Chicago MMXII

I am prob most interested in Occidental Brothers (they do Afro-pop, right?) and Eighth Blackbird, depending on what the latter's program is.

Also, a friend from high school (whom I haven't seen in 10+ years) plays with Ensemble dal Niente, which I keep meaning to check out.

The John Luther Adams performance might be cool -- it's apparently a piece for "9 to 99 percussionists."

A review of a NYC show last year said:

Listeners walking through the park before 5 p.m. found small arrays of unattended drums, cymbals, xylophones and other instruments stationed along the park’s stairs and walkways, and conch shells, paper cones and rubber tubes scattered around the lawn where the performance was to begin. At 5, the 99 percussionists filed into the field, retrieved the smaller instruments and started the performance with gentle windlike sounds. They added graceful, eerie tones and harmonies by swinging the rubber tubes at various velocities; and they used sandpaper blocks and frame drums filled with bottle caps to create texture.

Hi mh. Keep us abreast of your visits and we'll fap w/ you.

Where do you chicago kids usually fap, anyway?

several of us live in the north center/lincoln square/ravenswood area so that tends to be a pretty common meetup region. or do you mean specific bars?

eh, either way, that gives me a general idea.

On a related note, I think I've stayed at the Super 8 around the corner from La Lechera, assuming it's the one in Rogers Park!

OMG!! We can totally hang out! Sisters! You are also right by the lake with only a 4 lane street to cross before you get to a lakeside basketball court, tennis courts, a walking path, a huge beach, and much much more! Also around the corner from me.

This is how excited I get when someone is in my neighborhood ^^

hah, my friends lived on estes for a number of years but have since moved to mundelein, unfortunately.

If you're really lucky you can get D (mr lechera) to talk about his freaky Iowa hometown.

Don't walk 3 wide on the walking path.

My parents are visiting in May and staying at the Days Inn on Diversey. I suspect it's a pretty crappy hotel, but otherwise they would have picked somewhere super inconvenient like out by O'Hare.

I don't think it's that crappy. It's nothing special, but probably not a dump. They'll be a block from my house. That'll be nice.

we're gonna come to your apartment and stand three wide in your doorway to maximize our chances of getting in your way

have you guys heard about the comptroller of dixon, il, who managed to embezzle more than $30 million over six years from the city, which has an annual budget of about $9 million - she basically stole more than half of the town's budget every year, without being caught in annual audits

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-dixon-comptroller-charges-20120419,0,1379858.story

i didn't see this in the few articles i looked at, but the guy from my office who was telling me about it said she only got caught because she took a four-month leave of absence, and the person who was covering for her saw that the numbers didn't add up

sorry, she was CFO, not comptroller

That's amazing.

will read!

How do people think they'll get away with this shit? They might for a while but there are *always* paper trails.

I heard that story this morning on the radio, and the announcer said she stole all that money "without being caught"... my immediate thought was "Yes she did get caught, that's why you're talking about it!"

People be self destructive!

also we only know about the people who get caught - we have no idea how many people have gotten away with similar crimes

...or are currently getting away with highway robbery

this shit is why i have a hard time reading fiction

i gasped really loudly last night when i discovered that this person http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_G._Schmitz and this person http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Kay_Letourneau were blood relatives.

OMG

maybe that was big-revealed at some point during her many years in the spotlight, but if i ever knew that factoid i had completely forgotten it. that is a pretty good factoid!

Nick, I'm sure there are plenty of people have gotten away with their embezzlement, but it seems to me like eventually the work of your average thief will show. This is all my speculation about shit I'm no expert about, but still. How many of the people who are never caught get away with their crimes b/c of bad oversight rather than because they made sure they wouldn't get caught.

I think this sort of thing happens a lot in small IL towns, although maybe not to this scale. I also wonder the extent to which this kind of things happens at higher levels of government.

i'm just saying, maybe that's how they justify it to themselves. also almost everyone thinks they're smarter than most other people. but i am also fascinated by people who think they will get away with crazy huge crimes like this

i am kind of obsessed with this story and want to make a movie about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Crowhurst (there have already been documentaries about it but i want like a narrative story movie)

(though crowhurst i think realized he wouldn't get away with it by the end)

I would watch your movie, n/a.

this is a really good book that i have and can lend to people if they are interested
http://www.amazon.com/Strange-Voyage-Crowhurst-Nicholas-Tomalin/dp/0070650845

did you guys already know that evil conservative john schmitz and mary kay le tourneau were father and daughter?

Letourneau was born Mary Katherine Schmitz in Tustin, California, to university professor John G. Schmitz and chemist Mary Schmitz.[3][4] She was known as Mary Kay to her family and called "Cake" by her father.[5] She was the fourth of seven children, raised in a "strict Catholic household."[5][6] When she was 2 years old, her father began his political career and successfully ran as a Republican for a seat in the state legislature.[6] He held positions as a California state senator and U.S. Congressman and, after changing parties, he ran for president as an American Independent Party candidate in the 1972 U.S. presidential election.[7][8]

Her story is BAZONKERS.

i had never heard of john schmitz before

we were talking about people who were on the take, and that guy -- that guy has a son, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Schmitz

Joseph Edward Schmitz (born on August 28, 1956 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin)[1] is an American lawyer, former Inspector General of the Department of Defense and a former executive with Blackwater Worldwide, a private contractor providing security services to the U.S. State Department and the U.S. military.

So I was reading a book about Blackwater, and here comes Mary Kay LeTourneau! That was a great moment.

Anyway, I love all of these stories. You guys are on top of it.

LL, I have no idea who either of those people are. Or didn't until now.

We just got done suing a woman who embezzled $70K from her employer over 2 years. She did it by ordering an extra pay check for herself every pay cycle.

Our firm helped put together the the criminal case against the woman and the part that struck me the most about it was that the detective told us that when the time came to actually arrest her, the procedure was to call 911, not the cops we had been talking to for weeks.

I only learned who they were yesterday, don't feel bad.

Nhu Lan opened a location in Lakeview
http://www.yelp.com/biz/nhu-lan-chicago-2

Never heard of it

I've heard of it from jaymc and I think n/a.

nhu lan is great but now that they have a location in lakeview it's not special and cool anymore and so I won't go there

I was sad that it replaced an Asian tea bubble tea shop that also served shaved ice cream. That stuff was delicious. A serving in a regular size bowl was nearly a foot high, but it was not that much ice cream. So light and refreshing.

i like nhu lan, they have veggie banh mi that aren't just vegetables

for u podcast lovers (I dunno maybe you have seen this before?)

http://thetruthapm.com/The_Truth.html

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-south-side-man-scores-in-locker-auction-2-bulls-championship-rings-20120424,0,421039.story

LOL Todd Stroger can't pay his storage space bill.

Err I guess John Stroger's estate can't pay his storage space bill.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/12103989-418/council-overwhelmingly-approves-mayors-city-financing-plan.html

"HMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmeow." - je55e

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