The recently tabled “Event Promoters” ordinance, originally scheduled to be voted on by the Chicago City Council on Wednesday, May 14, is so patently fatuous and overbroad that you are moved to wonder how it was ever considered for passage into civic code. While the entire proposed law runs to several thousands of words, its most egregious proposal must be that “event promoters” register every performance they organize with the city of Chicago and pay a filing fee scaled to the expected size of the audience. The price of a promoter’s license ranges from $500 to $2000 for two years. Fines for offenses under the terms of the license range from $500 to $1000, and penalties for holding events without a license can reach $10,000. The definition of an “event promoter” is among the worst of the proposed law’s perversions; the tortured wordiness of the proposed ordinance makes every small-scale music professional, from the booking agent at the Empty Bottle to a singer-songwriter scheduling his or her own shows, subject to the law’s requirements. For the courageous few willing to pay the ridiculous registration fees, more strictures follow: every applicant must be over 21 years old, subjected to a background check, and fingerprinted. And each event promoter would have to inform the police of any performance seven days in advance of its scheduled start. Read the rest of this entry »

The cops broke in like it was the Haymarket Riot. The Zhou B. Art Center in Bridgeport—white interior gleaming, techno beats pulsing softly—was hosting the 3rd Annual Printers’ Ball, a gala for the see-and-be-seen crowd in Chicago’s independent publishing circle. Then the boys in blue arrived. “I noticed early on that the off-duty police who were working security were wearing Kevlar vests and behaving in a rather aggressive manner considering the fact that it was a party for independent print culture,” David “Raver” Emanuel remembers in his blog “Impossible to Work.” “When we got back [from dinner], the police had already kicked everybody out and were preparing to put big orange stickers on the front doors, letting the world know that the venue was closed for business, effective immediately.” Read the rest of this entry »

The most significant modern-day landmark in Bridgeport is U.S. Cellular Field—known as “The Cell” in certain parlances—the home of Major League stalwart and 2005 World Champions Chicago White Sox. The memories from that whirlwind season still linger here, but the neighborhood which has grown in the shadow of steel and concrete is one in flux. Bridgeport’s character, as well as its physical area, fall under the stadium’s literal and figurative shadow. This is the historical home of Irish and Lithuanian blue-collar roughnecks who drink alternately silent and raucous toasts to the White Sox along the whiskey frontier lining Halsted Street. Here remains the husk of Chicago’s industrial past and the birthplace of the Daley Dynasty. Bridgeport is also simultaneously one of the fastest “browning” neighborhoods in the city and an increasingly expensive place to live. Not to mention the unique arts community—struggling to combine highbrow sensibilities with activist politics and populist sentiment—that has produced local noise and international stars. And from every street corner, the stadium in the distance looms unmoved. Read the rest of this entry »