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Victory! at 12:25 PM on 9/20/2007

"That old car might be worth money...". Even newcomers to Chicago know immediately what those words mean and can conjure up the same exact visual image as everyone else who'se heard them... The beater car so run down the driver's side door falls off. The "K-Tel Super Hits of the 70s'" looking guy who's outfit and hair are so retro they're back in again. The two truck driver who dishes out a handful of crisp bills to the owner of the car, who displays a kick-ass wide leather watch band. And the final address tagline, a location we now know by heart.. "710 East Green in Bensonville near O'Hare...". The Victory Auto Parts commercial has been running in Chicago for more than 25 years now and I dare say has become just as much a part of Chicago lore as the Bozo and Garfield Goose shows of yore. It's been relegated to the wee hours of the morning now, but there's something comforting about seeing it still on the air (if TV commercials can be considered comforting). That no matter how many condos go up and names of old buildings come down, we'll always have Victory.

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whet at 10:01 PM on 9/20/2007

WFMT and WHPK, the alpha and omega of my radio experience.

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Claire at 11:48 PM on 9/20/2007

An interesting, fun and informative read -- typical of the Chicago Reader.

To me this issue has a feel of "The Last Hurrah" of The Reader As We've Known It. As the paper is on the verge of significant change this is almost like a statement: This Is Who We Were At This Point In Time.

Thanks to the contributors & the rest of the staff for this issue & all of your overall excellent work.

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schoolhouser0xx0r at 9:50 AM on 9/21/2007

Studs.
Tom Palazzolo.
John H. White.
Ben Hecht's 1001 Afternoons.

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Lisa at 12:03 PM on 9/21/2007

The back couch at Simon's bar.
Free music nights at Millenium Park.

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whet at 12:08 PM on 9/21/2007

The AIC's Chicago architect oral history project.

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kates at 12:25 PM on 9/21/2007

Loyola Park Beach, for the fishermen on the lighthouse pier, the hideous sculpture that looks like the giant mandible of some alien creature, the hippie-dippy neighborhood-decorated painted cement bench, the Poles swimming in their underwear, the white-robed African immigrants getting baptized in the water, the kids jumping around in the shallows, the view of the city skyline, the long, unbroken stretch of beach, and the liberal lifeguards who actually let you swim.

Also Hot Doug's and the Velvet Lounge.

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Kate at 12:30 PM on 9/21/2007

Scale Model.
It's the only local indie rock band with a real female front person (one that can actually play guitar very well, sing very well, put on a good show, and look hot- not like a dyke or tom-girl).

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Ick! at 2:05 PM on 9/21/2007

This is pure service. C'mon Reader, you used to never stoop so low.

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softdog at 2:09 PM on 9/21/2007

There's an extra level of ironic nolstalgia for me. 11 years ago, during the 1996 Democratic Convention, the Reader chose to publish WHAT STINKS, a collection of short essays about everything the staff hated about the city. Insiders I know later admitted this hasty gesture was unwise instead of daring. Visitors questioned why a paper would trash their own city to a national crowd. Residents found it confirmed the Reader's then reputation as being petulant snobs who wouldn't admit the few things they liked so the masses wouldn't ruin it.

This rep was exaggerated, of course, but it did reflect a paper which was a bit disconnected and overly focussed on rock critic purity of not seeming like a cheerleader. Except for the This Week pages, which were always unabashedly interested in the whole city and a precursor to the "week to come" type columns all freeps use.

Since then the staff and attitude has changed tremendously and the Reader has a general engaged enthusiasm about living here.

I have greatly appreciated the Chicago 101 series as the current staff explains how to fully appreciate what doesn't stink.

The current Reader crew includes friends and acquaintences and I'm sad to realize this issue is a subtle goodbye.

I accept times are changing, but the aggressive downsizing and outsourcing will make it harder to feel like the paper is part of this city.

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hmmpf at 2:14 PM on 9/21/2007

"the only local indie rock band with a real female front person (one that can actually play guitar..and look hot- not like a dyke or tom-girl)."

Wow. Using a "favorite" to gaybash and spew misogynist generalizations. Somehow, I think, you ain't a real woman "Kate".

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Kathie at 2:26 PM on 9/21/2007

"the only local indie rock band with a real female front person (one that can actually play guitar..and look hot- not like a dyke or tom-girl)."
IMO, dykes and tom girls are totally hot.

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whet at 2:37 PM on 9/21/2007

Re Ick!: Different times. This is the age of New Sincerity, or at least it will be until the Believer folds or the economy gets better.

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sass at 10:05 PM on 9/21/2007

liz armstrong wrote about outdanced? how ethical considering she'sboinking jillian valentino.

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Ick at 7:06 PM on 9/22/2007

New sincerity? Gimme a break. Tell that to Liz Armstrong and the people who published Chicago Antisocial.

This "101" crap is a poor excuse, the easiest of things to put in the paper . . . and it's not surprising. The bar at Shaw's or the fern room at Garfield Park are a waste of the Reader's time, which should be directed to actually finding good stories and to publishing good writing.

If I wanted to read this stuff, I would buy Time Out, or pick up a copy of Where. One week, people who dress nicely, and the next this -- everyone who got what was unique about the Reader must be gone. I don't know what softdog is talking about; the Reader always celebrated Chicago by telling us stories they wouldn't see elsewhere.

It's truly goodbye to the alternative press here. My prediction is we'll see a lot more of this kind of thing . . . it's cheap.

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Liz Armstrong at 7:38 PM on 9/22/2007

Addressing Sass's comment:

I've written about Outdanced events many times in the past, before I'd spoken a word to Jillian, because I thought what she and Scott were doing was pretty interesting and important to the city. Anyone who'd care to track my life and my writing that closely would notice that my relationship with her came after my enthusiasm for her event.

Also, I stopped boinking Jillian Valentino when we broke up, which was before I pitched and wrote the blurb.

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whet at 1:22 AM on 9/23/2007

"One week, people who dress nicely, and the next this . . ." that's the best thing i've read all week.

y'know, you bring down a sitting congressman and you think maybe you can get away with publishing a picture of someone wearing a dress. we're still kind of feeling out the 21st century, so it's good to know the boundaries.

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tasneem at 10:10 PM on 9/23/2007

Fine, pictures of people in stirrup pants and Crocs next week.

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Mark at 10:35 PM on 9/23/2007

Kiddieland (79 year old amusement park for younger children... the only teens there are the ones selling you corndogs)

Super H Mart (gigantic Korean/Asian market with great food court too)

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Bart Swindall at 6:04 PM on 9/24/2007

The Thorne Rooms, Part2

I grew up in a hardscrabble little town in the middle of the Central Illinois corn belt, and the Thorne rooms were the closest I ever got to seeing a professionally decorated room until I was in high school and my family moved to Wisconsin. In Clinton, a beautiful room was a room in which a gigantic lamp with a ruffled shade like a square dancer's dress was plunked down smack in front of the picture window, so coming across these incredible rooms on a field trip to the city was like discovering another world.

My classmates from Clinton Junior High--well, the girls, anyway--oohed & aahed over the cuteness of it all, but it wasn't the Thorne Rooms' samll size that made an impression on me, it was their beauty & richness, and even though it was another 30 years--and a detour through another whole career--before I got my interior design degree, I began my study of historic decorating right there, and if I wasn't the only kid in the 7th grade who read Dorothy Draper's decorating column, I was the only one who admitted it.

When the Thorne Rooms were new, back in the 193Os, they reperesented--allegedly--the wide-ranging decorating styles of the last few centuries in (mostly) the countries that really counted: that is, France & England & our own. But looking back with the advantage of seven extra decades' hindsight, these dreamlike rooms say more about the vanished world of the upper classes as they lived between the two big wars than they do about the historic periods those rooms were copying, and in their furniture's waxy patina & the perfectly parallel folds in the curtains at the windows, they imply just as much about the armies of invisible servants that once existed to maintain the comforting illusion of a perfected past. I look at these rooms and I don't see Berkeley Square in the 176Os , or a Parisian salon looking out over the/ Bois de Boulogne in 1810, I see a French provincial living room in Lake Forest, or a Tudor dining room overlooking Lake Shore Drive. These truly are windows into a lost world.

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Tom at 10:38 PM on 9/24/2007

The 3rd of July concert at Grant Park, and the fireworks that follow on the lakefront, is the best place to be on that day and time. Combined, however, with the Taste of Chicago crowd, the million plus throng produce a logistical nightmare.

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picasso fan at 4:14 PM on 9/28/2007

it's a damn baboon!
http://www.artbohemia.cz/5292-tete-de-baboon-opus-639

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P. at 3:04 PM on 9/29/2007

Damn ... Anyway I can get a copy of that rank pic of Hunter humping that chick?

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Francesca De Pascale at 11:06 AM on 5/9/2008

Hello guys, I am Francesca from MTV Italy.
We are coming to Chicago for shooting a program in the US and we are coming to chicago. I am looking for fresh infos about cool places, great stories to tell about the city. If you have some project there and you want to talk about it, I am here to listen to you "Chicago point of view", So please, contact my at francesca.depascale@neonetwork.it

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musak fan at 3:19 PM on 8/12/2008

Yeah, Scale Model's singer may be hot but they also play some pretty pimp indie rock.

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Chicago House Music at 10:11 PM on 4/5/2009

Bridgeford Smoked Meats on Green between Lake & Randolph; try the ham