Chicagoist Week In Review: If It Feels Good, Do It Edition

By Scott Smith in News on Jan 16, 2006 3:28PM

This week on Chicagoist, it was all about vice: preventing it, wallowing in it, or legislating it.

The week started with Chicagoans being told they couldn’t rock out (or maybe experimental-rock-with-acid-jazz-overtones out is more appropriate here) at Millennium Park since the Grant Park Symphony has a rehearsal scheduled on the same day that Radiohead wants to play there. We’re still wondering why a compromise couldn’t be worked out before Thom Yorke and Co. took their effects pedal and went home.

Then there was Fibby McPantsonFire (a.k.a. James Frey) who took a page out of Ashlee Simpson’s spin manual by explaining it’s not his fault that his not-exactly-nonfiction book A Million Little Pieces fooled people because A) it’s mostly true; B) the book publisher called it nonfiction, not him and D) lying is OK as long as Oprah still loves you.

And while many Chicagoans were enjoying their last days of smoking and eating a steak at the same time, officials in Schaumburg were trying to make it illegal to buy smokes on your way back from picking up that Shörtung Günter tray table set at IKEA.

But apparently it is OK to play keno. So long as the Governor can make money off it. And by it, we mean you.

With all these craven pursuits occupying our minds, it’s no wonder our children are giving out more teabags than Celestial Seasonings.

Faced with all this vice, you and the Trib spent a slow news day pondering the simpler things. Like dead people. Specifically, which dead (either literally or artistically) rockers you wished you saw at their peak.