Graffiti artist, chased by police, jumps in river, dies

Friends of a graffiti artist who died after plunging into the Chicago River in a chase with police paid tribute the best way they knew how Wednesday: spray-painting a mural in his memory on a brick wall behind a Radio Shack in Chicago’s Edgewater neighborhood.

I don’t get why this story was written. People die all around Chicago every day. Some of them tragically, but few get a news story memorializing them — especially when they died running away from the cops for doing something illegal.

It’s tragic that a young life was cut short, but I did a search of some of his “art” on Flickr and most of it was nothing more than scrawling his tag on walls and dumpsters across the city.

There are some great street artists around Chicago. SOLVE was one of my favorites. Sure, it’s subjective deciding when graffiti goes from vandalism to art, but SOLVE’s stuff stayed in my head and at least made me think.

But throwing your life away and leaving behind a wife because you wrote your name on a wall, especially when there’s a city-run organization dedicated to wiping away your legacy? That I really don’t get.

The Chicago Tribune did a great job of whoring for clicks on this one. It’s pouring right now and there’s a line of thunderstorms to the west, which anyone can see from the radar that’s positioned at the top of the Trib’s main page. Then you click through and realize this is an AP story about Oklahoma and tornadoes during the spring in general. Nice play.

The Chicago Tribune did a great job of whoring for clicks on this one. It’s pouring right now and there’s a line of thunderstorms to the west, which anyone can see from the radar that’s positioned at the top of the Trib’s main page.

Then you click through and realize this is an AP story about Oklahoma and tornadoes during the spring in general.

Nice play.

An observation for Rob Otto

Tonight at the Blackhawks game I stood next to my friend and former roommate as he screamed and cheered through the National Anthem. He’s an Iraq war veteran.

During a TV timeout, two service members were broadcast on the jumbotron — one a current Marine and the other a Vietnam vet. They received a standing ovation from the crowd, as most honorary captains do.

I’ll take either of those any day over a tradition of sneaking a dead, stinking octupus in my shirt to throw on the ice any day of the week.

I’m a business owner

It sounds weird to say that. But it’s official. Last week my dad and I got the paperwork back on the LLC that we started and now co-own. Today we opened the business banking account complete with startup capital. Then we went and signed the lease on what seems to be the perfect office space.

I finally acted on an idea I’ve been kicking around for about five years, and I got the backing of my hero, my dad. Neither of us have had much luck in the job search in the past few months. I can’t get callbacks for temporary jobs I’m overqualified for, and he feels his age is keeping him from getting many callbacks despite the fact that he recently oversaw a $400 million annual retail operation.

No matter. The stars have aligned and we’re moving forward with an idea that has little overhead beyond rent. We’re confident it will work. But if it somehow doesn’t, no one will go bankrupt.

Best of all? We get to be our own bosses and I can ride my bike to work every day.

More to come.

Rob Otto hates Chicago

Listening to the Red Wings-Blackhawks pregame on Sunday reminded me of one of the most awful traditions in sports.

Jim Cornelison belted out his wonderful, booming rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner.

The crowd yelled, screamed and clapped through the entire thing.  It’s something the fans started doing because they were so pumped up before a 1985 Campbell Conference playoff game against the Edmonton Oilers, and have continued it ever since.

And it makes my skin crawl every time I hear it.

I think Second City Hockey did a pretty good job of defending why we cheer through the anthem at the Madhouse on Madison in rebuttal to Otto’s piece, but I’d like to get some input from Tumblr’s resident veteran (and Penguins fan), Tim — aka onefootinthegrave — or any other veteran who might come across this post. Do you buy the argument that we cheered through the anthem at the 1991 All-Star game to support the troops and give them a boost and continue to show our patriotism by rah-rahing for America? Or is it disrespectful to cheer through the anthem?

excitablehonky: Dan Bernstein: I understand if somebody has a terrific performance or a breakthrough performance, you want to praise that person’s performance. Or it was a particularly interesting character or sympathetic character, but I’m sorry, morbidly obese does not constitute beautiful. And if I have to hear one more person say that Gabourey Sidibe is beautiful—that’s not beautiful. That is disgustingly fat. That is like “Oh-my-God-I’m-going-to-have-a-stroke-and-die-soon.” That is dangerously obese. That is not beautiful. There is certainly … there’s beauty on the inside. I get that. If you want to say somebody is a wonderful person, I’m sure she is. She’s a wonderful person. Stop saying she’s beautiful. The Army Corp of Engineers had to put that dress together. You can barely look at her, she’s so disgusting to look at it. And everybody’s thinking it and nobody’s going to say it. Well, I was saying it last night. I remembered a few years ago reading either Elisabeth Shue or Tea Leoni saying how the two of them were going to swear off plastic surgery such that when they’re older, they would be the only ones able to get parts written for elderly women. Maybe Sidibe really has tried dieting since six, is comfortable with the risks of her current appearance and doesn’t mind that everyone’s lying through their teeth about how “beautiful” she is. And maybe she is cornering the market for all of those many roles they have for obese black women, but count me out for feigning sympathy when Oprah and Hollywood start telling us what a tragedy it is when this woman’s weight inevitably leads to her early demise. Emphasis mine, because that’s what I think is the gist of this.

excitablehonky:

Dan Bernstein:

I understand if somebody has a terrific performance or a breakthrough performance, you want to praise that person’s performance. Or it was a particularly interesting character or sympathetic character, but I’m sorry, morbidly obese does not constitute beautiful. And if I have to hear one more person say that Gabourey Sidibe is beautiful—that’s not beautiful. That is disgustingly fat. That is like “Oh-my-God-I’m-going-to-have-a-stroke-and-die-soon.” That is dangerously obese. That is not beautiful. There is certainly … there’s beauty on the inside. I get that. If you want to say somebody is a wonderful person, I’m sure she is. She’s a wonderful person. Stop saying she’s beautiful. The Army Corp of Engineers had to put that dress together. You can barely look at her, she’s so disgusting to look at it. And everybody’s thinking it and nobody’s going to say it.

Well, I was saying it last night. I remembered a few years ago reading either Elisabeth Shue or Tea Leoni saying how the two of them were going to swear off plastic surgery such that when they’re older, they would be the only ones able to get parts written for elderly women.

Maybe Sidibe really has tried dieting since six, is comfortable with the risks of her current appearance and doesn’t mind that everyone’s lying through their teeth about how “beautiful” she is.

And maybe she is cornering the market for all of those many roles they have for obese black women, but count me out for feigning sympathy when Oprah and Hollywood start telling us what a tragedy it is when this woman’s weight inevitably leads to her early demise.

Emphasis mine, because that’s what I think is the gist of this.

soupsoup: Want to support heart health? You can start by not drinking carbonated fake-sugar water. Amen

soupsoup:

Want to support heart health? You can start by not drinking carbonated fake-sugar water.

Amen

Introducing your three newest contracts at a joint press conference, putting the “team” before the individual? I haven’t seen this before, have I? OH WAIT!

Introducing your three newest contracts at a joint press conference, putting the “team” before the individual? I haven’t seen this before, have I?

OH WAIT!

At the Madhouse on Madison with my pops for the Blackhawks vs the Canucks.

At the Madhouse on Madison with my pops for the Blackhawks vs the Canucks.

"Why can’t I go to the Supreme Court and sit there with a gun and listen to the arguments? If a gun is so important to us on the street or someone’s home, why can’t I go to the Supreme Court and sit there with a gun? I’m not gonna shoot anyone. But, I have a right to that gun. Why can’t I go see my congressman who doesn’t believe in gun laws? Why can’t I carry my gun into congressmen’s offices or go to his home and knock on his door and say, ‘Don’t be worried. I have a gun. You want me to have a gun.’ Why is it they want to be protected by all the federal money … to protect all the federal bureaucrats, but when it comes to us in the city there’s no protection?"
—

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley on the likely overturn of Chicago’s 28 year old handgun ban by the SCOTUS.  More from the Sun-Times

(via absurdlakefront/bnf; tylercoates; southpol; ericmortensen; newsandbooze)

The problem that I have with this is that he’s trying to turn it into some type of concealed/open carry argument, when that’s not even on the table. People just want to be able to have a handgun to protect their home in the city of Chicago. There is no public carrying legislation being talked about.

That aside, this argument is coming from a man who’s been protected by a security detail armed with handguns nearly his entire life.

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Themed by: Hunson