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THE VOICE OF CHICAGO’S GAY, LESBIAN, BI AND TRANS COMMUNITY SINCE 1985
AUG. 6, 2008 • vol 23 no 47
www.WindyCityMediaGroup.com
AIDS Quilt
20 Years
Later
LGBTAs
Go Green
HIV Numbers 40%
Above Estimates
By Bob Roehr
page 6
New HIV infections in the U.S. topped 56,000 a
year in 2006—about 40 percent more than previous estimates. The Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention (CDC) released those numbers at
a hastily arranged telephone news conference
Aug. 2 after an embargoed paper in a special
issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) was made public early.
The CDC said the total number of new infections is not increasing; rather, it said that its
previous estimates were inaccurate. The revised
figures reflect use of better technologies that
identify recent infections, those that have occurred within the last six months, and affect
estimates of when older infections occurred.
A draft of the report was prepared last fall and
news of the revised numbers began circulating
almost immediately, but the CDC refused to release them pending full peer review and publication. The previous estimate of 40,000 new infections a year was generated more than a decade
News on
PEPFAR, HIV
travel banpage 5
and a half ago and was never changed. Most
knowledgeable observers have long believed
them to be an underestimate.
The new numbers show no significant changes
in the demographics of the groups most affected; 73 percent are male while 53 percent of
total infections are attributed to men who have
sex with men (MSM). People of color are disproportionately affected, with rates per 100,000
persons of 83.7 among Blacks and 29.3 among
Hispanics, compared with 11.5 among whites.
The retrospective analysis went all the way
back to initial infections in the late 1970s. It
showed that new infections in gay men peaked
Turn to page 4
‘Mad’ about
Bryan Batt
page 7
by AMY MATHENY
Student
Athlete
Photos
August 6, 2008
#956
page 30
n
Hot
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Market Days Are Here Again!
inSIDE
Celebrate Halsted Street with the crazy kids of Nightspots!
page 33,48
Is this John
McCain?
page 30
It’s gonna be a Catfight
at the Belmont stage on
Saturday!
page 18
pick it up
take it home
www.WindyCityQueercast.com
One of the Midwest’s largest annual events will take place when
Northalsted Market Days happens Aug. 9-10; hundreds of thousands
of people are expected. Read our profiles of two acts slated to perform
on pages 24-25. Photo from 2007 Market Days by Kat Fitzgerald.
PHOTO BY JAMES PORTO
The hottest show on television you may not
be watching ... yet. Set in the early 1960s advertising world in America, “Mad Men,” which
airs on AMC, has won many awards, including
the Golden Globe for Best TV Series-Drama. The
series authentically captures a time when men
were men and girls were girls; and when smoking
was not bad for you—nor was a noon cocktail at
the office. Bryan Batt plays Salvatore Romano,
a man that today’s audiences will recognize as
a closeted ad exec, but he adjusts to being just
one of the boys, though maybe one with more
flair.
Amy Matheny: Tell me about Salvatore.
Bryan Batt: Salvatore is the art director at
[ad firm] Sterling Cooper. He tries to fit in with
the good ol’ boy network of men at the office,
but he has a secret. The writing on the show is
absolutely brilliant. ... People [are] blown away
by the beauty of the show and the cinematography of it and the sets and the costumes and the
look. The writing is so subtle and these great
little teases are given as the story goes along,
and it’s just intriguing. Everyone who’s watched
it is hooked. The problem is getting everyone to
watch it. But Salvatore … at that time, there
page 24
Turn to page 28
“SEE THIS SHOW!”
– E! Entertainment News
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Aug. 6, 2008
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WHEN A GREAT DEAL MATTERS , SHOP ROB PADDOR’S...
index
News
HIV numbers skewed
PEPFAR; HIV travel ban
Lawrence Hall’s Pleasant
AIDS Quilt after 1988 display
LGBT business symposium
The LGBTA green movement National news
Quotelines
Chicago Gay History
Views—Monroe; Letters
4
4
5
6
6
7
8
8
9
10
ENTERTAINMENT
Stage Door Jonny Theater
Driehaus Museum
Knight at the Movies
Disc and That
Chris Willis interview
Pop Making Sense
Market Days: Brigade, Choir
Bryan Batt of ‘Mad Men’
Restaurant review: Urban Cafe
11
12
19
20
21
22
23
24
28
28
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Lawrence Hall Youth Services’ Kevin
Pleasant is a one-man department when
it comes to LGBT services. See page 5.
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—Lisa Keen’s article
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Aug. 6, 2008
Bush signs
PEPFAR; HIV
travel ban
almost lifted
By LIZ GRANGER
On July 30, President Bush signed into law a bill
that provides up to $48 billion to combat global
HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, according
to WhiteHouse.gov. The bill also includes a provision that lifts a long-held ban on HIV-positive
immigrants and travelers.
The Tom Lantos & Henry J. Hyde U.S. Global
Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and
Malaria Reauthorization Act of 2008 is part of
the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). In 2004, Congress approved $15
HIV numbers
still highlight
racial disparities
By DAVID ERNESTO MUNAR
MEXICO CITY (Aug. 2)—Forty percent more
people in the United States were infected
with HIV than previously estimated in 2006,
federal researchers announced ahead of the
17th International AIDS Conference.
The analysis, published in the Aug. 6 issue
of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), determined that 53 percent
of 2006 infections resulted from male-tomale sexual contact. By race and ethnicity, 45
percent were believed to occur among Black
individuals and 17 percent among Hispanics.
Rumors about the new figures led federal
officials to lift an embargo on the data ahead
of the official briefing to reporters about the
research findings.
AIDS advocates noted that only four of 49
HIV prevention interventions endorsed as “effective or highly effective” by CDC researchers target gay men. And none of the 49 were
designed for gay men of color.
“Where infection rates for other populations are holding steady or showing slight
declines, HIV infections among gay men
tragically continue to climb, said Jim Pickett,
AIDS Foundation of Chicago advocacy director. “This is a direct result of years of policy
and programs that demonize and ignore the
sexual health needs of gay men, especially
African-American and Latino gay men who
bear the brunt of the epidemic in the U.S.”
David Ernesto Munar is on assignment
covering the International AIDS Conference in Mexico City for Windy City Times.
He is a vice president at the AIDS Foundation of Chicago and chairs the board of the
National Association of People with AIDS.
Read the entire report at www.
WindyCityMediaGroup.com.
billion in PEPFAR funding for HIV/AIDS work
abroad, and this bill reauthorizes the program.
Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Gordon Smith,
R-Ore., procured the provision to repeal the HIV
travel ban, the Associated Press reported. Activists have long criticized the ban as draconian, a
relic of a period fraught with misunderstanding
and fear of AIDS.
In an article published in the Los Angeles
Times, the executive director of Immigration
Equality, Rachel Tiven, said, “It’s hard today to
put yourself back there and imagine the kind of
ignorance and misinformation that was prevalent in the early 1990s. People believed the
most fantastical, unrealistic things about gays.
Congress has finally cleared the way to reverse
that series of bad decisions 20 years ago.” Immigration Equality is a New York-based advocacy
group that fought to lift the ban.
In 1987, the Department of Health and Human
Services (HHS) put HIV on its list of diseases that
bar entry into the U.S. In 1991, HHS proposed
removing HIV from its catalog, but the proposal
was met with political backlash. According to
a letter from 160 AIDS and health groups that
urged Congress to repeal the travel ban, “in the
early 1990’s, when, after careful consideration
of the public health consequences, HHS sought
to loosen these restrictions, Congress reacted by
codifying the ban in our nation’s immigration
laws.” In 1993, Congress passed a law in the
Immigration and Nationality Act that required
the HHS to keep HIV on its travel ban list.
Since AIDS is not airborne, critics like Immigration Equality say that there is no reason that
it should join more contagious banned illnesses.
Additionally, critics argue that Congressional
legislation regarding HIV in the Immigration
and Nationality Act is inconsistent and unfair.
According to the open letter from 160 AIDS
and health groups, “To this day, HIV is the only
medical condition listed in the Immigration and
Nationality Act as a basis for inadmissibility. By
contrast, the admissibility status for any other
disease is left to the discretion of the Secretary
of Health and Human Services, based upon the
risk the illness poses to the public health.”
Now activists look to HHS to fully overturn
the ban. According to the Los Angeles Times,
“[the HHS] prohibition is separate from the congressionally imposed travel ban. But with the
overarching ban by legislators repealed, federal
health officials are no longer bound by law to
keep HIV on the list.”
The American Immigration Lawyers Association
(AILA), a national association of immigration
lawyers, called for HHS to release a statement.
According to a press release, AILA president
Charles Kuck said, “We urge the Department of
Health and Human Services to take the next step
and remove HIV from the list of diseases that
bar people from coming to the U.S.”
At the moment, HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt
has made no public statements about whether
the agency intends to adjust its list. According
to a story published July 30 by the Washington
Blade, “An HHS spokesperson last week agreed
to make inquiries into Leavitt’s position on the
issue of repealing the HIV ban, but the spokesperson did not get back with additional informa-
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tion by press time.” On July 30, the Los Angeles
Times also tried to reach spokespeople at HHS
and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(an HHS component) to no avail. At press time,
Leavitt had still made no public statement.
Various advocacy organizations have written
press releases detailing their reactions to the
Lantos-Hyde Act. The American Civil Liberties
Union (ACLU) “applauds the President and Congress… for end[ing] a shameful era in American immigration policy,” but did not admit any
dissatisfaction with the bill. In contrast, other
organizations called for alterations.
The Center for Health and Gender Equity
(CHANGE), a group committed to reproductive
and sexual health and rights, expressed unhappiness with the bill. According to a press release, the organization said, “we continue to be
disappointed that … a Democratic-led Congress
is continuing to impose arbitrary funding direc-
HIV from cover
about 1985, then declined dramatically with
broad adoption of safer sex practices within
the community.
“Infections have, in fact, been rising among
men who have sex with men as the data show
a steady increase since the early 1990s,” said
Kevin Fenton, who heads up the National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB
Prevention at the CDC. “These data among men
who have sex with men point to an urgent unmet need.”
Reactions
Community outrage has been fueled by the
games that CDC played in withholding the
numbers for months on end, the limited effectiveness of its prevention efforts, and a bipartisan political response that has neglected the
domestic epidemic while focusing overseas.
“These new estimates paint a soberingly
accurate portrait of the AIDS epidemic and
reveal an utter lack of investment in prevention research and programs, especially for gay
men and African Americans,” said Mark Ishaug,
president of the AIDS Foundation of Chicago.
Funding for CDC HIV prevention, $750 million, has been stagnant for years and since
2002 the purchasing power of those dollars
has declined by 19 percent. The imbalance is
further demonstrated by the fact that domestically, only 4 percent of federal HIV funds go to
prevention, while the international U.S. program PEPFAR dedicates 22 percent of its money
to prevention.
“Rather than investing in domestic HIV prevention, the U.S. government has cut funding
to state and local heal departments more than
$28 million since fiscal year 2003,” said Julie
Scofield, executive director of the National Association of State and Territorial AIDS Directors.
Gene Capello, executive director of the AIDS
Institute, said the current CDC HIV prevention
budget has been cut $3.5 million from last year
and President Bush’s budget for next year proposed an additional $1 million in cuts.
n
nightspots
pick it up, take it home
tives to encourage abstinence-only programs
over effective, comprehensive prevention interventions.” CHANGE advocates for changing the
stipulation that organizations that receive federal funding need to pledge opposition to prostitution, calling the practice “a requirement that
subverts public health best practices.”
According to the United Nations Programme
on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), at least 74 countries
have some kind of HIV-specific laws that restrict
the entry of people living with the virus, but the
U.S. ban is among the strictest.
The Department of State granted a blanket
waiver July 30-Aug. 10 for HIV-positive people
to travel through the United States to the International AIDS Conference in Mexico City. The
conference that has not been held in the United
States since 1990 because of travel restrictions.
“Neither the U.S. House of Representatives
nor the U.S. Senate has proposed any increased
funding for HIV prevention. This is completely
unacceptable, particularly in light of the new
incidence numbers.” He called upon Congress
to increase domestic HIV prevention funding
by at least $30 million as a necessary first
step.
“An awful lot of money is being spent,” but
we don’t know how much of that is being spent
effectively, said Ernest Hopkins, the federal
lobbyist for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. “It becomes very difficult to advocate for
more resources if we haven’t evaluated what
we are already doing.”
Walt Senterfitt, cochair of the national prevention group CHAMP, said it isn’t just the
need for more money but of how that money is
spent. “Jesse Helms-era restrictions on proven
means of effective prevention, the pernicious
intersection of HIV and major social injustices”
such as racism and homophobia are important
contributing factors that must also be addressed.
“Better numbers tell us that we need to
better target and tailor our scarce prevention
dollars,” said Craig E. Thompson, executive director of AIDS Project Los Angeles. “Gay men
and other men who have sex with men of every
race and ethnicity are the single largest group
affected by HIV/AIDS in this country. Underfunded, ‘cookie-cutter’ prevention is no longer
viable if we want to control the epidemic in the
United States.”
Housing Works President Charles King said,
“This should serve as a bombshell wake-up call
to both Senators Obama and McCain that America’s response to domestic AIDS has failed. We
need a comprehensive, national blueprint for
ending AIDS and that blueprint is a national
AIDS strategy.”
Obama has committed to formulating a national strategic plan on AIDS and has spoken
publicly on the issue, but McCain has done
neither, Phill Wilson, executive director of the
Black AIDS Institute said in a conference call
with reporters last week.
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Aug. 6, 2008
Kevin Pleasant. Photo by Liz Granger
Lawrence Hall’s
one-man
department
helps LGBTQ youth
By LIZ GRANGER
Last year, Lawrence Hall Youth Services received
a $75,000 grant from the United Way of Metropolitan Chicago. With the funding, Lawrence
Hall started its LGBTQ program. The program offers support for LGBTQ youth, trainings for staff
at Lawrence Hall and various workshops and forums.
Through a series of seminars, the Lawrence
Hall LGBTQ program aims to create a sense of
community. Youths have met at career breakfasts; a get-to-know-you lunch at Wishbone; a
voter registration drive; and a workshop about
sexuality, spirituality and religion, along with
other events. They also met at a makeup application seminar last winter (“R U The Au Naturale
Beauty Or The Diva In Painted Face?”).
Robert White, a local makeup artist, conduct-
ed the workshop. White works for Linda Johnson
Rice at Ebony Magazine, and he’s worked in film
and with celebrities.
“This was a way to help promote diversity
in relationships, and self-esteem,” said Kevin
Pleasant, LGBTQ and diversity coordinator for
Lawrence Hall. “[The workshop] was intended
for our trans residents, but female and male residents who wear makeup also participated. We
had fun.”
Pleasant is in charge of a one-man department—he is the department—that coordinates
LGBTQ activities for Lawrence Hall, a child-welfare agency that cares for about 1,100 children
in its school, residences or other programs. The
seminar provided another way for Pleasant to
promote unity.
“I was at that workshop watching the room
divided—heterosexual females over here, trans
girls over here, boys scattered on the other side.
I watched the heterosexual girls laugh and whisper about the trans girls,” Pleasant said. “After
the end of these three sessions, I saw people
exchanging numbers, laughing and talking,
building relationships with people they probably
would have continued to ridicule.”
The United Way grant allowed Pleasant to expand a program he founded: Free 2 B Me, a support group for LGBTQ youth. Pleasant says that
the grant “officially started” Lawrence Hall’s LGBTQ program, allowing Free 2 BeMe to become
one element under an umbrella of services.
Now, Lawrence Hall does a six-month training
facilitated by Live Oaks where some of the staff
become trainers on LGBT issues. In July, they
also got funding to do peer-mentor trainings for
their youth, in the form of a $55,000 grant from
the Polk Brothers Foundation. The United Way
grant expired in December.
Last year, Pleasant was able to host a number
of events for the LGBTQ program: career breakfasts; a get-to-know-you lunch; a voter registration drive; and a workshop about sexuality,
spirituality and religion, along with other meetings and discussions.
Coming up, youths can expect a “Power of Voting Forum” hosted by Rick Garcia from Equality
Illinois Sept. 10. Pleasant also has plans for a
“Let’s Talk About Sex Forum,” a workshop about
STD/HIV awareness and prevention. There will
be participants from the University of Chicago,
and a mobile van providing STD testing to Lawrence Hall youths.
Pleasant came to Lawrence Hall in 2004.
He got the idea for LGBTQ services from Karen
Jackson, a manager for the center’s residential
program. Jackson realized that Lawrence Hall’s
LGBTQ youth had an extended set of needs that
needed to be addressed. Youths needed support
when they were thinking about coming out, a
safe space to discuss identity issues, specialized
healthcare and a sense of community.
Pleasant is big on building community.
“When you say ‘LGBT’ in Chicago, people say,
‘North Side. Halsted Street,’” Pleasant said. “Not
everyone can afford to live in this gay-identified
community on the North Side. They can’t do it.
Where do I go on the South Side, or the West
Side or the suburbs? If I am being harassed, who
do I call? Where is the closest police station?
Where is the closest emergency room? Where do
I go for eye exams? Where do I go for educational support?”
Pleasant took his youths to Wishbone Restaurant, 3300 N. Lincoln, for the get-to-know-you
lunch because he wanted them to learn about
safe, supportive resourcces outside of Boystown.
For Pleasant, “Halsted is just an easy pitch.”
Pleasant keeps the LGBTQ/Diversity Resource
Library in his office. It takes the form of two
cases full of books, periodicals and DVDs about
being “straight, gay, Black, white—whatever
you are.” He’s just ordered about 50 more books
and movies.
Working as a one-man department, Pleasant
makes himself available to students all day.
Some students call him late Saturday nights
when they have a problem.
“It’s not about me,” Pleasant said. “We talk
about pitching and choosing our battles, but I
don’t have that luxury. When I go home at night,
I go home to a partner who loves and adores me,
food in my refrigerator, a roof over my head, and
maybe five dollars in the bank to do whatever
I want with. These youths don’t have that, so
I have to fight the battles that they put before
me. If I pick and choose, they lose.”
For more information on Lawrence Hall
Youth Services, 4833 N. Francisco, see www.
lawrencehall.org or call 773-769-3500.
No more
‘Meth Coffee’
in Illinois
Meth Coffee is no available to Illinois residents, according to The Chicago Tribune.
Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan sent a
letter to San Francisco company Doll God, LLC,
demanding that it stop marketing and selling
Meth Coffee, a product that her office’s press release says “blatantly glorifies drug culture.”
Meth Coffee, contrary to its name, does not
actually contain methamphetamine. Its Web site
says that the drink “may promote feelings of
mania, zania, euthanasia, fantasia, and all manner of paranoia.”
Previously, Madigan’s office helped stop the
sale of the energy drink Cocaine, among other
products.
TPAN names new
client services
director
Test Positive Aware Network (TPAN) has announced Bill Farrand as its new director of client
services.
Farrand, a master’s degree student at Northeastern Illinois University, began his TPAN career
as the coordinator for the Illinois HIV Services
Directory; he later became the HIV prevention
coordinator for the agency.
Visit www.tpan.org or call 773-989-9400.
No doubt, Northalsted Market Days brings good times. After you have enjoyed the fest,
be sure to stop into City Volkswagen on Irving Park. You can take a spin in the hottest new
VWs and you’ll be amazed at our remarkable low leases and finance rates. Come see how
City Volkswagen is Showin you the love.
5330 W. Irving Park Road
cityvwchicago.com I 1-888-VOLKSWAGEN
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6
Aug. 6, 2008
Images from the 1988 Navy Pier AIDS Quilt display. Photos by Lisa Howe-Ebright
AIDS Quilt:
20 years after
Navy Pier
By John Lendman
It was a steamy, hot July morning—one for the
record books—in Chicago of 1988. The location
chosen was under two rusty, water-damaged
sheds at the old Navy Pier. Volunteers, dressed
in stark white uniforms, worked for months to
prepare for the four-day event, said Lori Cannon, who remembers the extensive care she and
the steering committee took in protecting the
anticipated display.
The decaying sheds at the old pier were transformed that weekend, given new life, Cannon
recalls, from almost being torn down and forgotten.
“It became a remarkable cemetery,” she said.
Last month marked the 20th anniversary of
what would become the largest display of intri-
cately sewn quilt panels, each commemorating
a life lost to AIDS. Cannon, who helped organize the historic display with the NAMES Project
Foundation’s Chicago Chapter, said she scheduled various readers—from clergy members and
Rabbis to mothers and athletes—to recite the
names on each of the 12-foot-square panels of
colorful fabric.
“It had been an insightful weekend, a challenging weekend, but mostly it had been a
beautiful weekend,” said Cannon, who describes
herself as an old lion of the LGBT community.
“There is nothing more powerful than approaching a panel … they are all reminders, they are all
very important, they are a national treasure.”
Modesto “Tico” Valle, the current executive
director of the Center on Halsted, recalls his
position 20 years ago, as chair of the NAMES’
educational outreach program.
It was humbling for people to hand over panels they created to commemorate a loved one
to the NAMES Foundation for safe-keeping, Valle
said, and it was rewarding to be able to soften
hearts and educate people on the devastation of
the epidemic.
“It was very emotional because it was the
beginning of the epidemic,” Valle said. “From
that came the birth of many organizations such
as Open Hand and Chicago House—It was eyeawakening, people really wanted to get involved
and make a difference.”
Twenty years later, it seems, a new generation
of younger people who grew up viewing AIDS
as a manageable disease are not aware of the
quilt’s significance until they stand at the foot
of the panels, Valle said.
“For many of us who survived that battle, the
quilt has been very powerful to us,” he said.
“There is a generation that didn’t grow up with
it basically. But today, if you take the quilt into
schools, it still inspires, motivates and moves
[young] people into action.”
Valle said the Center on Halsted hosts panel
displays of the quilt on World AIDS Day and National HIV Testing Day and that there are currently quilt displays throughout Illinois through
school initiatives.
The NAMES Project Foundation’s Chicago
Chapter, 2855 N. Lincoln, offers seamstresses
and quilting workshops by request to assist in
creating quilt panels, said Cannon.
“There is never a time limit for making a panel
for a loved one,” Cannon said. “Whenever a person feels they’re ready … the quilt is there however you want it to comfort you.”
To find out more about the AIDS Memorial
Quilt, see www.aidsquilt.org.
Coming out of the
commercial closet
By JERRY NUNN
Community Marketing, Inc. hosted its Gay &
Lesbian Market Symposium July 31 at the Hyatt
Regency, 151 E. Wacker. The symposium—which
aimed to help attendees better comprehend gay
and lesbian consumers—featured forums and
workshops that focused on everything from marketing on the Internet to promoting equality.
One forum was entitled “GLBT Images In Advertising: Punchline or Bottom Line?” Michael
Wilke, who is founding executive director of the
Commercial Closet Association, led the discussion.
“In history, advertising has not led the way
for stereotypes,” Wilke said. His visual presentation covered minorities and how they can be
portrayed in the media.
Wilke also stated that “change is everywhere.
Advertising doesn’t show us reality. We are low
on the list of priorities. “
Wilke also spoke of the training programs
that he does for corporate companies to make
them aware of how images reflect our world. He
brought up the point that age is a big factor in
stereotypes.
Snickers, Holiday Inn and car-company commercials were shown to have controversial images. Wilke commented that it has become a
joke that every year the Super Bowl will have a
gay commercial (such as the Snickers one, which
featured two men munching on opposite ends of
a single bar).
“Sometimes you can go too far,” Wilke explained. Snickers spent a colossal amount of
money only to remove the advertising quickly
because of the controversy.
Wilke finished his segment on a powerful note:
“We are not just the punchline but we are the
bottom line.”
Among other workshops were “Changing
Hearts and Minds: A 101 on the Gay & Lesbian
Alliance Against Defamation,” which featured
GLAAD senior director of media programs Rashad Robinson; and “Chicago connections that
work for you: The Center, The Chamber and the
Local Media,” which had Center on Halsted Executive Director Modesto “Tico” Valle, Chicago
Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce Executive
Director Christina Pinson and Windy City Times
Publisher Tracy Baim as its panelists.
For more about Community Marketing, Inc.,
see www.CommunityMarketingInc.com.
Aug. 6, 2008
LGBTA
buildings
join green
movement
by LIZ GRANGER
By now, you probably know that green is the
new black. You’ve noticed that forgetting to tote
canvas bags to the market became a gaffe about
two seasons ago, a blush-worthy blunder when
your local farmer who specializes in organic
Asian greens chides, “Are you sure you need the
plastic bag?”
You probably saw An Inconvenient Truth a
long time ago, in the Stone Ages when even
some of your moderate friends thought it was
bollocks. Last week you heard Al Gore start the
chant: “100 percent renewable within 10 years,
100 percent in 10….” You’ve seen a vast constituency in Africa ban plastic bags; then, Europe and Asia followed suit. Now, in the United
States, the ordinances trickle in (with San Francisco—our reliable progressive mecca—breaking
ground, of course).
The mayor is on board. Mayor Daley wants Chicago to be the greenest city in the country, but
you learned about that eons ago when he started talking about green roofs. You know that City
Hall installed beehives, and that the Hummers
on Wacker are something socially appropriate to
chuckle at with co-workers. You wonder, though,
what is new in Chicago’s green scene? Plenty.
Wendy Berger Shapiro runs a site called Green
Bean (greenbean.typepad.com). On Green Bean,
Shapiro and a team of volunteers profile up-andcoming green projects in the area. They catalog the landscapers, architects and developers
who work on each project, so readers who are
interested in green-building have a resource to
find like-minded individuals. Right now, Berger
Shapiro is writing a piece about the first green
McDonald’s in the world, set to open in Chicago.
She can’t talk much about it, “but they’re doing
some really cool things.”
Berger Shapiro runs Green Bean on her own
time; she is not paid. Between doing triathlons
and running LBS Equities, LLC, she pencils in
long hours on the site. Earlier this summer, she
decided that she needed help, and sent out a
message for potential volunteers to meet at her
office for dinner.
“I have a conference room that seats six or
eight people, and I had no idea if anybody
would show up,” Berger Shapiro said. “Before
I knew it, we were pulling in chairs. I had 10
Helen Cameron (top); the interior of
Uncommon Ground at Devon. Photos by Liz
Granger
people come.”
Berger Shapiro says that the meeting helped
her realize how quickly eco-friendly communities are growing.
“You have a sense that you’re a part of the beginning, not really first wave, but a real creation
of something,” Berger Shapiro said.
Helen Cameron knows about green community
building. She and her husband own Uncommon
Ground, a coffee shop/restaurant/bar/acoustic
venue. On Dec. 3, a new location opened in Rogers Park on 1401 W. Devon, but the new site
isn’t just a coffee shop/restaurant/bar/acoustic
venue; it is also green.
The decks at Uncommon Ground (Devon) are
made of recycled wood. The host stand, fireplaces and tabletops are made from fallen trees
salvaged from Jackson Park. They use local ingredients whenever possible, and are starting
a vegetable garden on the roof to serve homegrown foods. Solar panels heat the building’s
water.
“They were an investment, but we got rebates
from the state and in two or three years they
will pay for themselves,” Cameron said.
Cameron also has two beehives on the roof,
tended by neighbor Liam Ford. (People can read
about Ford’s beekeeping experiences at chicagobeeblog.wordpress.com.) This year Uncommon
Ground suffered an unfortunate “queen fiasco,”
Cameron said. The queen quit laying eggs.
“It was awful,” Cameron said. “We had to kill
her and install a new queen. I couldn’t kill her
myself, but we couldn’t leave her alone either.
She can’t survive without the hive.” Normally,
Ford and Cameron might expect about 100 lbs.
of honey each year, but there’s no telling what
the hives might turn up after the queen incident.
The Center on Halsted (an LGBTQ resource
center) is also very green. Along with the tenets “reduce, reuse, recycle,” Center on Halsted
employee Tom Dow might say that flexibility
is a green attribute. Just as Cameron can’t expect 100 lbs. of honey poured neatly into bearshaped bottles, Center on Halsted couldn’t rely
on the colors of their recycled carpets.
Since most carpet is not biodegradable, the
Center on Halsted found a company that recycles
carpet from old buildings and sells it at highly
reduced rates.
“You’ve got to be a little flexible with the décor, though,” Dow said. “You’re not always sure
what you’re going to get until a few weeks before
it’s delivered.” At Center on Halsted, they solved
that problem creatively, by decorating the floor
with a multicolored checkerboard of carpet that
fit into the overall color scheme. Flexibility.
Technology also helps Center on Halsted be
the greenest it can. Sensors throughout the
building read natural light levels, and adjust the
electric bulbs accordingly. Sensors monitor car-
Center on Halsted’s lobby. Photo by Liz Granger.
7
bon dioxide levels, and adjust heating, cooling
and ventilation systems. The concrete contains
fly ash, a coal by-product. The roof is full of
succulent plants that reduce rainwater and heating and cooling costs. The gym includes a giant
screen door that can be opened to the outside
on nice days instead of cranking up the air conditioning. Natural sunlight prevails.
The groundbreaking thing about Center on
Halsted’s green improvements, though, is its
graywater system, the first in Chicago.
“We couldn’t go to the green permits program
and ask for a license to do a graywater system,”
Dow said. “There was no exact permit for what
we wanted, and now we’re the test case for the
state. Every time something unexpected happens, about twelve people have to come out
here and examine it.”
The graywater system works by collecting rainwater, filtering it with chlorine and ultraviolet
light, and then piping the water to the building’s toilets. By common estimates, one-third
of the U.S. purified household water supply is
used for flushing toilets, about three gallons per
flush.
Berger Shapiro estimates the premium for
building green is about a 10-15 percent cost increase. So why do Uncommon Ground and Center
on Halsted shell out the cash?
“It’s money well-spent,” Cameron said about
the green fixtures at Uncommon Ground. “We
want to set a green example, and once enough
people start building green, costs go down for
everyone.”
PASSAGES
JoAnne
McAllister/Digory
JoAnne McAllister/Digory died peacefully
July 3. She is survived by her family and
many dear friends. Many will remember her
as the friendly and efficient bartender at bars
such as Baton, The Loading Dock, Sundays,
Redoubt and others. She retired from bartending in the ‘90s and used her time to help
other people with HIV live better lives. Both
TPAN (Test Positive Aware Network) and Open
Hand named her “Volunteer of the Year” for
her unwavering dedication to serving the diverse clientele of these agencies.
There will be a celebration of her life Fri.,
Aug. 8 (on what would have been her 64th
birthday), at 10 a.m. at Bethlehem United
Church, 2746 N. Magnolia, to raise some
laughter. Anyone wishing to make a donation
should direct it to Vital Bridges/Groceryland
c/o Lori Cannon; call 773-271-5110.
Crowned the largest LGBT resort in the
Midwest, the Dunes offers a wide variety of
accommodations - plus a main bar complex
featuring the country’s top DJ’s, a cabaret
with live entertainment, game room/bar,
multi-level outdoor patio bar and outdoor
pool and pool bar. The Dunes is a rare and
special place where friends of all walks can
find themselves, lose themselves and most
importantly be themselves.
It doesn’t matter who you are,
everybody’s welcome.
There is something special about Summer in Saugatuck, MI that makes it one of the
most popular destinations for GLBT tourist, something difficult to define but easy to recognize.
Best of all, it’s everywhere you look. It’s in the diverse and plentiful shops, restaurants & accommodations.
It’s in the arts and the people. It’s in the world-renowned beaches. It’s in the Dunes Resort.
Aug. 6, 2008
Mass. allows
gay out-of-state
couples to marry
by LISA KEEN, KEEN NEWS SERVICE
There was a small mystery surrounding the latest big victory in same-sex marriage in Massachusetts during the past week—and there were
some big hints that, if proponents of same-sex
marriage equality can preserve and defend their
state’s constitution for four years, the battle
may be done, at least in that state.
First, the victories: The Massachusetts House
voted 118 to 35 Tuesday, July 29, to join the
Senate in repealing a state law that has been
used to prevent out-of-state gay couples from
coming to Massachusetts to obtain marriage licenses.
Moreover, the Massachusetts legislature then
passed an “emergency preamble” to the legislation repealing a law used to keep out-of-state
gay couples from marrying in the state. The law,
signed by Gov. Deval Patrick July 31, went into
effect immediately.
Massachusetts was the first state to allow
same-sex couples to obtain marriage licenses, in
May 2004. But California, in June of this year,
became the first state to enable gay couples—
resident or non-resident—to obtain marriage
licenses.
“This is huge,” said Arline Isaacson, co-chair
of the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political
Caucus and a key lobbyist on gay civil rights matters before the legislature. “This sends a really
loud, strong message that, not only will we not
discriminate against people in Massachusetts,
but, just as importantly, Massachusetts will not
enable other states to discriminate. That’s big.”
The state constitution stipulates a bill becomes law 90 days after the governor has signed
the legislation. Before the emergency preamble
was passed late July 30, that meant out-of-state
couples who wanted to marry in Massachusetts
would have to wait until Oct. 29.
To be considered an “emergency law,” a piece
of legislation must be passed with an “emergency
preamble” that sets forth “the facts constituting
the emergency” and contains a “statement that
such law is necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, safety or
convenience.”
The Senate bill, passed July 15, did not include such a preamble nor did the House bill.
And everybody seemed to suggest it wasn’t going to happen.
Melissa Threadgill, a spokesperson for MassEquality, a statewide gay organization leading the
marriage fight, said she did not know whether
the organization has sought such a declaration.
Isaacson said there is no strong interest in asking for it.
“It adds another layer on to the process,” said
Isaacson. “And while we’d have loved an emergency preamble, the fact of the matter is that
[the bill will] go into effect in three months and
that gives people time now to plan their weddings.”
The constitution allows for the governor to
unilaterally declare the legislation to be treated
as emergency legislation, but Becky Deusser, a
spokesperson for the governor, said she was not
aware of that option and that she never heard of
any discussion for Patrick to do so.
Now that the governor has signed the legislation with an emergency preamble, the mystery
about when the law goes into effect is solved.
Still, there is a little mystery left: could there
be yet another referendum—this time to reinstate the 1913 law.
Gary Buseck, legal director for Gay & Lesbian
Advocates & Defenders, the gay legal group that
led the historic lawsuit that led to equal marriage rights in Massachusetts, said he doesn’t
think, as a legal matter, a referendum can be
held on the 1913 repeal.
Politically, of course, it would be an awkward
sell, given that Rep. Byron Rushing, a wellrespected African-American civil-rights leader,
said the repeal was not only a matter of “fairness and equality,” but an eradication of a vestige of a discriminatory law originally aimed
against Blacks.
The so-called “1913 law” was enacted in 1913
to discourage interracial couples from obtaining marriage licenses in Massachusetts and then
returning to their home states where such marriages were prohibited. Rushing noted that the
law went virtually unused until May 2004, when
then-Republican Gov. Mitt Romney ordered its
enforcement as a way to stop gay out-of-state
couples from obtaining marriage licenses in
Massachusetts.
The state supreme court upheld Romney’s use
of the law, but his successor, Patrick, put it on
his hit list.
Read the entire article at www.
Read the latest in world news and the national roundup at www.WindyCityMediaGroup.
com.
5233 N. Clark
(773) 769-9299
port this language by continuing to provide
“My position is, it’s not the reason
her with a platform.” — Gay & Lesbian Alliance
why I’m running for president of the United
Against Defamation President Neil Giuliano,
States. And I think that two-parent families
July 25.
are best for America. Because I think—well, I
think that it’s—it is important for us to emphasize family values. But
I think it’s very important
that we understand that
Once again, Ann
we have other challenges,
Coulter
has made
too. I’m running for president of the United States
a cynical and
because I want to help
desperate bid
with family values. And I
for attention.
think that family values
—GLAAD President
are important, when we
Neil Giuliano talking about
have two-parent—families
Coulter’s gay slur
that are of parents that
about John Edwards
are the traditional family.”
— Presidential candidate
“Congratulations to all of us: May
John McCain when asked, “What is your posiequality live long and prosper.” — George
tion on gay adoption?” on ABC News’ This Week
Takei, who played Sulu on the original Star Trek,
with George Stephanopoulos, July 27. Forty-five
as he and partner Brad Altman picked up a marstates and the District of Columbia have no reriage license June 17 in West Hollywood.
strictions on gay adoption.
“I just think John Edwards is an incredibly creepy individual and the very definition of faggy.” — Pundit Ann Coulter in a July
23 appearance on KOA radio in Denver.
“Once again, Ann Coulter has made a
cynical and desperate bid for attention
by using a vulgar, dehumanizing anti-gay slur.
More and more, fair-minded Americans believe
that there’s no place for this kind of bigotry,
and Coulter’s shrinking media platform only
confirms how out of step she is with the rest of
the country. GLAAD urges the media to shine
a spotlight on Ann Coulter’s history of using
anti-gay slurs, and the media outlets that sup-
QUOTE on...
“It would be nice to live in a world in
which maleness and femaleness were firm and
unwavering poles. People can be forgiven for
wanting to live in a world as simple as this, a
place in which something as basic as gender
didn’t shift unsettlingly beneath our feet. But
“From the beginning, my whole scene
broke out in the gay clubs. ... I have to give
credit where credit is due.” — Singer Donna
Summer in an interview published by the
Northampton, Mass., gay newspaper The Rainbow Times, July 3.
“My own death threats have declined
considerably. I think I’ve become rather
boring now to the public at large on this particular issue (gay) so I’m thought to be unremarkable.” — Openly gay actor Sir Ian McKellen
to the BBC, July 13.
—Assistance: Bill Kelley
gender is malleable and elusive, and we need
to become comfortable with this fact, rather
than afraid of it.” — New York Times op-ed
contributor Jennifer Finney Boylan, in an Aug.
3 article about the Beijing Olympics organizers’
announcement to have a “gender determination
lab” to test female competitors suspected of being male.
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Aug. 6, 2008
CHICAGO
GAY HISTORY
BY JOHN D’EMILIO
A woman
for all generations
It’s hard not to think generationally. Groups of
people come of age at a particular historical
moment, and it marks them forever, creating a
bond. I grew up in an environment where everyone spoke of “the immigrant generation.” We all
knew what it meant: The old folks were different
from the young. African Americans of a certain
age speak of growing up under Jim Crow, in the
segregated South; it shaped them in profound
ways. Journalists write about baby boomers or
Generation X. Tom Brokaw pens a best-selling
book called “The Greatest Generation.” A large
group of aging Americans speak of “the sixties”
in a way that says “it made us who we are.”
Within the LGBT world, notions of generations
circulate too. People refer to the Stonewall generation or the separatist generation to describe
an experience that distinguishes them from
other gays or lesbians. Whatever the label, the
assumption is that our generation, however defined, makes us who we are. As we move through
life, the world changes, and we don’t. It’s as if
we’re trapped forever in a bygone time.
I think what draws me to Valerie Taylor, the
pulp novelist I wrote about in my last column, is
that she resisted this pigeonholing. Though she
lived to be 84, she flat-out refused to remain
stuck in the box of a particular coming-of-age
experience. She always remained a woman of the
moment, a woman who changed with the times.
Velma Nacella Young (Taylor’s birth name) was
born in 1913 in Aurora, Ill., when it was still a
small town beyond Chicago’s sprawl. Her family had little money but plenty of books and,
when Velma had the chance to attend college,
she seized it. Two years at Blackburn College in
Carlinville, Ill., gave her credentials to teach at
country schools. They also made her a socialist.
This was in the middle of the Depression, and
lots of Americans were seizing socialist ideas of
economic justice.
In small town America in the 1930s, there
weren’t many images of lesbian life. Nor was it
common then for a woman to support herself.
And so Velma Young, like who knows how many
women-loving-women of her generation, got
married. She had three sons with her husband,
William Tate. But he proved to be “an alcoholic
no-good bum” and, after 14 years of marriage,
Velma took her sons and left. While much of
white America was entering the “Father Knows
Best” era of idealized family life, she was breaking out of the housewife box.
Writing was her way out. Velma had been composing stories and poems since childhood. In
1952, using the pseudonym of Valerie Taylor, she
published, in her words, a “raunchy heterosexual
love story” titled Hired Hand. With the $500 she
received for it (a solid chunk of cash in those
days), Taylor—as we’ll now call her—“went out
and bought two dresses and a pair of shoes, got
a job, and consulted a divorce lawyer. ... That
was a good little royalty check,” she recalled,
many years later.
Despite the huge sales of pulp novels, authors
did not receive a fair share of royalties, and Taylor always needed a day job to support herself
and her sons. But she wrote steadily, moving
decisively into the lesbian pulp genre. She published Whisper Their Love, and then The Girls in
3-B. In the 1960s, Taylor wrote a series of linked
novels with unambiguous titles like Stranger on
Lesbos and A World Without Men.
The increasingly overt subject matter of her
books reflected the change in Taylor’s life after
leaving her husband. She was now romantically
interested in women. But lesbians in Chicago in
the 1950s, as Taylor reminisced, “didn’t have the
underground network the men had ... There was
a lot of loneliness.” Lesbians as well as gay men
were cautious about revealing themselves: “in
those days, you’d lose your job if you ever came
out,” and a single mom raising three teenagers
could not risk being out of work.
Over time, Taylor developed a circle of friends.
But her first sense of lesbian “community” came
through The Ladder, a magazine produced by the
Daughters of Bilitis, a lesbian homophile organization. It began publishing in 1956, as the
lesbian pulp boom was taking off. From its start,
The Ladder paid attention to lesbian culture and
literature, and it reviewed Taylor’s work. Taylor
came to know Barbara Grier, who wrote most
of The Ladder’s literary columns. She also corresponded with lesbian writers like May Sarton,
Elsa Gidlow and Jeannette Foster.
Taylor’s visibility as a writer meant that many
small-town lesbians wrote to her and asked for
advice in meeting other lesbians. She’d tell them
to sit at a drugstore lunch counter with a copy
of The Well of Loneliness or with a Beebo Brinker
lesbian pulp. If a woman exhibited signs of interest, she was probably a lesbian. Such were
the challenges of building community in the
1950s.
Maybe it was a yearning for community that
impelled Taylor, in the mid-1960s, to do something most lesbians and gay men of her generation were unwilling to risk. She joined the small
but courageous homophile movement. Since a
Daughters of Bilitis chapter never sank deep
roots in Chicago, she participated in Mattachine
Midwest, helping to edit its newsletter. Her
columns reveal a feisty personality who didn’t
mince words. When Time printed a particularly
ugly antigay article, Taylor opined: “The pages
are too stiff to wrap garbage in and the magazine is no good for anything else.” Writing about
the many syndicate-run gay bars in Chicago, she
said “they prey on gay people.”
When lesbian feminism and gay liberation exploded into life in the early 1970s, most of Taylor’s generation kept a distance and remained
discreetly in the closet. Not Taylor. She jumped
in with both feet. In 1973, she was one of the
featured speakers at the noon rally at Civic Plaza
during Pride Week. Acknowledging that she was
older than almost everyone else there, Taylor introduced herself as a representative of “the gay
grandmothers of America.” The next year, she
helped Marie Kuda organize the first of several
annual Lesbian Writers Conferences that brought
together women from around the country. Taylor
gave keynotes at more than one of them.
Her message to the younger generation was
powerful, visionary and sometimes unsettling.
“The whole world should be our subject matter,” she told those at the conference of writers.
“All of life belongs to us.” For Taylor, feminism
and gay liberation weren’t for the faint hearted.
“Revolution is never a straight-line process ... a
great many people get hurt.” She wanted folks
to think big: “We need not choose between
the struggle for world peace and the fight for
women’s liberation. ... The entire world is our
battlefield.”
Taylor spent the last decade and a half of her
life in the warmer climate of Tucson. Sometime
in the 1980s, she wrote an essay in which she
asked “Have you ever wondered what happened
to old Amazons?” The question grew out of experience. In 1980, Taylor learned that Jeannette
Foster, the pioneering lesbian scholar, was incapacitated and in need of financial help. Taylor
established a Sisterhood Fund and raised money
from lesbians around the country to support
Foster in the last year of her life. In 1993, Lee
Lynch, a younger lesbian writer, did the same
for Taylor. “I knew my sisters wouldn’t let me
down,” an 81-year-old Taylor told an interviewer. “There really is a lesbian community all over
the place.”
She might have added that she had helped
build it.
Copyright 2008 John D’Emilio
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9
10
Aug. 6, 2008
VIEWPOINT
REV.
IRENE
MONROE
Can gun-toting
solve gay-bashing?
In a recent 5-4 ruling, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment
protects an individual’s right to own a gun for
personal use. While the debate will continue to
go on about whether the Second Amendment
really means that American citizens only have
the right to bear arms in connection with service in a well-regulated militia as referenced in
the amendment or we have the right to keep a
loaded handgun for self-defense, right now this
is the law of the land.
For those American citizens who reside in
congested crime-ridden urban areas riddled
with drug and gang warfares, as I do, this recent ruling brings a heightened concern about
personal safety. But this ruling also brings a
heightened concern about 8
personal safety for those of us who rely on hatecrimes laws to protect us from the bigoted actions by our fellow citizens.
“I can see some crazed fool come into a bar
where gays hang out or my homeys and shoot
the hell out of us,” Adam Williams told me. Williams is an African-American transman who has
been the victim of both gay-bashing and racial
violence. Feeling more vulnerable than ever in
his life with this recent Supreme Court ruling
Williams tell me he’s going to carrying a gun
with him. “Ain’t nothing out here to protect you now. I
don’t trust the cops ‘cause they beat the shit
out of you with other officers watching,” said
Williams, referring to the news about the cop
beatdown of Duanna Johnson, an African-American transwoman, in a Memphis booking room
that was captured on a surveillance video. “I’d
be stupid not to go packing now.”
Williams lives in Oakland, just outside of San
Francisco, and he’s going to check out the San
Francisco chapter of Pink Pistols. As a national
organization that encourages the LGBT community to arm itself to prevent hate crimes, the
Pink Pistols are also a social gun club. On the
San Francisco Pink Pistols Web site, it invites
the community to learn how to shoot: “We are a group of primarily gay shooters, who
are welcoming to all. One need not be an experienced shooter, nor own a firearm. So if you are
interested in learning to shoot in a non-threatening gay friendly environment (one member is
a certified firearm instructor) then click on for
the date of our next shoot.“
Pink Pistols brandishes the mottos “Armed
gays don’t get bashed” and “Pick on someone
your own caliber.”
The group’s message is a hot-button issue
swirling in the LGBTQ community: Can gun-toting solve gay-bashing?
“They’re trying to get urban gays and lesbians to not be afraid of the one instrument that,
when used properly and legally, can save their
lives,” Jeff Soyer, a Pistols member of the Vermont chapter, told Alternate 101.
Libertarian activist Douglas Krick founded
Pink Pistols in the anti-gun town of Boston.
Although Pink Pistols have 48 chapters in 32
states and 2 countries, it not well received here
in Boston, one of the most gay-friendly but top
crime-ridden cities in the country. “I don’t believe arming ourselves is a sustainable response to a subculture of hate towards
homosexuality. We are not going to settle our
scores as a community by having a shoot-out at
the OK Corral,” stated Sue Hyde of the Boston
office of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
to the Southern Voices in 2002.
But Jonathan Rauch, the gay journalist whose
headline article in the March 13, 2000, Salon
Magazine Pink Pistols borrowed its name from,
thinks differently. And he illustrated his point
by reminding us of the 1998 killing of Mathew
Shepard. “Shepard was small, helpless and childlike. He
never had a chance. This made him a sympathetic figure of a sort that is comfortingly familiar
to straight Americans: the weak homosexual,”
Rauch told Orange County Weekly in 2003 The Pink Pistols are considered the lunatic
fringe of the LGBTQ community and are often
compared to the Black Panthers and Jewish Defense League, all movements in response to hate
crimes and discrimination against their groups.
And their advocacy of guns is understandable. Self-defense is a human right. And great spiritual leaders have spoken out on the subject. For
example, the Dalai Lama said, “ If someone has a
gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun.” And Jesus stated in Luke 22:36, “Let him who hath no
sword, let him sell his tunic and buy one.” We feel most vulnerable when we have no
means to defend ourselves from attacks both
systematically and individually coming toward
us. Organizations like the Pink Pistols offer a
seemingly viable tool to stem gay violence.
However, guns will never be the great equalizer
for an embattled group. They may, for a fleeting
moment, deter our enemies but they will never
permanently protect us from them. But guns do,
however, signal to us that we might need to take
another course of action.
letters
The next step
Family affair
To Whom It May Concern:
Dear Sens. McCain and Obama:
On July 30, President Bush signed into law the
President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) bill, which, among other things, allows
America to lift its shameful 20-year ban on immigrants, refugees and visitors with HIV. Now,
only 11 countries in the world have such a ban,
most of which are human-rights violators such
as China, Libya, and Russia.
This is an important step toward making our
nation’s immigration laws more impartial. However, the ban is not yet lifted. The law bars those
with “communicable diseases of public significance” from entering the United States, and it is
up to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to decide which diseases belong on
that list. In order for the HIV immigration ban
to be lifted, as our Congress and our President
intend, HHS must remove HIV from the list. HHS
proposed removing HIV back in 1991, but met
massive outrage from religious conservatives.We
do not know how HHS will rule now, or how long
this process will take. Until then, a ban on those
with HIV is still in place.
The AIDS Legal Council of Chicago will be
watching the HHS process closely and working
with local community organizations to keep the
community informed as changes are made. Until
then, we will continue to help immigrants with
the current HIV waiver process.
In light of recent events, I want to be certain
that our presidential candidates truly understand
the great diversity of American families and how
best to meet their needs.
As a lesbian mother and the executive director of Family Equality Council, I know how hard
parents work to raise happy, healthy children.
Regardless of their sexual orientations and gender identities, regardless of how many parents or
caregivers are present in a family, all parents begin each day with their children at the forefront
of their thoughts. On behalf of diverse families,
I present you with the following information
on the variety of family types that exist in this
country and ask for your plan to recognize, respect, protect and celebrate all of the loving
families you seek to represent.
Policymakers, researchers, child-welfare professionals and advocates agree that strong families
build strong societies. The problems we face are
due to the lack of recognition of the many types
of families and relationships that exist and the
eroding support systems that protect all people
in this country. We need a president who understands the complexity of American families and
has real, workable solutions to the challenges
we face.
Despite the images we may see in the media,
in our schools and in our daily lives, American
families are not all composed of married moms
and dads raising their biological children:
—Thirty-seven percent of parent households
with children in the home are not headed by
married, heterosexual couples.
—Since 1940, grandparents have been the
primary caregivers (without biological parents
in the home) for approximately 2 percent of all
Ann Hilton Fisher
Executive Director, AIDS Legal Council of Chicago
children in this country, some 1.6 million children today.
—Forty percent of all children will likely be
raised by unmarried partners living together for
a portion of their lives.
—Lesbian and gay parents are raising four
percent of all adopted children in the United
States, as well as three percent of all children in
foster care.
American families have real and immediate
needs which require policies that recognize and
protect them, not ignore and penalize them.
These families, whether they are headed by LGBT
parents, grandparents, single parents, unmarried
parents or others, will continue to share in the
joys and challenges all families face. They will
do their jobs as well as they always have, but
they would certainly benefit from a president
who encourages social support for them and
government recognition.
For all families in this country to thrive, we
envision economic opportunities and living
wages for all; quality, affordable and accessible
healthcare; quality and affordable childcare for
all children; public schools that lift our students
up; and safe and affordable housing.
Until grandmothers and grandfathers can easily access the government benefits intended to
keep their grandchildren healthy and safe; until
LGBT parents can have their relationships universally and unquestionably recognized; until
unmarried parents can access benefits without
penalty or derision, we will not be doing justice by the millions of American families that do
not fit a small minority’s notion of what a “real”
family is.
Jennifer Chrisler
Executive Director
Family Equality Council
VOL. 23, No. 47, Aug. 6, 2008
The combined forces of Windy City Times,
founded Sept. 1985, and Outlines newspaper,
founded May 1987.
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Aug. 6, 2008 11
GOINGS-ON
WINDY CITY TIMES’ ENTERTAINMENT SECTION
Aug. 6, 2008 11
TOUR OF ‘BEAUTY’
Jonathan Abarbanel reviews the musical Dangerous Beauty on page 13.
MUSEUM
Driehaus call.
Page 18.
SPORTS
MOVIES
State of ‘Shock.’
Page 20.
In the picture.
Page 30.
Photo by Jeff Sheng
Stage Door
Jonny
By Jonathan Abarbanel
Jonny’s theatrical friends at the Mayslake Forest Preserve in Oak Park, who have operated
the summertime First Folio Shakespeare Festival for 13 years, are making a change to reflect
the growth and development of their institution. From now on, the company will be called
the First Folio Theatre, a name change that
confirms the troupe’s expansion to year-round
operation and a repertory beyond Shakespeare
alone. Two years ago, the company began to
take advantage of the magnificent Peabody Mansion on the Mayslake grounds, staging works by
Wodehouse and Poe within the lavish rooms of
the 1920s house, which slowly is being restored.
Now, for 2008-2009, First Folio has announced
its first-ever four-show season, including works
by Coward, O’Neill and Shakespeare (outdoors as
usual, next summer) and a spooky Dracula adaptation. Jonny offers his congratulations to First
Folio co-founders Alison Vesely and David Rice.
Dracula won’t be the only fellow in a cape flapping about as the new theater season begins:
Lifeline Theatre will reopen its summertime hit,
The Mark of Zorro, Sept. 27 for a two-month
run at Theatre Building Chicago in the very
heart of Boystown. This is the first time in its
25-year history that Lifeline has transferred and
reopened a show. Jonny himself hasn’t seen this
show yet, but Windy City Times critic Mary Shen
Barnidge gave it very high marks, describing
leading man James Elly as “the gallant with the
angelic face and the lightning rapier.” Sometimes it’s difficult to ascertain precisely what
Ms. Barnidge is saying, but Jonny believes she
means he’s cute and knows how to whip it out.
The Aug. 3 lead article in the travel section
of the prestigious Sunday New York Times was
about—hold on—Saugatuck-Douglas! And the
long story didn’t have one word about the sub-
stantial gay presence in the twin Lake Michigan
resort towns. Jonny can’t imagine the Times
writing about Fire Island or Provincetown and
failing to mention the LGBT part of the mix. We
know better, however. We know that LGBT men
and women regularly head around the curve of
the lake to enjoy the Eastern shores.
Indeed, those spending an end-of-summer
weekend in Michigan might want to stop by the
Acorn Theater in Three Oaks, Mich., which so
often draws on top Chicago talent. On Aug. 8-9,
one can catch monologist Donna Blue Lachman
presenting her wonderful piece “The Trouble
With Peggy: Pieces of Guggenheim,” in which
Lachman plays not only art guru Peggy Guggenheim but also many of the mostly male artists
she befriended (such as Jackson Pollack, Marcel Duchamp and Max Ernst). Then, on Aug. 23,
the Acorn offers an evening of opera under the
direction of (and featuring) bass-baritone Bob
Swan. And just past Labor Day, the Acorn presents Chicago’s own diva, Joan Curto, in a Sept.
6 program, “Brassy, Sassy, and Classy: the Songs
of Ethel Merman and Mary Martin.” Visit www.
acorntheater.com.
The annual Johnny Mercer Songwriters Project, now in its third year at Northwestern University, concludes Aug. 16 with a grand public
cabaret concert at Pick-Staiger Concert Hall on
the school’s Evanston campus. The Johnny Mercer Celebration Concert will feature Tony Award
winner Heather Headley (a Northwestern grad),
Broadway composer Andrew Lippa, singer Lari
White and the famous Chicago cabaret duo of
Beckie Menzie and Tom Michael. Tickets are $30.
Celebrated American songwriter Johnny Mercer
wrote “That Old Black Magic” and “Accentuate
the Positive” among many other hits. See www.
amtp.northwestern.edu/mercer.html for more
info.
Readers know that Jonny never stoops to tooting Jonny’s own horn ... at least not until now.
Your Jonny has become quite the in-demand, celebrity guest speaker about town, and in the next
two weeks you will have several opportunities to
hear—and see!—Jonny in the flesh. On Thurs.,
Aug. 14, Jonny will deliver a lively 90-minute
lecture, A Critic Looks at Hamlet, at Oakton
Community College at 2:30 p.m. to conclude the
college’s three-week Hamlet Festival. Two days
later, Aug. 16, at 4 p.m., Jonny will moderate
a panel discussion at Theatre Building Chicago
on the development of new musicals. Finally,
at 7:30 p.m. on Mon., Aug. 18, Jonny will be
emcee for Musical Mondays at Drury Lane, A
Tribute to the Ladies of MGM. Leading ladies
of Chicago cabaret will perform songs associated
with Judy Garland, Debbie Reynolds, Ann Miller
The Mark
of Zorro.
and more ... all introduced by Yours Truly, in a
tux no less! Doors open at 7 p.m. and these Musical Mondays have been selling very well, so
Jonny urges you to seek details at www.chicagocabaret.org.
Note: This, dear readers, is Jonny’s last hurrah.
At the end of August, Jonny will have the honor
of beginning a new part-time career teaching
theater at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
In order to accommodate a teaching schedule,
Jonny must relinquish several other obligations,
among them authorship of this twice-monthly
column. Jonny hopes, dear readers, that you
have had as much fun reading this column as
Jonny has had writing it, and that you’ve found
it entertaining and informative. Jonny loves you
all! Thank you!
CRITICS’ PICS
Co-Ed Prison Sluts, Annoyance Theatre;
through Aug. 29. South Park wins the grossout war while Urinetown is a better spoof of
musical theater. Still, this revival of our longest-running musical is a fine nostalgia trip
and piece of Chicago theater history. SCM
Esperanza Rising, Chicago Children’s Theatre at Goodman, through Aug. 10. This
large-cast stage version of Pam Munoz Ryan’s novel makes the story too simple, but
the production—which kicks off Goodman’s
Latino Fest—is very well told, with colorful
staging and live mariachis. JA
Superior Donuts, Steppenwolf Theatre,
through Aug. 24. The good guys lose plenty
before they win—sort of—in this smart, ruminative, comedy set in Uptown, but that’s
about as upbeat as we can expect from Pulitzer-winning playwright Tracy Letts. MSB
—By Abarbanel, Barnidge and Morgan
12
Aug. 6, 2008
Glengarry
Glen Ross.
Photo by
Jan Ellen Graves
THEATER REVIEW
Glengarry Glen
Ross
Playwright: David Mamet
At: Redtwist Theatre
(fka Actors Workshop Theatre),
1044 W. Bryn Mawr
Phone: 773-728-7529; $22-$30
Runs through: Aug. 24
BY MARY SHEN BARNIDGE
You see, there are these real estate agents, competing for business in a tight market, and the
geezers are worried that the young hustlers are
surpassing them in sales, putting their livelihoods in jeopardy—yes, it’s Glengarry Glen Ross,
David Mamet’s 1984 Pulitzer Prize-winning study
of greed, testosterone and white-collar male behavior. The author was writing of his times, of
course, but conditions in today’s society—economic uncertainty, skepticism toward land as an
investment, hostility toward West Asians—are
not dissimilar to those a quarter-century past.
What’s different is that juggling money in seven-figure increments is no longer the exclusive
province of men, nor are the cutthroat tactics
encouraged by such activity.
Mamet, speaking through his agent, granted
permission to Redtwist Theatre’s selective crossgender casting with the stipulation that “not a
single word of the text [be] changed.” Under
Adam Webster’s direction, the female actors retain their masculine names and pronouns, but
make no attempt to disguise their own vocal
ranges or mannerisms. Rather than crippling
SPOTLIGHT
the text’s dynamic, however, this break with
convention amplifies the psychological warfare
unfolding before us. Office manager Williamson’s
phlegmatic veneer emerges as icier for residing
in a severely suited schoolmistress-surrogate.
Aaronow’s meek capitulation to his colleague’s
bullying is far more apparent when he is allowed
to collapse almost into tears. And if a bedazzled
client cannot resist the seduction of a sleekly
dressed stranger’s graphic disquisition on body
fluids, sybaritic sex and seizing the moment,
imagine his response when Ricky Roma’s sermon
is preached by a statuesque woman wearing a
Medusa hairdo and shoes with heels suitable for
cardiac surgery.
Brian Parry’s Shelly Levene, Eric Hoffmann’s
Dave Moss and Jeff Helgeson’s James Lingk more
than hold their own on the minuscule Redtwist
stage. However, its restrictive dimensions reduce
the action’s physical demands, allowing performers the leisure of savoring their words while
still bringing the running time to an unhurried
90 minutes. Jacqueline Grandt’s Macchiavellian
Roma dominates the stage nevertheless, with
sturdy support from Erin Shelton as the flinty
Williamson, Debra Rodkin as the wimpish Aaronow and Filonna Thomas as the blustering (but
curiously passive) police officer Baylen. The results make for a portrait of desperate corporate
outlaws, relying on shit-eating smiles and spitpolished shoeshines, so intimate that we are
relieved when the players relax at curtain call
to reassure us that it was really—would I lie to
you?—all just play-acting.
Faust
“Temptation greets you like your naughty friend,”
reads the poster for the Chicago Dance Crash version of Faust and, to make the point unavoidable, Mephistopheles (aka Satan) is portrayed
as a female vixen, Mephisto. Well, it always was
about youth and sex, right? After all, the peak
of Christopher Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus is his liaison with Helen of Troy. But Chicago Dance Crash
bases its version on Goethe’s more deeply spiritual telling, which places Faust between a just,
logical God and the ardent, seductive Satan.
Incorporating 21st-century sensuality, artistic
director Kyle Vincent Terry juxtaposes ballet and
hip-hop dance styles performed to a progressive
rock/hip-hop score. Faust runs through Aug.
10, Theatre Building Chicago, 1225 W. Belmont;
773-327-5252; $20.
Aug. 6, 2008 13
pleasant and sometimes grand but always bland.
Of 22 numbers, only five struck me as notable in
some way. The Renaissance-flavored orchestrations often sound like lute or harp and reeds,
but it’s rather generic pop stuff built on chords
and rhythms rather than on memorable melodies. It’s efficient music that serves the show
well but has little emotional weight.
THEATER REVIEW
The People’s
History of the
United States
Playwright: Andrew Park and the ensemble
At: Quest Theatre Ensemble,
1609 W. Gregory
Phone: 312-458-0895; Free,
but reservations requested
Dangerous Beauty.
THEATER REVIEW
Dangerous Beauty
Playwright: Jeannine Dominy (book),
Michele Brourman (music),
Amanda McBroom (lyrics)
At: Ethel Barber Theatre,
Northwestern University (Evanston)
Phone: 847-491-7282; $30
BY JONATHAN ABARBANEL
I love richly costumed plays and movies that
plunk me down in some past era, yet I was unmoved by Dangerous Beauty despite its intelligence and superior production values. Part of
my critical task is to discover why, if I can, since
this world premiere is considered a developmental production as part of Northwestern University’s American Music Theatre Project.
Fashioned by a female triumvirate, the show
is based on a book by Margaret Rosenthal (The
Honest Courtesan) and 1998 film before it. I
know neither work, so what I see on stage is
what I get, as I suspect it will be for most people. Set in Venice, Italy circa 1580, Dangerous
Beauty is a fictionalized biography of Veronica
Franco (1546-1591), a courtesan of Venetian
nobility, a published poet of distinction and the
subject of a Tintoretto portrait. Other characters
are drawn from life as well, particularly members
of the powerful Venier family.
The politics and society of 16th-century Venice
were intricate to say the least, as the tremendously wealthy city-state saw its military fortunes fall and its famously licentious cultural life
attacked by the Inquisition. Dangerous Beauty
conveys all the required information surprisingly
well, save for an Act II scene of bald political
exposition. Very much a character-driven story,
Dangerous Beauty develops its heroine as deeply
as a non-musical play, while even its hero—Marco Venier—is complex for a musical.
The attention lavished on character development in Act I necessarily makes Act II a rush of
incidents and plot elements—an avalanche of
action that works because of the strong characters. Still, as this show isn’t a finished product,
some adjustment to the scene structure and division between Act I and Act II might be considered.
So here we have a work of careful construction
and obviously intelligent book and lyrics, given
a lavish and handsome physical production with
a talented cast (young Broadway veteran Jenny
Powers as Veronica is the real deal in looks and
voice). Why didn’t it bite me in the butt?
Two things, I think. First, not only is it filled
with exposition about politics and society, but
it also tells me—rather than shows me—what
attitudes about love and passion should be.
I’m not swept away. For example, Veronica and
Marco already are in love at the start, so I don’t
see them fall in love. Then, I found the music
BY SCOTT C. MORGAN
You can view Quest Theatre Ensemble’s The People’s History of the United State as a fun historical pageant filled with patriotic poetry, puppetry
and song. Or you could just write it off as naive
and left-wing American agitprop.
Either way, you have to admire the chutzpah of
director Andrew Park and the Quest ensemble to
condense more than 230 years of American history into a revue for kids and adults. The show
has plenty of segments that successfully crystallize moments of American history in a song or
iconic sound bite.
There are many moments that make you swell
with pride at watching iconic American texts being enacted (or at least remembering what was
drilled into you in history class). Quest also deserves commendations for not shying away from
some of the darker aspects of American history
like the Trail of Tears and Jim Crow discrimination.
Then there are a few clunking misfires when
complex issues get a simple glib treatment.
Take, for instance, the wrong-headed (if very entertaining and well-performed) segment on the
Great Depression.
After an actor wearing a President Franklin D.
Roosevelt mask pops out of a big box marked
“New Deal,” a bevy of chorus girls wearing oversize dollars clamor on to sing and dance “The
Gold Digger’s Song” (a.k.a. “We’re in the Money”). That gross simplification of 1930s federal
programs instantly bringing prosperity is appalling, as is the use of the song and its originally
ironic context from the escapist film Gold Diggers of 1933.
A segment on Sept. 11, 2001, also fails. David
Korzatkowski sings to his one-year-old son, Daniel, no doubt to symbolize the new era of fear
and confusion many Americans feel nowadays.
But Daniel ended up sabotaging the tone of the
whole number by unintentionally waving and
mugging to the audience.
If you can get over the CliffsNotes condensation of history, you can find plenty to admire.
Better yet, it can serve as a great starting point
for discussing aspects of American history with
kids and teenagers.
As always, Quest’s artistic creativity stands out
with its distinctive lumpy masks and towering
puppets. They’re used to great stylistic effect
with their towering Abraham Lincoln, along with
the nimble trio of George Washington, Benjamin
Franklin and Thomas Jefferson.
The large cast is also a multitalented lot, singing, dancing and performing on musical instruments (sometimes even while wearing those
cumbersome masks). There isn’t a dull moment
because there is so much swirling around you.
So even if it isn’t perfect, Quest’s History of
the United States undeniably entertains and reminds you of the significance of history on who
we are as Americans today. And in an election
season, it’s a timely reminder.
14
Aug. 6, 2008
Fair Use. Photo by Peter Coombs
THEATER REVIEW
Fair Use
Playwright: Sarah Gubbins
At: Steppenwolf Theatre
First Look Repertory of New Work
at the Merle Reskin Garage,
1624 N. Halsted
Phone: 312-335-1650; $20
BY CATEY SULLIVAN
Nothing matches the deliciously painful euphoria of the Great Maybe. And few have articulated
it with the humor, grace and precision of playwright Sarah Gubbins in Fair Use. As powerhouse
attorney Sy notes in Gubbins’ snappy, provocative romantic comedy, the “maybe” is something
you don’t want to lose—ever. “Maybe” is that
exquisite state of mind and heart that compels
you to hold out for a hero in the wrong person. Lose it and you extinguish that stubbornly
blissed-out belief that Little Ms/Mr. Surely-
Gonna-Break-Your-Heart will turn out to be your
happily-ever-after. Give up the “maybe” that
sustains such reckless, irrationally insistent love
and you might as well douse the pilot light, turn
up the gas and stick your head in the broiler.
With Fair Use, Gubbins pins a hetero/lesbo love
triangle predicated on an exhilarating, crushing
maybe to a backdrop of plagiarism lawsuit. And
before we go any further, it’s critical to note
that Fair Use isn’t finished. Directed by Meredith
McDonough for Steppenwolf’s First Look Repertory of New Work festival, it’s got snap, verve,
wit and a way to go before it’s ready for a fullfledged production. What First Look offers is not
a polished finished product but the opportunity
for audiences to be part of the product’s formation. As unfinished plays go, Fair Use is rich
with provocative potential and marked by sharp
insight and hilariously astute dialogue. The second half is troublesome, but Gubbins has the
chops to fix it.
The triangle love, lust and loss is set in the offices of a powerhouse law firm. A Cyrano-like plot
involving love letters authored by one person
STAGES 2008
The 15th Annual Festival of
New Musicals in Progress
Theatre Building Chicago
1225 W. Belmont Ave. Chicago, IL 60657
www.theatrebuildingchicago.org
Box Office - 773-327-5252
Enjoy concert and studio productions of new
musicals in progress.
Be a part of the creative gathering
of authors, actors, artists, theatre
producers and musical theatre lovers
9_D G
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Friday, Saturday, Sunday
Q j ^
August 15, 16, 17, 2008
9_
Theatre Building Chicago is an incubator for developing and
emerging creative talent in theatre.
Stages08_WCT.indd 1
8/2/08 8:00:13 AM
and credited to another is juxtaposed against a
potentially Constitution-altering case involving
plagiarism. The cast here is absolutely first-rate,
anchored by Kelli Simpkins as an attorney whose
wry braininess is matched by a glorious touch of
the poet. Equally wonderful is Halena Starr Kays,
who is an absolute joy as a hyper-intelligent,
straight-shooting literary and romantic consultant and aspiring “bike dyke.”
Where Fair Use stumbles is in its later scenes.
The key hetero relationship is underwritten
and, as such, is never believable. A bit involving voice disguise and a three-way phone call
aspires to be the comedic climax of the piece,
but comes across as the kind of sitcom schlock
predicated on the assumption that the audience
is stupid enough to swallow the most preposterously implausible inanity. Finally, the law case
so tantalizingly started in the first act sputters
out on the sidelines in the second. All that said,
Fair Use truly constitutes a must-see: The performances are terrific and Gubbins’ writing is
packed with insight and humor. In short, it’s a
show you want to be in on the ground floor for.
And there’s no “maybe” about that.
THEATER REVIEW
A Night of
Burlesque
Featuring
Desdemona:
A Play about a
Handkerchief
Playwright: music by Stephanie Sherline,
lyrics and additional material by
Shannon Latimer, script by Paula Vogel
At: The Mill at Stage Left, 3408 N. Sheffield
Phone: 1-800-838-3006;$20
BY MARY SHEN BARNIDGE
There’s more to burlesque than nubile nymphets
in scanty undies, though the eye-candy element
is the most familiar component of its presentation. An evening of comme-il-faut burlesque
begins with variety acts, usually with a risqué
slant, as a prelude to a feature-length spoof of
high-brow entertainment—opera, ballet, the
Theatah—likewise engineered for good, clean,
ribald fun.
The first in this production by The Mill is
supplied by Shannon Latimer and Stephanie
Sherline’s vaudeville patter and 1920s-homage
songs—the bubbly “Pillow Fight (Two Girls
Just Playing Around)” introducing the major
personae, an exuberant “Venice Is For Lovers”
establishing our locale, and the sweetly torchy
“Be My Lieutenant” (“Keep me safe and warm/
You know how I love a man in uniform”), which
acquaints us with the relationships in the “burletta” provided by Paula Vogel’s 1979 diatribe
titled Desdemona: A Play About a Handkerchief.
Vogel’s misanthropic inversion of Shakespeare’s
classic drama—in which Desdemona does the
naughty at Bianca’s brothel and Emilia saves
up for her happy widowhood—can be a showcase for performers, as in the 1995 Heliotrope
production. It can be a vehicle for strident hyperfeminist propaganda, as in the Thunder Road
production in 1996, or a sensitive exploration of
cloistered feminine subcultures, as TriArts interpreted it in 2000. But The Mill (fka Experimental
Theatre Chicago) is the first to hold a burlycue
lens up to a text sour enough, if taken seriously,
to give Florence King the pip.
And what a relief it is that they do! After the
initial wink-and-giggle tone puts us in the mood
for frivolity, the comedic timing imposed on the
dialogue render the cat-pissy commentary—
Othello’s stingy, Iago’s got a small dick, Lodovico’s a libertine—no more odious than a bevy of
Mean Chicks dissing their adolescent peers. To
be sure, we know things that they don’t, but our
dread of the untimely thwarting of carefully-laid
plans doesn’t manifest itself until imminent disaster becomes unavoidable (as tragedy always
does).
The Mill makes do with its small budget, reproducing its genre’s sumptuous furnishings within
the stark confines of the Stage Left storefront—
red velvet curtains, lacy shimmies, frilly petticoats and music director Sherline and her guitar
bravely standing in for the Folies Bergère orchestra. Under Jaclyn Biskup’s direction, however, the “Mill Missies” ensemble sparkles with
a sunny ebullience that renders its inevitable
capitulation to the darkness all the more regrettable.
ONLINE
THIS WEEK...
THEATER
REVIEW OF:
—Dancing at
Lughnasa
www.windycitymediagroup.
com
Lily Tomlin
at Rosemont
Theatre Nov. 1
One of America’s queens of comedy, the
legendary (and out) Lily Tomlin, will take
the stage of the Rosemont Theatre, 5400 N.
River, Sat., Nov. 1, at 8 p.m. for “An Evening
of Classic Lily Tomlin.” The one-night-only
performance is a free-wheeling one-woman
show featuring “guest appearances” by some
of Tomlin’s best-known characters.
Tomlin’s first television appearance was on
The Gary Moore Show (1966) and in 1969 she
joined the sketch-comedy TV hit “Laugh In,”
where she became known characters such as
the devilish six-year old Edith Ann and telephone operator Ernestine. Her film credits include Nine to Five, I Heart Huckabees, Nashville and A Prairie Home Companion.
Tickets are $37.50-$75. Call Ticketmaster
at 312-559-1212; visit Ticketmaster outlets
or the Rosemont Theatre box office; or visit
www.Ticketmaster.com.
Evan
D’Angeles.
Broadway vet now
at Bailiwick
Broadway veteran Evan D’Angeles has replaced George Andrew Wolff as Quasimodo in
Bailiwick Repertory’s The Hunchback of Notre
Dame.
The production is Dennis DeYoung’s musical adaptation of the Victor Hugo classic.
D’Angeles has been in such Broadway productions as Miss Saigon and Pacific Overtures.
Wolff is now performing at Chicago Shakespeare Theater in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.
Tickets for Hunchback, which runs through
Aug. 31, are $25-$45. See www.bailiwick.org
or call 773-883-1090.
Aug. 6, 2008 15
ON SALE THROUGH JANUARY 11
5 EASY WAYS TO BUY TICKETS:
and visit Best Seats
2.
(312) 902-1400
3 . All Broadway In Chicago box offices and Ticketmaster retail locations
4 . Groups (20+): (312) 977-1710
5 . $25 rush seats day of show at box office or online
Photo: Joan Marcus
1.
, 18 W. Monroe, Chicago • JerseyBoysChicago.com
Original Cast
Recording On
Aug. 6, 2008
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The dining room (above) and front parlor (right) of the Driehaus Museum.
MUSEUMS
Touring the
Driehaus
By LIZ GRANGER
The darkness struck me first. The curator opened
the entrance doors, and we stood in the middle
of a gleaming marble foyer. The blinds in flanking rooms were drawn to protect the fabrics and
art. Handmade Edison bulbs kept the lighting,
though electric, low. A flame trembled in the
fireplace, but it was only an orange cloth whipping in a hidden fan. I needed a few minutes to
realize that the fire wasn’t real.
I should say that the Driehaus Museum is romantic. Originally known as the Nickerson Mansion, its builder spared no expense. The house
cost $450,000 to build between 1879 and
1883—a time when the average American family
made $380 a year. Nickerson used 17 different
types of marble and had doorways carved from
single pieces of wood. Marquettry, waynescotting, frieze, candelabra: The mansion is full of
words most people don’t use anymore.
Richard Driehaus is a Chicago philanthropist
and investor who rescued the mansion from disrepair. He calls the building “a splendid survivor
among the hulking high-rises of River North.”
His office—Driehaus Capital Management LLC—
is located across the street from the museum.
Driehaus’ office is another restored building in
a neighborhood of modernism, a stone edifice
complete with a fenced courtyard that houses
manicured gardens, a vintage limousine and a
fountain of spitting lions.
Driehaus says that “classicism has a mysterious power,” and puts his name on many historic preservation projects throughout Chicago.
He visited the Nickerson Mansion with a friend
when it was an art gallery. Driehaus wanted to
buy a bust of Abraham Lincoln, but his friend
told him “forget the bust, buy the house.”
Samuel Nickerson built the mansion. He came
from Chatham, Mass., and made his fortune
in wholesale alcohol, buying a distillery when
he moved to Chicago in 1858. Nickerson profited from providing liquor and ordnance for the
Union Army during the Civil War. After the war,
he retired from the liquor industry and went into
banking and railways. He lived in the mansion
until 1900, and then sold it. The building was
put up for sale again in 1916, and remained on
the market for three years. One hundred prominent Chicagoans eventually bought the house
and donated it to the American College of Surgeons, who occupied the building until 2003,
when they sold it to Driehaus for restoration.
Driehaus’ refurbishment took five years, and
set a record: The house was the first building
in the world to be cleaned by laser. The laser
technique is common with sculptures, but is extremely labor-intensive. The Nickerson mansion
is made of porous stone that turned black from
coal fires and factories within 10 years after
completion of the house. Restorers feared that
the stone might be damaged if cleaned with
liquids, and were not willing to take the risk.
They coated the windows with ultraviolet film,
replaced tattered cloth with period-appropriate
fabrics, commissioned carvings for wood that
had disappeared and installed gallery lighting
in the least obtrusive way possible. The result
is a dramatic structure that lives up to its old
nickname: “The Marble Palace.” Promotional materials dub the building “the grandest residence
ever built in Chicago.”
David Bagnall, the musuem’s curator—who is
young, well-educated and Welsh (complete with
the accent)—took me on a private tour. The museum is set to open in the fall and is available
for limited previews this summer. If you’re lucky,
Bagnall will be your guide.
Pausing during the tour to lower the lights and
wind a clock, Bagnall explained the history of
the mansion and significance of the things inside.
“We’re not telling the story of the Nickersons
in this house,” Bagnall said. “When they lived
here, every horizontal surface was covered with
vases and such. We think the house speaks for
itself without the walls and surfaces hidden, so
we’re creating a period environment instead of
emulating their lifestyle.”
Walls on the first and second floors are covered
in traditional finishes and papers, but third-floor
rooms have been upholstered in monochromatic
cloth. This is to hang photos as the museum fills
with more artifacts.
The currently displayed photos capture the
phases of the Nickerson Mansion. Although
Nickerson was something of a sophisticate, the
home’s second owner did not boast the same refinement. Lucius George Fisher, who owned the
house from 1900 to 1916, enjoyed game hunting. He covered the walls in animal heads and
floors with skins. A photo taken during the Fisher era shows a walrus head and bearskin rugs.
Today, although the Driehaus Museum will
serve as a venue for its namesake’s art collection
(which includes one of the largest collections
of Tiffany works in the world), it also harbors
some of the quirkiness installed by its original
owners. For example, the Nickersons were “quite
concerned with security,” as Bagnall put it. Every lock in the house is numbered, and there is
a corresponding key for each lock. I saw plates
numbering up to 418. Imagine the size of that
key ring.
The Nickerson Museum a gift, a refuge of
classicism that has survived some challenging
years.
“Although this building is a landmark, only the
exterior is protected,” Bagnall said. “Had developers bought this building, they could have
torn out the interiors and turned the place into
luxury apartments.”
Stepping into the opulent building restored to
its former glory is unlike taking an elevator to
the top of the Sears Tower or boating along the
Chicago River. The Driehaus Museum represents
a rare niche in Chicago, and comes highly recommended.
The Driehaus Museum is located at 40 E.
Erie. Summer preview tours are available on
Tuesdays and Wednesdays between 11 a.m.
and 1 p.m. Call 312-932-8665, visit www.
DriehausMuseum.org or e-mail [email protected] for more details.
BRACE YOURSELF
LAST CHANCE!
GILBERT & GEORGE
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Sponsored by
Donald and Donna Baumgartner, Suzanne L. Selig, Lynde B. Uihlein,
Lehmann Maupin Gallery (New York), and Sonnabend Gallery (New York)
A Tate Modern, London exhibition in association with the Milwaukee Art Museum
mam.org
20
Aug. 6, 2008
KNIGHT
AT
Eliza Dushku
in Bottle Shock.
THE
MOVIES
Bottle Shock;
Pineapple Express
By Richard Knight, Jr.
I’ve been waiting all year for an American made
queer indie to rave about but haven’t found it
yet. In the meantime, I’ll gladly settle for a nonqueer one like Bottle Shock, which is going the
self-distribution route. That means the film is
going to need plenty of audience attention and
critical hosannas (like the one that follows) to
make it a hit—both of which it deserves.
Bottle Shock (a term that refers to what happens to wine after it travels a great distance)
was scripted by director Randall Miller with his
wife Jody Savin and is based on a true story.
It follows what led in 1976 to California’s Napa
Valley becoming known as a world-class maker
of wines thanks to a blind Paris wine-tasting
contest (the “Judgment of Paris”). Alan Rickman
plays Steven Spurrier, the fussy British owner
of a failing wine shop in Paris who knows his
wines but can’t get respect from his snobby colleagues. So Steven decides to create a competition pitting French wines against those from the
Napa Valley, hoping the results will put his store
and himself on the map.
Spurrier arrives in Napa and roams the valley
in a beat-up yellow Gremlin (leased, apparently
from Rent-a-Wreck). After suffering a flat tire, he
makes the acquaintance of Jim Barrett (Bill Pullman), a vineyard owner and former real estate
attorney who is just about to go broke. Jim is
helped out by his wayward hippie son, Bo (Chris
Pine), the local ne’er-do-well and chick magnet;
and the much more adept Gustavo (Freddy Rodriguez from TV’s “Ugly Betty”). A pretty blonde
intern (Rachael Taylor), a comely bar owner who
knows her grapes (Elizha Duzku) and a Maria
Callas-fixated winemaker (Miguel Sandoval) are
also part of the mix.
From the start, Spurrier, a self-admitted snob,
and the wary Barrett are at odds, but Bo and the
others see the competition as a chance to put
Napa on the map. There are plot complications
galore (a love triangle, a father-son falling-out,
etc.) but this is basically a David-and-Goliath
story—and a particularly satisfying one. When
things go bad for the characters (as they inevitably do in these movies), it feels absolutely
exhilarating when they finally turn things back
around.
The movie, scored with a jaunty New Age
sound by Mark Adler and ‘70s hits (by the Doobie Brothers and others), is helped enormously
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by the performances of Rickman and Pullman in
the leading roles. Rickman is like a modern-day
George Sanders (the actor who won an Academy
Award for Best Supporting Actor in All About
Eve). He can annihilate with a syllable (he’s the
female equivalent of Judi Dench) while Pullman is taciturn to a fault. When, at last, we
see Rickman smile and Pullman realize that he’s
finally produced a world-class wine (in separate
sequences), the moments are priceless. Pine, as
the young lead, is fine if not as memorable—
his performance is hampered by his disfiguring
shoulder-length, blond hippie wig, which is so
patently fake.
When Bottle Shock comes to DVD, it’s going to
make a perfect pairing with Sideways—although
Bottle Shock is much more accessible, much less
acidic in tone and more traditionally satisfying.
Basically, it’s like a merlot versus a cabernet
sauvignon. Because it’s such a rewarding movie,
it’s tempting to trot out all the adjectives generally used to describe a good wine. Not being a
connoisseur, I’ll just say that it left me with a
very pleasant buzz.
One can also expect a pleasant buzz or, rather,
a contact high after sitting through the haze of
Pineapple Express, the homage to stoner comedies of decades past. With the rise in popular-
ity of adolescent adult comedies, it was only a
matter of time before the stoner flick returned
to the local cineplex. The cult of Judd Apatow
(who produced the movie and wrote the story,
along with star Seth Rogan), which started with
lowbrow laughs, continues to find them in this
silly and flimsy (but too-long) film that revels in
the glory of reefer madness.
James Franco plays a brain-addled dealer who
describes his new special weed, called Pineapple
Express, as “God’s vagina” because it’s so good.
Seth Rogan is his constant customer, a process
server who uses disguises to get his job done.
Rogan accidentally witnesses a drug killing and,
soon, murderous drug dealers and bad cops are
after the mismatched duo. Gary Cole, Rosie Perez
and a host of expert comedic performers have
small roles. Danny R. McBride is particularly funny as Red, a drug dealer who seemingly can’t be
killed. Franco is sweet and daffy and finally registers playing something other than his patented
white-bread male ingénue while Rogan is, well,
Seth Rogan—the same character he’s played in
his previous movies. There’s not much variety or
versatility in his performances but his raucous
vitality scores big-time with the audience, and
many of the scenes work simply because of the
offbeat, unexpected chemistry between the two
performers.
The movie has the same short attention span
as a stoner—appropriate given that it revolves
around toking up. And Franco and Rogan’s characters light up in almost every scene (although
when the duo sells to a group of street-smart junior high kids, the result is funny but ultimately
uncomfortable). The final shoot-out, however, is
much too long and the buzz wears off long before the credits roll.
Check out my archived reviews at www.
windycitytimes.com or www.knightatthemovies.com. Readers can leave feedback at the
latter Web site, where there is also ordering
information on my book of collected film reviews, Knight at the Movies 2004-2006.
Aug. 6, 2008 21
Disc and That:
Recent and
upcoming DVDs
—Back Soon (already out; $19.99): Gay-film
vet Matthew Montgomery (Gone, but Not Forgotten; Socket) stars in this gay romance about two
“straight” men who fall in love with each other.
Among the special features are a photo gallery
and an audio commentary.
—The Boondocks: Season Two (already out;
$49.95): The second season of the popular
Shine a Light: The Rolling Stones.
Adult Swim show on the Cartoon Network—itself
based on Aaron McGruder’s controversial comic
strip—is out on DVD. This set contains 13 una sex worker named “Irina Palm” to financially
cut, uncensored episodes. Extras include various
help with her grandson’s medical treatment.
featurettes, bonus episodes and “minisodes.”
Wait until the neighbors find out...
—Bra Boys (Aug. 12; $17.99): Plenty of bare
—Kiss of the Spider Woman: Collector’s
torsos abound in this documentary film that foEdition (Oct. 21; $34.99): In a reissue of this
cuses on a notorious Australian surf gang known
Oscar-winning film, the late Raul Julia stars as
as the Bra Boys. (Don’t think undergarments, by
Valentine, a macho political prisoner who shares
the way; the group is named after its home subthe cell with an effeminate gay man, Molina,
urb, Maroubra.) Moreover, Russell Crowe narrates
played by William Hurt. This edition includes
the film, which has won awards at various film
a featurette, “Tangled Web: Making Kiss of the
festivals.
Spider Woman,” that is nearly three hours long.
—Dexter: The Complete Second Season
—Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (Aug. 19;
(Aug. 19; $39.98): Our favorite serial killer
$29.98): Frances McDormand stars as the title
(portrayed by Michael C. Hall of “Six Feet Uncharacter, who flits from job to job as a govder”) has a new set of problems in the series’
erness. She eventually becomes an assistant to
second season, from choosing between lovers
a young American gold-digger and entertainer
to someone else’s discovery of his underwater
named Delysia Lafosse (Amy Adams). In his recemetery.
view of the movie when it was out in theaters,
—Gossip Girl: The Complete First Season
Windy City Times movie critic Richard Knight,
(Aug. 19; $59.99): Manhattan’s elite teens are
Jr., called it “a delightful little comedy.”
under the always-watchful eye of the blogger
—Reno 911: The Complete Fifth Season (alknown as “Gossip Girl” in this guilty-pleasure TV
ready out; $39.98): Lieutenant Jim Dangle and
series. Special features include featurettes such
the rest of the bumbling officers are back for
as “A Gossip Girl Wedding” as well as music vid16 episodes (on three discs) that involve everyeos and a gag reel.
thing from the department hiring a former sex
—Irina Palm (Aug. 12; $27.99): In this
slave to the police dealing with a bounty hunter.
Strand
Releasing film, Marianne
Faithfull 12:03
stars PMAmong
08_06_windy:05_28_08
7/23/08
Pagethe1 hilarious extras are featurettes (inas Maggie, a middle-aged widow who becomes
cluding “Cop Psychology: Inside the Minds of
Reno’s Deputies”) and commentaries.
—Sea Monsters: A Prehistoric Adventure
(already out; $19.98): For those of you who
love nature documentaries, this one is up your
alley. This family-friendly National Geographic
project—narrated by actor Liev Schreiber—
explores prehistoric oceans. While the program
only runs 40 minutes, it is jam-packed with details. Extras include an interactive timeline.
—Secretary (already out; $14.98): Faves
Maggie Gyllenhaal and James Spader co-star in
this movie (originally out in 2002 but featuring new packaging) about the professional and
increasing personal relationships of a boss and
his assistant. Special features include a behindthe-scenes featurette, an audio commentary and
a photo gallery.
—Shine a Light: The Rolling Stones (already
out; $34.99): Famed director Martin Scorsese
helmed this documentary, which centers around
the band’s plans for a very special New York City
gig in 2006—a benefit hosted by Bill and Sen.
Hillary Clinton. Buddy Guy, Christina Aguilera
and Jack White appear during the concert, but
the rough-and-tumble guys from England command the stage the entire time. “Start Me Up,”
“Jumpin’ Jack Flash” and “Sympathy for the
Devil” are among the tunes on the set list.
—Street Kings (Aug. 19; $29.98): Keanu
Reeves and Academy Award winner Forest Whitaker star in this urban crime thriller, in which
a veteran cop finds himself trapped in a web
of conspiracy and betrayal. Special features for
the movie—which also stars Hugh Laurie (TV’s
“House”) and hottie Chris Evans (The Fantastic
Four films)—include alternate scenes, deleted
scenes and 10 vignettes.
—Terminator—The Sarah Connor Chronicles:
The Complete First Season (Aug. 19; $29.98):
This three-disc set stars British actress Lena
Headey (300) as Sarah Connor, (quite literally)
the muscular role immortalized by Linda Hamilton. The TV series picks up two years after the
movie Terminator 2: Judgment Day, with Sarah
and her 15-year-old son, John (TV’s “Heroes”),
on the run and preparing for a possible war
against the machines. Summer Glau (Firefly) costars as a terminator sent to help John.
—Two Fat Ladies (already out; $59.99): On
DVD for the first time, this four-disc set is the
complete collection of the most popular cooking
show in BBC history that was a Food Network hit
in the United States. Jennifer Paterson and Clarissa Dickson Wright—two outspoken women—
rode around the British countryside aboard a
motorcycle and sidecar, and prepared dishes for
everyone from diplomats to lumberjacks. Special
features include a documentary tribute to Paterson, who passed away in 1999 while filming the
series’ fourth season.
—Ugly Betty: Season Two (Sept. 9; $59.99):
The “diva-licious” LGBTA TV series set in the
world of high fashion is coming out with its second season, complete with drama and comedy.
However, it’s the bonus features that will have
fans salivating; among the extras are “On Set
with the Besties,” which features best friends
Marc and Amanda (Michael Urie and Becki Newton); and “Wilhelmina Slater: Love To Hate Her,”
in which Vanessa Williams talks about playing
the fashionista.
—Andrew Davis
Two Fat Ladies.
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22
Aug. 6, 2008
Chris Willis:
He’s got the
music in him
sible to penetrate) Hot 100, Pop 100 and Top
40 Mainstream charts in addition to becoming
YouTube’s most popular video of all time in the
electronic music category.
But—divine intervention aside—how did it
get there?
In a recent interview, the wide-eyed Willis
spilled the milk on his storied past, including
his pursuit of all things musical, raising God’s
roof and how being gay ultimately turned him
away, why he’ll never be considered a one-hit
wonder, processing his success and the most important lesson he’s learned so far.
Like how it’s never too late for that one big
break.
Mikey Rox: Although the mainstream public is just learning your name, you’ve been
performing professionally for the better part
of 20 years. What influenced you to pursue
music?
Chris Willis: A couple things. My parents were
very musical—my mom played piano and my dad
By Mikey Rox
Rejoice! Chris Willis—gospel singer-turneddancehall hitmaker—finally has something to
celebrate.
After years of lending his effervescent vocals
to some of the world’s most successful acts—including Kelly Clarkson, CeCe Winans, Kenny Rogers and Quincy Jones—the powerhouse, along
with his internationally known producing partner French DJ David Guetta, at last has earned
a spot among the Billboard elite. In fact, just
several weeks after its release, “Love is Gone,”
the club banger that’s lifted Willis on high, has
peaked on the perennial (and nearly impos-
Chris Willis.
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was a musician—so there was always music in
our house. But it probably wasn’t until MTV happened that I was like, “Ah, that’s what I want to
do.” That was probably my biggest influence.
MR: As an aspiring artist growing up in
Dayton, Ohio, what experiences helped shape
who you are today?
CW: I started out in gospel, so we were always in church. I just kinda got involved—the
local scene, singing in groups—and my brothers
and sisters and I used to sing as a quartet, so
we were constantly involved in music. In high
school, it was show choir. When I went to college in Alabama I was involved in choirs and
groups there; I just kept being involved in music, never really thinking about it as a career
until after I finished school. My first job as a
singer was out in California with a group that
sang in churches, and we did, like, 300 concerts
a year for two years. That was the point where
I was like, you know what, I can do this for a
living.
MR: How did your sexuality affect your gospel career?
CW: Very hard. I was very much in the closet,
and I had all this angst inside. I always felt
like God really understood—but that wasn’t the
message I was receiving in the church. So, when
I moved out on my own I really internalized that
message that God makes us who we are and that
it’s up to us to embrace that or not. I chose to
embrace all those things as freedom, and that
freedom begat the freedom I experience now.
MR: Did being gay have anything to do with
you transitioning from gospel to more mainstream music?
CW: Absolutely. I think there’s this unspoken
denial that you go through in gospel—maybe so
in other musical art forms too—but I just felt
for me it just wasn’t easy to keep perpetuating
that.
MR: Would you be able to make it as an out
gospel artist today?
CW: I don’t really think about it that much. I
just chose to go in another direction—and I’m
really grateful that I did.
MR: I don’t want to jinx you, but how do you
plan to avoid being a one-hit wonder?
CW: Strangely enough, [“Love Is Gone”] is the
only song that’s a big hit in America, but we’ve
actually had four or five songs that were huge
hits in Europe already. I don’t really think about
it too much. I’m such a ‘live in the moment kind’
of person—the pressure obviously is on to recreate what you’ve done—but I pretend like it
didn’t happen and just try to write the best song
I can come up with. Ya know, I do what I love
to do. If people love it, great. If they don’t—
and it’s a great piece of work that I love and it’s
gonna have legs—then it’s gonna do what it’s
gonna do anyway.
MR: What’s been the best of your journey so
far?
CW: The journey is an education. I always
want to be in a position to learn something new.
I love the travel—
MR: What have you learned?
CW: Not to take yourself too seriously. Because, ya know, it’s music, and I think when you
read Billboard—and we were just at Billboard
today, and it’s very serious business, a lot of
money involved—but if you focus on that, it’s
very easy to get frustrated. I really just try to
dwindle things down to a matter of fun. If I’m
not having fun, I don’t want to be involved. But
as long as I’m having a good time and people
respond to that—and it’s reflected in my work
and my songs—that, I think, is the biggest lesson: Make it fun—have fun!
Visit Mikey Rox at www.mikeyrox.com.
Read the entire article at www.
Aug. 6, 2008 23
POP
MAKING
SENSE
On Sat.-Sun., Aug. 9 and 10, Northalsted Market Days offers an array of local artists, queer
icons and divas to delight the scantily clad
crowd. Some of the draws include the bluesrock sound of the Kimi Hayes Band, hunky out
singer-songwriters Ferras and Eric Himan, the
Windy City’s disco vocal powerhouse Linda Clifford, freestyle girl group Expose and Tony Award
winner Jennifer Holliday. For a more detailed
schedule, please visit chicagoevents.com.
Queer-fronted country quintet Devin & the
Straights takes to the stage on Sat., Aug. 9 at 6
p.m. at Northalsted Market Days. On the group’s
solid self-titled debut, the guys pay homage to
Lakeview establishment Town Hall Pub on “Cowboy Night.” Devin & the Straights delivers timeless country and bluegrass music, tipping their
hats to the greats like Hank Williams and Dolly
Parton.
Also performing at the festival in Boystown
Sat., Aug. 9 is out Chicagoan rocker Dylan Rice.
He will return on Wed., Aug. 13 to Lilly’s, 2515
N. Lincoln, for a special solo acoustic show,
sharing the bill with Nashville-based talent Tori
Sparks. The Chicago-born Sparks has a nearbreathless voice on “Cold War,” but then busts
out a full-bodied chorus. Even “Under the Rug”
has a sweeping, optimistic tone to it, whereas
“Out of the Void” is ever so final. Produced by
David Henry (R.E.M., Ben Folds, Cowboy Junkies), her latest album, Under This Yellow Sun,
would translate seamlessly to a live setting.
Looking for the ultimate party compilation?
DJ Max Rodriguez culminates mixes and covers for the feel-good nonstop set Party Groove:
Pride 08. This Centaur Release has reworkings of
‘90s club hits (“Hold That Sucker Down,” “Fine
Day,” “People Hold On”) as well as noteworthy
upbeat takes on recent radio staples (“Bleeding Love,” “4 Minutes,” “Apologize”). Rodriguez,
who spins at the New York hotspot Splash, has
also done the honors in this series previously.
Pride 08 is out now.
Somebody recently asked me what song
sounds like it samples Donna Summer’s “I Feel
Love” and Depeche Mode’s “I Feel Loved” with
the lyrics “I don’t speak words, I feel love.” Lo
and behold, it is one of my favorite club tracks
so far this year. X-Press 2 follows up “Give It”
and the mega-hit “Lazy” with “Kill 100.” This
number does not have the warm Ibiza feeling
of its predecessors. Guest vocalist Rob Harvey
from the British outfit The Music provides dark,
moody Dirty Vegas-inspired vocals. Found on XPress 2’s album Makeshift Feelgood, “Kill 100”
also appears on the duo’s double-disc greatest
hits and mixes retrospective Raise Your Hands.
Chicago’s shining star, Jennifer Hudson, gives
eager fans a peek to her forthcoming debut album with the new single, “Spotlight.” Don’t
worry, it is not a remake of the Madonna jam
of the same name from the ‘80s. Here, Hudson
has the hook of the year with her “hee-hee”s.
Dance-floor enthusiasts, keep an eye out for the
Johnny Vicious remix, which is destined to be a
late-summer anthem. “Spotlight” and its mixes
are now available on iTunes, while Hudson’s
highly anticipated self-titled debut is slated for
a Sept. 30 street date via Arista Records.
On a recent trip to Toronto, I ran into queer
guitarist Stefan Olsdal
from the British alternative-rock trio Placebo. He
said they were in Canada
recording new album with
a new drummer. The already written material
will have a rock edge to
it in the style of PJ Harvey and My Bloody Valentine. Olsdal also promises
that Placebo will take to
the road again soon. Placebo’s 2006 opus, Meds,
features Alison Mosshart
from the Kills on the title
track and the remake of
Kate Bush’s “Running up
That Hill” had its video—consisting of a collage
of fan clips—come out last year.
Former Moloko frontwoman Róisín Murphy
had one of the best albums of 2007 with Overpowered. Chocked full with funk, R&B and electro-soul, this import-only release’s fourth single
is the pop gem “Movie Star.” The clip is nothing short of a camp classic worthy of Pee Wee’s
Playhouse. Here, there are gender-benders, wigs
with too much hairspray, a love scene with a
giant plush lobster and lots of mandatory bad
overacting. The end product for “Movie Star” is a
wonderful salute to B-grade zombie movies and
videos of the ‘80s like “Love is a Battlefield.”
After chart success in the early ‘90s, Cathy
Dennis has turned into a hit-writing factory
for other artists. She has been behind numerous songs, including Britney Spears’s “Toxic”
and Kylie Minogue’s electro-anthem “Can’t Get
You out of My Head,” as well as the theme from
American Idol. Now Dennis can claim having
penned her first #1 hit with Katy Perry’s “I Kissed
a Girl.” Per an interview with Billboard magazine, the redheaded Brit will return to singing
with her forthcoming band, Sexcassettes. Best
known for her top 10 hits “Touch Me (All Night
Long)” and “Too Many Walls” as well as a cameo
on TV’s “Beverly Hills, 90210,” Dennis stepped
behind the spotlight stateside after her underappreciated sophomore album, Into the Skyline.
Now, where is Dennis’s onetime contemporary,
Tara Kemp?
Jennifer Hudson.
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24
Aug. 6, 2008
Chicago Spirit
Brigade: Cheering
for a cause
By Ross Forman
It isn’t just about the energy and excitement
that the Chicago Spirit Brigade brings to any of
the events the group cheers at.
It’s about the fundraising. In fact, that is,
arguably, its biggest and most important element.
At the end of every routine—which involves a
fun, upbeat, elite-level routine with pyramids,
dances and more—members carry Spirit Buckets
in search of donations from the crowd. The brigade chooses one organization to raise funds for
at every performance. The specific organizations
are often groups that provide services to people
with life-threatening challenges, such as organizations that raise money for cancer or HIV/AIDS
research. These groups include Chicago House,
TPAN (Test Positive Aware Network), BEHIV
(Better Existence with HIV) and Howard Brown
Health Center, among others.
“One of the most important aspects of our
fundraising is, when we raise money, 100 percent of the money goes to that organization,”
said Ric Martel, 40, who is a co-manager for the
2008 Spirit Brigade, which is now in its sixth
year and has raised more than $20,000. The brigade raised about $3,000 for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation over Pride weekend.
Co-manager Richard Flack is the group’s founder, having had experience with cheer organizations in different cities.
“The first couple of seasons, it was a relatively
small group of people. But we’ve now grown to
25 members,” Martel said. “We never intended,
2008 Northalsted
Market Days
or perceived to be, a gay group. Yes, many of
the members are openly-gay and of course we
[perform at] high-profile [gay] events like the
[annual] Chicago Gay Pride Parade, but we’re not
100 percent gay.”
The group is split 50-50, male-female. All of
the men are openly gay and there is at least one
lesbian. Members range in age from 21-50 and
they cross the ethnicity spectrum.
“Anyone who demonstrates the level of commitment to put in the time to practice, that’s
the kind of person we’re looking for. [Membership] has nothing to do with sexual orientation,
age, race or sex,” said Martel, who attended
Maine East High School and the University of
Illinois, and now lives in Rogers Park. He works
in the housing division at the AIDS Foundation
of Chicago.
“We have an elite-level performance and we’re
not doing this just for our own personal glory or
the applause from the crowd; it really is about
our level of commitment to raising money and
awareness for the groups that we are raising
money for.”
The team practices for four hours every Sunday
at the Fitness Formula Club in East Lakeview.
The Spirit Brigade is on the sidelines for all
Chicago Force home football games, played at
North Park University.
The Spirit Brigade will hit about 12 events this
summer, including Northalsted Market Days, the
Chicago AIDS Walk, the Milwaukee AIDS Walk,
the Chicago Marathon and more.
Chicago
Spirit
Brigade.
Photo
courtesy
of the
organization
Item Of The Month
Great ‘Scot’: Band to
play at Market Days
by AMY WOOTEN
Chicago indie-pop collective Scotland Yard Gospel Choir doesn’t sound a lick like its name.
They aren’t Scottish. They aren’t even a choir.
They are, however, one of Chicago’s biggest recent breakout bands.
Scotland Yard Gospel Choir’s self-titled sophomore album (Bloodshot) is a who’s who of the
Chicago underground. The album, which features
over 50 different artists, is catchy, unique and
intense, touching on heavy issues like mental
illness, drug abuse and sexual identity while
maintaining its pop sensibility.
Windy City Times spoke to the band’s ringleader and songwriter, Elia Einhorn, about the band’s
start, influences and more.
Windy City Times: You guys formed back in
2001. How did it happen? What was the idea
behind it, and what did you first sound like
back then?
Elia Einhorn: Back then, we were a folk duo.
A friend of mine from another band, Matt Kerstein, and I, who had just disbanded from my
first band, decided to play folk music influenced
by the Aerosmith anthology. It took about two
months before we could put my old band on
top of our folk duo, so then we got a drummer,
violin, a female singer, cello and bass. Then we
were a real band and it kind of went from there.
We’ve been around for a little while, but it’s
funny—the momentum didn’t really get started until about 2004. Maybe late 2003, which
was when we put out our first record. Then we
toured a bunch. We played with the Arcade Fire
and some bigger bands like that. Then it took
us about four years to put out another record.
During which time, we signed onto Bloodshot,
which was awesome. Then we got another album
out. When we got that out, that’s kind of when
the band really grew together, I think.
WCT: When did you sign to Bloodshot?
EE: 2007. We have been working on a record
of our own. We had gone through some changes
in the band—some personnel changes. We went
through the record and threw out half of the
record on two different occasions because we
didn’t think it was up to snuff and where we
wanted to go. Then we signed with Bloodshot in
2007 and delivered them a finished record. We
put it out and his the road. We played six weeks
through the U.S. We played with Tommy Ramone (The Ramones), we came out with Harvey
Pekar—the American Splendor writer. We played
with some of the guys from the Lemonheads.
It was fun. It was a real American indie rock
experience—hanging out with these characters
around the country.
WCT: How do you think the band has grown
since you first formed?
EE: I think back then we were just happy to
play music that sounded like other people. I
think we were kind of paying homage to our influences. But now, I think that there’s been such
a mixture of things I listen to that you can’t
discern it into music any more. I finally wrote
the songs that I’ve always wanted to write.
WCT: What do you think helped you do
that?
EE: I think it was time to be honest. I think
it was time to try different song styles and approaches.
WCT: Speaking of influences, your music
touches on many different issues. And some
of these are kind of dark, but I wouldn’t necessary call your music dark.
EE: Yeah, there’s that dichotomy there.
WCT: One of the issues that is touched on
is sexual identity [the song “I Never Thought
I Could Feel This Way For a Boy,” which is
really important to our readers. I was kind
of wondering whose influence that was from
the band?
EE: Oh yeah, that’s mine. All the songs on the
record I wrote, and they are all exactly about my
life or the lives of the people around me. That
one was just written about me and having for a
guy that I felt that I wasn’t supposed to have,
and I didn’t feel comfortable telling my friends
about. Thankfully, I got to a point where I felt
comfortable.
I’ve had that feeling of being the perpetual
outsider, on and off, my whole life. I think that
really contributed to it.
WCT: That’s definitely a theme that our
readers can relate to.
EE: It’s one of the saddest things in the world,
and the faster people can get over it, the better.
It’s not easy.
WCT: What are some other aspects of your
life that you think have really influenced your
music?
EE: I think one of the biggest things is I was
born in Wales, and was partially raised there.
Half of my family lives there; they are still over
there. Listening to the Manchester bands really
influenced my songwriting. Bands from the Manchester scene like the Happy Mondays, and more
than that, bands like the Stone Roses and The
Smiths. Those are the bands I grew up listening
to. Mary, from our band, pointed out recently
that I read almost exclusively American authors
and listen almost exclusively to British songwriters and bands. I had never noticed it.
WCT: What’s your favorite local record
shop?
EE: Reckless Records—there’s no doubt about
it. I’ve spent a lot of money there. I was just
there yesterday. I live in Lincoln Square, so I
also spend a lot of time at Laurie’s Planet of
Sound.
Catch indie rock band Scotland Yard Gospel
Choir at Market Days on Sun., Aug. 10. Visit
www.myspace.com/scotlandyardgospelchoir
for more about the band.
Read the entire interview at www.
Scotland
Yard
Gospel Choir.
To see more and
for more information, go to
www.LeatherArchives.org
Aug. 6, 2008 25
2008 Northalsted
Market Days
The 27th annual Northhalsted Market Days,
the Midwest’s largest two-day outdoor street
festival, is quickly approaching.
The festival is set to take place Aug. 9-10,
from 11 a.m.-10 p.m. each day, on Halsted
Street between Belmont and Addison. This year’s
suggested gate donation has been raised from
$5 to $7.
There are over 30 entertainment acts to appear at Market Days this year. The schedule is as
follows:
Belmont Stage Entertainment
Saturday
12 p.m.—Yvonne Doll & The Locals
2 p.m.—Chicago Spirit Brigade
3 p.m.—Kimi Hayes Band
6 p.m.—Dot Dot Dot
8 p.m.—Powder
Sunday
12 p.m.—Pulsation Band
3 p.m.—R.O.T.C.
4 p.m.—Dropmore Scarlet
7:30 p.m.—Cat Fight
3 p.m.—Everelle
4 p.m.—sixteen candles
7 p.m.—Linda Clifford
9 p.m.—Jennifer Holliday
Addison Stage Entertainment
Saturday
12 p.m.—Spyder Monkey
1:30 p.m.—The Trash Martinis
3:30 p.m.—Dylan Rice
5 p.m.—IADT Fashion Show
6 p.m.—Devin & The Straights
8:30 p.m.—Eric Himan
Sunday
12 p.m.—Chicago Gay Men’s Chorus
1:30 p.m.—Dime Store String Band
2:35 p.m.—Chicago Spirit Brigade
Eric Himan.
Photo by
Andrew Davis
Roscoe Stage Entertainment
Saturday
12 p.m.—Alicia Wiley
1:15 p.m.—Chicago Spirit Brigade
2 p.m.—Carey Ott
4 p.m.—Hey Champ
6 p.m.—Ellen Miller
8 p.m.—Expose
Sunday
12 p.m.—Tamara Bedricky
2 p.m.—Scotland Yard Gospel Choir
3 p.m.—Heavy Manners
4:45 p.m.—R.O.T.C.
5:30 p.m.—Ferras
8 p.m.—Think Floyd
The Jazz Oasis
Saturday
12 p.m.—Lakeside Pride Jazz
2:30 p.m.—Soulio
5:30 p.m.—Gayle & Nick Bisesi
Sunday
12 p.m.—Clark Street Band
2:30 p.m.—BMR4
5 p.m.—Matt Pinozzotto Guitar Trio
Visit www.chicagoevents.com or call 773-8683010
Entertainment
news
Manhunt, one of the most popular hook up
sites for gay men, has been poking fun of the
fact that D-List comedian and actress Kathy
Griffin has been giving the site the cold
shoulder. Manhunt has been trying to get a
hold of the gay-friendly Griffin to see if she
wants to join in on a marketing campaign for
one of their sister Web sites, but so far, she
hasn’t returned a single call. In response to
her supposed lack of response, Manhunt recently put up a banner ad that reads, “Does
Kathy Griffin think Manhunt is on the D-List?”
The ad features a Griffin look-alike.
Lesbian actress Heather Matarazzo (Welcome to the Dollhouse; TV’s “Exes & Ohs”)
is engaged to musician Carolyn Murphy,
365Gay.com reported. Matarazzo’s publicist,
Lisa Jammal, told E! News that “Heather proposed to Carolyn; then Carolyn proposed to
her.”
Christina Applegate—who played Kelly
Bundy on TV’s “Married with Children” and is
the star of ABC’s “Samantha Who?”—is battling breast cancer, according to CNN. The
star’s publicist released a statement, however,
saying that “the cancer is not life-threatening. Christina is following the recommended
treatment of her doctors and will have a full
recovery.”
According to the Huffington Post, out lesbian comedian and former daytime talk
show host Rosie O’Donnell might get herself a variety show. According to reports,
NBC and O’Donnell are in the midst of discussion a live variety show starring her.
26
July 30, 2008
REAL ESTATE
FOR SALE
OUT OF TOWN
Call Lars, your man in Michigan
Now’s the time to buy!
Beachside Party Pads,
Relaxing Waterfronts, or
Serene Wooded Acreage.
Small City Cottages or
Private Palaces.
Whatever your cup of tea,
Come talk to me!
Today’s Featured Property:
Just Blocks
from the Beach!
St. Joseph, MI
$108,900
Great downtown bungalow! Walk to the park,
Lake Michigan beaches, shops and restaurants!
Move-in ready!!! New flooring, plumbing,
roof, paint, kitchen and bathroom. All appliances
included. Relaxing front porch, rear deck and
yard. 2 beds, 1 bath, 1000SF. Must see inside!
Great value! 90 minutes from Chicago.
Serving Your Real Estate Needs
Across Southwest Michigan
Lars Petzke
Realtor, GRI, ePRO
ShipStreetRealty.com
larspetzke.blogspot.com
C: 269-369-6348
St. Joseph, MI
90 minutes to Chicago
E: LPetzke@
ShipStreetRealty.com
FABULOUS HARBOR COUNTRY COTTAGE: Near Downtown New Buffalo. Hand crafted Arts and Crafts cottage.
2 Bdrm w/ Studio. Private retreat. Please contact for
details and photos. 602-295-8331 traveleer@mac.
com for photos (9/03/08-8)
SAUGATUCK, MICHIGAN
NEW BUFFALO BLOWOUT SALE WALDEN WOODS!: Four
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is and finish yourself or we will finish. Custom built,
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Reduced $55,000 to $345,000. Call Sue/Joe @GPS
Realty 269-469-3700. (2/27/08-4)
MILLER BEACH HOME: Two new homes minutes to Lake
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for an outdoor pool without compromising yard space.
Close to nature preserves, deer and wild turkey can be
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cathedral foyer; hardwood, ceramic and carpeted floors.
Appliances included, two and half car garages Great opportunity for a vacation home or a permanent residence
@ $246,000 or get friends or family together and buy
both for $470,000. Call Angel today 219-614-5012 or
[email protected] (12/26/07-2)
ONE HOUR DRIVE FROM DOWNTOWN CHICAGO LaPORTE, IN: Great home on quiet lake in Laporte. This
house has been professionally painted through out,
with the kitchen having its own unique decorative look.
It includes one of a kind concrete counter top on cabinets. There is even a custom-made faux-patina copper
top on bar area. Hardwood floors on main level were
ones pulled from a 100 year old building in Chicago.
New carpeting has also been installed during the last
few months on second level. The great room includes
a wood-burning fireplace surrounded by built-in book
cases. The master bedroom area has oversized cedarlined closets with fantastic views of the lake. The master bath is Travertine marble with a large jetted tub and
the main bath is custom ceramic tile. The exterior of the
home offers seclusion, custom made deck area and your
own fire pit to enjoy on fall nights. Some of the other
fine features of this home include hardwood French colonial doors on the interior, second floor laundry area,
and slate foyer. $249,900. Tommy Sunn, Century 21
1st Team, Inc. 219-575-0881 www.tommysunn21.
com (3/12/08)
GREAT INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY! LAKE GENEVA WISCONSIN: Approximately 1 acre property. Vintage brick
Victorian. Approximately 2,700 Sq. ft with luxury guest
house. 2.5 new garage, 1 vintage garage. Totally updated. 2 blocks from lake, 4 blocks from downtown. Many
uses, business zoning. Now used as B&B. $649,000
for sale by owner. Call toll free 1-877-249-0632.
(3/26/08-4)
station 48” cab granite ss appl. washer/dryer balcony.
$424,000 Linda RE/MAX Suburban 847-230-7350
(08/27/08-4)
FOR RENT
STUDIO
1332 W. HOOD AVE. - EDGEWATER STUDIOS: Sunny
studios with all utilities included. Laundry in building.
Close to “L”, lake and shopping. Credit check required.
$475 - $585/mo w/ no sec. dep. 773-392-4550
www.landstarrealty.com. (08/27/08-4)
1525 W. ESTES AVE. - ROGERS PARK STUDIOS: Beautiful, sunny & spacious studio with HWF & heat included.
Laundry in building. Close to lake, transportation & shopping. $565/mo w/ no sec. dep. Call 773-392-4550
www.landstarrealty.com. (08/06/08-1)
TWO BEDROOM
WALK TO METRA, REDLINE: Huge 2 bedroom/1 bath
garden apartment in beautiful 3 flat. Very large open living area, Kitchen w/dishwasher. Washer/dryer in building. Heat included. Parking space available. $925/mo.
2129 W Lunt. Call 312-259-7990. (08/06/08-1)
2525 W. HUTCHINSON - FABULOUS 2ND FLR APT:
Large 2BR+ den. Gut Rehab, Wood Floors, Fireplace, DW,
CA, W/D. Large Front Porch 1/2 blk to river. Lincoln
Square. Free WI-FI! Available Sept. 1. $1,430/mo.
773-478-3547 (08/06/08)
THREE BEDROOM
FOREST PARK 3BR/1BA $1,300/MO: Large master
br with hwf and walkin closet. 2 parking spaces included. Tenant pays hot water heater & cooking gas
plus electric. Landlord pays heat & water. Call Joyce
708-218-0848. (08/06/08-2)
RELAX OR ENTERTAIN : At a cozy country estate minutes from the Chicago N.W. train lines. English cottage
brick, stone and cedar retreat is nestled in the woods
on 2.5 acres. Nature out every window. Terrace, patio,
screened porch, tree deck overlooking ravine and creek.
3BR/3BA. 2 story/2.5 car garage. 24/7 infrastructure
service. Security cameras. Flexible lease. Pets welcome.
Call Rob Corsello, Starck Realtors, 847-540-7532.
(08/20/08-4)
Nor
Townthhoside
mes
Starting
$389,00 at
0
Barbara
O’Connor
773.883.2444...find your way home!
Grand Opening Promotions!
• First 5 Buyers Get a FREE Scooter
• Developer Pays All First Year Real Estate Taxes and Assessments
West Rogers Park Townhomes
HOUSE
Wooded lane leads to turnkey getaway on 2.5
completely private acres in Saugatuck, Twp., MI.
This 1,100 s.f., year round home is 5 minutes
from downtown Saugatuck. 2 BRs, 2 BAs on 2
levels. Main level w. LR w. vaulted ceiling, dining
area w. glass sliders to rear deck, kitchen, BR, BA
w. shower stall. LR, dining area and kitchen have
hardwood floors. Upper level open loft BR, full
BA and dressing area. Full, unfinished basement
w. newer furnace, washer/dryer. Central air and
new roof.
$219,900
Contact: Chris at 269-857-1296
or [email protected]
Photos available by e-mail.
BEAUTIFUL RIVERSIDE ENGLISH BRICK: For Sale,
$429,000, or rent, $2,300/mo plus utilities. Beautiful 3
bedroom 1.5 bath 1930 English Brick in historic, friendly Riverside. Perfect commuter location, 20 minutes to
Union Station. Original character and integrity intact in
this home with stained glass and leaded windows, hardwood floors, updated kitchen with stainless appliances,
granite counters, maple cabinetry, original cast iron
drainboard sink and terra cotta floor. French doors to
sunny sitting room, and wood burning fireplace. Paver
patio overlooks beautiful mature rear yard in addition
to second floor sundeck. For more info and picture
link, call Michael 312-806-2204 (8/06/08-3)
CONDO
UNIQUE DUPLEXED LOFT: Upgraded to the max Hardwood throughout plus plazma TV, surround sound Ipod
CLASSIFIEDS
ADvertise here
BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY
ADVERTISE HERE: Want to advertise your product, service, etc. to thousands of readers? Place an ad in the
Windy City Times! We offer affordable rates, convenient
service, and as a bonus, your ad runs in our online
section for free. To place an ad, contact Cynthia at
773-871-7610, [email protected],
or go to our website www.WindyCityMediaGroup.
com.
HOME BASE BUSINESS MONEY! TRAVEL! AND
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Earn $ 1,000 to $ 3,000 profit per sale as a director.
For more information call 219-221-6264 Overview
800-628-8015. (10/22/08-13)
VALLARTA GAY HOTEL: Extremely successful gay hotel
in Puerto Vallarta seeks partners for major expansion.
Excellent opportunity for high proffit. Six years in
operation, with real estate already owned. Call toll free
1-866-388-2689. (8/06/08-12)
Announcements
NEW LESBIAN WEB SITE NOW READY TO USE : Ldigest is
the new and exciting web site, created by a lesbian for
lesbians. You can view and post events, referals, discuss
on many forums (including a dating forum). A login is
required. Email [email protected] to get yours.
The site is www.ldigest.com. (8/20/08-4)
CLEANING SERVICES
CHESTNUT CLEANING SERVICES: We’re a house cleaning
service for homes, small businesses and small buildings.
We also have fabulous organizational skills (a separate
function at a separate cost that utilizes your assis-
Open Thursday: 4-7 pm & Saturday-Sunday: 12-4 pm
2,400 Square Foot, 3-4 Bedroom Units with 2-Car Garages
The only New Construction Townhome Project in West Rogers Park
GCL# TGCO63953
6320 North Sacramento • www.sacramentosquare.com
www.bairdwarner.com
Information not guaranteed and subject to changes and withdrawals without notice. 4040 N. Lincoln Avenue • Chicago, IL 60618 • 773.549.1855
tance) for what hasn’t been cleaned in many months
or years due to long-term illness, depression, physical/
mental challenges, for the elderly, if you have downsized and more. Depressed about going home to chaos?
We can organize your chaos, straighten out your chaos,
help you make sense of your chaos and finally clean
what is no longer chaos. Can we help you? Bonded and
insured. Chestnut Cleaning Service: 312-332-5575
(5/24/09-tk)
COUNSELING
LICENSED PSYCHOTHERAPY: 20 years experience providing counseling and clinical hypnotherapy. I specialize
in relationship issues, childhood trauma, and recurrent
patterns that inhibit potential. Individuals and couples.
Starla Sholl, LCSW, PC, 773.878.5809, [email protected] www.starlasholl.com.
SOLUTION FOCUSED COUNSELING: Solution focused
counseling for individuals and couples in affirming,
empowering environment. Experienced with depression,
anxiety, body image issues and relational challenges.
Lakeview. 2nd Story Counseling. 773.528.1777 www.
mychicagotherapist.com. (9/17/08-8)
RELATIONSHIPS CAN LAST: We specialize in helping you
sift through what is not working in your relationship so
that you can maximize the good. With over 20 years
of experience serving Chicago’s LGBTQ communities, we
offer safe, confidential counseling for drinking and drug
related concerns, past or present abuse, coming out and
coming out of marriage. Please call Dr. Margo Jacquot
at 847-759-9110 ext. 10, or email at [email protected]. (9/10/08-12)
CLASSIFIEDS
COUNSELING cont.
HELP WANTED
ARE YOUR RELATIONSHIPS NOT WHAT YOU WANT THEM
TO BE?: tTherapy can help you achieve satisfying relationships and a better quality of life. Treating depression, anxiety, trauma, sexual concerns, LGBTQ issues,
addictions, stress management and conflict resolution.
Close to CTA. Ample street parking. Andersonville/
Rogers Park. Call 773-275-7710. (7/22/09-52)
UNDERCOVER
SHOPPERS:
Retail
and
dining
establishments need undercover clients to judge quality
and customer service. Earn up to $100 a day. Please
Call 1-800-491-7969 (8/13/08-4)
DECKS
AUTO SALES
Come work for the best!
Grossinger Volvo is looking for
sales people to sell from one
of the largest inventories in the
Midwest. Our new management
team needs motivated people to
sell new and pre-driven vehicles.
Benefits include:
· Demo
· Great pay plan
· Health
· 401k
· Aggressive advertising
Call Dennis at
815-861-2287
or email
[email protected]
INTERPRETER
FITNESS
PERSONAL TRAINER: Rachel Lavin, M. A. Realize your
goals through 12 week success programs. Lose weight,
get in shape and be the best you can be. CORRECTED
NUMBER: 773-251-7874 (PP1/08/09PP)
For your American Sign Language/English interpreting needs: To consult with you or your company with
your ADA needs. Diana Thorpe CI/CT/NIC Master, Nationally Certified Interpreter, 773-401-1339, or email [email protected] [P-TB]
July 30, 2008 27
LANDSCAPING
TRAVEL
TOUCH OF EDEN GARDENS: Create your garden
masterpiece. Organic, sustainable designs. Weekly,
monthly or seasonal maintenance. Certified Master
Gardener, Illinois Green Industry Association. Member
Landscape Design Association. Lesbian owned.
Chicagoland, North. 773-478-3177 (9/17/08-8)
SOUTH HAVEN MICHIGAN RENTAL: Victorian Home for
rent, completly furnished, large yard, fireplace. Walk to
downtown, river, Kal-Haven bike trail, sandy beaches.
Quiet neighborhood, 3 bedroom - 1 bath, sleeps 6
adults, No pets or smokers. Avail. weekly or weekend
package. Contact: [email protected] for
info. (08/20/08-4)
CASH PLANNING THAT TRIP TO CAL-I-FORN-I-A?: We
guarentee the best online travel rates and $$$cash$$$
back!!!! Check out www.bookingfriend.com/myron.
Cruises, flights, hotels, car rental, last minurte trips,
attraction tickets. Want 50% off your travel? Your one
stop travel shop. Visit WWW.MARKETMAXINTL.COM/
MYRON and learn how today. (08/20/08-8)
NEW BUFFALO: Enjoy 2 or 3 bedroom cottages, 5
blocks from the lake. Full kitchens, central air, decks;
all linens and dinnerware supplied. Check out www.
envoytravel.com/envoyresorts.htm, call Envoy Travel
312-787-2400 or 800-44-ENVOY. (S)
MASSAGE THERAPY
POWER MASSAGE: Deep, strong, and rejuvenating
with lean muscular athlete. In calls and house calls
with table. Late hours ok. Convenient location. Relocated practice from NYC. Treat yourself. www.
PowerMassageChicago.com. Marc, 312-440-1972.
(PP4/15/09PP)
YOU OWE IT TO YOURSELF!: Experience the therapeutic benefits of deep tissue/wellness massage by a licensed GBM professional. Relieve stress, feel better!
Non-sexual. South Shore Area. In, $65/hr. or $85/1.5
hrs.; out, add $20. 773-933-7219 or 773-576-4659.
(PP2/19/09PP)
GENDER FRIENDLY HEALING TOUCH: Gender friendly
amazing healing touch by male and female therapists
(No ‘clock watchers’ here) Zone out to that special quiet
place! Deep tissue, Swedish, TuiNa, QiGong, Structural Integration. Worth much more than the $55 requested per hour. 312-808-1602 10:30am to 9pm.
(8/06/08-4)
PHOTOGRAPHY
PHOTOGRAPHER AVAILABLE: Portraits. Nudes. Figurative.
Headshots. Personal. Color. B&W. 25 years experience.
“I’ll work with you to get the shots that are just right.”
Info: 312-260-7935. website: www.morrowphoto.
com. (1/28/09-26)
PSYCHIC
JANICE MICHAEL SPIRITUAL COUNSELOR: Helps you to
take a peek into your past lives, present and future!
312-409-7487 www.janicemichael.com (8/13/08-4)
WINDOW TREATMENTS
WONDERING WHAT to do with those windows?:
Call me! I take care of it all from design through installation, customizing to your needs. JOSEPH RICE Interiors, Inc. Full Decorating Services with a specialty in
window treatments for over 24 years. 773-273-2361.
(12/31/08-sk)
28
Aug. 6, 2008
BATT from cover
was no option for men and women who were
gay. I honestly don’t think Sal really thinks he’s
gay. He’s battling with that inside. He has desires that he has completely suppressed. In today’s world we look at that and go, “What’s the
problem?” but so much has happened in the way
of gay rights. The series touches on that, but
also women’s rights, African Americans... It was
a very oppressive time, and we like to … say,
“Oh those were the golden years.” You know,
it wasn’t so golden. It wasn’t so wonderful. It
looks beautiful.
AM: Mad Man really does have it all—sexism, racism, homophobia, anti-Semitism. It’s
shocking as a modern audience to see how
acceptable it all was. Is that an odd reality for
all of you on the set?
BB: Oh, yeah. Sometimes the lines we have
to say, it’s like, “Uh, I can’t say this.” But it is
accurate. It is how people spoke back then. I
remember in the ‘70s growing up, I would hear
people making racial or misogynist or homophobic comments, and you wince, but back then, it
was the norm. Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse [which
started] where I’m from in New Orleans—it was
in the ‘80s when they finally took off the Wop
Salad. I don’t believe people change that quickly. It’s how we mask that has changed. It’s the
political correctness.
AM: How did you get the role? I heard that
you turned down the initial audition.
BB: Yeah. I lived in New York, and five years
ago my partner of 19 years, Tom Cianfichi, and
I decided to open a home furnishings/high-end
gift shop on our favorite street in New Orleans,
Magazine Street. My family is there and my
friends are there. We went on vacation when Katrina hit and could not get back. My godchild,
who worked for us, boarded up our store [and]
our carriage house, and my mother’s flight was
cancelled, so she drove my mother to Texas. That
kind of heroism, I don’t know how you pay someone back for that. Tom says we’re going to take
her to Paris. So we planned this wonderful trip.
So the [“Mad Men”] audition came up and I said
“No, I’m in Paris.” I decided for the first time in
my life not to let show business run my life. I
basically said, “If they don’t find anybody, I can
come 10 days later.” That’s what happened. They
didn’t find [the actor] they wanted and I went
in and I auditioned. It’s a rare thing. I had one
audition and that was that.
AM: So it was [meant to be] your role.
BB: I believe that. I lived through 9/11, lived
through Katrina and the aftermath. … It puts
things in perspective. A friend said years ago
that as an actor, we will always be there for
show business, but it’s so obvious that show
business will not always be there for us. So you
have to have a life, and use your other talents.
People generally want to put us in a category;
you’re gay, straight, white, Jewish, Christian,
whatever. Or you’re an actor, doctor, lawyer,
shop owner. Life is too long and wide to just do
one thing, so I try to keep busy.
AM: As a gay man do you feel a responsibility [in] present[ing] the man who didn’t have
options?
BB: Yes I do, and thank God that [writer/
executive producer] Matthew Weiner is so brilliant and has such a vision for him. He has never
made into a joke [as] on so many other sitcoms
and dramas [that], “Oh, he’s gay! Ha-Ha.” I
wouldn’t do it if that’s the part because, in my
opinion, what’s so funny about being gay? It’s
your humor that makes you gay. [This role] is
done with honor and dignity, paying homage to
these people [who] had to live these very difficult lives. I interviewed art directors and spoke
with men of that time, and they said that there
were two options: either get married and pretend to be heterosexual or ... commit suicide.
There were no [other] options.
AM: In one episode in the first season, they
explored his struggle. I thought it was so
Bryan Batt.
beautiful and heartbreaking.
BB: Yes; I was quite pleased with it. Once
again, the writing is such genius that you really
just have to do the scene. It’s all right there. The
actor I play opposite, Paul Keeley, is fantastic as
well.
AM: He’s on a potential dinner date, right?
BB: It was an accidental dinner date. I was
supposed to be going over to P.J. Clarke’s to
celebrate one of the secretaries moving up the
ranks. But I go through this building because I
wanted to see this architecture that [the character] Elliot had told me about, and I see him
at the bar and we talk, and he says, “Let’s have
a drink and what are you doing for dinner?” So
we sit down and we talk, and he’s clearly trying
to pick me up, and I’m not getting the messages. I’m just not open to the messages, until he touches my hand. And then I just freeze.
My little wall comes down and it really is sad.
In fact, someone stopped me at a Rite Aid and
said, “Oh, I’m so sorry for you.” I’m like, “What?
Why?” I thought that it was something personal,
and they said, “Why can’t your character Salvatore just be who he is?” So many people ask me,
“When is he coming out?” And just being in the
world of the show, I think, “Are you kidding?
He can’t come out, there’s no way.” Therefore,
there’s the drama.
AM: The show seems to be about everybody
having a secret. Some were revealed at the
end of season one. No one is really what he or
she appears to be. What can we look forward
to in season two?
BB: We explore a lot of the characters’ home
lives—not just the office. There are consequences for the actions in this lifestyle that we are
living. If you drink and smoke like crazy, it’s going to take a toll. Living lies? You’re going to get
caught. And we skip a couple years. There are
new characters, guest stars and great storylines.
But one thing about the show is what you expect to happen doesn’t happen.
AM: The show looks so authentic … every
detail. What does it feel like to walk around
in that world?
BB: It feels like you’ve really gone back in
time, and then you turn around and somebody
[is] texting somebody. The costumes by Janie
Bryant are just amazing. The women wear the
corsets, the bullet bras and garters. It must be
so uncomfortable. We have these gorgeous suits,
but they’re cut very slim. You really can’t jump
too far, you’re not as free and I think that reflects how society was at that time. It was very
closed-up. Ties were very narrow and lapels were
very narrow, and the views were very narrow.
This is at the time when people were starting to
question that.
AM: You [have] starred in many Broadway
shows, [including] Sunset Boulevard, Beauty
and the Beast, La Cage aux Folles [and] even
the Cat in the Hat in Seussical. So you can
sing! How do you handle all the smoking on
the set?
BB: Well, they are herbal cigarettes, so there’s
no tar and nicotine, but they stink and they’re
nasty. I was a non-smoker for the longest time.
People smoke a lot out here. Once in a while,
I’ll have a regular cigarette. I forget because
my hands are used to, on set, just always having a cigarette, so when we’re off on a break or
something, I’ll reach for a cigarette and start
to smoke, and I’ll be like, “What am I doing?”
But from what I understand there’s no danger in
them. There’s been such a loathing of cigarette
smoking. I remember there was talk about wanting to take out any scene in any of the Lucy
shows where they smoked, and they smoked a
lot in I Love Lucy. It was part of our culture. It
was what people did.
AM: Talk to me about playing Darius in Jeffrey on stage and on film with Patrick Stewart.
Was that the most divine experience ever?
BB: It was! It’s very similar to this. It remains,
just like “Mad Men,” as one of the highlights of
my life. We did not know whether people were
going to rise to their feet laughing and crying at
the end, or run screaming from the theater. [The
play] was something that had not been touched.
It was an AIDS comedy. Then I got to do the film
with Patrick Stewart, and it was just heaven—
the entire experience. I’m still friends with a lot
of the cast. It was my first major role on film.
I remember my favorite bit of direction Christopher Ashley gave me. He said, “Forget there’s a
camera, and just meet Patrick Stewart’s level.”
Um, OK. I’ll try that.
AM: Your shop is called Hazelnut in New Orleans. [And] you appeared on the Style Network’s “Guess Who’s Coming to Decorate”…
BB: We were just in House Beautiful for favorite house for June.
AM: What feeds this design work for you?
BB: I have always done it. I’ve never really
trained professionally, but I would always find
myself redoing my apartment and all my friend’s
apartments. Then when the opportunity arose,
Tom, who had a history of retail on Madison Avenue and work in design and I … just opened
our shop. The store is very eclectic. But it’s just
another journey. We’ll see where it leads. So far,
it’s been fantastic.
Season two of “Mad Men” is current running
on AMC; season one is out on DVD. For more
about Bryan Batt’s store, visit hazelnutneworleans.com and catch up with Batt at bryanbatt.com.
To listen to the full interview, visit www.
windycityqueercast.com.
Bryan Batt (left) in Mad Men.
Jenny Urban of Urban Cafe.
RESTAURANT REVIEW
Urban Cafe offers
tasty pleasures
by Jean Albright
Jenny Urban, a Windy City Times 30 Under 30
honoree in 2007, has opened a hot new restaurant near El Gato Negro on Irving Park Road.
Urban Cafe, 1467 W. Irving Park (just west of
Southport), offers a delightful decor (currently
with art by Carol James) and inexpensively
priced meals. It’s a small storefront, but hopefully Urban can expand.
They offer a great Intelligentsia coffee blend,
plus friendly service (order at the counter), a
kids’ menu (and a kids’ table) and catering. The
extended hours mean you can find them for
coffee, lunch, dinner and weekend brunch.
Chefs Jenny and Fred served up a tasty
brunch this past Sunday, including Brioche
French toast for $5, a Southwest omelet for
$6.50, blueberry pancakes for $5 and a traditional eggs Benedict for $6. Portions are small,
but certainly adequate for most people. And
the food is inexpensive enough that you won’t
feel bad for ordering extra sides or even an
entree. Add a bagel and lox for $3.50, or tofu
hash for $6, and sides are $2 extra, including
maple sausage links, biscuit, hash browns or
bacon.
The lunch and dinner menu offers interesting treats including appetizers such as Austin
queso, beer-battered onion rings, and grilled
Mediterranean flatbread. Salad choices include
a harvest salad for $7.50, shrimp for $10.50,
and pasta for $6. Sandwich selections include
a roasted garlic burger for $7.75, grilled portabella burger for $7, pesto panini for $7.50
and ham-and-swiss panini for $7.50. Entrees
run the range from Thai fusion steak tacos for
$9.75, tofu stir-fry for $8.75, grilled steak chimichurri for $11 or bowtie pesto for $9.50.
Jenny and her cafe are off to a terrific start.
Stop by any time for great atmosphere, service,
and food.
Urban Cafe is located at 1467 W. Irving
Park; the phone is 773-327-9427 and the
Web site is www.urbancafechicago.com. The
hours are: Tues.-Fri.: 7 a.m.-9 p.m.; Sat.Sun.: 8 a.m.-9 p.m. (brunch served Sat.Sun.,
8 a.m.-2 p.m.); and Monday: closed.
Aug. 6, 2008 29
WHAT TO DO?
Wednesday, Aug. 6
Mary’s Attic Eating Raoul - The Musical,
8 p.m., $15, 5400 N. Clark St., HamburgerMarysChicago.com
Women and Children First Bookstore
Angelic Organics Learning Center
screening of The Real Dirt on Farmer
John. 5233 N. Clark St., 773-769-9299,
Thursday, Aug. 7
Chicago Theatre Melissa Etheridge in
concert. And Aug. 8. 8 p.m., 175 N.
State St., tickets at Chicago Theater box office or Ticketmaster.com,
312-559-1212
Josef Steiff, co editor, and contributors
of Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy:
Mission Accomplished or Mission All
Frakked Up? 7:30 p.m., 5233 N. Clark
St., 773-769-9299, www.womenandchildrenfirst.com
Friday, Aug. 8
Bethlahem United Church Memorial for
JoAnne McAllister/Digory. 10 a.m., at
Magnolia and Diversey
Crew Beijing Olympics opening ceremony, 7 p.m., 4804 N. Broadway, WorldsGreatestBar.com
Hunters Nightclub Where the Boys Are:
The Beach Party Weekend. Tan line
contest at 10:30 p.m., raffle and duck
game to benefit Center on Halsted.
1932 E. Higgins Rd., Elk Grove Village,
847-439-8840
Lakeshore Theater Queer Queens of
Qomedy, a gay and lesbian comedy
show. Featuring Poppy Champlin, Julie
Goldman and Dana Eagle. 8 p.m., $20
advance, $25 at door, 3175 N. Broadway, 773-472-3492
Old Town School of Folk Music Janis
Ian performs. 8 p.m., $21-$25, 4544 N.
Lincoln Ave., 773-728-6000 for tickets
Or Chadash Shabbat Services. Every
Friday. 8 p.m., Emanuel Congregation building, 5959 N. Sheridan Rd.,
www.orchadash.org
Joanne Passet, author of Sex Variant
Woman: The Life of Jeanette Howard
Foster, reading. 7:30 p.m., 5233 N.
Clark St., 773-769-9299, www.womenandchildrenfirst.com
Saturday, Aug. 9
3160 The Tajma Hall show, with special
guests Monica Munro & Aurora Sexton,
3160 N. Clark St., 773-327-5969
Center on Halsted A discussion of faith,
gender identity and expression for the
trans community and their allies. 2-4
p.m., 3656 N. Halsted St., registration
suggested to [email protected]
Lakeshore Theater Varietease, a queer
cabaret hosted by Backdoor Aly and
featuring Miss Tamale, Mae the Bellydancer, The Honey Buns, Red Hot Annie, Mz. Bea Haven, Jack N-Jinx and
more. 10:30 p.m., $15, 3175 N. Broadway, tickets at www.lakeshoretheater.
com or 773-472-3492
Northalsted Area Merchants Association Market Days. And Aug. 10. 11
a.m.-10 p.m., on Halsted from Belmont
to Addision, more info at www.chicagoevents.com
Sunday, Aug. 10
Barbara’s Bookstore E. Lynn Harris reads
from his newest book, Just Too Good
to Be True. 2 p.m., 1100 Lake St., Oak
Park, 708-848-9140
Hydrate Chicago Spirit Brigade, 1 p.m.,
DJ Rodney Becker, 12:30 - 2:30 p.m.,
DJ Brett Locascio, 2:30 - 4:30 p.m.,
ROTC, 5:30 p.m., DJ Alyson Calagna,
4:30 - 7 p.m., DJ Chris Cox, 7 - 10
p.m., DJ Alyson Calagna, 10 p.m. - 4
a.m., 3458 N. Halsted St., HydrateChicago.com
Northalsted Area Merchants Association Market Days. 11 a.m.-10 p.m., on
Halsted from Belmont to Addision,
more info at www.chicagoevents.com
Nerds at Heart Dating for Queer Nerds.
Play board games including Homogenius and show off your trivia quiz
skills with other smart LGBT singles.
Aug. ‘In the Life’
to show Paglia,
Bernhard
The Aug. episode of the PBS show “In the
Life,” entitled “Talking It Out,” will expand to a
full hour, and will pair social critic Camille Paglia
with entertainer Sandra Bernhard.
Also, “In the Life” host Michael Billy, and
Richard Kim, associate editor of The Nation,
will look at the hard-hitting issues affecting the
LGBTQ community in the context of the maturing of the movement, as it seeks to retrieve the
power of its roots; and Dr. Marjorie Hill, CEO of
the Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC), and actor
Wilson Cruz will explore the status of the AIDS
epidemic and confront the myth that the crisis
is over.
The episode will air in Chicago Fri., Aug. 29, at
10:30 p.m. See www.wttw.com.
GenderPAC Cook-off
celebs on WCT video
Former “Top Chef” contestant Josie SmithMalave and “Project Runway” alumnus Nick
Verreos not only posed for photos for Windy City
Times—but they are also featured in a video interview! Readers can now watch Smith-Malave
and Verreos talking with WCT’s Emmanuel Garcia
at www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHye91hClsY.
Thurs.-Fri., Aug. 7-8
7-10 p.m., $20 advance/$25 at door,
The Spot, 4437 N. Broadway, register
at www.nerdsatheart.com or 312-2656085
Monday, Aug. 11
Hamburger Mary’s hamBINGO, with
hostess Regina UPright, a weekly charity event. Every Monday. 8-10 p.m.,
5400 N. Clark St.
Tuesday, Aug. 12
Lesbian Brunch Group Tuesdays on the
Terrace at Museum of Contemporary
Art. 6 p.m., 200 E. Chicago Ave., RSVP
required to [email protected] or
see gaypros.meetup.com/283
Wednesday, Aug. 13
Lilly’s Songwriter Tori Sparks with special
guest Dylan Rice. 9 p.m., doors 8 p.m.,
2515 N. Lincoln Ave., 773-525-2422
Thursday, Aug. 14
Ann Slavick: Hour Chicago. 7:30 p.m.,
5233 N. Clark St., 773-769-9299, www.
womenandchildrenfirst.com
Friday, Aug. 15
Affinity Intimate Sessions of Erotica
featuring author Fiona Zedde, Janice
“Jano” Layne and Femstress Coco.
5650 S. Woodlawn Ave., Garden Level,
773-324-0377, www.affinity95.org
Empty Bottle Midnight Cabaret: Vampires! Magic! Burlesque! Featuring
queer burlesque performers, drag kings
and more. $15-$30 sliding scale, 1035
N. Western Ave., www.femmecollective.
com
The Femme Collective “Femme2008:
The Architecture of Femme,” an inter-
Pantheon Award
recipients named
Chicago’s Leather Archives & Museum recently
named the recipients of its Pantheon of Leather
Community Service Awards.
Hollywood’s Jeanne Barney received the Lifetime Achievement Award. Baltimore’s Glenda
Rider was named the Woman of the Year. Chicago’s very own Rick Storer was named Man of
the Year.
Atlanta’s Jack Stice (deceased) received the
Forbear Award. San Francisco’s Folsom Street
Events received the Large Non Profit Organization of the Year Award, while Detroit’s Leather
Institute for Education (LIFE) was named the
Small Non Profit Organization of the Year.
Among the many other awards given that
evening were the Small Club of the Year, which
went to Chicago’s Windy City Boys Troop, and
the President’s Awards, one of which went to
Chicago’s Phillip Redmond.
In addition, Andrew Love was recently named
Mr. Olympus Leather 2008. Mistress Sabrae was
named Ms. Olympus Leather 2008, and Rocco
was named Mr. Midwest Rubber 2008.
The awards show was held at the Leather Archives on July 20.
Local zine
seeks submissions
Bound to Struggle Volume 3, a local zine of
works by those who practice kink and radical
national conference celebrating queer
femininities. Through Aug. 17. Chicago
Wyndham O’Hare, 6810 N. Mannheim
Rd., $75 through July 15 and then $95
for late registration, register at www.
femmecollective.com
Or Chadash Shabbat Services. Every
Friday. 8 p.m., Emanuel Congregation building, 5959 N. Sheridan Rd.,
www.orchadash.org
Sandra Tsing Loh: Mother on Fire: A
True Motherf%#$@ Story about Parenting. 7:30 p.m., 5233 N. Clark St.,
773-769-9299,
SHE IS THE ONLY ONE
Melissa Etheridge will perform at Chicago
Theatre, 175 N. State.
Saturday, Aug. 16
Center on Halsted Relationship Enrichment Retreat Day. 9 a.m.-6 p.m., $165
per couple, $90 for individuals, $15
early registration discount (July 20
deadline), 773-472-6469 ext. 158 to
register and for info
Equality Illinois Join EI’s cycling team
for Rolling on the River, Illinois’ Bike
Ride for the Environment at Kendall
County Fairgrounds in Yorkville, Ill.
E-mail [email protected] for info, see
www.rollingriverride.org
Lambda Legal Into the Woods event
in Galien, Mich. Cocktails, dinner and
music. 6-9:30 p.m., 773-486-6920 for
info and tickets or www.lambdalegal.
org/woods
Lesbian Brunch Group Camping and
whitewater rafting in Wisconsin.
Through Aug. 17. $45 for rafting and
$8 for camping, RSVP required to
[email protected] or see gaypros.
meetup.com/283
Lincoln Park Lagooners Drive-In Movie
Night. See www.lincolnparklagooners.
org
Sappho’s Salon: A Provocative Night
of Lesbian Diversion featuring Fionna
Zedde and Andrea Askowitz with guest
host Jolie du Pre. 7:30 p.m., $7-$10
includes refreshments, 5233 N. Clark
St., 773-769-9299, www.womenandchildrenfirst.com
politics, is seeking submissions.
Personal essays, comics, poetry and theoretical works about word play, the queering of words
and power and sex welcome. No photographs are
wanted.
Send submissions to Simon Strikeback, 1433 W.
Lunt #1N, Chicago, Ill. 60626 or s.strikeback@
gmail.com.
Janis Ian to perform
Folk legend and lesbian singer/songwriter
Janis Ian will perform at the Old Town School of
Folk Music in August.
Ian will perform at Old Town School of Folk
Music’s Gary and Laura Maurer Concert Hall, 4544
N. Lincoln Ave., on Fri., Aug. 8, at 8 p.m. Tickets
are $21-$25.
Ian, known for her classic folk song “At Seventeen,” recently penned a memoir, Society’s
Child.
For tickets see www.oldtownschool.org or call
773-728-6000.
LGBTQs invited to
see ‘Ocho Puertas’
The Institute of Puerto Rican Arts & Culture
(IPRAC) is inviting the LGBTQ community, as
well as family and friends, to the screening of
the film Ocho Puertas Sat., Aug. 9, at the Humboldt Park Boat House, 1359 N. Sacramento.
The film is a musical-documentary that re-
Sat.-Sun., Aug. 9-10
BUTT SERIOUSLY...
Hundreds of thousands of people are expected
at Northalsted Market Days, which will take
place on Halsted Street between Belmont and
Addison.
Photo from 2007 Market Days by Kat Fitzgerald
members the long-gone Ocho Puertas nightclub
in San Juan, Puerto Rico—a popular spot (19601980) for famous figures like Liza Minnelli, Burt
Bacharach and Marlene Dietrich.
There is free admission, popcorn and parking.
For more information, call 773-486-8345 or email [email protected].
Opera performance
rescheduled
Opera star Christine Brewer, who was set to
perform at Center on Halsted this month, has
rescheduled for Thurs., Sept. 25, from 6:30-8:30
p.m. Brewer will perform at Center on Halsted’s
John Baran Senior Center, 3656 N. Halsted.
The SAGE Night at the Opera event is free.
RSVP to Serena Worthington at 773-472-6469
ext. 160 or [email protected].
Lesbians to bring laughs
An all-lesbian comedy revue is coming to the
Windy City.
Comic Poppy Champlin is bringing her Queer
Queens of Comedy show to Lakeshore Theater,
3175 N. Broadway, on Fri., Aug. 8, at 8 p.m.
The show features Champlin, as well as Julie
Goldman (LOGO’s “The Big Gay Sketch Show”)
and Dana Eagle (Comedy Central’s “Premium
Blend”).
Tickets are $20 in advance and $25 at the
door. Call 773-472-3492.
30
Aug. 6, 2008
Jamie, one of the student-athlete subjects; Jeff Sheng and Brandon Watson.
SPORTS
Photographing LGBT
amateur athletes
By Ross Forman
Jeff Sheng started playing tennis at age 6, continued through high school, then hung up his
racquet before attending Harvard University in
the late 1990s.
Before his first class at Harvard, Sheng took
a community college course in photograph. “It
was a way to do something completely different,” said Sheng, now 27 and living in Los Angeles.
Sheng’s fascination with photography morphed and, ultimately, he meshed it with his
sporting past.
“I just fell in love with photography; I saw it
as a way to really touch people in a different
way from my friends who would be lawyers or
businessmen. I just thought there was a way to
make a difference, using film and photography,”
Sheng said.
In late 2003, a year after graduating from Harvard, Sheng started photographing openly gay
and lesbian high school and college athletes.
He emailed friends, roommates, associates and
even friends-of-friends to see if they knew anyone who identified as an athlete and was openly
gay or lesbian. “It started slowly,” recalls Sheng,
who is gay.
“The climate [today] is much different from
what it was five years ago. Back then, there were
very few high school and college athletes who
were out and open.”
In his first year, he photographed about 12
athletes, finding some via Google searches.
“It was a huge trust thing between me and
these student-athletes,” Sheng said. “My initial
goal was 30 athletes; I thought getting 30 athletes [photographed] would be a huge success.”
In 2004, about a year into the project, “the
homophobic climate, so to speak, seemed to
settle over America,” he said.
And while he slowed down his athletic search
in 2004 and 2005, many athletes found him
and his project via the Internet. And they approached him about being photographed.
“It was strange: they were contacting me and
that really motivated me on this project,” he
said.
Sheng has now photographed about 60 openly
gay and lesbian athletes. His goal is 100—so
he can showcase the images in a book that he
hopes to release in 2009.
Sheng has, in the meantime, featured his images across the United States on his Fearless
Campus Tour, which started a couple years ago
at the University of Florida; his pictures were
seen in a campus hallway by thousands.
“I was terrified that people would vandalize
the photos, but that never happened, and the
photos were out [in the public access areas] 24
hours a day. In fact, when they were first put on
display, I gave the university a second copy of
all pictures, just in case. But thankfully those
[extra] photos were never needed.”
Sheng’s Fearless Campus Tour—where schools
can display the photos in a highly-trafficked
area on campus, such as a gymnasium, studentcenter or Starbucks—has graced the walls over
more than 25 campuses.
Sheng photographed 20 student-athletes in
2007; he already has snapped pictures of 10
more this year.
“It’s challenging with a full-time teaching job,
but the teaching job is enabling me [financially]
to continue the project,” said Sheng, who teaches photography and Asian American studies at
UC-Santa Barbara.
The average photo shoot costs $850 and Sheng
is self-funding the entire project so far. To date,
he said he’s spent $20,000 to $30,000 of his
own money for the project.
“As a high school senior, I started to deal with
my sexuality a little more. That’s why the project
is very personal,” Sheng said. “My [high school]
experience on the tennis team was not that
great in terms of getting along with my teammates. Sure, we got along, but I always kept
[my sexuality] hidden and they were incredibly
homophobic.
“I remember, as a freshman, a senior on the
team came out, and his experience was so bad
that he quit the team.”
Sheng came out near the end of his freshman
year in college. His first boyfriend was on the
water-polo team and was closeted. After six
months, they broke up “because of the stress,”
Sheng said.
The water-polo player came out his junior year
in 2001, Sheng said.
Sheng earned a degree in filmmaking and photography at Harvard, and his undergraduate thesis was about another gay relationship he had
in college. He ultimately graduated with highest
honors.
“I want to do this project because I think it
is really meaningful socially,” said Sheng, who
photographs all of the athletes immediately after an intense workout because, “I want to hit
the intersection of sexuality and athleticism.
Right after a workout, I really feel like you can
identify with the person.”
Sheng does not reject anyone who wants to
be photographed. “The project is about inclusion,” he said. “I really want people to feel like,
when they look at the athletes photographed,
that they see people who they know, people who
they can identify with. That’s very important to
me. And that’s why I want to include all ethnicities, all body types.”
Sheng said the Fearless Campus Tour has,
surprisingly, been better received within the
straight world than the gay community.
“It’s odd: When straight people see the project, they are absolutely fascinated by it. Unfortunately, the only criticism I have gotten is from
a small segment of the gay population, for whatever reasons. That’s frustrating,” he said.
Sheng will be in China this summer for the
Summer Olympics, where he will be blogging
alongside openly gay former National Basketball
Association (NBA) player John Amaechi.
Sheng, who speaks Chinese, will, of course,
have a camera or two with him for the threeweek adventure.
“I’m going to write about human rights, LGBT
issues, etc.,” Sheng said. “It will be a lot of fun;
I’m really looking forward to it.”
Sheng first met Amaechi at Williams College,
where Sheng had a photography exhibition and
Amaechi was the keynote speaker at a forum.
The two have since become such good friends
that Amaechi introduced Sheng to the man who
eventually became his boyfriend—Brandon Watson, 25.
“John and I have become really good friends,
particularly because we’re both working toward
the same thing: equality in athletics,” Sheng
said. “I’m doing it through my photography; he’s
doing it with his speaking.”
Olympics testing to
ensure gender
Organizers of the Beijing Olympics have set
up a controversial sex-verification laboratory to
analyze certain female competitors, according
to the Chinese news agency Xinhua. The lab will
be like those set up in Sydney and Athens in
previous Olympics.
Not everyone is behind this, The New York
Times reported. Northwestern University associate professor Alice Dreger, who specializes in
medical humanities and bioethics, said, “Real
people are going to be hurt by this—real Olympic athletes who have spent their whole life
waiting for this moment.” In fact, the test has
come under increasing scrutiny from many who
feel that the testing is not only unethical but
also invasive.
‘Rolling on the River’
Aug. 16
“Rolling on the River”—a cycling event billed
as a “ride for the environment”—will take place
Sat., Aug. 16, at the Kendall County Fairground,
Yorkville, at 6 a.m.
Among the features are one-day scenic rides of
various lengths (15, 25, 45, 62 and 100 miles);
a post-ride meal and party; and live music. There
will also be camping, canoeing and kayaking as
well as an expo.
Individual registration is $70 ($30 registration
and $40 minimum donation). Team registration
is $60 ($30 and $30, respectively) per individual; teams have four or more cyclists. Among the
teams that will participate is one from Equality
Illinois; there is still time to join that squad.
See www.RollingRiverRide.org.
9th Annual
Senior Cup
Softball Sept. 7
Chicago will host the largest amateur gay
sporting event of the year designed specifically
for athletes 40 years and older. Teams and players from across the United States and Canada
will converge in Chicago to compete in this
competitive athletic event.
The Senior Cup softball competition will begin
Sat., Sept. 6 and will end with the championship games the following day. Pre-activities will
begin Fri., Sept. 5, with the registration party to
be held at the North End, 3733 N. Halsted. The
festivities will culminate with an awards presentation at Halsted’s, 3441 N. Halsted.
Registration is now closed.
All games will played at the Waveland softball
diamonds in three divisions. For more information, visit www.chicagoseniorcup.com.
X
CONNE
Aug. 6, 2008 31
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Tracy Smith
Insurance Agency
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630.418.4139
Mulryan
& York
Attorneys At Law
Mary M. York
Rosemary S. Mulryan
4001 N. Wolcott
Chicago, IL 60613
(773) 248-8887
When experience counts...
In service to the community for 30 years.
The Law Offices of
Roger V. McCaffrey-Boss
& Associates
• Bankruptcy
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Serving all of
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Windy City Media Group would like to thank the following supportive businesses advertising this week in Windy City Times, Nightspots,
Windy City Queercast and www.WindyCityMediaGroup.com
3160
A Wellness Organization
Alexander Weaver & Associates
American Airlines
Apartment People, Ltd.
Barbara O’Connor, Baird & Warner
Berlin Corporation
Blue Man Group
Bon Bon
Broadway In Chicago
Bud Light
Center For Positive Change
Center On Halsted
Charles Rhodes, State Farm Insurance
Chestnut Cleaning Service
Chicago Botanic Gardens
Circuit
Citizens to Elect Vi Daley
City Volkswagon
Closet
Cocktail
Community Chiropractic, Inc.
Congregation Or Chadash
Creaoke
Crew
Cupid’s Treasures
Deborah A. Murphy, CPA
Diet Pepsi
Douglas and Wood Fine Custom Cabinetry
Dunes Resort
Encompass Night Club & Lounge
Evanston Subaru
GayInsurance.com
Gisella Tomasio, Ameriprise
Goodman Theatre
Greater Chicago Chiropractic, Inc.
Grossinger Volvo
Gutrich Chiropractic
Hamburger Mary’s
Hide-A-Way
Hunters Dance Club
Hydrate
Illinois Gay Rodeo Association
Iloilo Custom Framing, Inc.
Jam Productions
Jan Dee Jewelers
Jewish Family & Community Service
Lambda Legal Defense And Educational Fund,
Inc.
Lars Petzke, Ship Street Realty
Leather Archives & Museum
Leather Sport
Live Nation
Lyster And Associates
Margo Jacquot, PsyD
McGrath Lexus
Michele DiMaso, ReMax
Milwaukee Art Museum
Nationwide Floor & Window Coverings
Of Sound Mind, Inc
On Demand / Falcon
Peck, Bloom, Austriaco & Koenig, LLC
Poppy Champlin
Progressive Chiropractic
Ravinia Festival Association
Roger V. McCaffrey-Boss & Associates
Saugatuck For Sale
Scarlet
Scot’s
Shochu
Sidetrack
Spin
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Starla Sholl, LCSW
SunSea Yacht Charters, Inc.
Susan O’Dell, PhD
Synergy Creative, Inc.
The Gutrich Group
The Jewelry Profiler
The Living Canvas
The Men’s Room
The Velvet Rope
Theatre Building Chicago
Thorndale Pharmacy, Inc.
Tourism Toronto
Tracy Smith Insurance Agency
UBU
Women And Children First Bookstore
Zhou B Café
Download each issue of Windy City Times and Nightspots at www.WindyCityMediaGroup.com
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