Russell Beckman is a Wisconsin native and also a Bears season ticket holder, who is suing the Chicago Bears for not letting him wear his green and yellow Packers gear on the field. Beckman purchased a “Season Ticket Holder Experience” where he got to watch the teams warm-up from the edge of the field. Beckman went to 2014 and 2015 Bears seasons games decked out a like a Cheesehead but the Bears were apparently cheesed off (sorry for the pun), and added a rule for the 2016 stating “No opposing team gear will be allowed,”. Chicagoist took the side of Beckman saying “Bears fan should by now have developed a thick enough skin.” Chicago Sun-Times caught up with Beckman by phone, and they have his side of the story and the lawsuit PDF here.
I say this. Beckman is being very pushy here while also being narcissistic. It’s more important that you can see him in the trolling Packers gear than just see him as another fan taking a special perk to seeing an NFL game live in Soldier Field. Why does he need to be in Packers gear to enjoy a specific perk that puts him on the field while the Bears and opposing teams are getting ready? Still if he paid the money for the season tickets and this experience, is he legally wrong? It’s all debatable.
If that ideas has you doing a double-take, let us attempt to explain: The Avondale fried chicken purveyor is providing their signature corn muffins to the Lincoln Square brewery, which will incorporate the muffins into the mash for a limited-edition lager called Top Notch. The beer, with an ABV of five percent, has “fruity and floral notes… with a crisp, balanced malt body,” according to a press release from the HBFC and Half Acre staff.
This looks incredible. Another place I love is Leghorn. Their biscuits are better than life and they are served with a blue cheese caramel butter that is worth every calorie.
I’m pretty sure no long-term good can come from SNORTING anything, but here we are. SNORTABLE CHOCOLATE has been around in Europe for a while, but it just made its way over here. The product is called Coco Loko, and it’s a processed cacao powder that you snort, just like cocaine. You don’t really taste the chocolate when you snort it, but the people who make it say that it gives you the health benefits of dark chocolate without any calories.
Is it safe? The answer is . . . maybe. It’s not approved by the FDA, and it doesn’t have to be because of a loophole . . . they can only approve food you eat, not snort. And experts say there’s a chance it could cause sinus problems . . . but odds are you’ll be fine if you want to try it. They aren’t sure about the claims on the health benefits, but I’m guessing you wouldn’t be doing it for those anyway . . . you’d be doing it for the gimmick.
A container with 10 servings is on sale right now on Amazon for $25. READ MORE
Queens of the Stone Age have a good sense of humor which was one display this week as they started the hype train for their upcoming new album ‘Villains’ by posting a sketch with cult comedy champ Liam Lynch. The sketch involves the band enduring a very bad lie detector test where band leader Josh Homme fails hard when he faces the truth. It’s possibly funniest thing I have seen a band to do in a video.
Here is the new QOTSA track ‘The Way You Used to Do’ that we debuted on air this past Friday. I got to play it first, and Lauren was very jealous… she still is
Iliza Shlesinger is a very successful comedian with several TV specials, big theater tours under her belt, and now a new show on Freeform but she kicked a hornet’s nest this week during an interview with Deadline where she talked down every other female comedian working today. Here is the main quote that caused the stir here.
As a comedian, I have a set of morals. I have a specific point of view. I think a lot of what I see out there, out in comedy clubs, watching contests, watching TV, watching movies—gathering data from these different matrixes…
When you’re a woman in comedy and you get a break, people get so excited about it, but while we have to work hard to get that attention, I do think many women think, “Oh if I just act like a guy, if I go for that low hanging fruit…” Everything’s about sex, or how weird I am. It all just kind of runs together.
I could walk into The Improv, close my eyes, and I can’t tell one girl’s act apart from another. That’s not saying that 30-something white guys don’t all sound the same sometimes, but I’m banging my head against the wall because women want to be treated as equals, and we want feminism to be a thing, but it’s really difficult when every woman makes the same point about her vagina, over and over. I think I’m the only woman out there that has a joke about World War II in my set.
I think shock value works well for women, but beyond that, there’s no substance. I want to see what else there is with such complex, smart creatures.
That’s why women like Tina Fey do well. It’s smart, and men can laugh at it, too. I consider myself one of those comics, and quite frankly, I’m appalled by what is expected of women, and what women offer in response in that.
As someone who does comedy and works with many great smart female comics, this feels just out-of-touch. I would not call it an insult but just lacking a connection to what’s really going on. For example, Emily Galati whose been featured on ‘Conan’ has an outstanding World War II joke. So Shlesinger just appears to be over zealous while also being esoteric and dismissive to other female comics who share her same challenges both on stage and off. That’t just my objective take. For the record, Iliza Shlesinger is very funny and entertaining from my seat in the crowd but this is a bummer to read.
To no one’s surprise the Twitter community of other working comedians (both female and male) responded with straight fire on the misguided take on women in comedy. In a Tweet, I can’t re-post here Liza Treyger (who got her start in Chicago) gunned this off: “I’m a better stand up comedian than you will ever be. Save your money cause you a hack.”
Suggesting that female comics should limit what subjects, words, or attitudes they use is just a way of trying to limit female comics.
Death From Above (Yes, they dropped the ‘1979’ more on that here) released a visually stunning video this week for their brand new song ‘Freeze Me’. The song has some muscle to it, but this video features maybe more with body builders flexing in defiance against the world ending outside their mansion. That world specifically is getting destroyed by the way. Yeah when everything is going to hell in hand basket, just throw up your biceps, bro!
OK Computer turned 20 years old this year. And earlier today, Rolling Stone put out a brief oral history, to give you a bit of history and context of how that album fits into the landscape of alternative. It’s a great reminder — or introduction, depending on your own personal perspective.
The king of online retail Amazon announced today they will buy the high end grocery chain Whole Foods with the widely reported price tag being $13.7 billion dollars. The ramifications are pretty big for the grocery store industry while also greatly influencing the future of how millions of people buy everyday items and food online. There is no plans currently to shutdown the brick and mortar stores of Whole Foods. Meanwhile Amazon last year opened up stores (including one in Wrigleyville) where you can use your online account with them to purchase items in the store, with no cash registers.
There are a lot of people in the grocery store industry are not happy about it. The Street breaks down all the financial maneuvers at play here and how Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is going for something even bigger.
7% of Americans believe chocolate milk…comes from brown cows, according to an online survey commissioned by the Innovation Center of U.S. Dairy.
That’s an estimated 16.4 million people who believe this.
But there’s a bigger story behind the headline, as covered by the Washington Post. People are more and more just lacking a grasp on where their food comes from — the article describes the phenomenon as being “agriculturally illiterate.” Some elementary school kids didn’t know that pickles were cucumbers….or that onions and lettuce were plants. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?
Come out to the far reaches of the suburbs —- I’ll show you farming. It will be an enlightening experience. A smelly, enlightening experience. — [eric]
New Zealand’s musical delight Lorde revealed on ‘The Tonight Show’ that she is the one behind the popular Instagram account ‘Onion Rings Worldwide’. She may sing about love lost and gained with relationship partners, but her one true love may be breaded fried onions and I can’t blame her, they are delish. The popular IG account anonymously saw Lorde documenting the different onion rings the world has to offer as she toured, performing off the success of her debut album. Some internet detectives did some digging and speculated that Lorde is the greasy fingers behind ‘Onion Rings Worldwide’. Her reasoning in this interview for why she kept her onion-tinged internet alter-ego a secret, is pretty entertaining as well.
A post shared by onionringsworldwide (@onionringsworldwidee) on
In this same interview segment with the “dirty beard” Jimmy Fallon how she moved back to her home country, eating at diners, and her new album ‘Melodrama’ which is out now. While on ‘Tonight Show’ she also performed her new single ‘Perfect Places’.
It’s Father’s Day weekend AND it’s finally summertime!!! Dad’s were really smart when choosing middle of June for their special day. Anyway… here are some great ways to have a blast AND treat Dad this weekend! READ MORE
Father’s Day is Sunday. And you REALLY should do something to celebrate it, because no, your dad is NOT cool with you blowing it off. According to a new survey, 81% of dads say they think Mother’s Day outshines Father’s Day. And . . . they’re not wrong. 70% of women and kids admit that dads will get less of an acknowledgement on Sunday than moms did last month. And 49% say Father’s Day, quote, “is not a big deal” in their family. The survey also found people who ARE getting their dad something plan on spending an average of $38 less than they spent on their mom. And the most common gift they’re planning to get is . . . a card. READ MORE
