Wish You Were Here

Reports say the hard-living, acerbic comic book writer died Sunday in a Las Vegas hospital due to complications from pulmonary fibrosis. He was 60 years old. Writer Mark Evanier, a longtime friend and colleague of the writer has written an official announcement post on Gerber's blog. Fans and pros from the comic-book world are paying their last respects in the comments below.

Gerber wrote for Marvel comics throughout the '70s, penning classic superhero and horror stories, eventually introducing a cigar-chomping, take-no-nonsense, talking duck who went on to take mainstream comics by storm. By all accounts, writing Howard was an autobiographical experience for Gerber. He was the duck. The duck was him. During his short but memorable first run, Howard tangled with moonies, self-help gurus, KISS and many other mainstays of '70s culture. He ran for president. There was nothing else like it on the newsstands.

Howard ran for president in issue #8 of his original series. The satire's just as cutting today as it was then.

Gerber left Marvel in the late '70s and spent the '80s in comic book limbo, fighting for control of Howard (Marvel settled out of court), watching George Lucas produce a box-office bomb about his star creation, and writing animation scripts for now-classic kid shows like G.I. Joe, Dungeons and Dragons and Plastic Man. From time to time, he'd return with the occasional miniseries for DC comics or even Marvel.

I came to Gerber's work in 2002, when he returned to Marvel for one last Howard the Duck story, a riotous, poison-pen, send-up of Disney (Howard took on the form or a giant mouse for a few issues), daytime T.V. (Howard squared off against a demoniacally possessed Oprah and Dr. Phil) and even religion (the final issue is set in the afterlife, in which Howard shares a drink with an old guy, a young bearded guy and a dude with a sheet over his head). I ate it up and sought out his original run, which has just been collected.

Reading those old stories, it was impossible to ignore the specificity of Howard's speech and attitudes. In the '70s, comics were definitely written for kids, and the writing showed. Characters spoke in monosyllabic cliches. But Howard, he had a diction all his own, as shown in his monologue from the first page of the first issue of his first series: Captain America wasn't talking like that. Batman wasn't talking like that. Not even the wise-cracking Peter Parker could lay claim to this flavor of labyrinthine, self-referential dialogue. Whether you liked it or not, it sure was different. Howard the Duck was a mainstream comic with underground sensibilities. Steve Gerber was the medium's Jonathan Swift, a biting satirist with a playful heart who explored social issues by pushing them to ridiculous extremes.

While covering a comic convention in Chicago last summer, I sat in a crowded audience for a panel discussion that featured current Marvel Editor-In-Chief Joe Quesada. During the Q & A, I was struck by a sudden urge to ask a question. I raised my hand: "When are you going to publish more Howard the Duck?" A cheer went up from the audience at the mere mention of Gerber's master of Quack-Fu, bringing a broad, goofy grin to my face. I was not alone. Quesada mumbled something about Howard having appeared in a recent Avengers tie-in and said they were planning another appearance in the future. I wasn't satisfied as Gerber hadn't been involved in the tie-in, but at least I could hold out hope for him to play a part in whatever was in the pipeline. The duck just hasn't ever been the same without his creator's wit and humor at the wheel. And now we know he never will be again. People with much more knowledge than me of Gerber's life, work and influence are writing about him all over the Internet: Mark Evanier:

"In much that he wrote, he chose to depart from reality or (more often) to warp it in those extreme ways that make us understand it better. But he always did so from his underlying premise as a smart, decent guy. I like almost everyone I've ever met in the comic book industry but I really liked Steve."

Warren Ellis:

"Steve was a giant in the American comics medium."

Tom Spurgeon:

"Steve Gerber's role as one of the best and emblematic writers of his generation can't be understated. He was a crucial figure in comics history. Like some of the all-time great cartoonists of years past, Gerber carved a place for self-expression and meaning out of a type of comic that had no right to hold within itself so many things and moments that were that quirky and offbeat and delicately realized -- except that Gerber made it work."

Mike Cane:

"Gerber was one of the new breed of writer who re-invigorated and re-invented comics in the 1970s."

Jerry Stratton:

"He showed this reading-obsessed thirteen-year-old that writing was something people did, and that the reason the best books were best was the author who wrote the story. And that I could do this too!"

If you want to pick up some vintage Howard the Duck comics or other work by Steve Gerber here in Chicago, head on over to the nearest Graham Crackers Comics near you. The Hero Initiative is a charity fund for comic creators that had been helping Gerber during his illness. If you'd like to make a donation, their Web site is here. All images © Marvel Comics

Amy, a Rogers Park resident, posted a truly harrowing story to her blog earlier today. She was one of about 20 Illinois Primary voters in Chicago's 49th Ward told to use a push-vote machine stylus to record their votes on paper ballots. When the styluses failed to leave marks on the paper, they were told by election officials that the pens used "magic invisible ink" to write down the votes. From her blog:

"Jim and I went to vote at 7 a.m. We were given Democratic ballots and pens. But when I got to the booth, my pen didn't work -- it was like a felt-tip marker with no ink. So I went back to the desk and was told -- along with several other confused voters trying to swap out their nonfunctional pens -- that these were "invisible ink" pens that would not leave marks on the ballot but would absolutely be read by the scanners. Except that they weren't. The optical scanners were spitting out ballots until one of the election judges used a key to override the system and get the ballots into the box. After my ballot was rejected once, I got a confirmation that my vote "counted" (when the number on the ballot box blipped from 19 to 20), but Jim was given a regular ballpoint to fill in his, and it counted right away."

Amy's blank ballot was refused by the optical scanner until an election official overrode the machine, causing it to count her blank ballot. Furious, she sent calls to the Trib, Sun-Times, a Rogers Park blogger and the Chicago Board of Elections. The Trib posted her story to their home page. Fortunately, there was a happy ending to the whole fiasco. Hours after her blank, invisibly-inked ballot was counted, after she had been on the phone with election officials all day, she heard the first 20 voters from her district were being invited back to vote again.

After spending the day on the phone to various political offices and media outlets, Angela and I found out that the BOE was contacting the first 20 voters from our precinct to come back and cast another ballot. I don't know if it was the press inquiries, the pissed-off phone calls from citizens, or the threat of lawsuits from one candidate's lawyer (rumored), or some angry combo of the above, but something worked. I left work early and ran back to the polling place. The election judges were very accommodating and apologetic, almost grovelingly so, and they marked the "spoiled ballot" box on my voter register and issued me a new ballot. "Can I get a real pen this time?" I asked. And they said yes. As I filled in my little arrow for Obama with visible ink, I started to cry -- out of relief and gratitude and, I'm not even kidding, pride in being an American and being able to vote. Voting is important, y'all. Don't let anyone stop you from doing it.

Only in Chicago, right? There's a lot to think about here: astonishing stupidity, unresponsive election officials, etc., but the most interesting thing here is the part I bolded above. Ever since the hanging chad debacle, states have hailed electronic voting as the solution to voter fraud. Meanwhile, academics such as Ed Felten at Princeton have repeatedly demonstrated how easy it is to beat the machines, by installing malicious code using a thumb drive, for example. But this incident demonstrates a more fundamental problem facing proponents of electronic voting, one that no engineer or computer science wiz can solve: poorly trained polling officials. Not matter how slick your system is, how sophisticated its safety measures, how battle-tested and road-ready it is for an election, if the people running it are only too happy to override its sensors so it can read a blank ballot (amazing), the robots will never win. This story serves as a reminder that machines are only as smart as the people running them at the end of the day. We don't need better machines. We need better election officials, people who won't reach for the override key because the scanner's unable to read "invisible ink." If you've got a story from voting today, share it with other readers over here.

Another call-in report from the field:

"We were having trouble locating a gathering place for Romney supporters, until Tuesday morning, when we stumbled upon a woman standing outside Union Station, laden with Romney signs, posters, buttons and a hat. She was greeting people as they emerged from the station and encouraging them to vote for Romney. Perhaps not the wisest place to be securing votes, given that most people are arriving *from* their polling places, not on their way *to* them. But that's another issue. So we approached her and asked if she knew of a gathering place for Romney supporters. Most certainly! 950 W. Wrightwood, from 6 to 9. We blurted, 'Is it a bar?' thinking that these affairs are usually at hotels or union halls. Her pasted smile belied the drain of mirth from her tone. 'It's ... a ... dining establishment.' Longer pause, then: 'That serves liquor.' Party on, Mitt!"

A quick Google map check for that address brings us an answer. Who knew Romney's people were Grand Central types? A quick call over to the bar confirms that about 100-200 Romney supported will be gathering around 6 p.m. to watch the results roll in.

Maurice Badgett rode into Chicago with other members of "Michiganders for Obama" to support his choice for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. Hear him in his own words:

• "We're just firing it up for Obama"
• "He represents a choice of a change."
• "The only choice that was on our slate was Hillary...and we thought that was disenfranchising us as voters."

Super Tuesday's fiercely contested primaries are drawing political volunteers from across the Midwest to Chicago. About 10 Obama supporters from Michiganders for Obama, one of four Obama volunteer groups in the state, were working the corner of Jackson and Wells in the Loop this morning, handing out Obama stickers, posters and signs to anyone who passed by and leading modest chants of "Obama! Obama!" The group was greeted warmly. Several passing drivers honked and pumped their fists in affirmation. The Obama supporters, energetic despite leaving Detroit on a 3 a.m. bus to pick up other volunteers along the I-94 corridor, took it as a good sign. "We're just firing it up for Obama, coming in here during your caucus and trying to get the word out to go give Obama a good vote," said Maurice Badgett of Detroit, who had an Obama sticker affixed to the back of his leather jacket. "We see him as the next president." After a 30-minute stint on the corner, they asked a pedestrian for directions to Union Station and set off over the bridge to head north for their next stop.

New York-based stunt comedy troupe Improv Everywhere is making good on its name, launching a global social network for "agents" (what they call their members) following the "success" (i.e. media coverage!) of their recent 10-city No Pants! Subway Ride. Like Facebook, I.E.'s expanding by throwing open the doors, transitioning from a NYC-based group to a loosely organized global network of groups. Smart. A quick feature rundown from the launch post:

You can: - Create your own member page complete with Agent Name and Location. - Create your own group page for your hometown and start organizing with others near you. - Start discussion threads and brainstorm ideas at the local level. - Participate in global discussions and plotting. - Upload photos and video.

About 35 Chicago residents dropped trou earlier this month and rode the C.T.A.

The new site features groups of IE agents from major cities around the world. As of this post, the San Francisco group leads the non-NYC pack with 21 members, followed by L.A. with 16, the United Kingdom with 12 and Minneapolis/St. Paul with 10. Where's Chicago? ...deep in pack with a measly 3 members.

After the relative success of the no-pants initiative here in Chicago and this week's comedian-led fake protest of the Montrose Hole, you'd think we'd have a better showing. It's hard to imagine St. Paul having more people into this stuff than Chicago.

CMS nerd alert: It's funny to see IE using Ning (a service that lets you set up your own social network, which is essentially what IE's doing) to power the new site rather than use a self-hosted setup. But it makes sense. These guys are comedians, not developers. And I doubt much money is being made off IE...at the moment. That said, the Ning site's pretty harsh on the eyes. I don't know how much control they've got over their template, but someone should really dial down the bold on the headers. Ning's has been in the press this month. Tech bloggers are saying most of their traffic is porn-oriented. Ning's response? "We're agnostic on the issue."

On a night when freezing rains and wind kept much of Chicago inside, a handful of Chicago comedians hit the streets to rally for a bizarre cause: preserving a massive street hole in north Chicago.

Their gathering sure looked a lot like a protest. Setting up outside the Brown Line’s Montrose station at 5 p.m. the plucky band waived home-made signs and declared their love for “the Chicago hole” by chanting, singing and shouting.

But this was no protest, it was performance art. These weren’t demonstrators, they were local jokesters hustling to score publicity. And they succeeded. Despite the 13 degree temperatures, they attracted a small crowd made up entirely of reporters assigned to cover the event. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the protesters didn’t seem to mind.

“We’re here to raise hole awareness,” said Ken Barnard, the North Side comedian who organized the event. “In the end, the hole is a part of each and every one of us.”

The Hole: Huge in Ravenswood

For almost a week, the hole in Montrose Avenue was the biggest thing going in Chicago.

Its ascent to stardom began around 1 a.m. Tuesday, January 22, when a 36-inch water main snapped beneath the 1800 block of Montrose Avenue in Chicago’s Ravenswood neighborhood. Water from the broken main washed out the soil beneath the road, collapsing an 80-foot section of it that swallowed parking meters, an entire section of sidewalk and partially submerged parked cars in the 15-foot deep chasm.

With old pipes running throughout the city, breaks like this happen often, city officials say. Rarely, however, do they wreak so much havok. In this instance, several small businesses were forced to close. Also, close by residents faced heavy flood damage. One man wrote to the Burning Man Chicago e-mail list on the day of the collapse to vent after basement water wiped out his “whole life’s work.”

In the days following the collapse, Chicago commuters inundated Flickr and local blogs like Chicagoist with snapshots of the pit. Overnight and unexpectedly, Ravenswood picked up its very own celebrity.

The Organizer

This idea of the Montrose-hole-as-celebrity helps explains, at least in part, Tuesday’s rally. Hours before the gathering, Barnard (above, with a young pro-hole advocate) explained how the collapse put his neighborhood on the map.

“Nice as it was, the neighborhood really didn’t have any identifying qualities before,” he said. “A lot of people in Chicago have really identified with the hole.”

According to Barnard, the idea for the protest itself came during his morning commute, as he watched people snapping pictures from the El platform.

“It was amazing to see people staring at it,” he said. “To see that a simple fissure in the ground would captivate people.”

Barnard, who works for a Chicago marketing company by day and performs what he calls “performance comedy” by night, said he smelled an opportunity to bring his “unusual style of humor to people in a different and engaging way.”

On Friday the 25th, four days after the collapse, he created a MySpace profile page for the Montrose hole. In a blog post he announced Tuesday’s rally, to be sponsored by the ficititious “Pro-Hole Action Committee,” to protest filling in the hole. Barnard says he then sent the link out to several comedian friends of his “and a few of them latched onto it.”

The Rally

The “Pro-Hole” rally begins with a whimper. Barnard and a few of his cohort appear on the street at 4:45 p.m. toting a bullhorn, a plastic bag full of signs and a digital video camera. In character as the head of the Pro-Hole Action Committee, Barnard interviews a reporter waiting for the event to begin, asking him about his stance on the Chicago hole. The reporter plays along, giving the sort of absurd, rambling response befitting such a question. Another reporter suggests Barnard interview employees at the hair salon across from the hole. Barnard declines.

Just fifteen minutes later, the rest of Barnard’s troupe arrives…

…and fifteen minutes after that, the networks show up. Reporters from the Pioneer Press and the local Fox and CBS affiliates were on the scene, along with two journalists from TimeOut Chicago (and me, of course). Much of the event ressembled the photo above: Barnard and friends shouting out about the hole–cameramen jostling for position

The Signs

Barnard’s posse had an impressive host of signs on hand for the event. Highlights include:

• “No Hole = No Soul”
• “There’s a Hole in my Heart”
• “Hole No, We Won’t Go”
• “Craters are Greater”
• “Support the Chicago Hole: Not a Natural Disaster”
• “We Want the Hole Truth”

Overheard at the Rally - Part 1: Cheers and Chants

They also had a seemingly endless supply of songs and cheers. Here’s a breakdown of the highlights (click a play button or link to hear it)

• “Dig it up!” - the go-to cheer all night long
• “Keep the hole!”
• A stunningly bad version of “Silent Night, Hole-y Night”
• “Hole No, We Won’t Go”
• “God built the hole!”
• “Hey Hey, Ho Ho, Dig up the Chicago hole!”
• “You ain’t got hole? You ain’t got soul!”

Overheard at the Rally - Part 2: Improvised One-Liners and Quips

Perhaps the most amusing parts of the rally were the improvised, at-times incoherent one-liners that Barnard and friends peppered pedestrians with. Here are the highlights. Click a play button or link to listen.

• “What’s your favorite Courtney Love band?” *pause* Chorus of voices: “Hole!”
• “I hearby declare this neighborhood Hole-ville”
• “Remember Barbaro!” *pause* Ken: “Who’s Barbaro?”
• “Anyone who doesn’t want to dig up the hole is probably a satanist”
• “There’s a hole in my heart”
• “The hole has helped people get off drugs and get pregnant”
• “The hole would never try to fill you up!”

Overheard at the Rally - Part 3: The unhappy camper

Not everyone found the fake rally amusing, however.

Ravenswood resident, Jonathan Harper, above right, came to the rally after hearing the commotion from his apartment. There he met Eliot Rahal, a 19-year-old stand-up comedian and DePaul University student, who dished out a blast of “pro-hole” enthusiasm that left Harper blinkered.

“[He said] it’s a hole to be celebrated like the Grand Canyon,” said Harper, whose been unable to retrieve his dry cleaning since the collapse, when his Montrose Avenue cleaner shut down. “I guess I’m not really getting it right now.”

Rahal shrugged off Harper’s puzzlement.

“To quote the movie ‘Hotel Rwanda,’” he said, “you see something horrible and you say ‘That’s Horrible.’ but then you go right back to eating your dinner.”

Listen to Rahal’s take on Harper.

Tom LaPorte, a spokesman for the Department of Water Management, charged with repairing the collapsed road, echoed Harper’s sentiments.

“I applaud people who celebrate the neighborhood,” he said, “but I’m more thoughtful about the business owners who’ve faced hardship. I’m all for lighthearted celebration, but I don’t want to eclipse what we’re still working on.”

—————————————-

Just after 6 p.m., the false jubilant mood of the “faux-testers” finally breaks. Someone suggests they split for home after the next batch of El riders walks out of the station. The others agree immediately and without discussion. One can only pose for so many pictures, spout off so many sound bites and jeer at so many pedestrians in a day. A few minutes later, signs are packed, people have left and Barnard stands alone under the track, 50 feet from his beloved hole.

Looking back on his stunt a day later and out of character, Barnard describes the protest as a surprise “viral phenomenon.”

“On the surface, it was definitely about the hole,” he says. “There’s something there that I really enjoyed about it….I’ve done a lot of stage work but never a comedy stunt. And it’s fun because everyone sees it and you’re not limited to people who pay for a ticket. I think it sort of takes that to get people’s attention in this day and age.”

About a week ago, I received an e-mail from the Burning Man Chicago list inviting me to a night of "art, music and mayhem" in Wicker Park at the Burkhart Underground, home and studio of "freak chic" photographer Fred Burkhart. Despite the bitter cold outside, I ventured out. Here's my write-up, broken up by a few photos I snapped of Burkhart's studio early in the night before things picked up (unfortunately my trusty Canon Powershot was running low on battery juice that night...). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After a two-year hiatus that saw him relocate from Lakeview, recover from a broken back and find fresh financial backing from a friend and fan with deep pockets, photographer, painter and poet Fred Burkhart is back.

Fred Burkhart, "freak chic" photographer and impresario grabs a bite to eat while entertaining guests at the Burkhart Underground.

And Chicago's Bohemia is back in his basement. Burkhart is again hosting Sunday evening all-ages coffeehouse gatherings in the basement of his new Wicker Park studio. Preppies, goths, geeks, hippies, hipsters—all are welcome at the Burkhart Underground—so long as you leave the drugs, tobacco and alcohol outside and bring a $5 donation.

“There’s nothing else like it in Chicago,” says Kam Grant, at a recent gathering that attracted about 30 people on a bitterly cold night. It was the third event in the new location since Burkhart started them up again in late December. Grant, a carpenter and custom motorcycle builder attended his first Burkhart Underground years ago in college and estimates he’s been to “50, maybe 100” since. “It’s in somebody’s house, which gives it a laid back feeling,” he says. “I don’t like going to bars, so this is a great alternative.”

Burkhart's second floor studio space, currently set up for painting. Just a week earlier the room played host to a raucous burlesque performance. "I'm trying to elevate this to something more than a party," Burkhart says.

Burkhart puts the coffee on at 7 p.m. but the evenings don’t get rolling until 9, when the musicians show up. The current format, a handful of performances from folk-influenced singer-songwriters and poetry readings, is loose. Burkhart insists it used to be a lot looser, with an open mic that attracted some “truly awful stuff” at times. Though performances from Rebecca F. and Colin McGeehan, Ami Saraiya (aka Radiant Darling) and Anna Soltys draw enthusiastic applause, the night belongs, perhaps unsurprisingly, to Burkhart himself, whose spoken-word poetry draws the biggest crowd.

"No time. It's tinged in silver. As tattered lips and tongues wind their way through ancient songs, made out of the void of heaven, they call," he chants over accompaniment from an upright bass and electric guitar. Burkhart's new studio space has a foot in two worlds. With its hardwood floors, track lighting, white folding chairs and couches it resembles the living room you wish you had. Meanwhile its walls, lined with framed photographs of his subjects--Klu Klux Klansmen, burlesque dancers, “hardcore lesbians,” “hardcore druggies” and nude men and women-- sneak up on you and assault the senses like a slap in the face. Burkhart's spent his life capturing extreme situations on film. In the new space, he's built a shrine to this work.

The first floor of the Burkhart Underground showcases a wall of pencil sketches the artist made during seven recent months when he had no access to a darkroom, "a difficult time," he says.

For the last two years, the old carriage house, tucked away off Noble Street, served as Burkhart's “hermitage.” It was only after Burkhart approached its owner, real estate agent Joe Schiller and pitched him the idea of starting up the coffeehouses again, that it took on its current shape. Schiller, a longtime fan of the strong sexuality in Burkhart’s work, says he “cashed in his retirement” and spent $50,000 renovating the building’s electrical system, basement, stairwell and heating system.

“I bet the house on Fred,” he says. “Why not have something so beautiful around me at all times? It was sort of selfish.” Schiller sees the Sunday coffeehouse as the first step in launching a new artist community in Wicker Park and hopes to expand it in the future. “There’s a space I know that I’d love to convert into an art colony and I could fill it in a minute, and I’d let Fred run it,” he says. Burkhart’s own goals for the coffeehouse are only slightly less ambitious. “Every person here has a slightly different idea of what this is about,” says the 64-year-old, when asked about Schiller’s plans. “I’m creating a landscape, a place where people can gather and talk about art.” And talk they did, over chips, soda pop and home brewed coffee late into the night. The Burkhart Underground coffeehouse happens on Sunday nights from 7pm to midnight at 1228 N. Noble Street in Wicker Park. Read up on Fred Burkhart:

• Burkhart's MySpace Profile
• Burkhart's Homepage
• Burkhart's News page
• "Burkhart Underground is ground-zero for open mic authenticity" ( Chicago Tribune, February 25, 2000)
• "The Underground is so over" (Chicago Reader, August 6, 2004 - includes a pic of Burkhart post-breaking his back)

All Chicago was abuzz yesterday about the pit that opened up in Montrose Avenue after a 3 ft. water-main pipe broke around 1 a.m. Tuesday, swamping cars, swallowing parking meters and trees, and collapsing an 80 ft. section of the sewer, according to the Department of Water Management. The carnage has forced 10 businesses to close and flooded every basement on the block. The Trib's got a nice wrap-story. Pictures like this one (by TheeErin, via Flickr, also featured on Chicagoist) show the 15 ft. deep hole that's opened up in the road.

Repair Update: While several city departments are working on cleanup, including Streets and Sanitation, Transportation, the police and fire departments, the bulk of the repair work has fallen to the Department of Water Management so far. A department spokesman says it's had 40-50 people on site, working round the clock on the situation. As of noon today, they've managed to fix the section of ruptured pipe and are preparing to repair the 80 ft. of crushed brick sewer under the road, replacing it with new concrete pipe. I pressed for a time estimate for completing the repairs but he said it'd be foolish to even "hazard a guess" at this point.

Emergency Services Update: The Office of Emergency Management and Communications is on the case as well. A spokeswoman says the department has initiated a "reverse callback," i.e. they're inviting residents and business owners to report any power outages. They've also sent out human services reps to offer wellness checks to people living in the area who may be stressed out after a flooded basement. If you've got an outage to report or would like to speak to someone about getting a wellness check, the number to call is(312) 746-9111.

Bonus Explainer: Pictures like the shot above had me scratching my head a bit. What was originally filling all the now-open space beneath the street? And what happened to it?

Answer: Sand. According to Tom LaPorte, a spokesman for the Department of Water Management, the ground beneath Montrose Avenue and beneath a lot of streets in old Chicago neighborhoods is particularly sandy, making it particularly prone to being washed away in the event of a broken water main. There's some grim humor in thinking that the inches of sand now lining basements across the neighborhood could be some of the same sand that held up the street just a few days earlier.

Got a question? LaPorte and officials at some of the other departments I spoke to today offered to answer follow-up questions on the collapse. If you've got a query send me an e-mail, call me at 312.503.3818, or leave a comment below. In a few days I'll post a Q & A on the blog.

Welcome to Wish You Were Here, a new column on the newly relaunched Windy Citizen. From October 29, 2006 through December 2007 I ran the Windy Citizen as a blog where I'd post the occasional feature or news story as well as work from friends and colleagues at the Medill School of Journalism in Chicago. During that time I scored a few viral web hits and found I really enjoyed the whole online publishing thing. So here I am again, accompanied now by a staff of fellow journos with web interests, revamping this site into a daily news and commentary site for the Chicago set.

The new Windy Citizen serves up a handful of original news stories and features each day while playing host to a growing number of blogs. The inimitable Jon Rubin's blogging about the best postings on Craigslist Chicago, Jeremy Gantz will be exploring the frontiers of gentrification in Bucktown, where he lives, Matt Medved's going to be covering the local sports scene in his own special way. And I'll be wading into and pointing you toward the outer reaches of Chicago culture.

Wish You Were Here is going to be a news column (re: driven by original reporting) about Chicago's most fantastic places and faces. Interesting parties, scenes, events, spaces, gatherings...I'll be hitting them up and reporting back on what I find using video, text, photos, live blogging, etc. When I can't go myself, I'll tell you everything you need to know to go and then give you a spaceto report back to the public. As I subscribe whole-heartedly to Gillmor's law, I'll be looking to crowdsource some of the reporting on this blog by dumping out my reporter's notebook and letting you run with what I've managed to dig up already. The plan is to shine the light of truth onto "outbreaks of the fantastic" here in Chicago. What's an "outbreak of the fantastic?" you ask? Well, here are a few I've covered already:

• 20 fiercely individualistic geeks submit to tyrant rule in the name of video games.
• A Wicker Park store claims to sell "nothing at all," and yet has children coming in and out at all hours of the day.
• A convenience store near Midway airport gets invaded by cartoon characters and middle-aged moms from the North Side.

In each of these situations, something fantastic, something that could only exist in your mind, creeps for a brief moment into being. These are outbreaks of the fantastic, and for many (myself included), they keep life interesting. This column is not about "geek culture." This column is not about "fantasy culture." This column is not about goth, body mod, gearhead, burning man, or drug culture. And yet there will be nerds. There will be wizards. There will be goths, tattoos, urban explorers, pyromaniacs, rogue mechanics, hallucinogens and much more. All of these "subcultures" have something to offer, nevertheless I hope to get bogged down by no single one. So let's get started. Where should I go? What should I see here in Chicago? Where is the next wave of the fantastic breaking in the Windy City? Welcome.