An interesting story out of New Zealand about an author who wrote a “non-fiction” book about living in Jordan. As it turns out, the woman had actually lived in Chicago during the time period that she claims to have been in Jordan. As perpetual exaggeraters ourselves, we can understand how living in Chicago during the Michael Jordan years could turn into living in Jordan under religious oppression. We salute Norma Khouri’s chutzpa for attempting to pass off a completely fictional account as true-life.
We learn from superherohype.com (ack! the fanboys!) that the cast of Batman Begins is flying in today, and they’ll be staying for 3 weeks. Superherohype redacted the name of the hotel they’re staying at, though, so if you were planning on stalking Christian Bale (not us, we swear) you’ll have to do some more digging.
Carlos Zambrano and LaTroy Hawkins suspended for on-field temper tantrums. Meanwhile, Moises Alou laments unbalanced media attention. Alou says the media, specifically Steve Stone and He Who Must Not Be Named (the Dark Lord of the Cubs, Chip Caray), have spent too much time talking about the Cubs pitchers and not enough talking about the Cubs offense. We feel a little bad for Alou, but we’d like to hear what Matt Clement, and his 3.12 ERA/7-9 Win-Loss Record, has to say about that.
The Daily Herald investigates claims that Barack Obama thinks the suburbs are “boring.” At first, we were going to defend Obama’s remarks as meaning that he thought he could make a bigger difference in the city than in the suburbs. But then we remembered that the suburbs ARE boring. What is definitly NOT boring, though, is watching the Illinois Republicans scrape the bottom of the political barrel to try to beat Obama. And let me tell you, the political barrel is probably the grossest barrel around.
Our favorite movie critic (and not just because he sent us an e-mail), Dann “Two Stars” Gire exposes Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man error, which has bugged Geektastic since the original movie came out. Spider-man is supposed to have MECHANICAL devices to shoot his webbing. In honor of Dann Gire’s brave column on this subject, we will hereby refer to the movie as “Spider-Mann.”
Throw on your babushka and start polkaing over at the Whiting Indiana Pierogi Festival. We like polka and pierogies as much as the next Polish Chicago girl (we like strappy high-heeled sandals and hair dye too), but this festival is just not something we’d lower ourselves to. Plus it’s in Indiana.
Haven’t had enough European-immigrant stereotyping? Stop on over to Capputto’s in Addison to see The Zoppe Family Circus, including Nino, the “clown prince of Italy.” They’ll be in Addison all weekend. Geektastic doesn’t really “get” clowns, so maybe this will be more exciting than it seems to us.
A “local daily newspaper” (OK, we admit, it’s the Daily Herald) reports that Gotham is coming to Waukegan. While some exterior shots for the upcoming Batman prequel will be shot downtown starting July 31, a chunk of the movie will also be shot on the Amstutz Expressway in Waukeegan. Anything north of Evanston is Wisconsin to us, so we’ve never been on the Amstutz Expressway (indeed, we’ve never even heard of it). But what we especially like about this particular article is that the reporter was kind enough to interview Waukeegan’s own Comic Book Guy, who would “really like to get a look at that Batmobile.”
Eric Zorn advises Jack Mabley on blogging. Mabley, who has been a columnist in Chicago since the invention of the printing press, started his own blog yesterday. Zorn ALMOST manages not to name the “local daily newspaper” that Mabley retired from last month, and he neglected to mention that the Tribune forced Mabley to retire almost 20 years ago. (I’m telling you, the dude is OLD.)
Michael Sneed hypothesizes that Rod Blagojevich may be involved in an upcoming scandal of some kind. We’re pretty sure Michael Sneed is on crack, but it is pretty fishy when your chief legal counsel and other members of her staff resign for unlikely reasons.
USA Today reports on a day in the life of Bill Rancic, which includes very much publicity and very little work. His job title has been modified to “Owner’s representative” which Geektastic has translated to mean “Attention Whoring Socialite.” We’re sure that Rancic will spend much more time on the job once construction actually begins on the Trump Tower in October.
