International Tom Hanks Day is no longer the April Fools’ joke that it was when it began in Kevin Turk’s basement with just a handful of his friends while attending college at Western Michigan University.  Today at Fizz Bar & Grill, Turk estimates that a couple hundred Chicagoans have arrived to join in on the Tom Hanks festivities.

“I can’t believe it’s gotten to these epic proportions,” Nick Bodner, one of the original attendees of Tom Hanks Day, says. Bodner reminisces about the beginnings of the day, eight years ago in that Kalamazoo basement—some live music, barbecuing, beer pong and Tom Hanks movies.

Johnny Coughlin and Caleb Arnold are first-timers. Arnold dons the classic beard, trucker hat, sneakers and short red shorts to match the Forrest Gump look. Coughlin says “we came to spread the joy with other Tom Hanks lovers.”

At random moments the intoxicated group of Tom Hanks Day goers break out into song, to the tune of the soccer fan chant, but instead of “olés” the group replaces it with—guess what?—“Tom Hanks.”  That, Turk says, is an eight-year tradition. One-dollar Pabst Blue Ribbon’s lubricate the two-room Hanks film screening while folks wait for the big prize drawing—a poster or DVD signed by Tom Hanks himself.

What started as a gag has turned into a charitable event with all proceeds going to Tom Hanks’ favorite charity, Lifeline Energy—an organization whose mission is to enhance the quality of lives of unstable communities through environmentally friendly technologies.  “And the beauty is Tom is going to match us dollar for dollar on the donations we make today,” Turk says. (Nancy Wolens)

By Rob Brezsny

ARIES (March 21-April 19): This is an excellent time to study the book “Assholeology: The Science Behind Getting Your Way—and Getting Away with It.” In fact, the cosmos would not only look the other way if you acted on the principles described therein; the cosmos is actively encouraging you to be a successful jerk. APRIL FOOL! It’s true that you’re in a phase when it makes sense to be a little extra selfish and eager to bend the world to meet your needs. But according to my analysis, it’s crucial that you do this politely and graciously. Read the rest of this entry »

This week’s biggest gainers:

1
Greg Hall
Goose Island brewmaster decided “This Bud’s For You.”

2
Michael Jordan
About time you came back (at least with a steakhouse), cuz there’s a new Big Bull in Chicago. Read the rest of this entry »

Miss Indigo Blue/Photo: Kriss Abigail

“Let’s be fabulous and fantastic,” announces Cyon Flare, host of the Windy City Burlesque Fest’s opening-night party. “And remember your burlesque etiquette: laugh, clap, scream and yell. Tell ‘em to take it off if you like what you see. And if you don’t—be respectful and shut the fuck up.” The St. Patrick’s Day crowd at Hydrate in Lakeview does exactly as instructed as dancers take the stage to tantalize and give a glimpse of what to expect throughout the festival.

The Burlesque Fest, at the Greenhouse Theater over the weekend, is produced by two Chicago troupes: Belmont Burlesque Revue and Vaudezilla. These local ensembles share a passion for paying homage to “old school” burlesque, as described by Jack Midnight, executive producer of Belmont Burlesque Revue and host of the festival. “Chicago has always been a big Burlesque town,” Midnight explains. He describes Chicago as “the birthplace of American burlesque and home to its biggest scandals.” Most notorious is Sally Rand’s “fan dance” at the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair where she was publicly filmed and photographed dancing in the nude but hidden behind long white ostrich feathers, epitomizing the burlesque tease and causing a national rustle with her risqué technique. Not surprisingly, the art of burlesque has changed in the last eighty years, but it still holds true to certain conventions: choreographing clever ways to take one’s clothes off in front of a live audience without baring it all. Read the rest of this entry »

LifeMyWay, a Chicago-based advocacy campaign for people with developmental disabilities in Illinois, has created The Social Challenge (TheSocialChallenge.org), offering a live stream of tweets containing the use of the word “retard” by those who do so to describe strangers, celebrities, inanimate objects, families, friends and even themselves in an adverse manner. “Our mission,” explains Angela Heuer of the LifeMyWay campaign, “is to foster a society where people with developmental disabilities are treated as equals, as parts of a community.”

After reading the offending tweets, registered users of The Social Challenge can confront the tweeter directly. “What we’re doing is something that has never been done before,” says Heuer. “We’re not merely asking participants to sign a pledge or make a promise. Instead we’re spurring them to take real action in the form of engaging tweeters whose tweets contain the R-word.” Read the rest of this entry »

By Rob Brezsny

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Were you under the impression that the sky is completely mapped? It’s not. Advances in technology are unveiling a nonstop flow of new mysteries. In a recent lecture, astronomer Joshua Bloom of the University of California described the explosion of wonder. One particular telescope, for example, detects 1.5 million transient phenomena every night, and an average of ten of those turn out to be previously undiscovered. Reporting on Bloom’s work, Space.com compared the astronomers’ task to “finding a few needles in a giant haystack night after night.” I see this challenge as resembling your imminent future, Aries. Mixed in with all the chatter and hubbub, there are some scattered gems out there—rich revelations and zesty potentials. Will you have the patience to pinpoint them? Read the rest of this entry »

This week’s biggest gainers:

1
Derrick Rose
LeBron who? It’s all about the Bulls and the Celtics.

2
Jim Tyree
The Mesirow chief and Sun-Times savior was widely lauded after his premature death last week. Read the rest of this entry »

As owners of Rotofugi, the designer toy store and gallery in Lincoln Park, Kirby and Whitney Kerr have become friends with several Japanese artists and toymakers and felt inclined to do something to help in the wake of the recent natural disaster. Rotofugi’s Big Muscamoot Charity Auction for Japan, which ended Sunday, raised $1,286.55 for the Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Relief Fund. Raising this money with just three hand-painted figures on eBay for five days, Kirby says the auction far exceeded his expectations. “I’m floored. I had quietly hoped to myself that maybe we would get around $600 for the three figures but it went well over $1,000. People have been so generous.” The three “Big Muscamoot” figures auctioned off were designed and sculpted by Chris Ryniak and painted by Squibbles Ink’s Joe Somers and Rotofugi’s Kirby Kerr. Kerr says he has connected with all of their friends, artists and toymakers in Japan and everyone is fine; most are located safely in Tokyo and only experiencing aftershocks. Kerr plans additional fundraisers. (Nancy Wolens)

Every day, thousands of people bicycle to work via the Lakefront Trail spanning Chicago’s beautiful lakefront parks and connecting neighborhoods from Edgewater to Hyde Park with the Loop.

As part of its role to promote bicycling, walking and public transit over environmentally costly and sedentary forms of travel, Chicago’s Active Transportation Alliance has been monitoring conditions on the Lakefront Trail for years. Active Trans issues regular blog posts on major obstructions and ongoing detours on the trail, receives complaints and notices from commuters and works directly with the Chicago Park District to resolve issues as quickly as possible.

Now Active Trans proposes to expand their ongoing conservatorship of the Lakefront Trail with a new reporting system that allows commuters to instantly update trail conditions via Twitter. Commuters using the trail need only tweet their update and include the hashtag #CHILFT in order for it to appear instantly in Active Trans Lakefront Trail twitter feed, which will be displayed, along with blogs and other relevant media, at www.activetrans.org/lakefront. Read the rest of this entry »

The real Sausage King of Chicago

In between such overly familiar tourist attractions as Navy Pier or Wrigley Field are the unsung Chicago landmarks. In “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” for example, Matthew Broderick proclaimed himself “Abe Froman, Sausage King of Chicago” in a Gold Coast restaurant on West Schiller, between Dearborn and State Parkway. Adolph Luetgert was known as “Sausage King of Chicago” because he put the body of his murdered wife in a sausage vat of a Lakeview meat packing company on Diversey, between Ashland and Damen. Domu.com, a web-based listing of Chicago apartments for renters and landlords, has created a historical map of Chicago with all the things we wish teachers taught us in history class. The project started out as a simple interactive map for the domu.com users to learn more about an area they may want to live. Domu’s Andrew Porter and John Kristoff created a basic Google map and “as we began to get deeper, we unearthed more and more history. The list kept increasing in size and we were permitted to grow along with it,” says Porter. The map now has twelve categories of Chicago history and more than 500 entries. Categories include oddities, mobsters, residents, tragedies, alumni and more. “We got a little carried away but we were really excited about it,” Porter admits. Read the rest of this entry »