Q101 The Alternative
Q101 (formerly on Chicago radio @ 101.1 FM) The Alternative - Chicago's New Rock Alternative - Everything Alternative - Chicago's Alternative - Gen X - Generation X
Before you get on me about talking about the COUNTRY song “Red Solo Cup” by Toby Keith, let me explain. The image of a red Solo cup evokes many an emotion for ALL music lovers. It’s a universal symbol of good times, parties, fellowship, games, and bonding. Red Solo cups stimulate sensual memories of your first rum and coke with two half melted ice cubes, sucked down the moment you turned 21 (underage drinking is illegal in the US). The squishy feel of the cup as you hold onto it in one hand while throwing horseshoes with the other…
The Solo Cup Co. in Lake Forest celebrated its 75th anniversary last year, but the party is still proceeding, thanks to a thoroughly unexpected gift that keeps on giving: “Red Solo Cup.”
The novelty ditty devoted to the company’s iconic signature product currently is in the country music Top Ten. The video that started it all, which posted four months ago and went viral, has received nearly 12 million hits on YouTube, and the single that was never meant to be has been certified platinum.
Why has “Red Solo Cup” resonated with listeners? Perhaps because the song taps into something primal: that the Red Solo Cup, introduced in the 1970s, is America’s cup, considered, as the song says, to be the “best receptacle for barbecues, tailgates, fairs and festivals,” not to mention college drinking games such as beer pong.
Everyone uses the red Solo cup, so why not enjoy the song? Besides, who HASN’T overtipped the cup, sloshing the tasty beverage over their shirt and into their lap due to the wide mouthed vessel? I hope I stand defended. If not, feel free to file a complaint.
READ MORE
http://www.suntimes.com/technology/innovation/entertainment/10762370-421/maker-of-red-solo-cup-says-toby-keith-song-sums-it-up-perfectly.html
Few things in life are certain, but this is: You’ll never hear the Muppets swear.
When late Muppet co-creator Jim Henson was alive, he and puppeteer Frank Oz amused themselves and crew members by ad-libbing during rehearsals and between takes on TV and film shoots.
“I can’t be specific, but I can tell you that Frank has a naughty sense of humor,” Henson’s son Brian said during a recent visit to Chicago. “My dad had a really naughty sense of humor. So they were goofing around when they knew the cameras weren’t rolling.”
That’s how emotionally realistic characters were and still are born.
“When you watch Miss Piggy and Kermit and Fozzie and Gonzo and all of them, they’re very deep characters and you get the sense that they’re very deep,” Brian said. “And part of the way you develop that is by messing around in an adult way.”
Then there’s “Stuffed and Unstrung,” an adult-themed, puppet-starring comedy and musical extravaganza from Henson Alternative. Born almost by accident in 2005, “Stuffed” (under another title) debuted publicly the next year and opens locally Tuesday for a short run during the TBS Just for Laughs Chicago comedy festival.
Featuring a gaggle of 90 expensive and carefully maintained puppets dubbed “Miskreants” (only a fraction of which are used in any given performance), six rotating improviser-puppeteers (of 20 or so on staff), music, a puppet wrangler and a host (Patrick Bristow), “Stuffed” is largely composed of set musical numbers and improvised comedic scenes created by riffing on audience suggestions. Sometimes those suggestions are, as Brian might put it, “naughty.” Sometimes they’re not.
Perhaps most intriguingly, while their hollowed-out playmates appear on the ends of arms and huge video screens, Brian and his cohorts work in full view of the audience. No blocking, no stopping. And if things go awry, no hiding.
http://www.suntimes.com/entertainment/stage/12975549-421/like-the-muppets-but-unmuzzled-kermits-talented-cousins-free-to-be-filthy.html
Way to go, Lorenzo. Now she’ll never have that fairy tail prom night story to tell her grandkids. There will be no bad prom pictures, except perhaps his mugshot taken after his arrest.
Lorenzo Bracey, from Chicago’s West Side, has been charged for allegedly hijacking a sports-utility vehicle at gun-point before he went to prom with his girlfriend.
Police said they found Bracey wearing a white tuxedo with white gym shoes. After they cuffed him and took him to a district station lockup, his upset girlfriend complained to police about how “her prom was ruined,” police said.
Did said girlfriend not notice the unfamiliar vehicle her boyfriend showed up in to go out? Were there no questions in her mind how Lorenzo obtained the 1997 Ford SUV?
http://www.suntimes.com/12936326-418/carjacking-suspect-arrested-on-prom-night-girlfriend-not-happy.html
It’s loud, dangerous, and wonderful. The air smells and even tastes like petroleum lubricant and hot steel. I sneak a touch to the smooth, perfectly stamped hood.
With shiny hard hat and fashionable safety glasses, I stand mere feet from giant presses which make door panels.
If I close my eyes and go to my happy place, I can recall the thrill, excitement, and titillation of being in an automobile manufacturing plant.
Belvidere, IL, is not too far to travel in order to reacquaint myself to this scenario.
The first Dodge Darts to come out of the revitalized Chrysler plant in Belvidere, Illinois were shipped off to dealers this week, setting the stage for what chief executive Sergio Marchionne called the automaker’s “real battle” in the compact market.
The 2013 Dart five-seat sedan, made at the Belvidere assembly plant, has received good reviews from automotive analysts so far and will now be judged by consumers.
“Our future hangs on how well we do here,” Marchionne told reporters Thursday after meeting with the plant’s workers. “I’ve been public on this before. I can probably get one car wrong. Of all the cars I can get wrong, it ain’t this one. This one is too visible, it’s too large, it’s got too much embedded into it to go wrong.”
As for me, I’ll take one in Tungsten Metallic, black leather interior, and a 16-valve 2.4L (184 hp) Tigershark™ MultiAir® four-cylinder engine.
http://www.suntimes.com/business/12764614-420/first-dodge-darts-from-belvidere-plant-reach-showrooms.html
If you’re hungry for the big $$, just become a CEO.
Profits at big U.S. companies broke records last year, and so did pay for CEOs.
The head of a typical public company made $9.6 million in 2011, according to an analysis by The Associated Press using data from Equilar, an executive pay research firm. But it’s not ALL in cash payouts.
Companies trimmed cash bonuses but handed out more in stock awards. For shareholder activists who have long decried CEO pay as exorbitant, that was a victory of sorts.
That’s because the stock awards are being tied more often to company performance. In those instances, CEOs can’t cash in the shares right away: They have to meet goals first, like boosting profit to a certain level.
That was up more than 6 percent from the previous year, and is the second year in a row of increases. The figure is also the highest since the AP began tracking executive compensation in 2006.
http://www.suntimes.com/business/12764112-420/typical-ceo-made-96m-last-year-study-finds.html
He ripped off a charity which benefits families of fallen members of law enforcement. Yes, a (former) member of law enforcement, stealing from his own.
Scott Webb, a former Woodridge police officer, had faced up to seven years in prison, DuPage County state’s attorney’s spokesman Paul Darrah said.
Judge Kathryn Creswell sentenced him to 180 days in jail, but since the ex-cop had been in custody for 220 days already, he’ll serve no more time behind bars, Darrah said.
Webb, of Romeoville, was involved in the organization of “Crawlin’ for the Fallen,” a pub crawl that benefited the Illinois Concerns Of Police Survivors (COPS), prosecutors said.
Organizers noticed discrepancies in their books and called police. The investigation that followed indicated money missing from both the 2009 and 2010 events, prosecutors said.
This year’s fundraiser for COPS will be Cycle Across Illinois at the end of July. Click here to bike with them or participate in any way.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/crime/12753472-418/ex-cop-gets-probation-for-stealing-from-police-charity.html
http://www.ilcops.org/
Male? Female? Other? It matters not when joining the Dog Scouts of America.
They’ve got badges and campouts, cookie drives and troops in 22 states, including Illinois. The Dog Scouts of America even has a motto or two as the half-human, half-hound organization goes about the business of doing good deeds.
One of the first badges for Jasper, a 3-year-old collie-lab mix, was disaster preparedness. After all, he lives with Robert and Misti Verdahl in Milpitas, southeast of San Francisco, where you have to be aware of earthquakes and other natural disasters.
Jasper and his humans belong to Troop 198 in Santa Clara and have earned 18 badges altogether. Each, the humans said, has made him a better dog.
There are 682 Dog Scouts who belong to 38 troops across the country. The organization has around 80 badges, but not all dogs can earn all badges, said DSA President Chris Puls of Brookville, Ind.
Source: http://www.suntimes.com/lifestyles/11719748-423/photo-gallery-dog-scouts-of-america-bark-about-badges.html
READ MORE HERE
J.T. Morand brings a frank, and interesting interview with Scott Lucas of Local H to the pages of the Chicago Sun Times, and we’re more than happy to share it with you, what with our Local 101 show with them March 9th at The Montrose Room:
Local H makes a record only when they have something to say.
And, with the political divide in this country widening and the presidential election eight months away, they have something to say on their yet to be released 12th album, “Hallelujah! I’m A Bum.”
It’s been four years since the Chicago-based, two-man post-grunge band consisting of Scott Lucas (vocals, guitar and bass) and Brian St. Clair (drums) released a studio album — “12 Angry Months” in 2008.
Unfortunately, there’s no release date set for “Hallelujah!,” but the band finished mixing last month and Lucas said the album will be out before the November elections.
“We wanted to take this thing that goes on in the country, and the rest of the world, and figure out how it affects people and their relationships with each other and the relationships within their neighborhoods and their community,” Lucas said. “It definitely is a record that, in some ways, has an expiration date, and that expiration date would be November. But, in other ways, it doesn’t.”
To read the full interview with Scott Lucas, go to it on the Chicago Sun-Times website here.
There are currently no events to display.