
  • Chopped onions
  • Tomato
  • Relish (the weirdly neon green kind)
  • Hot peppers (optional)
  • Dill pickle wedge (optional)
  • Celery salt (optional)
  • French fries placed alongside the dog and the whole package wrapped tightly in paper

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Putting ketchup on a dog in Chicago has always been considered tantamount to perversion. Here’s a confession: I always took my dog with nothing but mustard and ketchup. A guy told me once that I clearly wasn’t a real Chicagoan when he heard me order my frank thusly.

Perhaps that’s why I left the city.

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04/19/2012
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Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Tribune, Dave Brubeck, EB White, Indiana, John Griffin Miller, John W. Tilford, Jonathan George, Neil Steinberg, Peter LoPilato, Prejudice, Rex W. Huppke, Robert Winningham, Ryder, Shelli Yoder, Take Five, US Congress

The Pencil Today:

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THE QUOTE

“Prejudice is a great time saver. You can form opinions without having to get the facts.” — EB White

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THE SADDEST OBIT OF ALL TIME

Neil Steinberg of the Chicago Sun-Times found this passing so sad that he actually gave a plug (and a link) to his paper’s competitor, the Tribune. The Sun-Times as well as every other corporate media outlet in this holy land were scooped by a Trib reporter.

Facts, the reporter has learned, are dead.

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We must face the facts: there are no more facts.

We all knew they were lingering for a long while now. Still, their demise shocks us. They suffered terribly. Thankfully, they are in a better place now.

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Sadly, nothing I write can do justice to this mournful turn of events. So, read Rex W. Huppke’s final notice for these very dear old friends.

Farewell

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BE A SMART VOTER

Hey, have you checked out the April edition of Ryder magazine yet?

In addition to all the usual invaluable arts and culture stuff, editor Peter LoPilato dispatched an intrepid reporter to delve into the private lives of the five candidates running for the Democratic nomination for Congress in Indiana’s ninth district.

“The Chair Recognizes The Representative From The Great State of Indiana.”

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(By the way, reliable sources are saying the reporter is handsome and charming as well as being intrepid. The Electron Pencil is working to verify these statements at this time.)

Anyway, the five running in the Dem primary, May 5th, are Gen. Jonathan George, John Griffin Miller, Col. John Tilford, Robert Winningham, and Shelli Yoder.

I pooh-poohed Yoder’s candidacy in this space previously. I fixated on her background as a beauty queen. Now she has amassed a batch of endorsements from local political and private heavyweights. Shows what I know, no?

Proving Me Wrong?

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The five candidates reveal themselves in the Ryder piece in ways they might never have imagined before they decided to run for public office. We learn for instance, whose father once caught a foul ball off the bat of Bill Buckner at Wrigley Field, who can actually speak conversational Comanche, whose first album was the Jefferson Airplane’s “Surrealistic Pillow,” and who dreamed of being a member of Doctors without Borders.

Early Endorsement?

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The grilling LoPilato’s ace reporter gave each of the candidates was so thorough that one admitted he was driven to tears (when he recounted his favorite childhood memory).

Pick up the Ryder today. Unfortunately, you can’t get the issue online yet. The Ryder’s long awaited internet presence still is nothing but a dream. If you’ve got a spare minute, drop Peter an email and tell him you’d love to see him step into at least the 1990s.

Oh, and ladies, that handsome, charming, intrepid reporter? Forget it — he’s happily hitched.

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TAKE FIVE

Speaking of fave childhood memories, here’s one of mine. I’d be able to stay up late on weeknights during summer vacation. WGN-TV would have two movies on after the nightly news. Between the two there’d be a half hour newsbreak called “Night Beat” featuring the somnolent Carl Greyson.

The poor guy — he could put you to sleep reporting on the end of the world. Then again, his hypnotic delivery might have been perfect for 12:30am.

The original theme song for “Night Beat” was this Dave Brubeck classic. It was my first introduction to sophisticated music. I was nine or ten and I loved it.

“Take Five” will forever remind me of those free, long summer nights.

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12/10/2011
1 Comment
1968 Democratic Convention, Alan Cromer, Bloomington Indiana, Chicago Police Department, Chicago Sun-Times, Durban Climate Conference, Environment, Fox News, G-8, Jon Burge, Kirk Douglas, Marvin Gaye, NATO, Neil Steinberg, Occupy Movement, Police Riot, Roger Ebert, Summerdale Police Scandal, What's Going On?

The Pencil Today:

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WE’D RATHER FEEL THAN THINK

The late physicist Alan Cromer suggested that scientific thinking is not a natural process for the seven billion of us who muddle through this life. “Human beings, after all, love to believe in spirits and gods,” he said. “Science, which asks them to see things as they are and not as they believe or feel them to be, undercuts a primary human passion.”

Cromer

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BLOOMINGTON REDUCES ITS GAS PAIN

Environmental issues, both local and global, are in the news this Saturday morning.

The Herald Times reports that the City of Bloomington used five percent less gasoline in its fleet vehicles during the first half of this year, as compared to the same span in 2010.

Good news, no?

Less Of This Here

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It’s important to keep in mind, though, that Bloomington, being the capital-in-exile of the former Soviet Union, is chock-full of liberals, Democrats, and other sinners who go in for that kind of Earth-y stuff.

The rest of this holy land? Well, you know.

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WHAT DO THOSE DUMB SCIENTISTS KNOW ANYWAY?

So, the South Africa climate talks are petering out with no agreement in sight.

It’s the usual snag: the big countries (like you-know-which holy land) that pollute most are pushing for a tepid pact to curb greenhouse gases and other flotsam and jetsam. Developing nations, which have a lot less to lose economically, want strong environmental safeguards.

I understand the motivations of corporate robber barons and their coatholders in Congress who want to forestall any restrictions. It costs dough, after all, to sanitize smokestacks that belch toxins.

The Sweet Smell Of Success

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Why, though, would that certain segment of the general populace that drools before any TV screen with Fox News on it not want stringent global environmental laws? Don’t they want to breathe fresh air or drink clean water?

Perhaps not. Perhaps they wish only to inhale Camels and slurp Diet Coke.

Anyway, that gang doesn’t believe the overwhelming majority of climatologists who are convinced humankind is mucking up the atmosphere so badly that Hurricane Katrina in a few decades will seem like a spring shower.

Many of them do believe in things like ghosts, UFO visitations, astrology, intelligent design, spontaneous human combustion, numerology, angels, homeopathy, feng shui, clairvoyance, Nostradamus, and other fairy tales.

In that sense, the Fox News audience is far more “natural” than I am.

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MERCY MERCY ME

Heck, let’s stick with the ecology. Here’s the final track on side one of Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On?” vinyl disc, released in May, 1971. For my money, it’s the best pop album ever made. Enjoy.

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WE DO FACEBOOK SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO

◗ Chicago Sun-Times movie critic Roger Ebert can’t speak anymore but his voice rings out louder than ever these days. He’s become a writing machine. He reminds us that Kirk Douglas is now 95 years old.

By the way, you have to read Roger’s take on the Occupy Movement. He goes a little too soft on the Democratic Party, IMHO, but his righteous indignation is refreshing.

◗ And so we’ll stick with the Sun-Times. Columnist Neil Steinberg writes today about the Chicago Police. The boys in powder blue will be on world display next spring with the G-8 and NATO summits coming to town. The CPD has been tarnished through the years by the Summerdale Scandal, the ’68 Convention, the Jon Burge torture case, and too many others to name here. I personally took a beating in the back seat of a squad car once for the unforgivable sin of being a mouthy sixteen-year-old. Steinberg is no more popular with Chicago’s cops today than dopey kids like me were back then. His FB link illustrates why.

FYI: It was Steinberg who, as a pseudonymous critic of a well-known, pathologically flatulent Chicago newspaper columnist back in the ’90s, inspired the title for this feature. I wish I could tell you what Steinberg’s nom de plume was or who was the blowhard he skewered but, well, I just can’t.

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12/02/2011
3 Comments
Alycin Bektesh, Chad Carrothers, Chicago Sun-Times, Dave Edmunds, Dave Hoekstra, Elvis Costello, January Jones, Judith Smith-Ille, Matchbox-Chicago, Monroe County, Nick Lowe, Republican Party, Stiff Records, University of Illinois-Chicago, Voter Centers, WFHB, WUIC

The Pencil Today:

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SAVINGS BE DAMNED — VOTE CENTERS ARE A NO-GO

The race went according to form yesterday. The lone Republican on the Monroe County election commission ixnayed vote centers.

Commissioner Judith Smith-Ille said hell no to the proposed plan which would have replaced the county’s 90 voter precincts with a smaller number of strategically located vote centers.

Smith-Ille: No Means No

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The vote center plan would have made it easier for voters — including IU college students — to cast their ballots in next year’s presidential beauty contest. It also would have saved tons of dough and streamlined counting and reporting procedures.

Smith-Ille shook her head and said she was worried about how people in wheelchairs and such would get into the centers.

Me? I’m guessing it has a hell of a lot more to do with keeping those pesky college students away from the polls — especially since they tended to vote Democratic in 2008.

On the bright side, this GOP gambit is a refreshing change of pace. Republicans invariably embrace anything that saves cash. Perhaps my Republican friends are getting help for that particular addiction.

If so, keep up the good work, guys. We may yet bring you around to supporting costly things like social services, education, health care, and other human needs.

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JANUARY JONES MOVES ON

Sad news from the world headquarters of WFHB radio. News hound extraordinaire January Jones is out as News Director.

The Real January Jones

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January and I spent many an afternoon pounding out stories for the 5:30PM Daily Local News. She worked herself ragged transcribing countless (and seemingly endless) city and county meetings for CATS Week. Often she’d show up in the newsroom running on an hour or less of sleep.

She took over the News Department after Chad Carrothers was kicked upstairs to the General Manager’s chair. The transition was as seamless as could it be.

Assistant News Director Alycin Bektesh will watch over the operation for the time being until Chad and the board can name a permanent victim…, er, replacement.

Alycin Bektesh

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CRUEL TO BE KIND

Dave Hoekstra, Chicago Sun-Times columnist and denizen of that legendary watering hole, The Matchbox, hit me with a nostalgia stick in the middle of the night.

Sun-Timesman Dave Hoekstra

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I couldn’t sleep so I went online, natch. Flipped through Facebook and found a post from him linking to one of the great pure pop songs of all time. “Cruel to Be Kind” by Nick Lowe.

Lowe was a member of the Stiff Records stable of coolness. He and Dave Edmunds (“Girls Talk”) were part of the advance guard (including Elvis Costello) of what would become the British post-punk invasion.

The song was power pop at its finest. And the video perfectly captures the feel of the early art form. People are actually having fun in it, albeit sort of a clunky, nervous, what-am-I-supposed-to-do-next kind of fun.

When I DJ’d the overnight shift at WUIC, the University of Illinois-Chicago‘s station, I would play “Cruel to Be Kind” at least once every single airshift.

And to prove I’m not dead yet, I listened to and watched the vid five straight times at around 1:30 this morning. Thanks, Hoekstra!

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