Results tagged “johnwayne”

During our six years in the Navy we can remember being away from home during the holidays but not unwanted, thanks to the volunteer families of Adopt-a-Sailor programs in the towns and countries where we found ourselves on duty. Sailors at Great Lakes Naval Station ("Naval Station Great Lakes" in military/Yoda-speak) won't have that opportunity this Thanksgiving. Recent changes in program guidelines by NSGL brass effectively shut out individual families from the Adopt-A-Sailor program. Instead,... more ›

Forgive us for being less than enthusiastic about Independence Day this year. Oh sure, we love having a day off and all that. The fireworks are cool. But it's a little hard to muster up a whole lot of that rah-rah flag-waving patriotism; between Scooter Libby, the endless war, and the paralysis of Congress, the business-as-usual attitude oozing from Washington, Springfield and Chicago has got us mired in the blahs. We're certainly not alone... more ›

For the 75th anniversary of the Lindbergh kidnapping, Time released what they believe are the top 25 crimes of the century. We must say, we got sucked in and were captivated by the crimes, some of which we were familiar with and some we were completely unawares. Two of the crimes were from the Chicago area. John Wayne Gacy, executed by lethal injection in 1994, murdered 32 boys and young men. Police found 28 of them in a crawl space in his Des Plaines home. The mysteries of the human psyche, the false sense of security in suburbia, the facade of an upstanding citizen — these were all brought to the forefront in an American society that was getting comfortable. more ›

You've seen those fights in the old western movies, where a strapping cowboy-type like John Wayne cleans some desperado's clock and the bad guy crashes through a window. Usually he tumbles onto the boardwalk just a few feet below, staying conscious long enough to hear a one-liner from The Duke. The justice is humiliating, but not all that dangerous. more ›

The water bottles and beer cans have all been cleaned up from Hutchinson Field so Grant Park is ready for the continuation of the Chicago Outdoor Movie Festival with another of Roger Ebert’s favorites: John Ford’s My Darling Clementine. Ebert highlighted this film in one of his Great Movies commentaries. It tells a story (though perhaps not the story) of the events in Tombstone that led to the legendary gunfight at the OK Corral. Its strength lies in its ability to flesh out the relationship between Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday and is “more about everyday things--haircuts, romance, friendship, poker and illness.” more ›

Is bringing a live version of a song cycle about Illinois to Illinois like bringing coal to Newcastle? If so, then let’s hear it for redundancy as Sufjan Stevens will be appearing at Metro on September 16th following the release of his album Illinois on July 5th. Part of a series of albums Stevens is releasing as part of his 50 States project, Illinois is the audio equivalent of the movie Waking Life: a version... more ›

So, um, remember when Chicagoist told you all to applaud Peoria for ranking among the country’s most well-mannered cities? Well, perhaps we should have asked you to make your fingers look like a gun and make a “bang bang” noise, instead, as two events this week are threatening to send that city’s reputation spiraling into an area where polite folks just simply don’t tread. On Wednesday, Chicagoist told you all about shots being fired at a Peoria’s Woodruff High School, and now this: authorities are reporting that a Peoria man – Larry D. Bright, 38 – may have killed as many as eight area women over the past year and a half. That is certainly not a demonstration of good manners. more ›