Tag Archives: writing

Pushing back on racism: The Beverly Review, 12.29.15

Communities, Politics, Race, , ,
integration
Screenshot from WBEZ’s Curious City report on Beverly’s 1970s integration efforts. This was from a presentation called “Beverly Now.”

Yesterday I experienced an afternoon of celebration, reflection and conversation at St. Barnabas Church, where I’m a parishioner. The event was “Following Big Shoes – What Is Ours Yet To Do?” It focused on the past, present and future of the civil rights movement. Specifically, we discussed the work that needs to be done for civil rights in Chicago, now, to eradicate the scourge of gun violence in this city. There was passion and the comfort of shared mission.

The event was part of the Thou Shalt Not Murder campaign, led by a group of South Side churches and pastors leading up to a day without murder or shootings: March 27th, Easter Sunday. Please visit the website, read about the upcoming events and consider adding your voice to those who call for a day without murder in this city.

I will write more about this campaign later, but yesterday’s conversation (and specifically the line “what is ours left to do”) reminded me of an op-ed I wrote that originally ran in our neighborhood paper, The Beverly Review, during the last week of 2015. Our neighborhood is one of the few in Chicago that has an integrated population, but it didn’t come without a fight. The events in this country of the last year proved that the fight against racism isn’t over, nor is it enough for neighborhoods like mine to rest on its laurels. This column is specifically about the neighborhood of Beverly/Morgan Park, but likely has some relevance for you no matter where you live.

In all honesty, this column is a lot more gentle than anything I’d normally publish here. It’s absent the anger I feel about the incidents that led to it. And I purposely sidestepped calling out the neighborhood Facebook groups that are rife with stereotypes and some of the worst things I’ve read about anyone. But I wasn’t trying to reach them; I’m trying to reach those who disagree but feel cowed into silence by the hate they see. It’s those whose voices we need the most: the ones who hadn’t ever thought they can play a role in pushing back.

—

As winter takes hold and the year begins to draw to a close, I’ve been thinking about the past year and taking an inventory of my life in the past twelve months – work and home, good and bad, what I’ve done and what I’ve left undone.

When I’m thinking about the past year’s accomplishments and next year’s priorities, I often find myself thinking in terms of a checklist: which tasks are one-time events that can be forgotten once they’re done and which ones are ongoing tasks that need regular effort?

I’ve thought about this in terms of our neighborhood, too, and how most things we think of as one-and-done really ought to be ongoing matters that always get our attention.

All of which brings me around to matters of diversity and race in our area.

Our community is one of the few in the highly segregated city of Chicago that can claim a measure of racial integration. According to the 2010 census, Beverly’s population is 65% white, 32% black, 3% Hispanic. Morgan Park is 66% black, 29% white, 3% Hispanic. But this mix did not happen naturally.

The racial makeup of Beverly changed only after hard work, court fights and the bravery of those who persevered in the face of stiff opposition. A report last year by WBEZ’s Curious City program detailed this change. Beverly was 99% white in 1970. Members of the Beverly Area Planning Association pushed (and sued) realtors to avoid racially-motivated steering while also speaking to parishes and neighbors about the importance and benefits of an integrated community. A few brave black families began to move here. In the next ten years, the black population in Beverly would grow to 14%.

All of this gives our neighborhood a unique history. But what about our future? Or our present?

Our community’s current racial makeup may lead some of us to think that our efforts at integration can be checked off the list. Yet over the past couple years, it’s distressed me that our neighborhood has too often made local and even national headlines for incidents of racism. Just like in the 1970s, it is not a problem that will go away on its own without the help of people who live here. It will require bravery, honesty and a commitment from those with power.

Of course, our neighborhood is not alone in this struggle. As this country becomes more diverse, it is re-examining its own racial past and asking what work still needs to be done. While we’ve come far as a nation, we have a ways to go before we remove all the structural, economic and cultural barriers that prevent us from living up to the ideals of liberty and justice for all.

We can do this here. And we can do this now.

As with most things, stepping outside of our own experiences is the first step. Our community is tight-knit, which is wonderful. But sometimes it prevents us from seeing beyond what’s happening on our block, in our parish or within our immediate neighborhood. Rather than allow suspicions to form around those whom are unfamiliar, let’s agree to try and get to know each other better instead.

This work continues by not being silent when confronted with racism. We don’t need to be consumed by the hate and anger of others. The simple act of saying “I disagree and that doesn’t reflect my views” in response says far more than silence, which can, too often, be read as agreement.

When something happens to one group in this community, let’s agree that it affects all of us. If a racial incident occurs, we can express our concern and our willingness to help to our alderman Matt O’Shea, the police in the 22nd district, BAPA, our churches, our schools and any other organized group in this community capable of bringing people together in common cause. Moreover, groups like Unity in Diversity, Southsiders for Peace and the Southwest Chicago Diversity Collaborative all operate within this area and are interested in fighting racism and increasing diversity.

Forty years from now, will the next generation read about this neighborhood and say that we were the ones who continued the diversity work of those that came before us? We will make mistakes and it will be messy. But when it comes to pushing back on racism, it’s not enough to have good intentions; it has to be followed by good works.

It’s an ongoing effort, but it’s worth every bit of our attention.

May the tavern rise up to meet you: The Frunchroom – 07.16.15

Communities, , ,

This is the piece I read at The Frunchroom back in July.

img_2192Oh hey, did I mention I produce/host a South Side reading series called The Frunchroom now? (Not here, apparently, because I’ve only written seven posts in all of 2015 so mostly I get my creative juices flowing by producing/hosting The Frunchroom, going on WGN Radio to talk about media stuff and directing editorial things at work.)

I explained here that me doing a reading at The Frunchroom was somewhat unintended. But it was good for me because I’ve been on a bit of a dry spell lately. The ideas for this piece had been rolling around in my head for a while and it made a lot of sense to do it at O’Rourke’s Office, where The Frunchroom is held, for reason’s that will become clear.

—

Can we talk about bars for a minute? I really love bars.

They’re like going to the gym but in reverse.

Have you ever heard of the idea of the third place? It’s the idea of a place other than your home or work that offers neutral ground, is open to everyone and – most importantly – features conversation as its main draw. There are lots of kinds of third places from parks to barber shops to churches or libraries. But most are somewhat purpose-driven or encourage conversation only amongst those you came in with.

Bars are different. By design, they force you into conversation with someone that isn’t family but might be a friend by the time you leave. No less than Mike Royko called the neighborhood tavern “the working man’s country club” or a kind of “group therapy.”

I’ve spent many a meaningful moment in a bar. I celebrated turning 30 at Blackie’s in the South Loop. I courted my wife in a number of bars on the North Side. Earlier this year, I mourned the death of one of my closest friends at Celtic Crossings. It was an Irish wake. (He wasn’t Irish.)

If I have to write something important, I prefer to do it in a bar. If I have an hour to kill somewhere, it’s my first choice of a place to spend the time. But it’s a culture that, in Chicago, has been in decline.

Back in 2012, Whet Moser at Chicago magazine took a look at some of the facts and figures behind this. According to USA Today, in 1990 there were 3300 places in Chicago with tavern licenses. By 2009, the number fell to 1200. Mayor Daley seemed to take a particular interest in closing bars but there were trends like more drinking at home and restaurants that figured into this, too. In fact, if a bar opens in Chicago nowadays it’s likely to get most of its revenue from food sales. Not just because of changing habits but because it’s a bit easier to get the nod from the city that way.

Even though they’ve changed a bit and are as likely to offer small plates as shots, we’re losing many of our third places. But if it weren’t for a bar, specifically this one, my wife and I might not have moved here.

Now, before you start whispering to the person next to you (“Oh god, the host of The Frunchroom has a problem with the drink….), let me assure you we looked at things like schools and property values and what have you. Also, you are in a bar on a Thursday so calm down and don’t be so high and mighty.

We were in the final stage of house-hunting when we drove down from Roscoe Village one Saturday to see what the Beverly/Morgan Park nightlife was like. This was in 2009 before we had a child and “nightlife” to us then had not yet become sitting on the couch and passing out in front of episodes of The West Wing.

The people at O’Rourke’s seemed nice, they served a decent cocktail and it also had a cool little back room that seemed like it could be interesting.

Prior to that we’d had a post-looking-at-houses dinner at the bar/restaurant on 111th called Ritchie’s (it’s now been renamed Joseph’s under new owners) and warmed to both classic Italian menu and our server Adam who was apparently given to sitting down at an old piano against the wall and banging out Billy Joel and Elton John songs. As he hit the second verse of “New York State of Mind” Erin and I looked at each other and said “We’re definitely moving here.”

We needed a sense of the neighborhood so we came to a bar. I hope the folks from BAPA are taking notes.

But our neighborhood’s had a weird relationship with bars. For example, there are – if my math is right – 16 bars along Western Avenue from 99th to 119th. Many of them are Irish in nature, in keeping with the tradition of the neighborhood. They’re full of friends, family and memories. But there’s a nickname for it. The Western Avenue Death March. (Editor’s note: I’ve since learned there are about five other names for it.)

It’s an odd dichotomy – a culture that’s at once celebrated and maligned.

The South Side Irish Parade – which, full disclosure, I volunteer with – became the legendary powerhouse it was – hosting mayoral, gubernatorial and presidential candidates – in part because of the bars along Western. Yet the attraction of drink drew busloads of Iowa college students and caused it to be shut down for two years before coming back more in the family-friendly spirit of its founders.

And sure, we have 16 bars along Western Avenue but nothing to the east of it as those precincts are dry. Both candidates in the most recent aldermanic election said they believe a restaurant serving beer and wine would help anchor development along 95th street or 103rd. Yet in 2009, the last time the matter was put to a vote by the residents of one of those precincts, an effort to open development of this type between 103rd and 107th on the north and south and between Longwood and Walden on the west and east ultimately died in the face of stiff opposition from the community and a confusingly worded referendum.

The theory goes that if the area east of Western was wet again, we’d be besieged with package liquor stores or the dark spirits of rowdy taverns. That this would bring in the wrong element.

It’s worth noting here that the area in question isn’t zoned for either liquor stories or a standalone tavern. It’s only zoned for restaurants or specialty grocery stores.

But I also think about the last bar/restaurant that opened in this neighborhood, Horse Thief Hollow. And what it’s done to change bar culture on Western Avenue, from the number of places that now proudly proclaim the number of craft beers they have to the rehab of Keegan’s to allow for a different kind of atmosphere. Not to mention the number of gallery showings or parties it’s hosted for the Beverly Area Art Alliance. (Note: Keegan’s has, post-rehab, been named Barney Callaghan’s.)

I also think back to a few months ago when one of our readers, Dmitry Samarov got up on this stage and lamented that Hardboiled Coffee, another wonderful third place at 91st and Western, might not make it. Sure enough, earlier this month owner Gregg Wilson announced he was closing the shop. But the wholesale coffee business would remain a growing concern and move inside another local business: Horse Thief Hollow.

And not for nothing but hosting The Frunchroom here at O’Rourke’s was a considered choice. I wanted it to be in a bar, to be in a third place. To add to the place, to the culture that made me want to move here.

If we want more arts, if we want more businesses – the kind that can help other businesses – if we want to reflect more of who we are to people who might want to move here and help carry on our traditions…if we want all that…then maybe it’s time to think about attracting that kind of element to areas east of Western. To 95th Street. To 103rd Street. Maybe 2016 should be the year we try again and pass a referendum allowing restaurants and grocery stores to offer beer, wine and liquor.

We could use a few more third places here.

Because I really hate going to the gym.

My top 10 favorite moments at Chicagoist on its 10th anniversary

Chicago, Media, ,

Chicagoist – a site I succinctly describe to the uninitiated as “a news and culture blog about Chicago” – chicago-istlaunched about ten-and-a-half years ago under editors Margaret Lyons and Rachelle Bowden with the backend marketing and infrastructure support of the Gothamist network (which at the time was just two sites). The site’s just getting around to celebrating this milestone tonight and I’ve been in full throwback mode all day. (I’ve been tweeting reflections and stories on Twitter under #Chicagoist10).

It may seem unremarkable now but at the time there were few sites trying to talk about the news the way the average twenty/thirtysomething person talked about the news. In Chicago, there was Chicagoist, Gapers Block (the older brother competition who always made us try to work harder), Eric Zorn’s blog and a handful of others mostly focused on specific topics. Chicagoist and Gapers were the only two group blogs I recall that tried to cover the whole city. (Red Eye, Chicago magazine, Time Out Chicago and the dailies were still very focused on their print products.) We didn’t always succeed in our efforts to cover all of Chicago, in part because Chicagoist had a downtown/North Side bias running through it for its first couple of years. This angered native Chicagoans (and oddly some transplants, too) but it also meant the site had a voice, the voice of someone moving into the city for the first time and discovering it. And as the site grew older that voice become more authoritative and it grew into its aspirations without losing the barroom skepticism that ran through it in the early days.

I started there as a music and movies writer, a few months after the site launched. This was my first audition post. (It is nothing special.) I left as a co-editor in 2007 to go work at Time Out Chicago. Chicagoist was an incredible training ground for writers who wanted to develop. Many of us wrote for free. We weren’t really editing each other early on. SEO and social-driven audiences were non-existent. So the site was often a mix of in-jokes, minor happenstances and hobby horses. I can’t count the number of times favorite movie quotes of mine became headlines. But it was also a chance to figure out who you were as a writer. And get better at it. Or to create a newsroom environment even though we all worked remotely. We even managed to throw the occasional event or five. It was legit to say that blog had a community around it. I still read the comments in those days.

It was also a time when there were few alternate sources of news and viewpoints on the same. Again, unfathomable if you’ve grown up in a media ecosystem, post-2010. When the dailies or other media sources did something dumb, sexist or short-sighted, we wrote about it. I know how trite this sounds now, but it was what made me proud to write for them. Scroll down to the “Special thanks to” section here and you can see all the folks who made the site what it’s been.

I owe most of my current career to getting my start there. So do many others. It’s also where I met my wife. So in some ways, I owe it everything.

Here are ten of my most memorable moments – nine good ones and one when I got a little over my skis.

10. The Dave Matthews poop bus stories
All the Chicagoist writers had their way with this legendary story of a DMB tour bus dropping its toilet after-products into the Chicago River. I took particular glee in it. We retired the topic here but it still gets referenced whenever fecal matter is involved.

9. Interviews and festival coverage
We started doing coverage of summer music festivals in 2005 when Lollapalooza returned. The first year we were still small so I just ran around Lolla with a digital camera, a notebook and a tape recorder. Other local sites would follow the wall-to-wall model as the music festival scene took off with Intonation and Pitchfork. But Chicagoist still does it best years later even as social media has changed the way live events get covered.

Chicagoist is also where I learned to interview people whether they were bands, filmmakers, authors, a friend of mine who was a ballerina and a burlesque dancer. Most importantly, I interviewed the guys behind Filmspotting (nee Cinecast), a show I guest-co-hosted a couple of times, which remains a highlight of my life in media.

Speaking of interviews…

8. WBEZ’s decision to drop jazz
It’s ironic how hard I went after WBEZ here since I’ve ended up appearing on its airwaves many times since as a panelist, which would not be possible without this switch. After I did this post, its VP of comms asked me if he could respond so we ran this Q&A.

7. The Get Well Roger project
When Roger Ebert first became ill, the staff crowdsourced a simple photo project: People uploading and tagging photos of themselves giving the thumbs-up.

6. That time I kinda fucked up
I hated Tucker Max. Still do. I count as a career highlight the time I was editor of Playboy.com and told his publicist we would never cover him as long as I was editor (which didn’t last long but still). But I didn’t do my homework on this one and the whole reason for it – Tucker Max supposedly operating a site under a pseudonym – was taken down hard in the comments (deservedly so) by people with more awareness of him than I had at the time. The rest of the post is sort of useless (though still true) without it. But he was in an ascendant period here and it felt important to talk about that. The world would eventually tire of his shenanigans.

5. Ctrl-Alt-Rock 1 and 2
We threw two local band showcases thanks in large part to the booking prowess of Jim “Tankboy” Kopeny. Ctrl-Alt-Rock was the name coined by our sports writer Benjy Lipsman. The first packed the house at Schuba’s. The second was at Double Door and was one of the last things I did with the site before leaving for Time Out Chicago. The second is my favorite because I convinced Jim we should book the Reptoids and a little band of U of C students no one had heard of called The Passerines.

4. The Double Door is closing hearing in which nothing happened 
Everyone freaked out because the Double Door might close. An online petition was launched. I went to to the hearing. The response to the loss of a great rock club forced the two sides to come to an agreement. I wrote this post because I sat in a courtroom for hours and wanted to make it worth something.

3. Guilting Pitchfork/Intonation into letting people bring in their own water
It is always ridiculously hot during Chicago’s festival season. The fest that would become Pitchfork Fest had a stupid policy of not allowing people to bring their own water. But their reaction to questions about it was what really irked me so I wrote this. Two days later the fest reversed its decision and allowed people to bring in their own water, a rule most summer festivals here now follow.

2. Questioning NBC 5’s ethics
I don’t know why this bothered me so much. Maybe because our site had a more stringent ethics policy for food reporting than a major television affiliate.

1. The Richard Marx letters
It’s pretty much standard for Richard Marx to go after someone in Chicago media when they do something he doesn’t like. My errors were minor to non-existent depending on your read of this. This was the first time I heard from a legitimately famous person I wrote about and it was a little weird. Justin Kaufmann and I later immortalized those emails in this live Schadenfreude sketch:

This piece isn’t about guns: The Paper Machete – 5.31.2014

Media, , ,

Though I’m almost always writing right up until the deadline for The Paper Machete, I usually finish before I leave the house. Not this time. I finished this one sitting at bar at The Green Mill twenty minutes before showtime.  You can see my notes at right.

As always, if you liked this piece, please like The Paper Machete on Fcaebook,  follow it on Twitter, listen to its podcast or – most importantly – attend one of its 3pm Saturday afternoon shows at The Green Mill.

—

I drew the short straw this week so I’m here to discuss last week’s mass shooting near Santa Barbara, California. I will try to do so in a way that doesn’t make you depressed for the rest of the day.

If you’re worried you’re in for a screed on gun control, don’t worry. This piece isn’t about guns. Not really. That’s not the conversation we had this week.

No, after we spent the Memorial Day weekend remembering the sacrifices others have made to preserve everything good about this country, we were reminded of everything terrible about this country thanks to Joe The Plumber.

Continue reading This piece isn’t about guns: The Paper Machete – 5.31.2014 →

A Silk Road to ruin: The Paper Machete – 10.05.13

Internet, Politics, ,

I’ve said this before but one of the reasons I like performing at The Paper Machete is its hard-and-fast deadline and word count. The show starts at 3pm. If I’m going to make it to The Green Mill on time to read my piece, it needs to be written no later than 130pm. There’s no bargaining, no extension unless I want to piss off the good people who run it. And unless I want to disrupt the flow of the show, I can’t go on and on for thousands of words.

Deadlines and limits make you creative. They force you to go places or try things you might not otherwise to get to your goal.

If I had more time to work on this piece, I probably would have made the ending seem less depressing or inevitable. I’d have found a middle ground. But it was 130pm and I had hit my word count and I still ended up with a piece I was really happy with.

—

Whatever you think of the FBI, you have to admire its flair for marketing.

On October 1st, the FBI arrested and subsequently put a name to the man behind a website called Silk Road. Silk Road was a two year old website through which one could buy and sell drugs. An internationally-known marketplace where approximately 1.2 billion dollars were exchanged over its life. Before it was shut down, the site had a user base of 900 thousand and had earned its owner – a man known only as The Dread Pirate Roberts – approximately $80 million in commissions and a writeup in Forbes, the first two words of which referred to Roberts as “an entrepreneur.”

That’s a big deal. And naturally if you’re the FBI you’d want to make a big deal about something like this. Now, criminal investigations are complicated things. They’re a mix of tireless work over long hours and a lot of luck. You don’t always get to pick your shots.

So perhaps a signed complaint asking a judge for an arrest warrant just four days before a government shutdown – which would curtail the FBI’s ability to, say, post a press release on its website about the arrest is entirely coincidental.

It’s entirely possible that the timing of the Dread Pirate Roberts’s arrest had nothing to do with the conclusion two days prior of America’s most beloved series about a murderous drug kingpin who poisons children. (OK, to be fair, it was just the one.)

I’m just saying an organization that maintains a list of “America’s Most Wanted” and produces daily radio shows has a flair for the dramatic.

Purely as a matter of scale, the shutdown of Silk Road is interesting. But it’s also interesting because of the technology that powered it. Silk Road users maintained their anonymity through the use of two technologies: a piece of software called Tor which allows everyone from journalists to NGOs to, yes, criminals use the Internet without revealing their actual, physical locations. And all Silk Road transactions were conducted using something called Bitcoin, a purely digital currency that uses cryptography and a series of electronic ledgers to blah blah blah nerd talk sci-fi Star Wars magical unicorns of money.

As interesting as the technical aspects of this story are, you came here for a mix of current events and social commentary mixed with some showmanship and bitcoin is like the band that plays before the burlesque dancers so I’m just going to skip to the parts where the gloves start coming off.

So big drug marketplace shutdown and an interesting statement on somewhat obscure technical tools for conducting anonymous, often illicit activities. But who cares, right? Tor, bitcoin, pirates. It’s hard to take something seriously when it sounds like a game of Dungeons and Dragons. None of you are looking to create a billion dollar drug empire…OK, maybe that guy. Also, Chad The Bird. I mean, obviously.

At first blush, the real impact of the Silk Road story is that the era of the Internet as a haven for criminal anonymous activities is over, especially with the NSA listening in on every message just short of “Do you like me, Circle Yes or No.”

No, the real lesson here is “The mythical permanent record we were all warned about in grade school has finally become real and it’s the Internet.”

You see, the government figured out the Dread Pirate Roberts is actually a guy named Ross Ulbricht. According to Ars Technica’s report on the government’s criminal complaint, the first mention of Silk Road was made by a user on a website called Shroomery.org. This same user posted a comment in a Bitcoin forum back in 2011 asking for some help with the nascent digital currency. This user’s account had an email address attached to it: “rossulbricht at gmail dot com.” This same Gmail address was attached to a Google Plus account which listed some of his favorite videos, some of which were from a place called the Mises Institute, which is named after an economist whose theories the Dread Pirate Roberts frequently cited as the basis for the larger philosophical ideas behind Silk Road. Similar references to these economic theories were also found on a LinkedIn account registered to Ulbricht.

For someone who masterminded a small drug empire using an untraceable digital currency, Ulbricht didn’t exactly cover his tracks very well. You could rightly argue that if you’re going to start selling drugs on the Internet, you shouldn’t do it with the same email address your aunt sends all her “THE TRUTH ABOUT OBAMA’S MUSLIMNESS” emails to.

It’s a little hard to blame Ulbricht for this behavior. After all, he’s no different than anyone else who leaves bits of his or her interests and views in various corners of the Internet. We used to be able to think of our lives as different circles of friends and family but for most people, the dream of keeping our personal lives and our professional lives separate died in a Facebook argument about the President’s birth certificate between a significant other and an aunt we never see. You can leave a job, but your former co-workers will continue to follow you. And it’s a lot harder to get over that bad breakup when someone’s Instagram account is just clicks away.

And thanks to the current nature of the Internet’s cloud architecture it’s all tied into a central username or email address for sheer convenience if nothing else. Argue, if you like, that Ulbricht was an idiot and if you and Chad The Bird were going to start a criminal enterprise, you would at least go to the trouble of creating a second email address. But who gets on the Internet for the first time thinking they’re going to create a criminal enterprise? Or cheat on their girlfriend? Or need to lie to their boss about calling in sick that day?

The problem isn’t that Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t care about your privacy, it’s that we think we can hide in the sheer volume of conversation happening online right now. The Internet’s ubiquity has made everything we do on it seem ephemeral. A phrase like “the Internet of things” and gear like FitBit or Google Glass means we have – in a relatively short amount of time – gone from thinking of it as worldwide network of blogs and websites – to something we can wear on our faces or wrists or clip to our belts. Because it’s everywhere there’s the sense that no one will see us if we jot down a few thoughts in a notebook we literally tuck into our pocket, only showing them to a few people we know. Conversations on Facebook, Twitter or in comments sections have now become so ubiquitous they’ve come to feel like little more than a conversation we’re having with a friend on the bus or the train. We lean over and chat conspiratorially with a friend, confident that the stranger seated in front of us can’t hear and so what if they can anyway? Our stop is up next and we’ll be gone.

So while the details of the time you sat at a bar in college and rambled on about some obscure economic theory is…long forgotten by the time your 401K breaks $500, there’s usually a trail when you do the same thing online. And someone with the time and motivation to look for it can find it.

I’m not sure what the end game looks like here. Either we’re all going to end up truer, more honest versions of ourselves or everyone is going to end up hiding their online selves behind Tor and Bitcoin and the Internet will become the least social version of social media ever.

Why bad cultural consumption writing makes writers so mad

Media, ,

Yesterday, CBS Local published a list of the best martini bars in Chicago. I had a few things to say about it.

The piece is poorly written and not well-informed. Even if you concede the popular use of the term “martini” no longer means a certain type of drink with gin (or, OK, vodka, if you’re a heathen) and vermouth with an olive, onion or lemon twist and instead means any cocktail served in a triangle-shaped glass – which might be fine! words evolve over time! – it’s laden with awkward or repetitive phrasing like “stylish characters have made the drink even more fashionable by ordering them” or the way Fireplace Inn’s martinis are twice described as afterthoughts to the food. And mentioning Martini Club’s name three times in its writeup seems more about boosting the piece’s SEO value, not the reader’s knowledge, especially if you suggest martinis pair well with Cuban sandwiches.

The author of the above also wrote a questionable piece on the best local rock bands in Chicago, the objections to which were summed up by Chicagoist: “This list is great, if you’re looking to travel back in time to 2004…”

So, a site with little authority on either rock bands or food & drink repeatedly employs a writer not gifted with either knowledge or a kind editor. Who cares, right? Plenty of other stuff to read on the Internet. If you don’t like it, don’t read it!

Except…

Getting paid (at all, much less paid well) to write cultural consumption pieces in 2013 is really hard, whether it’s about music, food, events or any other where-to-go, what-to-do activities. It’s a really crowded field. So when you’re a freelance writer of some skill and see someone doing a poor job of it, you think “I could do this so much better! Why aren’t I getting paid for this?” Getting paid to write that piece would have meant ramen with chicken instead of just ramen last week. Of course, publications can pay someone without knowledge and skill a lot less than they can those steeped in culture and craft, which literally devalues good writing. In short, a piece like this contributes to scarcity of resources all around.

It’s especially galling when sites with wide distribution do lists like this because they contribute to a dim view of a city’s culture. CBS Local doesn’t have much authority in these areas but it has a lot of distribution and reach, especially when these pieces are constructed for eyeballs instead of brains. A list of bad picks that pops up on the first page of Google reinforces the idea that Chicago lacks for a quality martini bar and its rock output stopped sometime after the Smashing Pumpkins first broke up. If you’re someone who writes about your city because you love it, it bugs you when you see writing that makes it seem like Chicago has less to offer than a place one-third its size.

Finally, writing a piece with “best” picks that can stand up to amateur and professional criticism is tough, way tougher than it looks. Even if it’s a list of solid choices, the hard work comes in the justification. Communicating the thought process that went into why you chose one place over the other is often impossible due to word count or not wanting to sully your text with “inside baseball” conversation that’s best left to Twitter. When someone produces work that makes it seem like anyone can do it, you start to wonder why you bother to put in the time especially when you start to do the math on the number of hours you spend on it versus how much you got paid.

That’s why it’s important to object when someone does a lousy job. Or respond with your own list like Chicagoist did. And praise/link to really great lists like Chicago magazine’s roundup of best craft beers in Chicago. The same tools and conversation that call out bad work should be the same ones used to elevate the good stuff.

UPDATE: According to Anthony Todd at Chicagoist, CBS is in a partnership with Examiner to re-publish its content. It’s not even commissioning its own work.

Don’t build a brand, build a business

Media,

The other day my friend Veronica Arreola of Viva La Feminista asked this on Facebook:

Hive mind….Instead of talking about “building a brand,” we should say [fill in the blank]. 

I’ve heard people say “reputation.” Any other phrases? Working on something for my students and I don’t want to use “brand.” Thanks!

I said “Business.” She asked me for an explanation and I said that being known for something (building your brand) isn’t enough. This is action, not reaction; strategy not execution. You should have a mission statement and a vision for what your career is going to be.

It’s like being known as a personality instead of an actress, less Kim Kardashian and more Kate Winslet. Sure, Kim Kardashian has made a bunch of money for herself. But the number of people who can replicate her success over a long period of time is minimal. The associations attached to her are as problematic as they are positive, she’s of-the-moment and she can only work in a proscribed space (reality show character and product spokesperson). Whereas Kate Winslet has built up a solid reputation as someone who can work in a variety of films with a career that has longevity and a bankable, consistent value for someone other than herself.  You know what you’re getting with Kate Winslet. With Kim Kardashian, the wind could change quickly.

Metaphors aside, students need to be taught how to put notoriety in terms of hiring or intellectual property they offer that no one else can: a viewpoint, a process, a track record of building or creating new things. That’s where the real value is for them and someone that might hire them.

If they can’t make an employer or the public see how their skills and notoriety translate into a business environment then it will be difficult for them to make a living doing what they love.

This is similar to something I’ve told college students and others trying to develop writing careers. Businesses pivot from time to time, but they have a sense of what they do and what they don’t do. If you’re going to be a writer or other type of freelancer, you’re essentially a one-person business. What spaces will you own? Keep in mind this is also about learning what you are going to say no to or avoiding a too-crowded field. It sounds really awesome to be a food writer. But if you don’t know the difference between small plates and tapas, you have no business reviewing food. (Also, in 2013 it’s a too-narrowly defined space with fewer opportunities. )

You will probably do a lot of freelancing; you’re going to have assignments that don’t always hew to your mission but everything you do should somehow support that mission (even if it’s only monetarily) because once you’re known for doing certain things people will look to you more often to do them. When I was at magazines, we’d always be looking for a writer who can handle a specific topic. It was rare that we said “Well who’s a good writer in general who might be able to handle this?” Specificity helps.

Now, figuring out what you’re worth and what to charge people for it? That’s a post for another day.

A flash mob of inspiration – Paper Machete – June 11, 2011

Fatherhood, , , ,

One of these days I’ll develop the discipline to write longer pieces here independent of a local reading series (for shorter, more frequent posts check out my Tumblr blog) but until then here’s the piece I read at Paper Machete this weekend. If you’re in Chicago and haven’t checked it out, next Saturday at 3pm is as good a reason as any: the show moves to larger digs at The Horseshoe in Lincoln Square and features Chicagoan/SNL cast member Paul Brittain and Schadenfreude’s Kate James.

This piece is about the recent string of downtown Chicago robberies that many are calling “flash mobs.” I get into why this is a misnomer and the lazy reporting that got them tagged this way. Plus, links to relevant material! Sadly, you will have to wait for the podcast to hear my “caveman” voice.

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Well, this is quite the flash mob we have going here today.

That’s what a flash mob is, right? Groups of otherwise unconnected strangers, driven by text messages or social media communication who gather together for some event? I know I invited all my friends via Twitter, Facebook and text. And The Paper Machete has a website where they talked about today’s lineup. Plus, there was something on The AV Club.

Plus, it’s not like any of us already has some kind of loose affiliation or acquaintance? Right…? Gang…?

I’m obviously getting ahead of myself but I do want to talk about how all of a sudden a term meant to describe seemingly-spontaneous coordinated dancing or shitty fake improv suddenly became the hot new trend in violent muggings in the tony Gold Coast and Streeterville neighborhoods. And like most annoying trends it seems to have started in Brooklyn.

But let me back up and set the scene here: We’ve had a longtime Daddy figure for a mayor replaced by a younger guy who’s untested in the role, a city with a $650 million dollar deficit contributing to economic decline in the city’s neighborhoods and a police force with 800 fewer cops than there ought to be and a superintendent who’s barely been on the job for a month – and wasn’t officially approved for the job until earlier this week. Tack on reports of downtown youth violence robberies during the last few months and whispers of potential violence causing the Memorial Day weekend closing of North Avenue Beach and things. were. just. a. little. tense. leading up to last weekend.

According to the Wall Street Journal, 12 crimes involving large groups of young men – half were robberies and the other half were non-violent crimes – occurred last weekend in the Streeterville/Gold Coast area. Of the robberies, five of them were committed by the same group of people and ten of the people in that group were arrested. 19 other young men were arrested for the other six, non-violent crimes.

While these crimes and their victims are very real, the organization of the groups through social media has been overreported. Or perhaps reported is the wrong word. On Wednesday, a Chicago Police Department spokesman said there was no indication any of the assaults or robberies were coordinated using social media. So maybe the word we’re looking for here is “completelymadeup.”

So how did these attacks end up reported as “flash mobs”? This brings us back to Brooklyn. And 40 cent hot wings.

In October of 2009, a Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant in Brooklyn started running a Tuesday night special: hot wings – 40 cents each, which based on my extensive Google-based research of hot wings menus is about a 20-50 cent savings over the price of your average wing. What was later described in the New York Times as an unauthorized flyer discussing the special was posted to various social networking sites and caused an increasing number of teenagers to overwhelm the spot over the next three weeks, culminating in a Veteran’s Day Eve melee in the area around the mall that ended with two shootings and one stabbing. This was followed by other non-poultry-related incidents involving large groups of youth in Philadelphia and South Orange, N.J., in 2010 and, more recently, robberies in St. Paul, Minnesota and St Louis earlier this year though few of these mention any social media involvement. Let’s just say they…fit the description.

So back to Chicago. We’ve got a national context for two years of sporadic violent incidents involving youth, which are, in some cases, coordinated using text messaging and social media. It’s a meme, as the Internet would say. Then while doing research for this piece I remembered a report from CBS 2 back in March about businesses along the Magnificent Mile experiencing groups of teens coming into their stores grabbing as much as they can and running away. “Apparently, they’ve been Tweeting each other,” said the reporter. There it is: Twitter was to blame. Despite the lack of direct quotes from police, the victims or the alleged attackers mentioning any form of social media. And nevermind that plenty of people who use Twitter or Facebook manage to get through their days without knocking over a Filene’s Basement.

And that’s when it all came together for me. This has way more to do with the Gold Coast and what it represents and social media and what it represents. And it can all be explained by a little something called terror management theory.

[OK truth be told I’m only saying this because I heard about terror management theory for the first time on Wednesday while listening to the How Stuff Works podcast and it sounded really cool. Had my iPod shuffled differently during my morning commute I might be telling you the only way to truly understand these attacks is to listen to the Sound Opinions review of the new Fleet Foxes album. But hang with me and I swear this will make a kind of sense.]

Terror management theory essentially posits that all human behavior is motivated by the fear of mortality and that every societal construct we create is meant to distract us from a fear of death: political parties, saying “bless you” when someone sneezes, even Bravo’s The Real Housewives series which is ironic because every time I remember that show exists I want to fucking kill myself.

According to this theory, symbols that enforce our cultural views are fiercely protected and anything that threatens those views is dealt with in a highly punitive manner.

Now, think of the Gold Coast and Streeterville, where these attacks occurred. What’s over there? Tiffany’s, Water Tower Place, the American Girl store, parks, countless tourist attractions and various economic engines for the city. Basically, high affluence in a low-crime area. For a city that wants to convince itself it isn’t broke and suffering from an increase in gang activity, you don’t get much more symbolic.

So how does social media enter into the picture? On almost every level, social media is changing the way we communicate and learn about our world. Rather than reinforce the individual societal constructs we have in place in our families, neighborhoods or countries, social media is exposing us to yes, congressional penis, but also cultural worldviews that differ wildly from our own. If you don’t believe me, try this experiment: On the day after the next court ruling on gay marriage, gun rights or abortion, visit the Facebook page of any family member you purposely only see at Thanksgiving and Christmas. It’s the interpersonal equivalent of finding a potentially cancerous mole on a part of your body you can’t see without a mirror.

Flash mobs make the perfect scapegoat. They’re symbolic of technology many people don’t understand and are still struggling to legislate and use to create new economic models. And if it wasn’t flash mobs, it would have been something else. When I was a kid, blue star LSD tattooswere the neighborhood bogeyman. For my parents, I think it was communists. I’m sure even cavemen were like “Have you heard of this new form of fire that can start by rubbing two sticks together? Someone really needs to start monitoring the sale of sticks.”

Census, not consensus: Paper Machete, January 9, 2011

Politics, , , , , , ,

I was back at The Paper Machete yesterday to discuss Chicago’s mayoral race.

Every time I attend The Paper Machete, I’m stunned at the level of talent on display. I’ve been to four shows – three of which I performed at – and if there is a show which consistently showcases such an incredibly talented group of writers and musicians of greater intelligence and humor, I haven’t seen it. Christopher Piatt and Allison Weiss put this on weekly, people. WEEKLY! And it’s free. FREE! You’re missing out if you don’t give it a chance. Check out the Facebook page or their podcasts.

A couple notes on this piece: Thanks to some smart feedback from Piatt, I wrote this specifically to be read as a speech rather than as a true essay that would be read. So I’m not sure how well it works just as plain text. If it makes it into the Machete podcast, I’ll link and you’ll see what I mean. UPDATE: The recording of this piece is posted here.

Also, after I performed it I thought it came off too pro-Rahm, which wasn’t my intention (and certainly isn’t reflected in the previous Machete piece I wrote). Chicago’s neighborhoods have many needs and I don’t think a pro-business mayor is what we need right now. But that doesn’t excuse the played-out games our city’s black leaders are engaged in this year. They need to get their collective act together for 2015.

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My friends, can I take you into my confidence for a moment? I have a confession to make.

I’ve lived in the Chicago area my whole life and in the city proper for 13 years now. I’m politically aware to the point of being able to tell you roughly how much some of the candidates had in their campaign coffers at the start of this campaign and I’m old enough to not only have been alive when there wasn’t a mayor named Daley but to have actual memories of a few of them.

But for a couple minutes last night while I was working on this piece, I had to look up how a contested Chicago mayoral election works. Isn’t that embarrassing? I’m like one of those people who don’t know there used to be a Meigs Field. Or that Lake Shore used to go around the east side of Soldier Field. Or…something else with a field.

Anyway, I don’t feel too bad for not remembering how mayoral elections work in the post-Daley era since the recent actions of Chicago’s black political leaders showed they don’t seem to remember either what with all their efforts to rally around a consensus candidate.

So just in case you too have a lack of field-related Chicago knowledge, elections in Chicago used to work pretty much how most other elections go: There was a Democratic primary and a Republican primary and the winners of each of those primaries would run against each other in the general election…and the person who was the Democrat won.

But in 1995, the Illinois General Assembly changed the law to do away with primaries in the mayoral election. To understand why they did this involves me explaining the last 35 years of Chicago mayoral political history. You’d think that with 21 of those years involving Daley in the mayor’s office that it would be pretty easy but the 13 years prior to that are a mess of Democratic white guys being so mad at black guys that they were willing to elect a lady and even a white Republican if it meant keeping a black Democrat out of the mayor’s chair. Also, there’s a really bad snowstorm involved. It’s actually really interesting but in an effort to not have us here all day, just trust me when I say the big takeaway is this: Most people think the election of Harold Washington – by the way, he was the black guy – means that in non-Daley years all the black political leaders in Chicago need to do is decide on one black candidate to run for mayor and he or she will win.

Since the four leading four candidates for mayor are Rahm Emanuel, Carol Moseley Braun, Miguel Del Valle, and Gery Chico – or to put it terms of jokes you might hear involving rowboats: a white guy, a black lady and two Hispanic guys – things should be easy-peasy, right? No. They’re uh…hardy-tardy.

See, there’s never been a mayoral election under the non-primary system when Daley wasn’t running. So there’s no real evidence to support the idea that a black candidate could win against a white challenger. Also, the racial makeup of this city isn’t what it used to be.

According to an article in the Chicago News Cooperative, the most recent census estimates available say that “whites and blacks each represent almost one-third of the city’s population, while Hispanics have held steady at about 27 percent and Asians rose slightly to comprise a little more than 5 percent of Chicagoans.”

So first of all: bad news for racist white people: You’re more of a minority than ever but still not eligible to get in on all those fat city contracts for minority-owned businesses. Also, bad news for black political leaders still partying like it’s 1989: the black population has shrunk considerably to the point where it’s no longer feasible to decide on a black consensus candidate and think he or she will be elected mayor.

Ah but not so fast, you say! Just because the city’s population splits evenly down white and black lines doesn’t mean the voter rolls do, you retort in a manner most self-satisfied! Moreover, you say, 2008 voter turnout showed only 37 percent of white people vs. 40 percent of black people and 12.86 percent of Hispanics. And finally, black turnout has always been very strong and so you say good day sir I’ll have no more of your empty punditry.

To which I say, not so fast you jackanapes! We are not just talking about any white person. We are talking about Rahm Emanuel. This is a guy who has a power base of business interests, a ton of money and a mythical persona that’s something like Jewish George Clooney-meets-Ben Kingsley’s character in “Sexy Beast.”

And if we’re just going to look at this purely in racial terms, Emanuel’s been polling well for months among blacks and Hispanics. A recent poll – taken after Braun became the consensus candidate – shows he not only has a 3:1 lead among white voters, but a 16-point lead among Hispanics, too. And here’s the kicker: Braun’s only pulling 43 percent of the black. Emanuel’s pulling 32. So he’s working all sides of the census form.

Things would be different if the black consensus candidate had more universal appeal. Or, let’s face it, was not Carol Moseley Braun. As much as I’d like to see a strong black candidate, were I to enumerate all of the mistakes Carol Moseley Braun has made since she started campaigning – or hell, even just this week – we would be here until the runoff. So I think I’ll just quote Braun’s spokeswoman – a woman who is paid to say nice things about her candidate – who this week said “Am I a little nervous when she starts to talk to people? Yes, I am.”

According to that same recent poll, Braun’s foot in mouth disease has now translated into a 41 percent unfavorable rating. Unfortunately, she also has a 91% name recognition which – according to the pollsters – means she is “a candidate with little ability to grow her vote share.”

Which is why that poll shows Emanuel leading with 42 percent of the vote, Braun with 26, Chico with 10 and Del Valle with 7.

At this point, Rahm Emanuel could change his campaign slogan to “Rahm Emanuel: Lick My Balls” and he’d still probably win.

Here’s the thing most people forget about Harold Washington: he won his first election for mayor – the most racially-charged election in the city’s history – with 20 percent of the white vote. I’ve got concerns with Rahm Emanuel as mayor when we need less of a downtown mayor and more of a neighborhood mayor. But demographically, you could argue that he – not Braun – is the candidate with broad support from all over Chicago. And that’s what it’s going to take to win from now on: not a consensus candidate, but a census candidate.

2015 – Paper Machete, October 16, 2010

Politics, , , , ,

Been a busy and difficult month and I’m going to make an effort to get back to documenting the pregnancy as there’s been a lot to discuss. But here’s a reading I did yesterday at The Paper Machete, a live weekly magazine show (or a salon in a saloon). If you’re in Chicago’s Lincoln Square neighborhood any given Saturday at 3pm, stop by Ricochet’s for the show. It’s really a great example of Chicago’s living artistic bar culture.

This reading – about the Chicago mayoral race – ended up very much like a blog post due to the way my brain is wired to write about current events like this. So it felt right to post it here, with links. Reading it again, it reads pretty rough on Fioretti and Emanuel but that’s mainly because this is the most important mayoral race in two decades and there’s been little from either of them on issues of crime, poverty, the city budget, etc. so far. As voters, we should demand more.

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Immediately after Mayor Daley’s September 7th announcement that he would not seek re-election, everything we thought we knew about Chicago politics seemed wrong. Early on, the city seemed destined to become a Rubik’s Cube of shifting coalitions, alliances and power structures: a campaign that wouldn’t be so much a horse race as a rodeo. Typifying this anything-goes mentality was an announcement on September 20th from Alderman Sandi Jackson that both she and her husband Jesse Jackson Jr were each considering a run for mayor…until the Sun-Times ran a story the next day that clotheslined them both with some untoward allegations.

Now, when I say “early on” consider that this happened less than a month ago but seems like such ancient history that if you ask most people what Jackson Jr. was accused of, all they’ll be able to come up with is something akin to a Google search: “Uh…Blagojevich, senate seat, blond in a bikini.”

Since then the field has narrowed considerably but there are still plenty of questions. EarlyandOften.org lists 55 candidates who, in the last month, were either circulating, considering, rumored to be considering or just wanted their name in the papers. MayoralScoreCard.com now has the field down to 12 candidates running and five circulating. Of the candidates who are running, five don’t have any cash on hand and the candidates who are circulating range from Rev. James Meeks and Sheriff Tom Dart – both of whom could cause some momentous shifts in the weeks ahead – to Carol Moseley Braun whose campaign started 262 thousand dollars in the hole so her efforts look less like running for office and more like a bake sale peddling stale Rice Krispie treats.

So with nominating petitions due in little less than a month and those early volcanic predictions far in the rearview, what on paper still seems like a potentially vibrant race is currently giving us two leading declared candidates: 2nd Ward Alderman Robert Fioretti and former Chief of Staff Rahm “Fucking” Emanuel. But even these gentlemens’ campaigns could charitably be described as “still getting their shit together.”

This week, Fioretti announced that he would be out of the game for two weeks because he needed to get his tonsils out. Yes, nothing says “Ready To Lead On Day One” like an image of Fioretti ringing the nurse for some ice cream. Depending on how ridiculous things get, we might end up reading some racially-coded item in Michael Sneed’s column about how Fioretti ordered Neapolitan flavored ice cream because he’s committed to being a mayor for all the people of Chicago be they white, black, brown or strawberry.

As for Rahm Emanuel, NBC’s The Ward Room reported yesterday that the candidate sent his supporters a letter soliciting volunteers to circulate nominating petitions this weekend. The letter began: “Dear First Name.”

The funny thing is, the most interesting things about the Rahm Emanuel campaign are happening online and most of it doesn’t involve the candidate at all. Sure, Rahm’s got 29,000 Likes on Facebook and got out there early with a fancy, but familiar-looking website done up in a style that, if it were a font, would be described as Obama Hope Extra Bold, but that’s somewhat overshadowed by what’s happening on Twitter where the campaign appears to have gone through three Twitter accounts in the last two weeks, losing whatever momentum he built up each time. The lack of a definitive presence in this space means that the fake @MayorEmanuel parody account has four times as many followers as the official @RahmEmanuel account and is beating him on matters of openness and transparency as well: The real Rahm had nothing to say on the “Dear First Name” problem while the fake Rahm said “Dear First Name, Plouffe assures me that we’re going to have an actual fucking communications team in place soon. The intern is a cocktard.”

There’s even a website called rahmfacts.com and even though A) there appear to be only ten facts in total and B) they’re all true they still read as if they’re about a mythical Chuck Norris-ian political figure:

RAHM EMANUEL TELLS PEOPLE TO FUCK OFF BY SHOWING THEM THE SPACE WHERE HIS RIGHT MIDDLE FINGER USED TO BE

WE WOULD ALL HAVE HEALTHCARE IF BILL CLINTON HAD LISTENED TO RAHM EMANUEL’S ADVICE

RAHM EMANUEL REGULARLY CALLS HIS CHILDREN “MESHUGANAS”

This is all Very Exciting…and yet it isn’t. People who are true fans of democracy and reform should be more excited by a rough Chicago election than fake Twitter accounts if change is going to be less of a noun and more of a verb. Before Mayor Daley announced he wouldn’t seek re-election, it looked as if we’d get exactly that. Four long-serving Daley allies in the City Council announced they would not seek re-election and a handful of reform-minded potential candidates including Fioretti, 1st Ward Alderman Manny Flores, 32nd Ward Alderman Scott Waugespack, State Rep John Fritchey, Congressman Mike Quigley and City Inspector General David Hoffman all seemed poised to run.

While there are some hints that Rahm would be a reform candidate, specifically a meeting last month with Fritchey and an announcement that Rahm supports listing the city’s TIF slush funds in the actual budget and not in the traditional second set of cooked books, there’s been little to suggest he wouldn’t continue Daley’s pro-business, big-splash, downtown-based style of rule. Progressives from the SEIU Illinois State Council to Progress Illinois think Rahm would be, at best, a liberal moderate who supports business interests. Money equals power and the former Daley fundraiser and investment banker is toting around about $1.2 million of it right now.

All of which helps explain why Wags, Fritchey, Quigley and Hoffman all pulled a musical chairs and sat down before Fioretti even heard the music stop. This week Flores bowed out and threw his support to former Chicago S
chool Board president Gerry Chico while Congressman Luis Guiterrez declared he wasn’t running either. Ramsin Canon of Gapers Block points out Guiterrez’s announcement came on the heels of a meeting with Dart and there’s still the possibility of a black coalition forming to challenge Rahm. Some of these meetings and deals might amount to something but at this point I’ve seen more stable alliances during three-legged races at church picnics, which means we’ll have a slate of weak candidates and one very strong one. IIf recent history is any indication, Chicago will hold its nose and vote for the Daley-like Rahm because, damnit, Millennium Park is pretty even if it is for tourists and who wants snow on the streets in February?

There are many months left in this campaign but what started out as the most interesting Chicago mayoral race in twenty-three years now looks to be the least interesting race in the next five. That’s probably what Fritchey, Wags and the rest foresaw when they beat a strategic retreat. Most political strategists will tell you that having something to run against is as important as having something to run for. All the people who were rumored to be planning “reform” runs for mayor had something to run against when Daley was still in the race. Now they don’t. A few well-placed stump speeches about money for more cops on the street and the evils of TIFs and Rahm becomes the great white hope. Better for the reform crowd to bide their time now, not waste talent and treasure in a losing campaign, firm up the new coalitions, wait for Rahm to get blamed for most of Daley’s mess then swoop in after a few years and save the day.

But Canon – in the first of a series of posts titled “Modeling An Open Chicago” – argues the best way for Chicagoans to take their city back isn’t for us to wait on a new Harold Washington to lead the disenfranchised into a new coalition in 2015 but to strengthen the neighborhood-based structures that already exist and return economic development back to the neighborhoods.

Of course, this requires much more than voting. It requires attending CAPS meetings, joining local school councils or neighborhood planning associations and stepping foot inside our ward offices for more than just parking permits.

When that happens, a candidate on Twitter who sends out letters addressed to “Dear First Name” will be a leader without followers. And that’s just a guy taking a walk.

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One last note on this piece: I realized afterward that there were workers from both the Fioretti and Emanuel campaigns in the audience, which…yeah.

UPDATE: Is Rahm Clearing The Field?