Chicago Public Radio Blog

Yesterday we told you that Sun-Times film critic Richard Roeper will not be returning to “At the Movies,” the film review show originally co-hosted by the late Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert. Roeper has been joined by a rotating roster of co-hosts since Ebert stopped appearing regularly, battling illness. Today, the Chicago Tribune reported that Ben Lyons and Ben Mankiewicz are stepping in to host the show, which will include a new set and new segments, according to the article. And, it will have to include a new clever, rating system as Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel’s widow own the tradmark “thumbs up.” For a little background on the new hosts: Lyons is “resident film expert” at E! and Mankiewicz can be seen on Turner Classic Movies. They both also have familial ties to Hollywood-a point not overlooked by commenters on the article’s comment board. (full disclosure: I weighed in there).

So, what do you think of the choice? Think it should have been a local critic? Maybe a new name? Let us know!

I’m having fun playing with Wordle, a website that lets you create word clouds based on any website, rss feed, or text from documents.  While it may seem kind of trivial at first,  it could be really useful in cutting through the rhetoric of political speeches, historical documents, or even your term paper.  Below is the word cloud from recent posts on this blog.

As you’ve certainly heard by now, The Dark Knight broke all kinds of box office records over the weekend, earning $158.3 million.

That number seemed to ring a bell for me, so I started trying to remember where I’d seen it recently. Then I remembered this press release from Illinois Department of Commerce touting the record-breaking profits the Illinois film industry saw in 2007. Adding all the profits the statewide industry saw from filmings that included The Dark Knight, Wanted, and Fred Claus (not to mention the television projects they regularly film here) the record breaking total was $155 million. The three films mentioned have grossed more than $375 million at the box office so far. Some in the industry are predicting that The Dark Knight could earn more than $400 million in the domestic market alone.

In my story about a program used to ease overcrowding at the Cook County Jail, I mentioned briefly that the John Howard Association, a jail watchdog group, has some new numbers out. The JHA is due to turn in its report to federal Judge Virginia Kendall soon, but Chicago Public Radio got some of the stats a little early. You can see how the 2008 jail population is shaping up compared to the past couple years, plus how the average daily population has doubled in the past two decades.

My primary job at the radio station is to edit the web site. But I also had the chance to host Hello Beautiful! once a month for the past year. This month, the show comes to an end. I did my final interview on Sunday. It was with Smoking Popes frontman Josh Caterer. Josh has a great story about starting off playing punk music in Crystal Lake garages to signing with Capitol records. He eventually found religion and left the band in 1999. Now, they are back with a new record. You can listen here for the interview. It turned out great because my editor Nick White took out all the questions and comments that made me sound like I was an out-of-touch 60 year old interviewing the hip kids about their sock hops. Seriously, what happened to me? I used to be street. Now I sound like Larry King if he interviewed Soulja Boy (just imagine). I want to thank Nick for all of his editing help on Hello Beautiful and I also want to thank Matt Cunningham for booking, producing, recording, editing and presenting my work. It’s really hard for me to be a part of a show where all they ask of me is to come in and do an interview. I have produced at WBEZ for years (Metropolis, Eight Forty-Eight, Schadenfreude) and that meant all of those duties fell on my shoulders. I appreciate their work and I thank them for the opportunity. And guys - if you have room for one more interview, let’s talk to that hip cat Kanye West. I have a feeling we would have a good “rap”. What? Is that not street?

Editor’s note: Watch a video of Greg providing more background on The Brickyard, scenes of a resident working at the brick laying business. And, stay tuned for more videos from the community.

In my first story about The Brickyard, I introduce you to some of the people, places, and things in this community of outlaws. Frank Deblasio, a 45-year-old father of two, has spent much of the last few years living in The Brickyard. Frank’s death has cast into bold relief the basic principles of The Brickyard’s culture. “Antagonistic communalism” is the cultural fixture that I try to expose. Approaching The Brickyard like this makes sense to me because Frank’s death has prompted many other residents to take stock of their relationships, to assess and reflect on the way they treat each other. In the past week and a half many of them have concluded that they need to change their “outlaw culture”-they need to ramp up their communalism, a key component of their survival mechanism, and try to ratchet down times that they hurt each other, run game on each other, exploit each other.

The people who killed Frank quite likely come from outside The Brickyard. Most certainly, the two people who “rolled” his dead body for $20 and a government-issued LINK card came from outside. As the police look for the perpetrators, though, Brickyard residents have begun closing ranks, helping the police find the killers, and keep something like this from happening again. But they know that it’s going to be difficult for them to regulate behavior in The Brickyard.  After all, you can’t regulate what you outlaw. This is why traditional law enforcement has had such a hard time achieving any control there. The residents exist outside the law so regulation is destined to fail. And The Brickyard residents know this, too. They know that even while they attempt to strengthen their relationships with each other, in the end the person who hurts them most may be the person they consider to be their closest ally. But does this really differ all that much from the “real world”?

The real world. The Brickyard. Two apparently polar opposite places. But are they? Or do they just seem vastly dissimilar? Underneath the obvious differences I would argue that The Brickyard and “mainstream society” have more in common than you think. So now we get to the nub of the matter: The Brickyard’s place in society. The discrepant features are mostly cosmetic. More on this issue in my next posting, but until then, tell me what you think: How different are mainstream society and The Brickyard? Or mainstream society and any “outlaw” culture?

and Lower Wacker, and the Sears Tower…The latest Batman film, The Dark Knight, opens this weekend and Chicago fans will undoubtedly be distracted by some of their favorite landmarks in the backdrop. So how do you transform a bustling modern city into a comic book underworld? This morning on Eight Forty-Eight, Alison Cuddy talked to James McAllister about the art of creating the perfect location. James is a location manager-a gig that entails figuring out how to close LaSalle Street during Rush Hour so that Christian Bale can glide through on the Batmobile. No easy task, but positive reviews of the film show that McAllister’s location scouting was spot on. BAM! ZAP!

UPDATE: Where in Chicago was the above scene filmed?

You may have heard me over the past few months contributing stories to Eight Forty-Eight. My first appearance was a discussion with host Gabriel Spitzer on the subject Guns and Gang Violence. If you look at the comments below the story, you’ll see that the conversation generated a fair amount of controversy and debate. I tried my best to respond to the various posts–hostile and supportive alike–but I think more conversation might be in order. After all, I think everyone realizes that there’s no way an 8-minute segment could adequately capture someone’s thoughts on a complex issue such as gun violence.

This is why I’m excited to be a member of WBEZ’s group blog. It gives me a venue where you and I can talk about some of the ideas raised in my stories and reports on the show.
First, I want to provide you with some background and context. The first story I did, “The Overdose Market,” examined how heroin overdose serves as a form of advertising in the illicit drug economy. From the perspective of a heroin addict, seeking out high potency heroin makes perfectly good sense-it’s a rational behavior in the short term even though from a larger perspective it may seem unreasonable and irrational. But the point of my stories on Chicago’s “underground drug world” is to offer listeners an “emic,” or inside-out, perspective. This is important for several reasons: (1) Rarely does the media offer such “insider” accounts of illicit worlds, (2) The insider’s perspective shows that the people in question are just that-people, and (3) If we want to improve the lives of drug addicts, or even drug dealers, we need to understand the world on their terms, comprehend their daily lives. Otherwise, our policies and programs will fail miserably.

(more…)

Word is out that the second televised season of This American Life on Showtime is nominated for five Emmys, including Outstanding Nonfiction Series.

The first episode, Escape, also earned Emmy nods for Outstanding Cinematography for Nonfiction Programming, Outstanding Directing for Nonfiction Programming, Outstanding Picture Editing for Nonfiction Programming and Outstanding Writing for Nonfiction Programming.

Find out more about Season Two, and check out the complete list of 2008 Emmy nominations.

Update: A small number of listeners have reported having trouble with our new player. We are working correct these issues.  Below are the direct links to our old streams if you cannot connect to the new player.

• MP3 Stream
• Windows Media

Today we launch We recently launched a new live-stream player on Chicagopublicradio.org.   Click here to give it a spin.  Rather than listen to our stream using iTunes, Winamp, or Windows Media Player, we now offer you our own little player.  It lets you know what program is currently airing, what’s coming up next hour, and has links to our full on-air schedule.  It will allow us to give you more information and updates about our programs, and we hope an overall improved experience with our online stream.

The new player streams in an MP3 format similar to the one we have been using for the last few years.  We have also offered a lower bit rate Windows Media stream for dial-up users, but our web traffic reports suggest that very few of you are using dial-up connections these days, and we will be phasing out the WM stream over the next month or so. In addition, the new player uses Flash streaming, so you will need to have Adobe Flash installed on your computer.  Again, our traffic reports suggest that almost all of you already have Flash, and over 90% of you have the latest version updated.  If you need to get the latest Flash version, click here for the free update.

For those of you who have our audio stream bookmarked in your media players, you can still enjoy listening online that way.  WM users will be notified via the audio stream about any impending kill date well in advance.

Finally, please let us know what you think about the player - your likes, dislikes, bugs, and suggestions - in the comments here.  This type of media player may evolve into something that is more widely deployed across our site for on-demand audio, slideshows, video, etc.  Your feedback will help us make the right decisions and improvements.  Thanks!