RevSpork

Those amazing Chicago Cubs

Those of you who read my blog (thanks, Mom) know how fascinated I can be with bad sports teams.  As amazing great sports teams can be, I find bad teams more interesting.  As it takes a certain amount of planning, competency, and just plain luck to be a team of greatness, it requires those same elements (in considerably different amounts) to be a team of unbelievable badness.  Incompetence in professional sports can take so many forms within each sport, it's like a performance art piece televised to the American rabble.  One bobbled catch here, a wild pitch there, and you have the makings of a ballet of sheer ineptitude.  I've said in the past that it takes considerable effort to be truly terrible at something: an entire team of athletes, being paid millions of dollars per, performing badly requires the kind of effort and energy that great generals utilized to win entire wars, artists used to create masterpieces loved centuries later.  How can consistent incompetence not be beautiful?  In this way, the Chicago Cubs have become a thing of inept beauty. 

There have been worse sports teams - in 2008, the National Football League's Detroit Lions lost every one of their games.  To be fair to the Lions, however, an NFL team plays only sixteen games over the course of the regular season.  The NFL playing comparatively few games can tempt one to believe in the power of bad luck.  Perhaps, given the law of averages, the Lions could have won a few had they played more games.  Baseball teams, however, have no such excuse.  You can't use bad luck as a crutch for a 162-game season.  Even a mediocre baseball team with a bad case of Cracked Mirror Syndrome can expect to win forty percent of their games. To be a truly bad sports team, you have to be truly, truly horrible. 

Oddly, although Chicago is known for its unsuccessful baseball teams - two World Series victories in the last 100 years, compared to smaller cities (5 in Philadelphia, 7 in Boston, 11 in St. Louis) - it's not necessarily a town full of bad baseball.  Take a gander at this list of the worst baseball teams in history; note the lack of Chicago representation.  The Cubs and White Sox aren't bad teams; they're just consistently so-so.  This year, however, the Cubs are making a go at historical badness.

The team is currently 49-80, second-worst team in baseball.  According to the baseball-reference.com (the Holy Bible of online baseball stats), this season is currently the fourth-worst in the team's history.  To non-sports fans, you may shrug and ask, "Who cares?"  And that's a legitimate question.  Keep in mind, however, the Chicago Cubs have been around for 141 years.  They're the same age as the nation of Germany.  You have to be truly bad to break the top five in worst performances over 139 seasons (the team didn't play for two years due to the Great Chicago Fire.  That's how old the team is), and they actually have a shot at being number one.  The Cubs lost 103 games in 1962 and 1966; this year's model would have to go 9-24 the rest of the way to pull that off.  Given, they've won only six of their last 28 games; this is not beyond the pale for them. Statistically, they've got the talent to do it; they're near the bottom in batting, pitching, and fielding. 

I expressed a dream back in the spring that the Cubs and White Sox together would lose 200 games.  That obviously will not come true (damned White Sox and their playoff-caliber season), but the Cubs having their worst season since the Great Chicago Fire would make a nice consolation prize.  Historically speaking, of course.

Making Chicago baseball history

There's nothing like baseball to remind you that spring is here: that slightly warmer air, that mildewy odor covering the outdoors, the sight of hundreds of millionaires hitting and throwing a ball back and forth for 162 days (not including playoffs). 

This spring, however, may be a special one to baseball fans in Chicago.  This season, the two Chicago major league teams - The White Sox and the Cubs - may be so terrible, they could lose 200 games between them.

Mind you, these two teams are less known for their great victories than their struggles.  Yet during the long history of these two teams, they have never lost 200 games between them in any given season.  It's a difficult feat to pull off: for example, both the Cubs and White Sox finished below .500 last season, but the teams between them lost 91 and 83 games respectively, giving us a total of 174 losses. 

Sure, they've won 200 games between them, back in 1906, when the 116-win Chicago Cubs faced the 93-win White Sox in the World Series.  (The Sox won.)  But as mediocre as the two teams are overall, they're rarely out-and-out horrible at the same time. For example, the White Sox endured a 106-loss season (and three managers) in 1970, but that year the Cubs had finished a respectable 84-78, good for 2nd place in the division.  Total losses: 184.  Similarly, when the Cubs schlubbed their way to a 103-loss season in 1962 (incredibly, one of only two years they reached three digits in the loss column), the White Sox tallied up a 85-77 record, good enough for fifth place in a hotly-contested division. 

So how close have Chicago's American and National League representatives come to a combined 200 losses?  The year was 1948.  Harry S Truman was battling his way to reelection.  Dinah Shore had the most popular song in "Buttons & Bows," and Chicago baseball was awful.  The White Sox finished dead last in the American League with a 51-101 record, and the Cubs were similarly pathetic, finishing at the back of the National League with a 64-90 record.  (Keep in mind, they played fewer games back then, so losing ninety games was even more of a suckitude performance than now.) Total number of losses? 191.  Not too shabby. 

I'm sure some of you baseball buffs are saying, c'mon, quit dumping on Chicago.  How hard is it for a two-baseball team city to lose 200 games?  New York did it many times (to be fair, they also had three major league baseball teams until 1957), but in 1965 they came fairly close, with the Yankees losing 85 games and the Mets 112 (Total losses: 197).  Boston baseball pulled off the 200-loss mark a few times, most pathetically in 1906 (207 losses between the Boston Americans [now Red Sox] and the Boston Beaneaters [???] [now Atlanta Braves]).  Philadelphia pulled it off, as has St. Louis.  (Explains why they're all one-team cities now.)  Los Angeles hasn't come very close (189 losses in 1992 between the Dodgers and the California Angels), but they've had two franchises less than half as long as Chicago and thus haven't had the opportunity to truly stink as a city. 

But this could be the year for Chicago baseball.  Sports Illustrated predicts both Chicago teams to lose a total of 191 (95 for the White Sox, 96 for the Cubs) games this season, and prognosticators always play conservative with the truly special teams.  NBC Sports predicts a kinder 181 losses for Chicago. Baseball America and betfirms.com predict a similarly sad time for the Second City.  A mathematics professor, who has been (fairly accurately) predicting baseball finishes for over a decade now, bestows on the Chicago teams only 172 losses, but he has to have a bad year sometime. 

As the White Sox and Cubs splutter to the plate next week, I will start my chant: 200, 200, 200.  Perhaps, even in Chicago, a little baseball miracle could happen to an eager young man such as myself.

Notes about Chicago Pride

I normally don't attend Chicago's Pride parade.  I'm not into crowds; loud noise grates on me very quickly; the weather frequently turns out hot or humid or both; and to me, it's more of...well, a gay thing.  I've been a firm supporter of gay rights since time immemorial, but it's not my parade.  A straight dude attending a gay pride parade, to me, is not unlike crashing someone's party.  I wasn't invited, so why go?

So I don't attend Pride.  I went this year.  Why?  I had two reasons.  New York, state of my birth, passed their gay marriage law late Friday.  Coupled with Illinois's civil unions law going into effect, this news made me rethink my self-imposed parade exile.  But it wasn't enough; by the time I woke up this morning, the odds of my attendence were about 50-50. 

What changed my mind occured while I was asleep.  While the parade floats sat in a warehouse, vandals broke in and slashed the tires of more than fifty floats. 

My wake-up time normally consists of stretching, scratching, taking a leak, and sitting down at the computer to take in the local news and/or Facebook.  The minute I read about the vandalism, my mind was made up.  I was going.

As it turned out, it was the perfect day for a parade.  The sky was sunny and cloudless, the temperature barely tagged 80 degrees, and my friends and I stood at a shady spot, and as we were standing near the end of the parade route, it wasn't as crowded.  (Considering the estimated attendence was 750,000 folks, this was nothing short of a miracle.)  I had a clear view of the parade, and it was a blast. 

Some observations:

• Our new mayor, Rahm Emanuel, headed up the parade.  Despite what I said on my Facebook page, he was not wearing assless chaps.  He was really walking fast, though. 
• What was probably due to the vandalism of the floats, there were considerable gaps in the parade.  The crowd occasionally waited over 15 minutes between floats.  Happily, the crowd made the most of it; sometimes one person, usually an old lady, would walk past, to wild cheering. 
• As always, there were many politicians marching this year.  In addition to Rahm, several alderfolks, my congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, Governor Quinn, and other local and state politicians made their appearances.  
• One little oddity: I didn't expect to see Republican politicians marching down the parade route (Republicans simply don't run Chicago), but other than county president Toni Preckwinkle, there wasn't a single African-American politician there.  In a city with significant black representation in local politics, this is a head-scratcher.  (And before you presume there was a corresponding lack of African-American participation among the paraders and viewers, nothing could be further from the truth.  Pride is by far the most integrated event in the city.)
• I was surprised by the number of young, straight ladies in and out of the parade.  I was also delighted by the number of young straight ladies in and out of the parade.  (Sorry, can't help myself.)
• I had no idea Chicago fielded a gay hockey team.
• Or a women's rugby team.
• The local Dykes on Bikes chapter are pretty damned awesome.  And loud. 
• No, I do not wish to purchase tight, short boxers with a giant uncircumsized penis on them.  Certainly not for twenty bucks. 
• Speaking of which, to the organization marching by with photos of surprised babies and practically declaring circumcision of male babies the worst thing since Hitler: I'm sorry, but I'm not freaked out by it.  Neither were my compatriots.  And unless it's the secret to eternal life or baking the perfect lasagna, I'm not interested in foreskin restoration. 

All in all, I had a good time.  However, I'm not sure I'll go back next year.  The parade took over four hours to complete.  I'm sorry, but no parade should last more than two.  I don't care if it's to honor those who saved us from aliens destroying Earth or the Cubs celebrating their World Series victory; if you can't complete a parade within two hours, finish up and start again the following day.  My back and feet weren't built for standing that long without a nap or a restroom break.  Oh, by the way: David, if you're reading this, I might be able to get you the phone number of that guy on the Log Cabin Republicans float who liked your utili-kilt. 

Anyone got an extra pair of Hanes?

On Saturday, I was at the Chicago Ave. station on the Red Line.  I hugged Tori good-bye as we split up: she for home, me for roller derby with my friend Steve.  As Steve and I headed for the stairs, we passed a blank-faced homeless guy, but we thought nothing of it.  Bums on CTA stations are as common as yuppies.

When we caught the train, the homeless guy entered the car with us.  This was not a positive development, as it turned out.  For one thing, the guy reeked.  Really, really reeked.  His fragrance was typical eau de bum: tobacco, urine, cheap beer, sweat, and wet dirt.  On the smell scale, he was probably a six out of ten: bad, but not overpowering.  He stank up less than half of the car: I've run into homeless people whose odors literally cleared out the entire car.  Steve and I did what everyone does within sniffing distance of a fragrant bum: we backed off to a less stinky distance. 

If a passenger on a train doesn't have a literature to browse or some variety of electronic entertainment, he or she is liable to glance at the other passengers.  It's a natural impulse, especially if one company bought the entire car's advertisements, and you find yourself surrounded by the same message.  My glances tend to last less than a second, looking a person up and down before moving on to the next victim.

However, some people shouldn't be glanced at.  The homeless guy turned out to be Exhibit A.  He was dressed like a typical homeless person: torn, dirty clothes.  His pants in particular sported a long tear from the crotch almost to the knees.  Now, when one sees a homeless person in that attire, he or she expects to see some undergarments behind the tear.  To my horror, there were none. 

Yes, reader, I found myself glancing at bum balls. 

I turned towards Steve.  He'd seen them too, about a second before I did.  He was snickering, while I opted to back away some more. 

For veteran CTA riders, it can take decades between the first time they enter a train and the first time they see a complete stranger's naughty bits there; for others, it could be seconds (that usually being the last time they ever take the train).  For me, it took over fifteen years.  Honestly, I could have waited another fifteen years.   

The Best Damned Fast Food in Chicago

Six years ago, I proclaimed the late, lamented bon bon "The Best Damned Chocolate in Chicago."  With bon bon's closure, there is no great chocolate in this city as far as I'm concerned.  Grab yourself a Hershey bar for all I care.

A quarter-mile north of the shuttered store, however, a new and glorious food experience has emerged.  I speak of Gaztro-Wagon.  

Street food, like sports teams and gay bars, helps define a city's personality.  In the street food category, Chicago displays little, if any, personality.  While New York, Toronto, Montreal (poutine is highly underrated), San Francisco, LA, and even Austin boast fantastic street food, Chicago's is limited (with very few exceptions) to a few stray hot dog carts, Mexican street food, and Flirty Cupcakes (which makes great cupcakes, mind you, but not meals.)  There are no food trucks in Chicago for a simple reason: they're illegal.  (Not necessarily illegal, but the process is so convoluted and the type of food so restricted, they might as well be.)  Although there are no shortages of restaurateurs and chefs who want to bring the food-truck concept to Chicago, the massive paperwork required to present a food truck concept to Chicago aldermen, let alone changing the food laws itself, held back many a culinary capitalist.  That may be changing, thanks to Gaztro-Wagon and its owner, chef Matt Maroni.

First, let's discuss the food.  On our first trip to the storefront, Tori and I ordered two naan-wiches: Tori a slow-roasted lamb with the basic gyro ingredients, while I ordered a wild boar belly naan-wich with fennel, olives, yogurt, and red onion.  We topped the order with a Sprite, walked over to Senn Park, and ate our naan-wiches under the Abe Lincoln statue.

I'm not into lamb.  I can't stand the...well, the lamb-y flavor.  Whether it's due to overcooking, or the fat, I'm just not into it.  This was different; the lamb my wife ordered lacked that peculiar taste, leaving a rich, delicious meaty flavor.  My wild boar belly?  Tender, far more flavorful than your typical pork, it meshed perfectly with the yogurt and vegetables.  For fifteen bucks, we had treated ourselves to two culinary mini-symphonies.  It's obvious that Matt Maroni knows his food: each flavor introduced into the naan-wich made the sum greater than the whole. 

How fast was this fast food?  We received our food in about three, maybe four minutes.  However, we were there after 8pm on a weeknight, hardly rush-hour traffic.  I dropped by at a busier time - last Saturday during the lunch rush.  There were half-dozen people seated nearby, some with their food and some not.  The "have-nots" had their food a minute later, and I walked out with my Italian sausage naan-wich in less than five minutes.  It's a little slower than, say, your average McDonalds between meal rushes, but the quality of the food more than compensates for the extra minute or so of waiting time.  

The prices aren't bad for the high-end quality food: The pork belly and Italian sausage naan-wiches were seven bucks a pop, while Tori's slow-roasted lamb was a dollar more.  The portions are smallish (we are, after all, talking about food wrapped in naan), but both Tori and I were satisfied, if not bloated, after our meals.  For those who want a little more food, the Wagon sells plantain chips, sliced lengthwise and salted.  Each time we went there, Tori and I spent less than twenty dollars. 

So what we have here is fast food that not the fastest in town, not the cheapest in town - but definitely the best in town.  And thanks to Mr. Maroni and Alderman Scott Waguespack (32nd), Gaztro-Wagon (and many other hopeful restaurateurs) may finally go mobile.  Mr. Maroni will be presenting a food truck proposal at the next City Council meeting, which happens to be tomorrow. If the proposal passes, Chicago will be witness to the same foodie movement that other cities have enjoyed.  Sounds great, especially if Gaztro-Wagon and its fantastic naan-wiches are a part of it. 

An open letter to the organizers of the Printers Row Lit Fest

Dear Organizers,

For my money, there's nothing like browsing used books.  One of the most pleasant smells in the universe is the smell of a used bookstore.  The combination of dust, a pinch of mustiness, and aged print is the fragrance of heaven.  An outdoor book fair emits less of that odor, but that fact is canceled out by the parade-like atmosphere of poetry readers, booksellers, storytellers, and fellow browsers, all seeking new connections with persons or books.  Those connections may last the rest of one's life or the until the turning of the last page, but they are equally powerful.  Those connections build upon the individual experience, making us better people.

My wife and I have attended the Printers Row Book Fair together for 7 of the past 8 years.  (She herself has attended for much longer.)  It is a big deal in our house, roughly akin to an official holiday.We were aware that with new sponsorship this year, a few things might change.  It’s not that we don’t like change, but you made some noticeable alterations, and not for the better.

It was bad enough that you diminished the book fair by diluting the name of the event itself - from "book fair" to "lit fest." "Lit” and “Fest" aren't even words: they're abbreviations.  It's an unusual name for an event that supposedly promotes not just reading, but literacy.  Hawking t-shirts with giant letters reading "GET LIT" across the front didn't help matters much either.  As many folks can attest, it's hard to read when "lit" - that is, drunk or stoned.

Perhaps I'm being too picky.  I am a mere book browser - I don't understand the tactics of "rebranding," and maybe you conducted research and decided that changing the name of the book fair would make it more popular somehow.  I'm willing to accept that. 

What I'm not willing to accept, however, is the physical shrinking of the book fair lit fest.  The first thing my wife and I noticed when emerging from the Harrison station was that an entire block of the book fair lit fest was missing.  It's harder for a book browser to stick around when there are fewer books to browse.  I understand that we are in a recession; maybe fewer booksellers could afford the expense of pitching a tent, setting up shop, and selling their wares.  Your reported increasing the fees this year probably did not help them. 

Worse, if possible, was the profusion of tents pitching non-book and non-reading items. Really, a whole tent pitching mattresses and vibrating chairs? How is that necessary?

Finally, from your FAQ site: "Booksellers, publishers, literacy and cultural organizations sell and promote books and book-related merchandise and distribute related information."  How do Back to Bed, @ Properties, Acura, and Bud Light fit into those categories?   I found this interruption of my book browsing disappointing to say the least.  I made this disappointment public at the Barbara Ehrenreich reading on Saturday, and I will state it here: if I wanted to try out mattresses, I would go to Sears.  (I would also like to point out that I passed that tent three times during the day and saw not one person try out the wares.) 

I cannot stop you from rebranding your event.  I cannot stop you from charging people for "access passes."  My wife and I do not plan to protest your changes, or boycott the event.  We will attend next year, and the year after that.  As long as we have the opportunity to browse through dozens of bookstalls, meet our favorite authors, and curl up with our purchases when we get home, we will not stay away.  Do not presume, however, that we will pay for the pleasure of browsing, or for "exclusive entertainment."  We take the train down to Printers Row every June to find treasure, and if it cannot be found in a receding sea of non-literary sponsors, we will seek it elsewhere.

Regards,

The reverend.

Some quiet kvetching

I don't care if all of the restaurants in the city decided not to post their menus online without a GrubHub link - I will never, ever utilize that jackass service.  Why?  Because after two months of looking at their incredibly annoying ads on the train, I'm about to burst into very annoyed flames.  If I see one more of their stupid-ass Colorforms-style illustrations of whiny yuppies begging for sushi at 11 o'clock at night, I will find the illustrator and eat his soul.

Tori and I have been planning our annual excursion to the Printer's Row Book Fair this weekend.  Actually, it's now called "Lit Fest," a more modern but less literate name that Tori completely rejects.  Sweetheart, I know the world is a cruel place, and the new name sucks, but it's "Lit Fest," the Loop has a Macy's, and the nation's tallest building is STILL THE SEARS TOWER, DAMMIT.  Not Willis!  Willis is the name of the last living kid from Diff'rent Strokes, not a skyscraper!

Congratulations to the Chicago Blackhawks for winning the Stanley Cup, and congrats to the Philadelphia Flyers fans who loudly booed them as the team celebrated.  To the writer of this article, I say: big deal.  Philly fans would probably boo had the Flyers won.  When Sarah Palin walked out onto the ice two years ago (with her 7-year old daughter Piper) for the ceremonial puck drop, fans booed so loud, the arena jacked up the music in an attempt to drown the fans out.  It's part of their nature, so leave them be.  Besides, Chicago sports fans aren't exactly angels.   

Finally, I'd like to take the opportunity to say a few words about the British Petroleum disaster.  There are so many people to blame for this idiocy, BP of course topping the list.  But yes, liberals, the Obama administration is one of the guilty party.  In fact, there are so many hands in this broken cookie jar, it would take hours to compile the list.  So let's quit all the finger-pointing, punish those responsible, and clean up the damned oil.  Simple?  Of course not.  Nothing easy is ever simple.

Death of the best damned chocolate shop in Chicago

A few weeks back, I did some shopping in Andersonville, a nice little neighborhood just south of my abode.  On a whim very much familiar to me, I decided to stop by Bon Bon, my favorite chocolate shop, to buy a few pieces for Tori and me.  We've been enamored of this place since we first ran into it seven years before.  I loved the chocolate so much, I blogged about it not long after we discovered it. 

The door was locked.  The hours were stripped off.  The inside was entirely empty save for the candy counter and a stack of newspaper-wrapped objects on the counter I presumed to be the framed articles that just days ago lined along the wall, articles from the Chicago Reader, Playboy (among other publications), the photos of the owner with Penn Gillette and Harry Shearer.  Not a chocolate was visible.

I asked one of the proprietors at the Italian bakery next store, and it was a familiar story: the building's owner doubled the store's rent, and just like that, Bon Bon was gone.  I missed their closing by two days. 

Within days, their phone number was disconnected, their web site bought by some DJ show in Dallas.  The only sign the shop ever existed is their awning.  It reads simply, "bon bon."  I presume that will also disappear soon.

Bon Bon was easily the best chocolate shop in Chicago.  Some folks swear by Vosges and their faux-exotic treats (their bacon-chocolate bars are so famous, they devote an entire section of their web site to it.)  Some folks prefer Godiva.  But Vosges or Godiva chocolates aren't manufactured in the back of their shops.  Bon Bon's couverture confections were much fresher, and their fantastic molds (King Tut, silver crowns, and their famous Kama Sutra design) were beautiful as well as delicious.  And the flavors: my personal favorite was their silver fan, filled with a green tea ganache.  Tori's favorite was filled with pear brandy and caramel.  Many of their designs were lovingly hand-painted with luster to create not just delicious chocolate, but a work of art.  I also loved their more basic chocolate bars, embedded with sugar-crystallized rose or violet petals and mint leaves. 

When Tori and I would go into Bon Bon, we'd buy our favorites (plus any new confections they had come up with), walk home, and sample a couple at a time.  I'd take a bite of, say, the dark chocolate pyramid, and give the other half to her.  She would then do the same.  It was a quiet, intimate ritual for us, and we never tired of it. 

The chocolate was so obviously a labor of love, I'm surprised in hindsight the shop lasted for seven years.  Crafting superior product in the back room of a tiny shop - modern capitalism doesn't work like that.  Elizabeth, the shop's owner, should have expanded her operations, added more shops, sped up the chocolate-making process, used cheaper chocolate in order to manufacture and market more product.  Thank goodness, that's not what she did.  Her lavender-and-honey jewel was as wonderful in 2010 as it was in 2003. 

Now the shop is gone.  Was it because of the recession?  The higher rent?  Maybe the owner tired of it?  I don't know, and ultimately it's not my business.  But I will never forget those flavors, those gorgeous molds, the tiny shop that made the best chocolate in Chicago.

Some CTA nitpicks

As a near-daily rider of Chicago busses and trains, I think I should get this off my chest...

*ahem*

DO YOU HAVE TO PLAY THE FUCKING TRAIN ANNOUNCEMENTS AT 6000 FUCKING DECIBELS??!!??

This happens all the time now.  I'm listening to NPR on my iPod, played loud but not too loud.  Then the announcements come on, and I not only can't hear my iPod, I have to jack up the volume to full blast AND press my hands against my ears just to get the gist of what the hell Neil Conant is saying. 

And I know why the drivers do this: to keep the bums from falling asleep.  Trying to break up their traveling flophouse isn't going to work: Chicago bums could sleep through a nuclear holocaust.  All the drivers end up doing is make yakking cell phone users scream even louder to their girlfriends about the results of their pregnancy tests.

Speaking of creepy, tear down the Halls "Carry on, kind sir," ads on the train.  For those of you who haven't seen them, they're a series of a half-dozen ads plastered all over the train so you can't escape them.  Pictured on each one is a person - looking hopeful and confident - with a red nose.  They're unbelievably creepy - the illustrations look less like victims of colds than of domestic violence.  I haven't been this skeeved by an ad on the train since the Always maxi-pad "Have a happy period" campaign.

To the young gentleman at the Skokie station demanding the station employee "do something" about the crazy homeless guy on the platform tonight: do you really think having the cops arrest him will do any good?  He's crazy, you dipstick: the most the cops can do is take him to jail, where he'll remain for a few weeks, then be right back on the Skokie station platform again.  And the crazy bum annoying you so much wasn't doing anything more than standing under the heat lamps and muttering to himself.  For CTA crazies, he's downright charming.  If the cops can't keep this guy in jail, what makes you think they're going to haul your crazy homeless dude downtown?  Just shiver in the cold with the rest of us until the train gets here and leave the guy be. 

Meanwhile, in the "What the hell was this moron thinking?" department, a man robbed a bank in Chicago last week.  Nothing weird about that.  Happens all the time, in fact.  What made this crime especially tragic (and by tragic, I mean hilarious) was the following: 

• The bank robber held up a bank in downtown Chicago at gunpoint - and escaped with $187. 
• The envelope the bank robber kept the money inside also contained a dye pack, which had apparently activated, because red smoke was leaking out of the envelope. 
• The bank robber chose to make his getaway by: flagging the #22 Clark bus.  For those of you not from Chicago, this is the equivalent of speeding down the street on a pencil sharpener.  The Clark bus downtown is abysmally slow and stops at virtually every block.  He would have had a better chance of escaping by hijacking a squirrel.
• Riding a bus with a smoking envelope in your hand isn't the most clandestine of getaways: within milliseconds, the bus was alerted, cops were tailing it, and four blocks later, the bank robber jumped off the bus and was immediately apprehended.  
• I used to work near this neighborhood, and I not only know where the bank is, I also know that the bank robber could have boosted his chances of avoiding the cops by escaping via the subway...and the nearest subway stop is less than a block away from the bank. 

Then again, if I were him, I probably would have opted for the bus as well.  At least I can hear myself think during the bus announcements. 

"StreetWise!"

Chicago newspapers are in bad shape. Both major newspapers - the Tribune and the Sun-Times - are in Chapter 11. Our major alternative newspaper - the Reader is in similar straits. Now comes news that StreetWise, the little newspaper hawked by homeless folks on Chicago's street corners, will close by June if they can't raise enough money.

Every Chicagoan (or tourists taking in the sights) has heard the simplest of sales pitches, "StreetWise!", emanating from some grizzled vocal cords on a street corner or in front of a store. In fact, there are over 200 of these folks, all of whom rely on these newspapers to pay for rent, food, and other necessities. Most of us ignore them as we walk past, but every once in a while we're in that certain giving mood and we pony up the two bucks for the magazine, which we rarely read, and ends up in the recycling bin fairly quickly.

These hawkers need more folks in giving moods, and fast. The magazine is suffering from the same symptoms as our major local newspapers: decreasing sales coupled with a nasty slump in advertising dollars. Worse, their foundation support is down by over half this year. In 45 days, a 16-year tradition of "StreetWise!" calls will be silenced, and those over two hundred hawkers will most likely return to a much more desperate life: jockeying for prime space on major streets with a styrofoam cup in their hand.

So next time, when you hear the call of the StreetWise vendor, you may want to hand him or her a couple of bills and grab a copy. You might not have the opportunity in the near future.