AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin Javier Baez watches his fourth-inning shot leave the park yesterday. Jorge Soler homered before him and Kris Bryant after him. That was the good news. The Cubs are finally turning the corner this season, you’ve probably heard. No, really, they are. Seriously. They’ve got a bunch of great young players! The sky’s the limit! The misery’s over! I know, I know—it’s spring training, and it doesn’t matter if a team wins or loses....
As your faithful correspondent, I was compelled to read Governor Bruce Rauner’s recent essay on why he vetoed the state budget. The piece was conveniently located on the editorial page of my Chicago Tribune, home delivered as always. Two questions immediately popped into my mind when I read that passage. First of all, when did Rauner start referring to his administration in the third person? And second, is Illinois’s economy really in decline?...
Young Thug doesn’t need to prove himself to anyone anymore. In the early 2010s he emerged from the hotbed of Atlanta, the city that’s largely set hip-hop’s tone this decade, and his every heart-wrenching warble and hair-raising screech seemed to add speed to his ascent. His fluid flow has inspired some of Atlanta’s latest rising rappers, some of whom have released music through his YSL Records label—and three of whom, Gunna, Lil Baby, and Lil Keed, appear on Thug’s latest full-length, August’s So Much Fun (300/Atlantic)....
By Kelley, higher-education administrator As we approached the steps that led into the bar’s location below Ontario Street, Dad stopped dead in his tracks. “Crap,” he said. I’m so embarrassed and wasted that I start crying. “Dad, you always do this!,” I howl, as if he’s always engaging in this particular chain of ridiculous events. I threw a $20 bill at him and screamed, “And here’s my tip!” Then I sprinted outside and caught a cab back to the hotel....
Knee Deep Vintage Runner-Up: Kokorokoko
Films dramatizing and making light of the mid-life crisis have long been the territory of white men. The genre tends to be chock-full of navel-gazing and glamorizing destructive poor life choices spawned from the painful cocktail of the acute loss of youth and the burgeoning fear of contemplating one’s mortality, whether it be creepily chasing after a much younger woman (American Beauty) or rashly thrill seeking (City Slickers). One could easily assume that this entire genre had completely jumped the shark to the level of stereotype, until you realize that turning focus on anyone other than a white man opens up a whole new range of fun and deliciously cringe-worthy foibles to exploit....
During game six of the National League Championship Series, the Ricketts family counted two big wins. The Cubs, the team they’ve owned since 2009, advanced to the World Series for the first time since 1945. The wealthy clan also capitalized on a sizable national TV audience to advance the political fortunes of Donald Trump, whom they’ve supported since he became the Republican nominee in July. The only real controversy in the run-up to the World Series has had nothing to do with the Cubs....
Indiana ironworker-turned-butcher Ricky Hanft had a lot of interesting things to say in my story about him and his Griffith, Indiana, shop The Wurst. He specializes in pastured animals from small farms that are free from GMOs, antibiotics, and whatever other nastiness goes into your cheap, supermarket CAFO meat. By necessity, pastured, naturally raised meat is expensive—it should be. We shouldn’t be eating as much meat as we do anyhow. But unlike commodity meat pricing, at least it’s price-stable, one benefit of a decentralized network of loops like Hanft’s....
If you thought Ibsen’s characters had family issues, wait’ll you meet the Norwegians in Family Drama, the pair of absurdist black comedies currently onstage courtesy of Akvavit Theatre, in association with International Voices Project. In Fredrik Brattberg’s The Returning (translated by Henning Hegland and directed by Lee Peters), a middle-aged couple (Christopher Donaldson and Karla A. Rennhofer) mourn their missing (presumed dead) son, Gustav (Daniel Stewart). When he comes home, they are temporarily overjoyed....
On February 24, Chicago voters did something historic by declining to recoronate a sitting mayor, at least temporarily. But that wasn’t the only election here sent into overtime. Eighteen races for alderman were also pushed into runoffs when no candidate won a majority—meaning that more than a third of the City Council is still up for grabs. The new Second Ward map looks like a crooked smile with some teeth missing....
Scofflaw Old Tom Gin Koval bourbon Finalists: Old Fashioned at Sophy Hotel, Negroni di Aquila, German Vacation in Mexico at Funkenhausen
Logan Theatre 2646 N. Milwaukee 773-342-5555 thelogantheatre.com Runner-Up: Music Box Theatre
Fountainhead Market fountainheadmarket.com Buying a six-pack of beer or a bottle of wine you’ve never tasted is fairly low risk—even if you hate it, you’re only out $10 or so (unless you drink better wine than I do). Buying craft whiskey, which generally starts at around $40 a bottle, is a different story. I’ve had the unfortunate experience of shelling out for bourbon I ended up not really liking, so I was excited by one particular feature of the brand-new Fountainhead Market: you can taste the whiskeys they’re selling....
The winding story of Boston band Cave In is full of massive triumphs and heartbreaking pratfalls, and they’ve kept on trucking no matter what comes their way. Formed in 1995 as an extreme metalcore band, Cave In debuted in 1998 with Until Your Heart Stops, whose layers of corrosive vocals, dual guitar shredding, and unrelenting double kick drum essentially drew up a blueprint for generations of like-minded bands to follow. Cave In’s crowning achievement was their second LP, 2000’s Jupiter, on which they shed hardcore almost completely, opting instead for the shoegazy progressive space metal that became their signature sound, with front man Stephen Brodsky trading in his shrill growl for an operatic vibrato....
Local multimedia collective FeelTrip started out in 2011, running a South Loop DIY venue in a loft supposedly once occupied by the band Disturbed. Since then the collective, now anchored by David Beltran and Diana Bowden, has become home to a wider variety of projects. FeelTrip makes eye-catching apparel, including excellent shirts printed with a mashup of Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures cover and the Air Jordan Jumpman logo; it presents events, such as a monthly dance night at Slippery Slope called Reptilian; and it releases records, among them Paul Cherry’s debut album, Flavour, which came out a few months before the local indie-rocker played the 2018 Pitchfork Music Festival....
Dagmar Gebers A young Alexander von Schlippenbach I don’t think there’s a European free-jazz unit that’s remained intact as long as the Schlippenbach Trio, the mighty juggernaut featuring German pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach, drummer Paul Lovens, and British saxophonist Evan Parker. I’m even more certain that no improvising group has remained so artistically potent for so long, balancing rugged individuality with collective endeavor like no one before. First Recordings by SCHLIPPENBACH TRIO
ARTIST: Marc Mozga SHOW: Hobbyist, Home Body, and Dorsia at the Owl on Sun 3/24 MORE INFO: instagram.com/mmozga
Below the Belt, written by Richard Dresser and presented by Hundo4u Productions at Redtwist Theatre, follows Dobbitt (John Hundrieser) and Hanrahan (Michael Lomenick), mismatched roommates who work as “checkers” at a mysterious company in a far-off time and place. Confined to a compound, they desire purpose and connection in an environment that promotes conformity and constant productivity. At first the show relies on familiar tropes to situate the pair as enemies....
Paul John Higgins What’s the best pizza in Chicago? It’s a loaded question, I know. Are we talking deep-dish or thin crust? If it’s thin crust, is it cracker style or New York style? Are you guys mad at me that I even brought up New York style? You’re not going to hold a grudge, are you? And, no, we’re not too proud to bribe—so one lucky voter is going to walk away with a pair of tickets to our Key Ingredient Cook-Off on 5/22....
