WBEZ 91.5 Chicago

As any true Chicagoan knows, Western Avenue is the longest street in the city. Would you believe it was once named Woodrow Wilson Road?

Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States, died on February 3, 1924. He’d been an icon of the Progressive movement and led the country through the First World War. The Chicago City Council wanted a suitable way to honor him.

A few years before, after Theodore Roosevelt died, the aldermen changed 12th Street to Roosevelt Road. What was good for a dead Republican president should be good for a dead Democratic one. Since the city already had a Wilson Avenue, it was decided to use President Wilson’s full name on his street.

It’s not clear why the lawmakers chose Western Avenue for renaming. On April 25, 1924 they voted to re-designated the street as Woodrow Wilson Road.

The 12th-to-Roosevelt change had caused little controversy. But now the property owners along Western objected to the expense involved in renaming their street.

…Read Full Entry

• Comments
• Send
• Print
• Share
• Recommend
• Tweet

…Read Full Entry

• Comments
• Send
• Print
• Share
• Recommend
• Tweet

Tonight we celebrate a year of MOTH StorySlams in Chicago at the Park West for The Chicago MOTH Grandslam.  For the Live Lit scene, the Grandslam is sort of like the SuperBowl of Stories and the ten storytellers (all past StorySlam winners this year) are gunning for a win.

If you are unfamiliar with the Live Lit scene, I'd suggest you crawl out of your bomb shelter and get a little sunlight on those Morlockesque retinas and get involved.  In the past few years, this scene has exploded all over Chicago and represents a genuine rallying cry for face-to-face communication between audiences all over and ordinary people telling their very personal stories.

The Grandslam is sold out, so you're out of luck there but you can catch either the ridiculously funny Brian Babylon on the last Tuesday of every month for The Moth at Martyr's and myself at Haymarket Pub and Brewery every second Monday. The two of us host the slam which encourages you - yes, YOU - to sign up and tell the audience a story.  A true story.  Based on a pre-selected theme.

In addition to The Moth Storyslams, there are a multitude of storytelling nights all over the city and, believe me, once you get a taste for these events, you get hooked pretty fast.

…Read Full Entry

• Comments
• Send
• Print
• Share
• Recommend
• Tweet

Who would have thought that Donald Trump could be right about anything?

I’m referring to Trump’s speech last March to a half-empty room at the Conservative Political Pac Conference, when he railed against immigration reform while several other GOP bigwigs struggled with trying to bring the Republicans along on the issue.

But The Donald, in characteristic slash-and-burn style, railed with a warning about a path to citizenship – and not just the moral meaning of it, the way former Sen. Jim DeMint, who now heads the Heritage Foundation did, or based on national security concerns, however faux, like Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer has posited.

No, Trump’s Cassandra moment was crass and political, aimed squarely at the electoral consequences of providing a path to the voting booth for 11 million mostly Latino undocumented residents.

…Read Full Entry

• Comments
• Send
• Print
• Share
• Recommend
• Tweet

…Read Full Entry

• Comments
• Send
• Print
• Share
• Recommend
• Tweet

Though it isn’t particularly adept at it, at least when it comes to breaking even or turning a profit, Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s reconfigured Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events is determined to stay in the concert business, regardless of mounting losses in difficult economic times.

The city this morning announced the remaining headliners for Taste of Chicago this July, with R&B singer Robin Thicke, Led Zeppelin veteran Robert Plant, neo-soul diva Jill Scott, and alternative rockers Neon Trees joining the previously announced “We Are Young” pop band fun.

 “We are thrilled to announce the headlining talent,” Emanuel said in a statement. “The Taste draws hundreds of thousands of residents and visitors to downtown Chicago and we are excited to offer attendees such a variety of recognized, energized, and award-winning quality entertainers while enjoying a taste of Chicago’s culinary scene.”

…Read Full Entry

• Comments
• Send
• Print
• Share
• Recommend
• Tweet

By this point, I'm loath to give Rachel Shteir's New York Times piece more play. She made her point, people responded, she was given the chance to reply (and that response was something along the lines of, "I meant what I said and I'm sorry if you little diaper babies can't take it.") Fine. Let's move on to some other civic outrage, like how horrible our baseball teams are right now.

EXCEPT. One thing I can't get over is a particular way some Chicagoans have expressed their displeasure with Shteir: by attacking her looks (just read the comments on any of the pieces online about her.) I can't quite let this go by for the following reasons:

A. It's inaccurate. Shteir may be a little cranky, but she is perfectly nice looking. I am an expert on looks and I'm declaring this as a fact so don't even argue with it.

…Read Full Entry

• Comments
• Send
• Print
• Share
• Recommend
• Tweet