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Waiting is hardest part for those watching Illinois’ same-sex marriage vote

Fri, 24 May 2013 14:46:00 -0500

For months, members of the Illinois State House have been waiting to call same-sex marriage for a vote. Sponsors say they don’t quite have the votes needed to pass the bill yet. But all that waiting has consequences.

Imagine what Chicago’s Boystown neighborhood would be like if same-sex marriage is approved in Illinois.

Imagining is Chuck Hyde’s job. “We’ve been kind of on-the-ready,” Hyde said.

Hyde manages the bar Sidetrack in the heart of Boystown on Halsted Street.

“We decorate big. Our events are big. It’s a fun bar. And it can hold a lot of people,” he said. "More than 1,200 people, actually."

I caught up with Hyde just as construction crews were wrapping up a renovation of the interior of the bar. It has several rooms, a few bars and an outdoor patio; the kind of place Hyde is hoping people will come to to celebrate bachelor or bachelorette parties. Or wedding receptions.

Hyde was hoping construction would be done in time so he could host a celebration in case the state legislature voted in favor of same-sex marriage.

Instead – he’s been waiting.

“There were a number of weeks back that we thought it might be very close and we were kind of waiting by the phone. Literally, the vote’s going up, the vote’s not going up,” Hyde said. “And if it was going to happen, we were ready. We had ordered champagne, we had glassware ready. We were ready for the balloons. We had posters. We had all kinds of things. We had some signs and we were going to let the world know that we were thrilled and throwing a party. And ready to celebrate.”

Hyde said the champagne is still in a cooler, waiting.

He said he was underprepared when same-sex civil unions passed in Illinois two years ago. The demand for a party when that passed was bigger than he anticipated.

So he’s trying not to leave anything to chance this time around.

That means, though, he’s been on edge for more than three months. The Illinois State Senate approved same-sex marriage in February. Since then, it’s lingered in the House of Representatives. Supporters say they’ve been waiting to call it for a vote because they don’t have the necessary 60 yes votes.

As wedding season arrives, those in the wedding business have had a lot of uncertainty about what their summer will look like.

“All of the wedding industry is following it very, very closely,” said Beth Bernstein, a Chicago wedding planner who operates SQN Events.

Bernstein said she helped plan a midnight civil union ceremony for six couples who wanted to file as soon as possible two years ago.

But since civil unions passed, things have plateaued.

“I don’t think it provided the lasting effect of the business that we thought we may see,” Bernstein said.

She’s seeing many couples waiting for word from Springfield before planning their wedding.

But for Amanda Marquez and Maggie Moran, waiting is not appealing.

Their Logan Square apartment has neatly organized shelves lined with books and tv show dvds.

Close by is a small pile of purple, green and blue origami paper stars.

“So this is going to make us look really bad, really tacky,” joked Moran. “We’re actually using the rainbow (as the colors of the wedding). But we’re not going for the whole rainbow effect. So we’re doing like half of the tables are warm colors and then the other half of the tables are cool colors.”

Moran and Marquez are having a civil union ceremony on June 22nd. If the proposed bill passes, they could apply to have that civil union turned into a marriage.

Marquez said she doesn’t want to wait on the government for other things, like buying a house or having kids, so why wait for the legislature.

“Not knowing exactly when, you know, how things will go in Springfield, when it will happen, we just moved forward,” Marquez said.

Moran said it will be heart-wrenching if same-sex marriage fails in Springfield. But she said it would be more heart-wrenching not committing to Marquez. She said that’s too much to put on one vote.

Tony Arnold covers Illinois politics for WBEZ. Follow him @tonyjarnold.

Why does Chicago still have such high gas prices?

Fri, 24 May 2013 13:04:00 -0500

It’s Memorial Day weekend, which means more people are hitting the road...and slapping their foreheads when they see the price at the pump. Especially in Chicago.

According to a recent Lundberg Survey the price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States rose sharply in the last two weeks because of outages at Midwest and West Coast refineries

But gas prices in Chicago are often higher than the rest of the country. Higher than New York, Los Angeles — even Hawaii.

But why? Chicago isn’t far from oil-rich Canada and there’s a huge refinery right next door.

Even longtime Chicagoans don’t seem to know why gas is so expensive in the city.

"I don’t know? I think people in high office do what they want and we just have to go with the flow,” said Kuri Roundtree, who pulled into a BP gas station at Roosevelt and Wabash in the South Loop earlier this week. “I think it’s ridiculous. It costs me $70 dollars to fill up my SUV. I’m sure I’m not the only person complaining about this gas. All of my family members hate going to the gas station."

Finding the answer to Chicago’s expensive gas mystery is actually not that obvious.

“Chicago is unique for a few different reasons. Even prices outside our region could be going down while our prices are going up,” said Patrick DeHaan, senior petroleum analyst for GasBuddy.com.

DeHaan says many factors that help set gas prices for the entire country are simply out of our control. For starters, the sky high price of crude oil on the global market. Thanks to demand in Asia, turmoil in the Middle East and good ol’ Mother Nature — like the flooding we experienced earlier this month.

“There’s nothing really to fix,” DeHaan said. “That’s just the way the free market works with gasoline. Prices go up and down.”

Still, if you live in Chicago, it’s usually up.

Another reason for this is the process of refining the crude oil before it gets to the pump.

There are four refineries that generally serve the Chicago market, including BP’s massive refinery in nearby Whiting, Indiana, right across the state border.

The Whiting refinery has been around longer than there have been automobiles. It was part of John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil empire in the late 1800s. Of course, it’s more expensive now to refine crude oil than it was back then primarily because of environmental regulations.

You’ve probably heard about the cleaner burning “summer blend” that the Environmental Protection Agency requires for cities like Chicago.

“Summer gasoline, or gasoline with a different RVP, is a different formulation. You can’t use some of your lighter ends, such as your butanes to add to the volume of the gasoline, because it would evaporate out in the higher temperatures so it is more expensive in the summer,” said BP Whiting senior spokesman Scott Dean.

Unfortunately for Chicago’s gas customers, the city’s close proximity to the BP Refinery doesn’t help much in keeping costs down. Dean says that’s not how wholesale pricing works.

“It’s called the rack price,” Dean said. “The rack price is what the tanker truck driver who may be representing any number of companies, will go, will get the fuel, will pay whatever the rack price of what they’ve agreed to. And, the retailer will then determine the final price that they sell on the street.”

Customers may also have a desire to blame gas station owners for the high price of gasoline. But Beth Mosher, spokeswoman for AAA Chicago Motor Club, says it’s not their fault.

“Everybody wants to take it out on their local gas station owner why these prices are so high,” Mosher said. “But the reality is when the prices are this high the profit margins for these gas stations are so thin, they are going to make more from a bag of doritos that they are selling you than they are the gas.”

Mosher says the final factor for high gasoline prices can be pinned on the tax man.

“First and foremost, we have to talk about the high taxes in Chicago,” she said. “About 70 cents on the gallon is what people pay in Chicago for gas taxes, really, really a high number, especially given the statewide average is 49 cents on the gallon.”

Those figures can fluctuate, but that means generally 70 to 90 cents for every gallon of gas pumped in Chicago goes to taxes.

For example, if gas costs $4.67 a gallon that means 18 cents goes to the federal government; 43 cents for the state. And if you live in Chicago, tack on another 33 cents for Cook County and the city.

That includes sales and motor fuel taxes, the latter of which goes to pay for roads and bridges and some of the capital projects.

Although increasingly that money is being diverted to pay for things like pensions.

Another factor that hits wallets particularly hard is the way all levels of government in Illinois levy sales tax on gasoline purchases. The state of Illinois alone charges 6.25 percent sales tax. Twenty years ago when gas was much cheaper that meant just pennies on the dollar. But now that can be an extra 20 cents or more per gallon since the higher the gas price, the more taxes you pay.

“Most states don’t do that. Most states tax only based per unit, per gallon if you will. So, even if the cost goes up, the amount of tax you pay does not go up in terms of your overall cost,” said John Tillman, Chief Executive Officer for the Illinois Policy Institute, based in downtown Chicago.

Last summer, the Institute called for the state sales tax to be changed so it’s based on the number of gallons purchased, and not the price. The proposal fell on deaf ears in Springfield.

Still, if prices aren’t coming down anytime soon, what are drivers supposed to do?

Well, for one thing, we can buy less gas.

“We urge people not to wait for the government to do things but start consolidating your trips and take the L or the Metra train if that’s a possibility to you,” Mosher said. “Do things on your own to start getting better gas mileage out of your car.”

But even if you buy that fuel efficient hybrid or an electric car, drivers still might not be out of the woods when it comes to paying higher gas taxes.

Lawmakers in Springfield are talking about boosting motor fuel taxes to make up the lost revenue from fuel-efficient cars that use less gas. They may even impose fees on the fuel-efficient vehicles themselves to help fund road repairs.

One supporter of this proposal is Doug Whitley, president and CEO of the Illinois Chamber of Commerce.

Whitely is also co-chair of the Transportation for Illinois Coalition which has been in Springfield pushing an increase to Illinois’ motor fuel tax. Although with only one week remaining in the state’s spring schedule, he says most lawmakers are focused on issues like pensions, conceal-carry and same-sex marriage.

“The state’s capital program to fund construction for roads, bridges and transit falls off the cliff next year. That fiscal cliff we heard about in Washington also exists in Springfield,” Whitely told WBEZ this week.

Whitely explained that the state’s fiscal program that started in 2009 will expire in the next fiscal year.

“There’s discussion of how to keep capital dollars flowing to the state and local government and the transit districts so they can continue to build, maintain and modernize and handle their construction needs,” Whitely said.

Whitely said one proposal garnering a lot of attention is the idea of abolishing Illinois’ 19 cent motor fuel tax and establishing a new sales tax on fuels. A similar plan was just implemented in Virginia.

“The motor fuel tax was last increased 23 years ago and there’s no growth in that tax in large part because of the mile-advantages of today’s more fuel efficient cars can take advantage of,” Whitely said. “We already have cars getting 50 miles to the gallon and electric cars, so the motor fuel tax isn’t putting the money into the road fund to support construction.”

Another idea is to levy new taxes or registration fees on hybrids and electric cars directly.

“If you have an electric car, you're really getting away to use the roads but not having to pay much for them,” Whitely said.

Whitely is sympathetic to Chicago area residents who already pay a lot of taxes on gas. “But if you want to continue to have transportation systems that are modern, efficient, clean and safe, there’s going to be a cost related to that,” he said.

“The bottom line is, there is no free lunch.”

Michael Puente is WBEZ's Northwest Indiana bureau reporter. Follow him on Twitter @MikePuenteNews.

Alderman: Mayor fudged the numbers on parking meter plan

Fri, 24 May 2013 09:36:00 -0500

The private company that runs Chicago’s parking meters could be in for another windfall under a deal proposed by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, according to an analysis by one Chicago alderman.

A day before the first City Council hearing on the proposal, Alderman Scott Waguespack (32nd), a frequent Emanuel critic, also suggested the administration lowballed by millions of dollars the amount of money Chicago Parking Meters LLC would make off of drivers who would have to feed the meters longer under the mayor’s plan.

“It’s purely a political move by the mayor to make sure that this free Sunday thing gains traction, but (it’s wrong) calling it a wash or saying the city’s not losing any money here,” Waguespack said, referring to Emanuel’s plan to allow free Sunday parking in most neighborhoods.

Emanuel’s office did not comment on the alderman’s analysis.

The mayor has repeatedly said he’s hoping to “make a little lemonade out of a big lemon” by negotiating free Sunday parking in neighborhoods, and dramatically reducing the amount of reimbursement money the paid to the private company each year for meters the city takes out of service.

But in exchange, Emanuel is asking drivers to feed meters for three extra hours, until midnight, near downtown, and for one more hour in most Chicago neighborhoods.

The City Council Finance Committee on Friday is set to begin the first of two days of hearings on Emanuel’s proposed revisions to the much-hated $1.15 billion, 75-year lease of the city’s parking meters. The privatization has since become politically toxic, and aldermen are wary of any deal that could mean more money for CPM.

But Waguespack said the proposed amendment could be worse than the initial 2008 deal, which former Mayor Daley crammed through the City Council just days after it was introduced.

The alderman predicts an extension of parking meter hours - from 9 p.m. to midnight near downtown, and until 10 p.m. in most neighborhoods - could reap between $11 million and $12.9 million a year for CPM, according to a draft of the analysis obtained by WBEZ.

The Emanuel administration had predicted CPM would make only $7.4 million off of the extra meter hours, but Waguespack said City Hall used three low-traffic months in making its projections.

When the longer meter hours, new pay-by-cellphone fees and the give-back of parking spots to CPM are taken into account, Waguespack says the city would be losing out on nearly $1.9 million a year under Emanuel’s plan. That assumes CPM will take $2 million on the pay-by-cell fees, though neither the city nor the company have provided an estimate.

His more aggressive projection, which assumes a lot more revenue from the extended parking meter hours, has CPM coming out more than $9.5 million ahead of the city.

Waguespack is challenging the Emanuel administration claim that the city is getting the better end of the deal: free Sunday parking will cost CPM $8.4 million in lost revenue, it says, while it will make only the $7.4 million off the extra hours. That doesn’t factor in the roughly $20 million a year City Hall says it won’t have to pay in reimbursement costs.

Waguespack did praise Emanuel’s administration for trying to bring down the reimbursement costs, though he questions the claim that it will save the city $1 billion over the life of the contract.

Aldermen will hold a second hearing on Emanuel’s proposal on Tuesday, with a vote by the full City Council expected in mid-June.

Alex Keefe covers politics for WBEZ. Follow his @akeefe

Solar pump moistens marsh to beckon rare birds

Thu, 23 May 2013 19:10:00 -0500

Although Chicago was built from a swamp, wetlands remain only in the city's most remote corners. Hegewisch Marsh is a prime example of a hemi-marsh, a mix of open water and stands of vegetation.

“A lot of the Calumet area used to be hemi-marshes, and there’s not much of that habitat left,” said Zhanna Yermakov, natural areas manager for the Chicago Park District, which acquired the 100-acre site from the Department of Environment when the city dissolved that department in 2011.

The Park District also found itself in control of a solar-powered pump that can draw water from the Little Calumet River to replenish a parched marsh during droughts. Though it was installed in 2008, the pump hadn’t been turned on until this year. Now it could be part of a five-year restoration plan for this rare bird breeding ground.

The ebb and flow of marsh water gives life to a unique ecosystem favored by migratory birds. During the late 1980s, a suite of rare birds — yellowheaded blackbirds, black terns, common gallinules and others — frequented northeastern Illinois marshes. Since then there have generally been declines in those species, while others that prefer open water or shallow wetlands, like pied-billed grebes and sandhill cranes, have increased.

Arriving on the sodden edge of the 29-acre marsh itself, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Biologist Mike Redmer is visibly impressed.

“The last time I saw the marsh with this much water was probably 1999,” he said.

Redmer is leading a small group through the wetland in search of frogs for Urban Biodiversity Week. They turn up empty-handed but for some tadpoles and a hatchling painted turtle, no bigger than a half-dollar when it retracts its limbs into its shell.

The pumps appear to have worked, but Yermakov cautions it’s hard to know how much of the water is runoff.

“We weren’t even sure the pumps were going to be operational,” she said.

And fine-tuning a natural area is no easy task.

“Figuring out how to manage the system is not simple," Yerkakov said. "These sites don’t come with owner’s manuals.”

Several frog species were once abundant in Hegewisch Marsh. While they remain, all have become more difficult to find. Invasive species have ravaged habitat once home to uncommon amphibian species like wood frogs and spotted salamanders. One prevalent invader, buckthorn, even cripples developing frogs with a chemical it uses to set the table for its advance.

As with many urban natural areas, Hegewisch Marsh also has its issues with off-road vehicles and dirt bikes. Deep cuts from what look like either trucks or years of ATV traffic scar the marsh with bare beds in spots. But ongoing restoration efforts have used federal dollars to convert the treaded ruts into corridors for amphibian habitat.

Yellowheaded blackbirds and spotted salamanders may make for rare sightings in Hegewisch Marsh these days, but the urban wetland is still a refuge for threatened species, thanks to ongoing management. Time will tell if the Park District’s restoration plan — an effort of the Army Corps of Engineers, the state Department of Natural Resources, and the Chicago-based nonprofit Wetlands Initiative — will strike the right balance. But if last week’s dewy hemi-marsh is any indication, the new pump may be a valuable tool in their fight.

Springfield unlikely to stop Chicago school closings as teachers had hoped

Thu, 23 May 2013 18:04:00 -0500

Some members of the Chicago Teachers Union were hoping state lawmakers would slow down the process of closing dozens of Chicago schools.
Illinois State Sen. William Delgado introduced a bill that would put a one-year moratorium on closing any Chicago schools.

He’s a Democrat who represents parts of the city’s Northwest Side and chairs the Education Committee in the State Senate. A few weeks ago, he got a hearing for his bill addressing the school closings. But the only way he could get the needed support for his bill was to use a parliamentary move essentially removing all the language, what’s called a shell bill. Then, down the road, new language could be added.

Since that hearing, Delgado hasn’t heard anything from other lawmakers.

“This is the hottest button issue in the City of Chicago. I was very disappointed that other legislators that have communities being directly impacted were not running me over to get on that bill,” Delgado said Thursday.

Meantime, another bill addressing the school closings introduced in the Illinois House of Representatives has yet to be called for a hearing.

Delgado said with a week left before legislators adjourn for the summer, he doesn’t see Springfield being a factor in slowing down the school closings.

Tony Arnold covers Illinois politics for WBEZ. Follow him @tonyjarnold.

School closures only add to blight in some Chicago neighborhoods

Thu, 23 May 2013 17:58:00 -0500

The last thing many Chicago neighborhoods need is another abandoned building.

Now that Chicago Public Schools is officially closing 50 schools, that means 42 buildings will be shuttered in June. Many dot areas of the city that are already grappling with poverty and seeking economic development. Neighborhoods like Austin, Englewood and West Garfield Park all have a disproportionate number of boarded-up buildings, foreclosed homes and cases of predatory lending.

According to the Woodstock Institute, a Chicago-based housing policy think tank, Austin had 730 foreclosures in 2011. In 2012, foreclosures were up 28 percent in West Garfield Park and 27 percent in West Pullman.

Woodstock’s Katie Bruitrago says an abandoned school might pile on further stress.

“Having such a large building that’s a center of a community become vacant, if it’s not properly maintained, it could have some of these same negative impacts in terms of attracting crime or affecting property values or neighborhood stability,” she said.

CPS officials say they plan to engage community leaders about how to use the empty buildings. The district has created a provision that none of those structures can be turned into new schools. Officials say it’s too early to determine if the schools will be sold or donated to groups. Some ideas on the table include reusing the space for nonprofits or community centers. In the meantime, CPS says it will be responsible for maintenance and security at empty buildings.

In North Kenwood, Price School is now used for Chicago Police Department K-9 training and the education nonprofit City Year.

But CPS has a large portfolio of idle schools and vacant property. Recently, the board approved the sale of three properties, one of which was formerly Mulligan School. It sold for $4 million.

Natalie Moore is WBEZ’s South Side bureau reporter. Follow her @natalieymoore.

Pritzker faces few tough questions at Senate hearing

Thu, 23 May 2013 15:56:00 -0500

Chicago businesswoman and current Commerce secretary nominee Penny Pritzker faced few tough questions at her Senate hearing Thursday. Pritzker, a long-time friend of and fundraiser for President Barack Obama, was nominated to the post earlier this month.

Pritzker seemed prepared for the two-hour hearing, answering a questions on topics including cyber security, job creation, manufacturing, travel and the fishing industry.

"The calls you’ll get will be about fish," Alaska Senator Mark Begich (D) told Pritzker. "You will think they’re about trade and agreements and tourism - it’s gonna be about fish."

Pritzker was expected to face tough questioning on a few issues. Her family owned 50 percent of the Superior Bank of Chicago, which failed after losing millions of dollars on risky mortgage loans to borrowers with bad credit. Republican Sen. John Thune (R-SD), the ranking member on the committee, was the only senator to inquire about Pritzker’s role in the bank’s collapse.

"Unfortunately, when problems arose, my uncle had recently passed away," Pritzker responded, saying she was never an officer of the bank or involved in management. "I stepped in on behalf of the 50 percent ownership of my family to try and salvage the situation."

Pritzker said after the bank failed, she went to the FDIC herself, and her family voluntarily agreed to pay $450 million.

When Thune asked Pritzker what she’d say to the depositors affected by the bank’s failure, she responded that she regretted the outcome of the bank.

"I feel very badly about that," she added.

Pritzker was also questioned about her family’s offshore trusts, an issue that was expected to be a point of conflict at the hearing.

"I am the beneficiary of off-shore family trusts that were set up when I was a little girl," Pritzker said. "I didn’t create them. I don’t direct them. I don’t control them. I have asked the trustee to remove themselves and appoint a US trustee."

Rocky relations between labor unions and the Hyatt Hotels Corporation, where Pritzker is a board member, barely entered the questioning. Union members of Unite Here in Chicago have protested Pritzker’s nomination over low wages.

Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) mentioned the back and forth between the union and hotel management in her questioning, but didn’t directly ask Pritzker about her role.

Pritzker was introduced at the hearing by both Illinois U.S. Senators Mark Kirk and Dick Durbin. Kirk was reportedly on the fence at first about Pritzker’s nomination, but came out with his endorsement earlier this week.

"I see her as a voice for business that the president will have to heed," Kirk told the committee Thursday.

Pritzker’s nomination still has to face the full Senate.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Lauren Chooljian is a WBEZ’s Morning Producer/Reporter. Follow her @laurenchooljian.

Catching up on our rock reading: The Beats and Rock Culture

Thu, 23 May 2013 12:48:00 -0500

Most people at this time of year are compiling their stack of books to bring to the beach, so what say we music fans catch up on our reading and take a look at some of the best recent rock-related tomes?

Topping this list is Text and Drugs and Rock ’n’ Roll: The Beats and Rock Culture (Bloomsbury) by U.K. journalist and University of Leeds lecturer Simon Warner. The goal is a noble one: to explore the historical intersections between poets and novelists Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, and the rest of the Beat gang of the ’40s and ’50s with the rockers of the ’60s and later eras, as well as the influence of the Beats’ prose on the rockers’ lyrics. And with an academic thoroughness that doesn’t hamper the flow of his own pen, Prof. Warner does make dozens of illuminating connections between the two worlds, some obvious (Dylan and Kerouac; Ginsberg and his various brushes with the Beatles; later-day Beat rockers Patti Smith and Jim Carroll) but many much less so (we also get a discussion of Cream lyricist Pete Brown, a consideration of Kerouac, Tom Waits, and the song “On the Road,” and a look at Burroughs in the work of Genesis P-Orridge).

Unfortunately, for such a heavy read (it checks in at more than 500 pages in hardcover), Warner slights some Beat/rock connections that deserve a lot more discussion, including the admitted influence of Beat writers on pioneering rock critics Lester Bangs and Richard Meltzer; the way that Burroughs’ cut-and-paste methodology was adapted by Kurt Cobain (who pops up only very briefly), and the enduring allure of On the Road as a sacred text and a way of life for three generations of young musicians who’ve climbed in the van to cross America on indie-rock tours and/or indulge in the never-ending “quest for kicks.”

As you might expect, Warner does spend quite a few pages on the Fugs, including a moving tribute to Tuli Kupferberg. I’ve expressed admiration for these legendary ’60s weirdoes in this space before, as well as for bandleader Ed Sanders’ must-read tomes Tales of Beatnik Glory and The Family (the best book on the Manson clan). Now comes Sanders’ first-hand history and celebration of his group, Fug You: An Informal History of the Peace Eye Bookstore, the F*ck You Press, the Fugs, and the Counterculture in the Lower East Side (Da Capo).

Sanders’ recounting of the early ’60s through 1970 is episodic but always charming and engaging. “In this book of remembrances I decided not to drain to its dregs the urn of bitter memory, to paraphrase Shelley’s famous line,” he writes. Instead, “I have chosen to accentuate the energy, the wild fun, the joyful creativity, and the schemes of Better World derring-do and to consign as much bitterness and bad memories as possible to the halls of darkness.”

Fair enough, and, really, how scholarly, encyclopedic, or “objective” would we want the auteur who helped bring us “Group Grope” and “Boobs-a-Lot” to be? The lingering buzz of what we do get is more valuable: A deeper appreciation, sans Baby Boomer/Sixties clichés, of a period of anything-goes, no-rules creativity, and the feeling that, damn, it must have been a lot of fun to be there.

I actually was there for a different happening in a different era some years later: the burgeoning indie-rock scene across the Hudson River from the Lower East Side in the Hoboken of the early and mid-’80s. Recalling those particulars, as well as the broader nationwide underground they typified (and which would in turn nurture the alternative-rock scene of the ’90s) is one reason to revel in the pages of Big Day Coming: Yo La Tengo and the Rise of Indie Rock (Gotham) by Brooklyn-based music journalist, DJ, and musician Jesse Jarnow.

The other reason is, of course, to chart the history of the long-running band led by guitarist Ira Kaplan and drummer Georgia Hubley. Having seen their first shows at Maxwell’s in 1985, I for one would never have thought that I’d be looking forward to seeing them again for the umpteenth time 28 years later at this summer’s Pitchfork Music Festival, let alone that they’d have given us 13 wonderfully consistent albums in that stretch (including the latest, Fade).

Regardless of one’s familiarity with the band in its many incarnations, there’s plenty to learn in these pages. Not that these musicians are especially forthcoming: Kaplan and Hubley never have been big talkers, and they’re never more reticent than when chatting about themselves. Yet Jarnow knew that in some ways, they’d be the least interesting part of their own biography, and a more colorful, less Everyman band might only have distracted from the bigger story of indie-rock as it morphed and developed for better or worse from the nascent days of post-punk fanzines and college radio stations to Pitchfork, podcasts, and corporations looking for cool tracks to pilfer for hip TV commercials.

Follow me on Twitter @JimDeRogatis or join me on Facebook at Jim DeRo.

Chicagoans prep for massive 'civic hackathon'

Thu, 23 May 2013 11:27:00 -0500

Woman who loses to Trump: No regrets

Thu, 23 May 2013 10:40:00 -0500

An 87-year-old woman who lost her civil case against Donald Trump says she's glad she took the "Apprentice" star to court even though a jury in Chicago ended up deciding against her.

The federal jury returned with a finding Thursday against Jacqueline Goldberg. The Evanston woman told reporters later she hoped her lawsuit "exposed Trump for what he is" and dissuades others from investing with him.

Goldberg claimed Trump offered her a profit-sharing plan at Chicago's Trump International Hotel & Tower if she bought condos there. She says he reneged after committing to buy.

Trump's attorneys argued Goldberg signed a contract allowing Trump to change the terms.

Asked what advice she'd give others who do decide to invest with Trump, she responded, "Read the contract carefully."