Chicago Reader print issue of June 26, 2025 (Vol. 54, No. 38)

Why resist Lincoln’s queerness?

Roger Q. Mason’s stage play and film Lavender Men interrogates American mythology. by Kat Sachs, p. 15

THIS WEEK

04 Passages Michael Miner’s thoughtful approach helped give the Reader its soul.

06 Street View A comedian wears acid green while doing errands.

08 Reader Bites Hōjicha latte at Drip Collective

10 Report | Brown LGBTQ+ health care providers brace for cuts under the Trump administration.

12 Schools CPS interim leadership determined a er Martinez exit

COMMENTARY

13 Religion Catholic institutions are skirting labor protections under the guise of “religious liberty.”

14 Books | Cardoza A handful of book recommendations to while away the summer heat

15 Cover Story Roger Q. Mason’s stage play and film Lavender Men interrogates American mythology.

18 Movies of Note Bride Hard tries unsuccessfully to marry Die Hard (1988) and Bridesmaids (2011), F1 is a promising action film that unfortunately veers off course, and more.

19 The Secret History of Chicago Music The Puta-Pons had too much fun to last.

22 Shows of Note Previews of concerts including Lifeguard, Vijay Iyer & Wadada Leo Smith, U.S. Girls, and Rhythm Fest

26 Gossip Wolf | Galil The Chicago House Run debuts with six on-route DJ stations, indie rockers Smut take big swings on their first full album as Chicagoans, and more.

25 Savage Love Why did I stay in this situationship for so long?

PUBLISHER AMBER NETTLES

CHIEF OF STAFF ELLEN KAULIG

EDITOR IN CHIEF SALEM COLLO-JULIN

ASSISTANT MANAGING EDITOR

SAVANNAH RAY HUGUELEY

PRODUCTION MANAGER AND STAFF

PHOTOGRAPHER KIRK WILLIAMSON

SENIOR GRAPHIC DESIGNER AMBER HUFF

GRAPHIC DESIGNER AND PHOTO RESEARCHER SHIRA

FRIEDMAN-PARKS

THEATER AND DANCE EDITOR KERRY REID

MUSIC EDITOR PHILIP MONTORO

CULTURE EDITOR: FILM, MEDIA, FOOD AND DRINK TARYN MCFADDEN

CULTURE EDITOR: ART, ARCHITECTURE, BOOKS KERRY CARDOZA

NEWS EDITOR SHAWN MULCAHY

PROJECTS EDITOR JAMIE LUDWIG

DIGITAL EDITOR TYRA NICOLE TRICHE

SENIOR WRITERS LEOR GALIL, DEANNA ISAACS, BEN JORAVSKY, MIKE SULA

FEATURES WRITER KATIE PROUT

SOCIAL JUSTICE REPORTER DEVYN-MARSHALL BROWN (DMB)

STAFF WRITER MICCO CAPORALE

MULTIMEDIA CONTENT PRODUCER SHAWNEE DAY

SOCIAL MEDIA ENGAGEMENT

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VICE PRESIDENT OF PEOPLE AND CULTURE ALIA GRAHAM

DEVELOPMENT MANAGER JOEY MANDEVILLE

DATA ASSOCIATE TATIANA PEREZ

MARKETING ASSOCIATE MAJA STACHNIK

MARKETING ASSOCIATE MICHAEL THOMPSON

SALES REPRESENTATIVE WILL ROGERS

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READER (ISSN 1096-6919) IS PUBLISHED WEEKLY

Roger Q. Mason (right) and Pete Ploszek in Lavender Men (2024). Courtesy Matt Plaxco. Supplemental photography and design by Kirk Williamson.

EDITOR’S NOTE

Southeast Spotlight: Essential Elements

Summer heat (the sticky, disgusting, humid, and oppressive kind) reached Chicago as we were putting this issue together, each day of the week more on fire than the last.

It’s hard not to have parallel thoughts of how on fire the world around us has been this year, so living in a world of imagination and sucking down cold treats from street carts are two of the main activities I’ve been participating in lately.

Ice cream cones, popsicles, paletas, gelati, italian ices, and the occasional frozen candy bars—thank you so much to our international array of street vendors and frozen dessert purveyors here in Chicago. If you need yet another reason to be outside in this city during our summers, let it be the manna of a pistachio-flavored paleta dripping o a balsa wood stick or the sharp tang of lemon ice delivered into your mouth with a substandard plastic spoon (they’re always breaking, it’s OK).

We’re still trying to keep the wheels turning here in Chicago, and our news stories this week point to some people and organizations that haven’t put the “vacation hold” on their email accounts yet this season.

Reader social justice reporter DevynMarshall Brown takes a look at several health providers for Chicago’s LGBTQ+ communities, including the Empowerment Center and the AIDS Foundation of Chicago, and what they’re doing in response to the Trump administration’s misguided decisions. And contributor Maureen Kelleher tells us about the new interim superintendent of the Chicago Public Schools.

We had to bring you some of the imaginative stu as always. Our cover story this week comes from film contributor Kat Sachs, who talked to Roger Q. Mason, a Black, Filipinx, genderqueer writer and actor who can add “playwright” and “filmmaker” to their résumé with their work on Lavender Men

Stay cool and help your friends as we get

Find us on socials:

Facebook and Bluesky: chicagoreader

X: Chicago_Reader

Instagram and Threads: chicago_reader

LinkedIn: chicago-reader

Ice cream and air conditioning: a duet of pleasures KIRK WILLIAMSON

through yet another summer. And figure out ways to have some joy. Eat the ice cream, take the day and read the book in the air conditioning (head to the library if you have to!), and remember that it’s just the heat and blowhards that are oppressing us, not the city of Chicago. v

—Salem Collo-Julin, editor in chief m scollojulin@chicagoreader.com

CORRECTION

The Reader has updated the online version of “Some new and recent summer reading from local chefs, cooks, and restaurateurs,” written by Mike Sula. The original was published in our June 12 Summer and Theater Arts issue (volume 54, number 36).

The story was updated to reflect that writer Meathead does not sell gear, merch, rubs, and sauces, as stated in the original version. v

The Chicago Reader accepts comments and letters to the editor of less than 400 words for publication consideration.

m letters@chicagoreader.com

Keeping the south side in style since 1987

The evolution of the southeast side’s sharpest clothing boutique has shaped its status as a trendsetter for almost four decades. Essential Elements, which started as a jewelry and accessory store, now sells beautiful, bold clothing, shoes, and everything in between.

Melanie Whaley first opened her carefully curated boutique in 1987, but her affinity for fashion has been a lifelong love story. Her commitment to bringing color to the 87th Street corridor has created a caring, confidence-building space for those looking to rework their wardrobe more conscientiously. Because her family owned a retail business, Whaley had the knowledge and support to begin her own brick-andmortar, but her journey was not always glitter and sequins. From having her college portfolio ruined in a flood to almost selling the store’s space a few years a er opening, Essential Elements has persevered and is now a pivotal place for people to look good and feel good. Reassurance from a neighbor is what reinforced Whaley to innovate, and now she extends that same upli ing and inspiring energy to others.

not always easily accessible on the southeast side; Essential Elements is here to provide products specifically picked to last a lifetime in clients’ closets. Whaley continues to seek out unique, international brands, further diversifying the store’s portfolio; she and her team take great pride in being able to adorn women with a worthwhile, one-of-a-kind wardrobe. While their gorgeous garments are the main attraction, high-quality service and nourishment of the human spirit are the intangible aspects of Essential Elements practice that keep clientele coming back.

Essential Elements

With big annual events like a trunk show with local artists, a parking lot sale that has the energy of a summertime Chi cookout, and special offerings for Whaley’s favorite holiday, Mother’s Day, Essential Elements remains steadfast in showing up and supporting its network of patrons as well as charities and other mission-driven organizations. As it enters its 38th year, Essential Elements sets its sights on expanding its space, showcasing more shoes, and generating more in-person opportunities for its community.

Slow fashion and exceptional materials were

ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS

1640 E. 87th Street

Visit the “oasis off of [Stony] Island” both in-store and online.

Tuesday-Saturday 11 AM-6 PM; Sundays noon-4 PM Instagram: essentialelementschicago | shopeechicago.com 773-978-1200, info@shopeechicago.com

Read now

This content is sponsored by the Southeast Chicago Chamber of Commerce

KAYLA MAHAFFEY

Courtesy

CITY LIFE

‘Mike

had a way of conveying some gift’

Michael Miner, August 13, 1943–May 1, 2025

By SALEM COLLO-JULIN

Sometime during the evening of Thursday, May 1, I received a text message from former Reader publisher Tracy Baim telling me that Michael Miner passed away. She said, “Not for public yet but family of Miner told me I could tell Reader people. More soon.” I immediately went to our o ce’s Slack online messaging board and posted, asking people to keep the information between us as long as we could.

Within hours after the break of day on Friday, I received a few phone calls from writers at other publications seeking information for their obituaries. It wasn’t surprising to me that word got around so fast. Miner was legendary, not only to those who worked with him at the Reader but also to former colleagues from the Sun-Times, where he worked in the 1970s, as well as the journalism community at large.

Miner, a former Reader editor and columnist, was truly a journeyman of Chicago journalism and has the distinction of having some influence on every version of the Reader thus far. From his first contribution as a freelancer (an article titled “The Insanity Stops,” documenting Chicagoans at night, was published on pages four and five of our very first issue on October 1, 1971) to his last (revisiting writer John Conroy’s “House of Screams” series on police torture for our 50th anniversary issue on October 28, 2021), Miner’s curiosity and sage observations on writing and life helped define the soul of this publication.

Miner’s family planned a memorial gathering on May 19 at the Newberry Library. At the gathering, Conroy, one of the speakers, talked about meeting Miner first in 1975 for lunch “at a restaurant near Grand and State” arranged through a mutual friend. “[Our friend] was

introducing two men who, despite our chosen professions, were fundamentally shy,” Conroy said as he described Miner’s tendency to take long pauses during conversation but follow up with another thought or o ering, perhaps even on another occasion.

“As nearly every writer in this room knows,” Conroy continued, “after one of those long silences, Mike had a way of conveying some gift.” Former Reader theater editor Albert Williams agreed with this sentiment and told me in a phone conversation that Miner’s longtime media column for this paper, Hot Type, was a perfect embodiment of his ability to take a long view at a topic. “He was objective and distanced, but not distant,” Williams said. “His work is an example of an endangered Chicago journalism tradition: the space to ruminate. Journalism as literature.”

I reached out to former Reader writers and current staffers for more memories and reflections on working with Miner, and here are three that resonated. —Salem Collo-Julin

I learned that Mike Miner died on May Day,

And sat at work looking at his obit

With a photo of him in a fisherman’s hat,

And recalled how he reached out from retirement on the Reader’s Slack

To praise a piece of mine

But also to advise me

That I should never describe someone as “bald”

Because it is as hurtful to the subject as it is meaningless to the reader.

And I remembered about how he insisted

On carrying an old Pack ’n Play to the trunk of my car

Almost three years ago,

Hoisting the box with some train over his tall, thin frame,

But he was a gentleman

And wouldn’t let a pregnant lady do it.

I thought about how he showed up

To the last of the First Tuesdays live shows,

Always curious and complimentary,

A keen observer,

A teller of very interesting stories,

A person more interested in others than himself.

A poem by former Reader staff writer Maya Dukmasova

Michael Miner at his desk at the Reader offi ces at 11 E. Illinois in 2010. ANDREA BAUER

A remembrance from Lisa Newman, a Reader contributor in the 1980s

Thirty-nine years ago, my byline ran on a path-breaking story about the dysfunction of the Chicago Fire Department and its paramedic system. I wanted to cherish that hard-earned byline, but in the end that byline also belonged to my editor, Michael Miner, who in his gentle way, refused to add his name to it.

The story, “Emergency,” published May 9, 1986, culminated in weeks and weeks of exhaustive rewriting and additional research I did in Mike’s cramped Reader o ce, at times him taking over the keyboard and turning my jumble of words into magic.

When an editor sits you down and helps turn a disorganized mess into a brilliant story that not only makes sense—but sings—it should make you a better writer. At the time it seemed like I was getting a first-class private graduate journalism seminar; ironically this was just months

before I left Chicago to earn my master’s degree at the Columbia graduate school of journalism.

I had never written a long-form journalism piece, and I had many, many interviews and great quotes from firefighters and paramedics. But the main thrust of the story was built out of that all-night conversation with that one paramedic during the hostage crisis. He was my best source.

I walked away from that all-nighter with a thorough understanding of a crisis unfolding, and Mike listened intently. He knew we had to get my story into print, but it would take weeks to get it into shape.

In 1993, I left Chicago to join the Clinton administration in Washington, and Mike and I lost touch, at least in a personal way. My dad, for a long time, carefully cut out Mike’s Reader columns and mailed them to me. For years.

From Philip Montoro, Reader music editor

I was hired by the Reader in 1996, when I was 25 years old, and to my young eyes Mike Miner was the soul and conscience of the place: smart, insightful, ethical, irreverent, generous, and funny. I never had the good fortune to benefit from Mike’s famously cleareyed and thorough editing—news people and music people hoed parallel rows—but his steady, thoughtful presence nonetheless created a gravitational center that gave me a way to tell whether my work was worthy of the Reader. The Reader continued to evolve after Mike retired in 2017, of course, and in his characteristically bemused but bighearted way, he evolved with it. I loved seeing him at the paper’s UnGala in November 2022, and I was glad to read what he posted on Facebook afterward. “I marveled at the collection of

people the Reader assembled at the MCA Wednesday night,” he wrote. “Most were far younger than I, and that was a very good thing, as my cohort (I rejoiced in everyone in it I saw) is good now mostly for fobbing off memories as heritage. And the people were far more ethnically diverse than any crowd I can remember from any of OUR Reader parties, and far gayer too. All this merely means the Reader has tacked with the winds, survived the storms, and remains a Reader I recognize and believe in.”

The storms are just getting started, it seems. But before Mike left us, he reminded us of the principles we’ll need to make sure that, as long as the Reader exists, it’ll be a paper we can believe in. v

m scollojulin@chicagoreader.com

Le : Miner and Lisa Newman at Lou Malnati’s on State Street in 2019; right: Miner and his daughter Laura in 2012

COURTESY LISA NEWMAN, JOANNA MINER THOMAS

CITY LIFE

STREET

VIEW

Zest for style

A bureaucratic errand didn’t stop this comedian from shining in lime green.

By ISA GIALLORENZO

It was all about those neon socks with the silver loafers. Linda Orr’s entire look presented a stunning mix of lime green and neutrals, but her footwear was a testament to her fashion prowess.

“I have been doing a sock and a loafer for, I’ll just say, a year,” Orr said. “And I had to do it today because it’s so hot out.”

Orr’s radiant tube socks, purchased from Shein for $3, did the double duty of infusing

style and wicking moisture. The socks’ black stripes matched shorts Orr bought from Amazon for $12.

“I feel bad about that,” she said, regarding giving money to the corporate retailer.

Orr considers herself to have very conscious shopping habits despite owning a few fast-fashion staples. “In general, I get almost all my clothes secondhand. Even though I do have my Amazon shorts on and my Shein socks, I always go shopping on a mission,” she said.

“Before I go shopping, I’ll look at my closet. What do I have? What do I have in the closet that I like, but I don’t wear because I don’t have anything to pair it with?”

When Orr goes to Salvation Army (“Salvation Armani ,” she quipped), “I have a game plan. The last time I went, I wore a skirt that I didn’t have a top for.”

Though Orr clearly enjoys composing coordinated outfits, she also likes mixing un-

expected colors and patterns. “I just have fun with it,” she said.

An actor, comedian, and improviser, Orr leads a creative life. “And I do have another job where I write blurbs for movies, but that’s not important,” she said. Orr performs with the improv troupe Dumb John weekly at The Free Show , a no-cost comedy performance held Wednesday nights at iO Theater.

Surprisingly youthful for being 50 years old, Orr credits her 45-minute daily home workouts as the key to her fresh appearance, as well as the sunglasses she was wearing.

“I also laugh a lot, so maybe that helps. I do eat a lot of vegetables, but I don’t really have a skincare routine. I just wash my face with soap and water,” she shared. The day she was photographed, Orr only had a tinted moisturizer on.

Though Orr could easily rock any kind of garment, she says she doesn’t like anything too skimpy. “I have two pairs of these shorts because they’re long and I’m old.”

Orr bought her transparent green fanny pack from Ragstock and the tote bag was made by her mom.

Orr’s tailored shorts are truly versatile and could be paired with basically anything. That day, she decided to go for a neon look in homage to her love of the 1980s and fluorescent hues. Her transparent Ragstock fanny pack was the perfect complement to her outfit, as well as the book bag made by her mom, featuring an edited photo Orr took of herself.

On her way to Comcast to complain about an unjust rate raise, Orr seemed way too stylish for the errand. “Fashion is pure joy for me. I love finding clothes that make me happy. . . . Everyone should have a style that makes them excited about how they look,” she said.

“I have been asked, ‘What are people going to think if I wear this?’ We always assume that others will find something negative to say . . . but the truth is, whenever someone walks in with their A game on, [my] response is always ‘That person looks amazing.’” v

m letters@chicagoreader.com

Linda

ISA GIALLORENZO

“Scrolling”

How is it possible

To watch two bodies in Gaza

POETRY CORNER

By Maya Dukmasova

Blasted up into the steely clouds, With an explosion of smoke

From a gray landscape of ruin, Flying vertically,

Right past a break where orange sunset peaks through In a strangely friendly streak

Then watch an ad for a toy toddlers don’t need

Then an ad for a column about how “toys are a scam”

“Cruise ships are killing the planet”

A stroller competition

“Things that are normal in a relationship”

Russian women who get abortions will now get plastic model embryos afterward

“Yemen is acting responsibly”

“One mother’s reflection on discomfort and self-worth”

Seafoam green ballet flats.

All this mental consumption To make all action consumption.

A weekly series curated by the Chicago Reader and sponsored by the Poetry Foundation.

Opening Hours

Wednesday - Saturday: 11 AM - 5 PM

Poetry All Summer

The Poetry Foundation is Chicago’s own literary oasis, featuring a library with more than 40,000 volumes of poetry, a light-filled gallery, and a roster of public events—all FREE and open to the public!

Learn more at PoetryFoundation.org

FOOD & DRINK

The hōjicha latte is an underhyped drink with the potential to dethrone matcha as the drink of choice among pilates princesses and Gen Zers. Low in caffeine and boasting a smokier, sweeter, and moodier flavor profile, hōjicha is the often overlooked middle child of the green tea family. It tends to blend in due to its discreet color and subtle taste, but this hidden gem is now shining in the heart of Chicago.

sip, I reveled in the latte’s comforting and soothing taste, captivated by its unique blend of floral and nutty pandan vanilla, smooth espresso, subtle cinnamon, and perfectly frothed milk.

Adding espresso enhances the cocoa notes of the hōjicha and provides an extra ca eine boost, and the cinnamon complements the pandan, balancing the sweetness and emphasizing a warm, woody taste. If you prefer a deca einated version like I do, you can skip the espresso for a more relaxed experience.

Only a handful of places include this tea on their menu, and one of them is West Loop co ee shop Drip Collective. After ordering the hōjicha latte, my curiosity was piqued as I eyed the reddish-brown hue of the sencha and kukicha leaves roasting in a porcelain pot over charcoal. Upon my first

MONDAY NIGHT

FOODBALL

Drip Collective has truly mastered the art of the hōjicha latte, enhancing the tea’s velvety and earthy taste. The result is something wonderfully akin to an elevated, adult hot chocolate.

—ASHLEY THOMPSON DRIP COLLECTIVE 172 N. Racine, $7, dripcollective.coffee v

Reader Bites celebrates dishes, drinks, and atmospheres from the Chicagoland food scene. Have you had a recent food or drink experience that you can’t stop thinking about? Share it with us at fooddrink@ chicagoreader.com.

The Reader’s weekly chef pop-up series at Frank and Mary’s Tavern, 2905 N. Elston

Follow the chefs, @chicago_reader, and @mikesula on Instagram for weekly menu drops, ordering info, updates, and the stories behind Chicago’s most exciting foodlums.

Head to chicagoreader.com/foodball for weekly menus and ordering info!

Hōjicha latte at Drip Collective

Maya Dukmasova is a senior reporter at Injustice Watch where she writes about systemic inequities in the court system. She also has a daily poetry practice.

Chicago Reader’s new biweekly column from Chicago historian

NEWS & POLITICS

HEALTH CARE

LGBTQ+ health centers brace for Trump’s attacks

Chicago-area research labs and community clinics are navigating illegal funding stoppages, censorship, and increasing anti-LGBTQ+ violence.

By DEVYN-MARSHALL BROWN (DMB)

John Peller’s two decades as an AIDS Foundation of Chicago (AFC) staff member have been marked by highs and lows.

In 2010, after President Barack Obama signed the A ordable Care Act into law, millions of people living with HIV or vulnerable to the virus could, for the first time, access comprehensive care.

Two years later, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) drug, which revolutionized HIV prevention. The treatment is more than 99 percent e ective when taken consistently and correctly.

Then, in 2015, a two-year budget impasse under then governor Bruce Rauner meant state-funded agencies like AFC were left with a dry well and no cash flow.

But Peller, who joined AFC as a lobbyist in 2005 and is now the organization’s president and CEO, says President Donald Trump’s attacks on public health care represent some of the most serious threats he’s seen. “[The] changes that are happening now and being proposed are definitely some of the toughest that we have seen in my history of the AIDS Foundation,” Peller says.

The Trump administration has been making strident cuts to public health initiatives for LGBTQ+ people and HIV prevention and treatment.

Trump officials have already slashed $1.8 billion in research grants through the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) removed references to gender identity, transgender people, and equity in its data. The chaos in the federal administration is starting to a ect Chicago today, as those changes have resulted in lost funding, fewer community programs for LGBTQ+ people, and a growing wave of anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment in the city and across the country.

One of the first programs targeted by the Trump administration was the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the

world’s flagship program for distributing HIV medication to clinics and vulnerable people globally. Shortly after taking office, Trump instituted a 90-day freeze on all programs overseen by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)—which administers PEPFAR—before swiftly laying o most USAID staff. Since then, his administration has illegally refused to spend the vast majority of the $7 billion appropriated for PEPFAR by Congress.

Trump’s 2026 budget proposes maintaining funding for domestic HIV care and PreP, but it suggests cuts of more than $1.5 billion—including the elimination of HIV prevention and surveillance from the CDC, housing assistance programs, and more. The proposal also seeks to slash millions of dollars in funding that flows to local organizations like AFC.

“When we saw the really brutal, devastating, heartless cuts that the Trump administration made without congressional authori-

zation to the PEPFAR program,” Peller says, “we became increasingly concerned about the future of HIV programs domestically.”

University researchers, whose funding comes largely from the NIH, and queer community organizations, many of which rely on money from the CDC, are bearing the brunt of the storm.

The NIH terminated $8.9 million in financial support for Northwestern University’s Impact Institute, which supported research into health care for queer teenagers, e ective HIV prevention, and more. The Impact Institute is one of the largest LGBTQ+ health research centers in the world, and Brian Mustanski, the institute’s director, says the loss of funding has left people without jobs and ended groundbreaking research and successful community partnerships.

Postdoctoral students whose work was funded by slashed grants are now trying to transfer to another of the lab’s research proj-

ects, according to Caitlin Kelleher-Montero, a research project coordinator. Some people who lost funding have been o ered positions at other institutions, while others are unemployed. “All across the LGBTQ health spectrum, funding has been slashed,” she says. One of the research studies that lost funding was nearly 20 years old—one of the longest HIV studies following a group of gay and bisexual men over time, Mustanski says. It sought to understand the risk and protective factors for HIV and substance use in that population, and it provided more than 2,000 HIV tests to more than 1,000 young men who participated in the project. When participants were diagnosed, researchers connected them to care through a collaboration between the institute and the Center on Halsted. In these contexts, the description “research” is almost a misnomer because it obscures the amount of HIV services delivered to the community through research projects. “We’ve got excellent treatment approaches, but we are just not implementing them sufficiently in the United States in a way that would let us end the epidemic,” Mustanski says. “We were making tremendous progress on helping organizations throughout the country understand how to most effectively deliver HIV services, and that was also terminated by the administration.”

Mustanski tells the Reader that designing a study like this takes collaboration between epidemiologists, physicians, biologists, virologists, and more. When a project this comprehensive is terminated, it could take years to get it back up and running. Scientists are used to the rejection that comes with highly competitive NIH grants. “What we’re not used to,” Mustanski says, “is these ideas and these studies that have gone through such a rigorous process being terminated with very little justification.”

The second hit that the institute, and research and community health centers like it, are su ering is censorship. The CDC removed or edited out all references to transgender people, gender identity, and equity from its website in January. Now, the organizations the CDC funds must follow suit in their own

reporting to the federal government. “Everything having to do with LGBTQ healthcare, basically, we can’t talk about,” Kelleher-Montero says.

Until May, the Impact Institute was called the Northwestern Institute for Sexual and Gender Minority Health and Wellbeing. The name change, Kelleher-Montero says, is a result of censorship. As researchers apply for new grants, LGBTQ+-related words cannot be used in applications. Kelleher-Montero says,

LGBTQ+ COMMUNITY RESOURCES

Center on Cottage Grove

Mon-Sun 9 AM-5 PM, 6323 S. Cottage Grove, 773-472-6469, centeronhalsted.org Center on Halsted

Mon-Sun 8 AM-9 PM, 3656 N. Halsted, 773-472-6469, centeronhalsted.org

The Empowerment Center at the Puerto Rican Cultural Center

Mon-Fri 10 AM-6 PM, 2753 W. Division, 773394-4935, instagram.com/transchicago HIV Resource Hub

Mon-Thu 9 AM-9 PM, Fri 9 AM-5 PM, Sat 1-5 PM, 3656 N. Halsted, 844-482-4040, hivhub.org

Howard Brown Health

Hours vary, eight locations from Rogers Park to Englewood, 773-388-1600, howardbrown.org/locations

Project Vida

Testing center: Mon-Fri 9 AM-8 PM, Sat

10 AM-6 PM, 2659 S. Kedvale; food pantry: Mon-Tue 10 AM-7 PM, Thu-Fri 10-7 PM, Sat 10 AM-5 PM, 3501 W. 26th; community care center: Mon-Fri 9 AM-8 PM, Sat 10 AM-6 PM, 4111 W. 26th; 773-277-2291; projectvida.org Vivent Health + TPAN

Clinic: Mon 8 AM-5 PM, Tue noon-5 PM, Wed-Fri 8 AM-5 PM; pharmacy: Mon-Fri 8:30 AM-5 PM; food pantry: by appointment only; 5537 N. Broadway; 773989-9400; viventhealth.org/chicago

in her opinion, queer people will have a more di cult time finding support when organizations have to hide what they o er. Although HIV disproportionately impacts queer folks, she continues, defunding HIV work affects everyone. “By defunding queer research, we’re defunding public health as a whole,” Kelleher-Montero says.

Amongst young people, Mustanski says,

more than three-quarters of HIV cases are diagnosed in young gay and bisexual men, so to be cost-e ective research must be done in a way that focuses on how to reach that particular community. “There’s no practical way to do HIV prevention in the United States that doesn’t recognize the existence of these disparities that impact our community.”

The Impact Institute is not the only place that’s changed its name in response to the presidential administration’s attacks on

to “gender ideology.” They were also directed to take down trans-themed decorations and redesign their logo, which featured the trans flag.

“We’re still trying to keep these programs running,” Perez says. But now those events must be paid for out of pocket or using funds from other sources. “However, with the letter that we received, it made it very clear that if a CDC grants compliance o cer were to come in and see stu that’s specifically for the trans

organization’s budget, according to Peller. The nonprofit leads Getting to Zero Illinois, a statewide public–private partnership of 50 government, community, and health-care organizations working to end the HIV epidemic in Illinois by 2030. AFC provides case management to more than 8,000 people living with HIV in the Chicagoland area and o ers 1,000 units of housing for people living with HIV.

Peller says, “We have been very, very fortunate to escape major cuts so far, but it does feel like those cuts could come any moment.”

LGBTQ+ people. The Trans Empowerment Center at the Puerto Rican Cultural Center in Humboldt Park—now simply the Empowerment Center—is navigating a similar issue.

Chicago LGBT Hall of Famer Lisa Isadora Cruz started the Empowerment Center, nicknamed Trans Chicago, as a program to prevent AIDS in the Latine community through free HIV testing. Trans Chicago continued to develop as new hands added and molded new programming. Today, the organization provides counseling for safer sex, sex toys and contraceptives, trans support groups (which includes nonbinary and gender nonconforming people), queer markets, free clothing distributions, hormone referrals, hygienic supplies, and more.

Because it receives CDC grants, the Empowerment Center has to abide by CDC policy. Program coordinators Jai Perez and Tichike Tumalan say that before the CDC policy changes, they could transparently say that they served the trans community. But, after Trump’s election, much of the center’s work came to a halt because the CDC sent them a letter saying they needed to cut all programming related

population, they can report it.”

They also cannot include anyone’s sexuality or gender (outside of “male” and “female”) in HIV test reporting sent to the CDC. Perez says the organization’s director had to spend an entire day delving into reports to remove any language relating to gender identity or sexuality. “It felt like a song with a lot of cuss words on the radio. It was just like a lot of blanks,” Perez says. “That funding is now secure for the Empowerment Center activities, but we don’t really have access to that when it comes to, like, immediate support for trans people.”

The Empowerment Center still plans to keep the focus on transgender people, even if they have to omit the language. They’re just trying to figure out which channels they can use to reach the trans community without breaking CDC rules and getting their funding cut.

While the Trump administration’s attacks on LGBTQ+ health care have forced some Chicago-area research and community centers to cut services, other providers are bracing for more to come.

AFC relies on the federal government for funding—it makes up 80 percent of the

Despite the uncertain future of public health, the Test Positive Aware Network (TPAN) and Vivent Health doubled down on their commitment to the LGBTQ+ community with a new, state-of-the-art facility in Edgewater in May. The partnership with Northwestern Medicine o ers wraparound care, including a medical clinic with primary care doctors, a pharmacy, behavioral health care, access to PreP and other preventive services, a food pantry, case management, and housing services.

Four decades ago, TPAN started as a peer-led, Chicago-based HIV support organization that o ered case management and social services. The organization merged with Vivent Health in 2023.

“I’m able to say today that all of the funding that we received previously is still coming to Vivent Health,” says Bill Keeton, the organization’s chief advocacy o cer, “which means we are continuing to deliver all of the same care and treatment services that we have throughout our history.”

Why is Trump targeting LGBTQ+ and HIV/AIDS care? Peller believes the Trump administration’s war on universities and higher education is, in part, because of the perception that “elite” institutions are against them. But many of the programs are also targeted because they’re geared toward Black and Brown and trans and queer communities—the very communities Trump has sought to attack.

According to Kelleher-Montero, “The most powerful HIV prevention and treatment tools exist right now because of how much research has been done,” so access to those resources is more important than ever. v m dmbrown@chicagoreader.com

AIDS Foundation of Chicago board member Caprice Carthans BREEZE ART PHOTOGRAPHY

NEWS & POLITICS

SCHOOLS

What’s next for CPS?

New leadership and looming budget problems are on the horizon for Chicago Public Schools.

By MAUREEN KELLEHER

June 18 was the last day on the job for Pedro Martinez, the long-embattled chief executive officer of Chicago Public Schools. Only a week before he left, the Chicago Board of Education narrowly voted to appoint Mayor Brandon Johnson’s senior director of education policy, Dr. Macquline King, as interim CEO.

The leadership change comes after months of strife over power and money between Martinez and the mayor. Johnson wanted Martinez to support borrowing $300 million to make a pension payment for nonteaching CPS sta and fund the new Chicago Teachers Union contract. Martinez refused.

Some parents see this moment as a refreshing change from all the drama of the past year. “I’m looking forward to a clean slate,” said Corina Pedraza, a CPS parent and community organizer who works at the Back of the Yards public library. “There’s a partially elected school board now. We have a new person coming in to replace Pedro. And for the first time in a long time—not ever, but in a super long time—we have a progressive mayor. I’m excited to see what could happen now that those three are aligning.”

Others are more skeptical. “I’m not optimistic about the interim CEO. I believe she has been placed there to do Mayor Brandon Johnson’s bidding,” said CPS parent Natasha Dunn, a longtime activist in South Shore. “The board is not addressing the literacy crisis. They are not addressing the schools that are half empty. That needs to happen, and I think it’s not going to happen.”

For months, rumors swirled that the mayor’s choice for interim leader of CPS would be his chief of sta , former state senator Cristina Pacione-Zayas. CPS parent Mark Smithivas, who volunteered on her first campaign for the Illinois state senate, said, “I would have loved to have [her] be the interim CEO. I found her very thoughtful about education policies. She has experience as an elected o cial and a chief of sta .”

But in March, the school board unanimously voted to require both the interim and the final hire to hold a superintendent’s license. Pacione-Zayas does not have that credential, but King does. She will serve as interim until the currently underway search for a permanent superintendent is complete.

TASK NUMBER ONE: FIXING FINANCES

King’s first task will be to find a way to close the school district’s estimated $529 million budget deficit. In mid-June, the Civic Federation, a fiscal watchdog of the Chicago and Illinois governments, warned that the estimate is based on questionable assumptions. Among these assumptions are that CPS will not see any cuts to federal funding and that the city will make a massive contribution to school district finances through tax increment financing (TIF) funds. The Civic Federation also noted that the budgets sent to schools in May were based on an even lower estimate of the budget shortfall.

Additionally, Mayor Johnson wants CPS to contribute $175 million to a city pension fund that includes nonteaching sta in the school district. The city, not the school district, is legally obligated to pay into the pension fund. Under Mayor Lori Lightfoot, CPS began contributing to the fund to more clearly separate school district finances from the city. But this year, the school board did not contribute.

“I definitely don’t perceive that this will be easy,” King told the Chicago Sun-Times earlier this month.

WHO IS MACQULINE KING?

Previously an award-winning CPS principal, King’s record was tarnished by investigations into negligence of student safety protocols during her years leading Uptown’s Courtenay Language Arts Center. She never received more than a warning for her actions, and recently told the Sun-Times she takes full responsibility for what happened in the incidents that were investigated.

Back in the early 2000s, aspiring teacher Monica Sims Lewis met King, who worked as a mentor teacher at the Chicago Academy ele-

Dr. Macquline King has a doctorate in education from National Louis University.

mentary school. There, the Academy for Urban School Leadership trains aspiring teachers through a yearlong residency under the supervision of experienced mentor teachers. Though King didn’t mentor her directly, Lewis said, “I saw how great she was with students. She was one of those teachers a lot of us young teachers looked up to and admired.” In fact, King inspired Lewis to earn National Board Certification, an advanced credential for outstanding teachers. Today, Lewis is a senior managing director with Teach for America Detroit.

A CPS press release announcing King’s appointment noted her recent experience working across city agencies to enroll migrant students and expand access to early childhood programs. “Identifying an interim candidate who understands the services, components, concerns, and politics that go along with this role—and how to balance them—was paramount,” said Sean Harden, board president. Board members have said they hope to make a permanent hire by the fall, but a brief from the Council of the Great City Schools, a nonprofit that supports the country’s largest city school districts, suggests a realistic timeline could be as long as nine months. v

m letters@chicagoreader.com

Pedro Martinez seated behind Spencer Technology Academy students during a story hour event on September 9, 2024

Religious orgs make workers pay

Catholic colleges and other institutions are claiming “religious liberty” while denying workers basic protections.

By A.J. SCHUMANN, OTHERWORDS

Like nearly a third of U.S. adults, I was raised Catholic. So when Pope Leo XIV was elected, I took note.

What stood out to me was not just our shared nationality, but the legacy of his chosen name.

His predecessor, Leo XIII, issued Rerum Novarum , an 1891 encyclical that supported labor unions and championed workers’ rights. But in the United States today, those rights are under threat—often by Catholic institutions themselves, which are increasingly using claims of “religious liberty” to sidestep labor protections.

One case currently before the Supreme Court makes the danger clear. Subsidiaries of Catholic Charities Bureau, a religious nonprofit, are challenging Wisconsin over whether they should be required to pay into the state’s unemployment insurance system. They argue that because Catholic Charities’ mission is religious, the subsidiaries—which perform secular social services and employ non-Catholics—shouldn’t have to follow the same rules that apply to all other secular organizations. If the Court agrees, any church-affiliated employer who claims a religious motivation could opt out of contributing to this worker safety net. [Editor’s note: the Court sided with Catholic Charities in a June 5 decision.]

Another tactic some religious organizations are using is to claim a “ministerial exception.” Ostensibly intended to protect a church’s autonomy in choosing its spiritual leaders, the exception has since been stretched into a catchall excuse to deny employees of religious schools all kinds of legal recourse.

For instance, in 2014, a teacher at Saint James Catholic School in Torrance, California, was let go after being diagnosed with breast cancer and requesting time o for treatment. She believed her termination violated the Americans with Disabilities Act and sued. But in a 2020 ruling, the Supreme Court found her role fell under the ministerial exception. (Tragically, the teacher died before her case was ever resolved.)

Last year, another federal court upheld the firing of a teacher at Charlotte Catholic High School in North Carolina after he announced his marriage to a same-sex partner on social media. Despite teaching secular subjects, the court deemed his role su ciently religious to fall under the ministerial exception, barring his discrimination claim under the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Five years ago, the National Labor Relations Board established a broad standard for religious exemptions to the 1935 National Labor Relations Act, which grants employees the right to unionize. Following this, Saint Xavier University in Chicago and Florida’s Saint Leo University dissolved faculty unions that had weathered over 40 years of collective bargaining. Marquette University in Milwaukee is currently relying on the same exception to block its faculty from unionizing.

These legal maneuvers distort the true meaning of religious freedom. The First Amendment was meant to shield houses of worship from state interference, not to provide religious organizations with a sword to cut down the rights of others whenever it suits their interests.

If left unchallenged, this string of rulings will create a two-tiered system of worker protections: one set of rights for people working for secular employers, and another—far weaker—set of rights for those working in religious settings.

The consequences are far-reaching. Religious organizations employ an estimated 1.2 million people nationwide. Nearly 20 percent of hospital beds in the U.S. are in religiously affiliated facilities. Catholic schools alone employ tens of thousands of teachers and sta members.

If these employers are allowed to claim broad exceptions to labor laws, millions of workers could find themselves without protections. And if secular employers are allowed to claim religious motivation and take advantage of religious exemptions, the number of workers denied civil rights protections could increase exponentially.

There is a long tradition in Catholicism— from Pope Leo XIII to Dorothy Day—of standing with workers. That legacy deserves better than to be contorted into a legal loophole for skirting labor protections. When an employer invokes faith to duck accountability, it’s not practicing religion—it’s exploiting it.

Find

A.J. Schumann is a member of Made By Us’s national Youth250 Bureau and a youth organizing fellow at Americans United for Separation of Church and State. This op-ed was distributed by otherwords.org v

m letters@chicagoreader.com

dropoffs and boxes on the South and West sides!

An arch at Saint Xavier University’s Mount Greenwood campus COURTESY SAINT

ARTS & CULTURE

BOOKS

Beach reads

Essential books for when it’s too hot to leave the AC or the lakeside

By KERRY CARDOZA

The first day of summer brought with it a stretch of dangerous, record-high temperatures. There’s not much to do in weather like this besides go for a swim, eat paletas, and park it in some air-conditioning. A good book—or any juicy page-turner— can make the sweltering hours pass a little more pleasurably. So here’s a handful of recommendations for recent or forthcoming beach reads. (And if you’re looking for new books for a little one in your life, you could do worse than grab Prisons Must Fall , Mariame Kaba’s latest for Haymarket—written with Jane Ball and illustrated by local artist Olly Costello.)

No Fault: A Memoir of Romance and Divorce by Haley Mlotek (Viking)

Amid the recent spate of divorce memoirs and memoir-adjacent novels rises Haley Mlotek’s No Fault Girlies in the know have been following Mlotek since her days editing the much-beloved blog the Hairpin.

Her writing hits like a cool glass of water on a hot day, or a sharp slap across the face. Instead of an overthe-top takedown of the author’s ex-husband, Mlotek’s memoir takes

the reader through her experience of understanding divorce, from the divorces of her grandmother and parents to her mother’s work as a divorce mediator to the complex ways that divorce shows up in popular media. My favorite beach reads are always critical texts written by brilliant women, and this one definitely fits the bill. Mlotek’s clear perspective—not to mention her ability to remain hopeful about love, and by extension the possibilities of life, after being forced to rethink what the future might hold—makes this “divorce memoir” better than many others.

Strike While the Needle Is Hot: A Discography of Worker’s Revolt by Josh MacPhee and Kennedy Block (Common Notions)

This labor music compendium by archivist Kennedy Block and artist Josh MacPhee arrives right on time, accompanying yet another hot labor summer. (MacPhee is a former Chicagoan and is perhaps best known

the Wheel is a fascinating biography of the race car driver Joan LaCosta. It also doubles as a look into 1920sera Chicago, where LaCosta moved as an adult. Joan LaCosta (born

it seems clear that Jo shares that same reverence; the author can rest assured that Blowfish rises to the expectations she had for it—it is a subtle, searing masterpiece.

for cofounding Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative and starting the Celebrate People’s History poster project.) Focusing almost exclusively on North America and Europe, this book provides a brief but thorough overview of some of the best music to come out of labor movements throughout the 20th century. Full of gorgeous images of album art and inserts as well as contemporaneous news items, Strike While the Needle Is Hot shows workers taking full control of their messaging—spreading info and raising funds for strikes and documenting their own actions. And since this is a book that also deserves to be heard as well as read, the authors shared some of their favorite tracks on WFMU; readers can also do their own research based on a discography at the start of the book.

Marion Carver in Kentucky) was just one of several identities the pioneering racer would try on as she broke records across the country. That is until the Great Depression started closing in, and a final stunt— an attempted robbery at Hyde Park’s Chicago Beach Hotel—brought it all to an abrupt end.

Blowfish by Kyung-Ran Jo (Astra House)

Nothing Compares to You: What Sinéad O’Connor Means to Us edited by Sonya Huber and Martha Bayne (Atria/One Signal Publishers)

Perhaps the most straightforward page-turner on this list, Daredevil at

In spare prose, best-selling Korean author Kyung-Ran Jo draws out the tale of two creatives: a sculptor and an architect, both bent on ending their lives, who meet by chance. Blowfish , deftly translated into English by Chi-Young Kim, alternates between the two characters’ perspectives in brief interludes. In a post-novel author’s note, Jo writes that Blowfish took the longest to write of any of her novels (this is her third). “I have been waiting to write this novel from the moment I put pen to paper. I didn’t want to tell this story too soon, this story I knew I could write just once,” she writes. Just as the protagonists hold art above all other earthly concerns,

Edited by former Reader sta er Martha Bayne and author Sonya Huber, this essay collection by women and nonbinary authors pays tender, loving homage to the late Irish singer. It opens with a foreword by musician Neko Case—a quick but stirring portrait of her life as a protofeminist punk in a male-centric 90s music scene who was thus late to check out O’Connor’s soul-rattling music. Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha writes movingly about how O’Connor, a fellow incest survivor, helped them find the strength to make it out of their tragic beginnings. Another poignant piece comes from Myriam Gurba, who highlights O’Connor’s grace and humility, and the bittersweet outpouring of respect that followed the singer’s death in 2023. “It’s easy to admit that your enemy was right once she’s dead,” Gurba writes, in a timely call for righteousness. v

Daredevil at the Wheel: The Climb and Crash of Joan LaCosta by Tony St. Clair (Lyons Press)

Why resist Lincoln’s queerness?

Roger Q. Mason’s stage play and film Lavender Men interrogates American mythology.

As told to KAT SACHS

Todd, in the weeks leading up to the 16th president’s assassination—Cole Escola’s now Tony Award–winning Oh, Mary!—became the toast of Broadway. But, as it turns out, it had been a simmering undercurrent in this generation of artists’ desire to reclaim and, in their own way, revise history.

Nearly concurrently worked Roger Q. Mason, a Black, Filipinx, genderqueer writer–actor, who, during their time attending Northwestern University, began laying the foundation for what would become a play and a film, Lavender Men, which they wrote and star in, both directed by Lovell Holder, the latter now available on VOD.

Mason plays the stage manager of an uninspired show about Lincoln, and, in their summoning of an escapist fantasia, becomes Ta eta, a mystical interloper in the reimagined love story between Lincoln and Elmer Ellsworth, a drill sergeant whom the president, when he was just a lawyer in Springfield, took under his tutelage.

I spoke with Mason via Zoom about the origins of Lavender Men , the Lincolns and Ellsworth, and how the text resonates in a time more divided than ever.

Lavender Men started as a play for the stage that I was writing during my years living in Chicago. I was a graduate student at Northwestern, getting an MFA in stage- and screenwriting. And the year before I accepted the offer from Northwestern, I did a tour of Illinois. During that tour, I thought I’d go to the state capital because I had written a series of short plays about characters in Lincoln’s life that sort of surrounded his mythology, and I was looking to write a centerpiece specifically about him.

And so I went to the Lincoln Library in Springfield. This was, I think, 2013 or early 2014, and the books from the research team of [Steven Spielberg’s 2012] movie Lincoln were still out from the shelves. So I thumbed through all of the things that [the film’s screenwriter] Tony Kushner was reading, and one of them was a book called The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln . It was published in 2005, and it was a somewhat disputed text about his sexual life before marrying Mary Todd Lincoln and during his time with her.

Some of the stories were more well-known tales of his homosocial behavior. You know, we weren’t in the bed with him, so we don’t know how deep he got into it, but at least they were homosocial a liations, feelings of deep amorous connection to men. But the one that stuck out to me was the story of Elmer Ellsworth, who was this 24-, 25-year-old young man who had moved to Springfield from upstate New York, and what he wanted to be was a decorated and celebrated drill sergeant who was lauded for his artistry. And according to this book, Lincoln, who was still an attorney in Springfield at the time—this would be around the 1850s—would go and watch this young man perform these military drills, which were quite elaborate and choreographically exciting, and he grew fond of him as a performer, but also as a potential leader. So he took him under his wing as a legal assistant.

Of course, the story underneath the story is the one that we tell, which is how close do these two people, who feel like outsiders in their own world—what kind of coalescence draws them closer to one another, and what bonds do they establish that haunt Lincoln for the rest of his life and compel Elmer to sacrifice his life

and take down a Confederate flag in honor of Lincoln? Elmer becomes the first casualty of the Civil War. He’s given a public mourning, and Lincoln is quoted as saying, “That was the greatest little man I’ve ever met.”

So there’s a tenderness to their connection that attracted me immediately to the story. The first draft of this play was just a two-hander that was about Lincoln and Elmer growing close to one another and then consummating that closeness. And around 2019, I had started playing with the idea of a bawdy narrator for this piece, and I called her Ta eta. Well, people in these readings that I started doing in Los Angeles were so enamored with the possibility of Taffeta, the character, that they said, “We want more of her.” We did a big reading where I expanded the role of Ta eta, and she was a hit. Everyone at the reading concluded that the play needed to center on Ta eta as the conjurer of this love a air, and how and why would be the work the next couple years.

[The film’s director] Lovell and I started really infusing more of Ta eta’s presence into the piece. A lot of the poetic pieces in the movie are

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

From L: Gillian Williams as the First Lady, Ted Rooney as Lincoln, and Alex Esola as Elmer Ellsworth in Lavender Men COURTESY MATT PLAXCO

continued from p. 15

actually monologues that I had written from a solo show of mine, about phone sex, that never went anywhere. But the monologues could stand on their own because they weren’t specifically about telephonic intimacy. They were about yearning and the desire for connection with someone else. And so we used them and we played around with where they went.

Lovell and I knew we had a hit on our hands. Here is a play and a character, Taffeta, that, for whatever reason, speaks to the public in a way that they are allured by and attracted to immeasurably, and they want to be around her. There’s something about her brand of honesty and brazen self-assuredness and lyricism that people use as a kind of stand-in for their own bravery, and so when we got back to Los Angeles, we were o ered a production of the play version of Lavender Men. So now we’re in 2020, and we started rehearsals for that production of Lavender Men , and of course, by March, we were shut down and couldn’t do that version.

But I said to Lovell, “Let’s make a movie,

because I don’t want to lose the momentum of this project. And I think that this narrative, just as a storyline in the world, deserves platforming.” So, as early as 2021, Lovell and I were starting to think about an adaptation of the play that would work for film. And by 2022, we had started renegotiating the possibility of a [stage] production . . . [but] I said to Lovell, “Well, we still need to do the movie.”

What we agreed to do was, whoever we cast for the play, we would want them to be people who would also do the movie. And so we got our team and they knew the score. So while we were doing the play . . . Lovell and I were also writing the movie, and the [cast] were rehearsing or familiarizing themselves with elements of the movie that were di erent from the play. We sort of kept the middle of the piece similar enough so that the dynamics of performativity in the play would just be reimagined for the movie. After we closed the play, we had two days o , and then we started this ten-day shoot of the movie. And how we did that is really the stu of hormonal miracles, because the only thing I can say is that adrenaline is

what gave me the chemical courage necessary to transition within 48 hours from one thing to the next and not miss one beat. I think it worked because I saw the whole thing as one holistic expression. I was telling this story for six months or so, first for a theatrical production and then as a movie, and what I loved was the way that I was able to tap into di erent skill sets as an actor between the two versions.

What I learned is that I rather enjoy film acting because it requires you to be so emotionally focused and myopic and siloed. You can really only do one thing at a time. Our society pressures us to prize multitasking in a way that’s not always healthy. Here is a task that you can only do one step at a time. And if you don’t, it’ll show.

Then the last thing was, you know, being on the road. And the road is the last sort of element of postproduction, I think, because when you do the festival circuit, you learn who your movie is for, and who you made the movie with. It was so fascinating to watch this. This piece of cinema provides catharsis, comfort, a rmation, jubilance, and community for so

many people around the country.

And not just folks that you would expect, but people who may not have felt like they had a place in this narrative. [There are] folks that may have been a little bit more moderate or conservative even saying, “I didn’t think I would respond to this, but it touched me in a way that surprised even me, and I’m grateful that you brought this film to our festival or to our town.” And I think it’s because Ta eta as a character emboldens us all to be a little bit more bighearted and dream more vastly than we ever imagined we could. And that’s a universal message.

The stage play exists in her mind, Ta eta’s mind, and she sort of comes out with no psychological realist expectations for us to buy into her reasoning. And she says, “I’m going to tell you a story.” And we grow through the course of the play to understand why she’s telling us the story. A movie—because it’s dealing in visual media and it trades somewhat in the currency of verisimilitude until it doesn’t—is going to require you to explain to us on some concrete terms why we’re watching the fan-

From L: Pete Ploszek as young Abe and Roger Q. Mason as Taffeta

COURTESY MATT PLAXCO

FILM

“History, like the human beings who make it, is so much more complicated and complex than we could ever imagine.”

tasy that we’re watching and how it works. And so what we needed to create for the film was a frame in the “real world” that would help us understand why, circumstantially, she veers off into fantasy. So that therein lies the first ten minutes or so of the movie: Ta eta works in a theater where a very haphazard Lincoln play is being done, and the neglect of her director and former love interest, as well as the abuse of certain cast members, both direct and indirect abuse, traumatizes her and triggers a memory or an escapist fantasy that she uses to imagine a life of intimacy for herself and of kindness for herself that she does not receive in life.

And that frame really helped me answer the question of why does she conjure Lincoln? Well, she conjures Lincoln because the call is coming from within the house, and she is stuck in someone else’s story instead of grappling with her own. She sort of wizards this love a air that she thinks will be an escape from her current problems, but really it forces her to confront them. Her real problem is that she has to get ahold of her demons. And that’s sort of the end of the piece, you know, is her taking o the trappings of this theater, which reinforced the stagnation and the abuse by neglect and the lovelessness that she experiences.

And I suspect that on some level, that’s very relatable to people, which is why they respond so positively to this piece.

The whole reason, on a thematic level, that Lincoln’s queerness is called into view is because he is the center of a set of myths about America that value self-determination. The log-splitter who became president. This story of rags to riches becomes a primordial sca olding upon which we build a myth that America is a place where anyone, regardless of race, sexual or gender identity, [or] nationality, can come. If they’re nice to people and

they work hard enough and they ingratiate themselves into the systems that exist and learn how to navigate them, then they can be anything they put their minds to. And that’s just simply not true.

There are systemic elements of our society that do limit opportunities for certain populations and make it easier for others to advance. Part of locating Lincoln’s queerness is really a larger project of mine, which is to deromanticize our mythologies about America and its possibilities.

Why did we resist Lincoln’s queerness for so long? Well, because his virile masculinity and determination embolden a generation or many generations of Americans who want to latch onto that myth as a justification or an aspirational starting point for their own story. But if he’s gay, then he’s no longer the he-man that made something out of nothing. Now he’s a little bit more complicated than that. Then people start questioning their own value systems and their own societal norms, and that’s exactly what I want them to do. I want them to think very deeply about why they have to live in a binary black-and-white and structured world where there’s only one or a few ways of doing things, when in reality, history, like the human beings who make it, is so much more complicated and complex than we could ever imagine.

And both things can be true, and life lives in the gray area between. So for me, it’s both a mission of locating Lincoln’s queerness, because queerness existed before Stonewall. We’ve existed since the beginning of time. But it’s also about questioning the cultural myths that hold this country together and how fragile they are. You start picking at one thread, and then the whole thing falls apart. Well, I say, let it fall apart so that on the other side of that fabric can be the truth, which is so much more interesting and colorful and diverse and, frankly, exciting than these romanticized visions of America that we’re currently trying to revive. v

m letters@chicagoreader.com

DIRECTED BY LILI - ANNE BROWN

BASED ON THE NOVEL BY ALICE WALKER AND THE WARNER BROS./ AMBLIN ENTERTAINMENT MOTION PICTURE

BOOK BY MARSHA NORMAN

MUSIC AND LYRICS BY BRENDA RUSSELL, ALLEE WILLIS AND STEPHEN BRAY

Twenty years since its Broadway musical debut, The Color Purple is reborn in Lili-Anne Brown’s revelatory production— “perfection on every level!” (Chicago Sun-Times).

It’s a celebration of life, hope and the healing power of love! The musical stage adaptation of Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prizeand National Book Award-winning novel is a heart-rending, yet ultimately joyous, story of a young woman’s perilous journey of personal awakening in the American South. Come ready to shout in church, stomp at the juke joint, laugh and cry with unforgettable “come-to-glory gospel hymns, down-and-dirty bump-and-grinds, jazz that stutters, dips and dives, and gorgeous alto arias” (Chicago Sun-Times).

STARTS

JUNE 21

FILM

NOW PLAYING

Bride Hard

The Die Hard template has survived nearly every kind of knockoff setting—boats, schools, hockey games, buses, and even malls. By now, the formula practically writes itself: one location, one reluctant hero, one increasingly ridiculous situation. Some copycats even get away with it—Speed (1994) floored it with Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock, while Kevin James’s Paul Blart: Mall Cop (2009) truly committed to the bit.

Bride Hard tries to march this threadbare setup down the aisle, marrying the action classic with the raunchy success of Bridesmaids (2011). This genre clash puts in a lot of effort to present itself as a perfect match, but the union makes for an awkward couple, to say the least.

Bride Hard offers a lot of exposition, really, really fast. It introduces us to a squad of bridesmaids walking through the airport with freeze frames and overlaid text, with arrows pointing out bride Betsy (Anna Camp), her college roommates (Da’Vine Joy Randolph and Gigi Zumbado), the future sister-in-law (Anna Chlumsky), and of course, the maid of honor, Sam (Rebel Wilson). We learn Sam is also a super spy—and she’s two-timing the bachelorette trip to bust an international criminal oper-

ation. A er ghosting the celebration but nailing her mission in a smug solo stunt, Sam is stripped of her maid-of-honor status, and a tearful Betsy hands the title to her sister-in-law. It’s an unshocking and deserved demerit for a “best friend” who has prioritized busts over Betsy for too long.

This ri nearly severs the childhood best friends’ relationship altogether, with Betsy banishing Sam from the ceremony. But it’s a blessing in disguise. Before anyone can shed a single tear, the wedding is broken up by a criminal army led by a gun-toting, sunglasses-wearing Stephen Dorff. He takes the entire wedding hostage, and Sam is forced to save the day.

(1997) Simon West actually directed it. This shotgun wedding is not worth attending. —MAXWELL RABB R, 105 min. Wide release in theaters

Get showtimes and see reviews of everything playing this week at chicagoreader.com/movies

into a montage that speeds past where most of the character development might’ve taken place. The characters follow their tropes, falling prey to action cliches. Like watching a real race, when you can hear the engines barreling down the track right in front of you, F1 is a true thriller. But when the adrenaline fades, you’re le waiting on the sidelines. —MAXWELL RABB PG-13, 155 min. Wide release in theaters

RSorry, Baby

For an attempt at a slapstick, screwball comedy, Bride Hard is stiff. Audiences can o en forgive a rip-off as long as the jokes are funny or the story channels even a little of its source material. Instead, Bride Hard throws dick jokes and lackluster random-core comedy at the audience for 105 minutes. It’s a bouquet of cliches that no one wants to catch, interspersed with lazy action sequences that have you double-checking if Con Air’s

F1: The Movie

Americans only just woke up to the rocket car in the last decade. The sleek racing cars of Formula One hit 220 mph on straights, all while drivers battle the other 19 cars on the track. It’s the highest-stakes form of racing, with multimillion-dollar budgets and no margin for error. We can thank Netflix’s recent seven-season documentary series, Formula 1: Drive to Survive, for revving up interest.

This obsession is what brought us F1: The Movie, a 155-minute racing epic featuring an aging yet still ruggedly handsome Brad Pitt at the wheel. Produced by F1 golden boy Lewis Hamilton, it’s no surprise that the races are a high-throttle cinematic experience. The stars literally strap into the F1 cars to produce some of the best driving sequences to hit the silver screen.

F1 fires up with Sonny Hayes (Pitt) awaking in his decked-out, live-in van. The driver dunks his head in an ice bath, exercises, and puts one card from a 52-card deck into his pocket. It’s the 24 Hours of Daytona, and he is next up in the endurance race, starting right before midnight. The racing team fell behind during his power nap, and he’s there to put the pedal to the metal while Led Zeppelin blasts. It’s no surprise that his team wins; however, he refuses to take the trophy—it’s bad luck. He takes his money and goes on his way.

Sonny is traumatized by an injury that almost took his life, spending his early retirement gambling and nomadically signing up for races. But he still loves to drive, so when his old driving partner, Ruben (Javier Bardem), offers him a second chance in F1 on his bankrupt team, APXGP, he considers it. Ruben wants to save his team, but first, he needs Sonny to mentor a talented yet cocky young gun, Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris), who cares more about his fan image than his technique. It’s a timeless action setup: Two teammates will have to put their egos aside to pull off an impossible win.

It’s a promising first half, but then F1 stalls out. Following a dramatic and expertly executed crash sequence, the movie loses its grip. It veers off course

Agnes is trying to be OK. In the first chapter of Eva Victor’s directorial debut, Sorry, Baby an English professor living alone in a rural town, Agnes (Victor), welcomes her old roommate and best friend, Lydie (Naomi Ackie), back to their shared house. The two fall easily into old rhythms—laughing, gossiping, and brushing their teeth together in the bathroom. But a hint of uneasiness creeps in when Lydie asks if Agnes feels settled in her new office, one that used to belong to English professor Preston Decker (Louis Cancelmi). Slowly, the story of what happened begins to take shape. Sorry, Baby confronts the realities of sexual assault with biting honesty, revealing how o en the issue is normalized or ignored. Instead of sensationalizing the trauma, like many films in the last decade, Victor delivers the harsh truths with haunting clarity. Intertwined with sharp dark comedy, Victor, as both star and director, concocts a film that showcases absurdity—and disorientation—in the a ermath of assault.

This is what Victor shows us in Sorry, Baby’s second chapter: the “Year of the Bad Thing.” Lydie and Agnes are still in school alongside a few other PhD students under the tutelage of Professor Decker. His inappropriate favoritism doesn’t go unnoticed by the other students—or viewers. The signs are all there. So, when he’s meant to give in-person notes on Agnes’s thesis and invites her over to his house, we know something’s wrong. The camera never enters the house, turning from day to night. It lingers, silently letting reality sink in. It’s crushing to see Agnes run out.

The rest of Sorry, Baby trails Agnes as she comes to terms with the “before and a er” imposed onto her. In the a ermath, she meets with an icy doctor with horrible bedside manners and a school board hiding behind a powerless “We can’t help you.” Still, Victor nimbly contrasts these moments with small bursts of happiness, including her friendship with Lydie and a budding romance with her neighbor (Lucas Hedges).

Though somewhat slowed by its chapter-style storytelling, Victor de ly reflects on the banality and frustration of life a er trauma—how it embeds itself within you as you try to heal, and how, at times, it feels like everything else is moving too fast. Sometimes, however, you’re jolted back by diamonds in the rough, like finding a kitten in the middle of the road or holding your friend’s baby for the first time. —MAXWELL RABB R, 103 min. Limited release in theaters, followed by wide release v

Sorry, Baby COURTESY A24

THE SECRET HISTORY OF CHICAGO MUSIC

The Puta-Pons had too much fun to last

This giddy, jumpy local rock band only managed one album, but their two irrepressible front women endured tragedy and a messy breakup to stay tight friends today.

By STEVE KRAKOW

Since 2005 Plastic Crimewave (aka Steve Krakow) has used the Secret History of Chicago Music to shine a light on worthy artists with Chicago ties who’ve been forgotten, underrated, or never noticed in the first place.

While working on last month’s column commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Secret History of Chicago Music, I unearthed some great memories and stirred up some old ghosts. The Puta-Pons, founded by bassist Rebecca Crawford and guitarist Shelly Kurzynski Villaseñor, were a joyously fun rock band, active in the late 90s and early 2000s. But they were also intertwined with a tragedy that struck the local music scene a few years later: Michael Dahlquist of Silkworm, John Glick of the Re-

turnables, and Doug Meis of the Dials were killed in a car crash caused by a suicidal driver on July 14, 2005. Glick was Crawford’s husband, Crawford played in the Dials, and Meis had also drummed in the Puta-Pons. This story is dedicated to all of them.

Crawford and Kurzynski Villaseñor met in the early 90s at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and they’d been playing together for several years when they moved to Chicago in 1998 and renamed their band the Puta-Pons (they styled it “puta-pons”). Kurzynski Villaseñor was born in Milwaukee, in a Polish neighborhood that was quickly becoming a Mexican neighborhood. “Dad was south-side Polish, mom was a south-side first-generation Mexican immigrant—a real West Side Story,” she says.

The family moved to Madison when Kurzynski Villaseñor was four. As she grew up, she absorbed her parents’ favorite sounds: Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, David Bowie, Sonny &

Cher, mariachi music. She learned how to read chord charts from her mom, who was teaching herself folk guitar. She dabbled in violin and joined a school choir and barbershop quartet. (“What a dork!” she jokes.) She sang solo for the first time in high school, performing Berlin’s “The Metro” with a band of classmates. Crawford was born and raised in DeKalb, Illinois. “Famous for corn and Cindy Crawford,” she says. “No relation.” She grew up obsessed with pop music on the radio, and she remembers wanting to write her own songs from an early age. She didn’t take to piano lessons, and she didn’t fare well playing clarinet and flute in school either. Her heart was with 60s girl groups, Blondie, the Psychedelic Furs, Kraftwerk, the Ramones, and the Cure. “I also dug a bit of schmaltz and cried tears of joy when I was gifted the Xanadu soundtrack for my tenth birthday—so I have a special place in my heart for Olivia Newton-John,” she confesses. In college, Crawford picked up her first

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continued from p. 19

electric instrument. “I started playing bass around age 19 or 20 with future husband then roommate [John Glick] and his ex-girlfriend, because they were starting a band,” she says.

“So I bought a bass. I think we called ourselves Sandbox or something. It lasted about a month.” That summer, Crawford’s other roommate was Kurzynski Villaseñor’s boyfriend at the time.

“I came over to their place for drinks before a concert or outing of some sort,” Kurzynski Villaseñor remembers. “I complimented [Becky] on the enviable rack of vintage clothing in her room, and we almost immediately started talking about forming a band. Thus began a lifelong friendship filled with music, competitive thrifting and vintage-clothes collecting, and all sorts of high jinks.”

“I wanted to do more of my own thing, away from the then boyfriend,” Crawford adds. “She played guitar and we had ideas!”

The duo named their first band Hello Kitty, and they went through drummers as quickly as Spinal Tap. (Thankfully, nobody exploded— one left to focus on her PhD studies in materials engineering.) “Hello Kitty’s first show was supposed to be with Liz Phair and the Scissor Girls in Madison, at an all-ages teen center,” Kurzynski Villaseñor says. “However, Phair had just started to blow up with Exile in Guyville, so she canceled on us. It was still a great first show!”

As Crawford and Kurzynski Villaseñor searched for their musical voice—and followed up on hot tips from fans—they developed a mutual love of postpunk by women (the Raincoats, Kleenex/Liliput), 70s glam and funk (Roxy Music, Funkadelic, Betty Davis), goth rock (Siouxsie & the Banshees, Bauhaus), 80s new wave (the B-52s, the Go-Go’s), and early-90s riot grrrl (Babes in Toyland, Bikini Kill). Crawford also worked at B-Side Records in Madison, which put plenty of new sounds in her ear.

Hello Kitty changed their name to Rhoda and recruited their third drummer, Travis Nelsen. “He had an adorable mop of hair and always smelled deliciously of pizza when he came to practice after his delivery shifts at a local pizza parlor,” Kurzynski Villaseñor says. Crawford remembers him delivering doughnuts—he probably just switched jobs, but I like to imagine he was doing both at once and might show up to rehearsals smelling like either.

Nelsen played on a Rhoda session at Simple Studios in Green Bay, owned by engineer Eric

James Thielen (aka bassist Eric #2 from geekpunk heroes Boris the Sprinkler). Those tunes came out only on a four-song cassette that isn’t even on Discogs, and Nelsen left after a year or two to play in his brother’s band. He eventually moved to Austin, Texas, where he joined Okkervil River. He drummed for them till 2010, and he passed away in 2020.

Dave Wade, who replaced Nelsen, found the band via an ad placed in Madison alt-weekly Isthmus. Wade plays on Rhoda’s lone single, the 1996 release “Revolting” b/w “Siren Song.” The band was short-lived, but they opened for the likes of Sleater-Kinney, Tribe 8, Demolition Doll Rods, and Pansy Division before Kurzynski Villaseñor and Crawford moved to Chicago.

“[We] were a bit bored of Madison at the time and wanted to move to Chicago for more culture, fun, and rock ’n’ roll,” Kurzynski Villaseñor says. “For the first few years, I lived on Haddon right around the corner from the Rainbo. Wicker Park and the surrounding area was in its heyday.” A few months later, on July 4, 1998, Crawford settled in Logan Square. Upon arriving here, Crawford and Kurzynski Villaseñor again renamed their band. They took “the Puta-Pons” from the title of a Crawford song, “Put Upon,” which Kurzynski Villaseñor had turned into a Spanish-language pun. They placed an ad in the Chicago Reader to find a new drummer. The two front women rehearsed for a bit with Lisa Hill, who’d answered the ad, but they’d parted ways by the time the band gigged at the Hideout as the Stinky-Pons, backed by a rotating lineup of friends. “We also wrote an impromptu song performed only once for the occasion, and Shelly impressively remembers the lyrics,” Crawford says.

Via another Reader ad, the two women found Doug Meis, who’d become the Puta-Pons’ longest-serving drummer. Meis was a military brat, so his family had moved a lot, but he spent some of his formative years where I did, in suburban Ho man Estates. “Doug was an incredibly talented drummer, adorably charismatic, and was the most bombastic drummer we had ever played with,” Kurzynski Villaseñor recalls. The lineup with Meis is the one I remember, with his over-the-top energy locking into Crawford’s punky but melodic bass, Kurzynski Villaseñor’s less-is-more guitar lines, and the front women’s yelpy vocals intertwining into delirious hooks.

That jagged, giddy sound leaps off their lone album, Return to Zero , which they issued via their own Vinahyde Records and

celebrated with a release party in March 2001. The Puta-Pons recorded it at Engine Studios (which Brad Wood helped design after the closure of Idful) with engineer Jason Ward, who’d later cofound Chicago Mastering Service with Bob Weston. The album caught the ear of famous rock critic Greil Marcus, author of Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the Twentieth Century. In 2002, Marcus gave Return to Zero a nod at Salon, singling out “the stunningly fast ride of Shelly Kurzynski Villaseñor’s guitar solo in ‘(You Need a) Shot in the Arm,’ which delivers it.”

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than any breakup I’ve had with a boyfriend, by far.”

Shortly after the Puta-Pons split up, I briefly played in a synth-punk project with Crawford called Black Hole. We recorded a few tracks (produced by my departed friend Joe Cassidy), but we never released them. I do remember we played some fun gigs, though, including with Métal Urbain and Glass Candy.

The Puta-Pons played some amazing gigs, including an August 2001 show at the Congress Theater with no-wave dance-punk party starters ESG and riot-grrrl legends Bratmobile.

The Puta-Pons played some amazing gigs, including an August 2001 show at the Congress Theater with no-wave dance-punk party starters ESG and riot-grrrl legends Bratmobile. (I was there!) That concert was part of Ladyfest Midwest, which Crawford and Kurzynski Villaseñor helped organize. The Puta-Pons also opened for the likes of El Vez, the Make-Up, and Enon.

Kurzynski Villaseñor says there was “mutual admiration” between the band and local drag troupe the Chicago Kings. In 1999 they played a memorable Prince tribute show (dressed in lingerie in homage to Apollonia and Vanity) that also included Kelly Hogan, Cynthia Plaster Caster, and the Goblins (for whom Meis also sometimes drummed). At a similar show devoted to Michael Jackson, they tried to perform on roller skates.

The Puta-Pons appeared on Chic-a-Go-Go in ’99, played around the midwest with the Butchies, and took an east-coast tour that they think happened in early 2002. Sadly, that tour indirectly broke up the band: Crawford and Kurzynski Villaseñor got into a major row on the way back. “I remember there being an argument over my map-reading skills and her driving skills, as the final straw from some pent-up band tension,” Crawford says.

“It was really the culmination of a lot of lack of boundaries and poor communication over the years, which many successful bands go to therapy to resolve these days,” Kurzynski Villaseñor adds. “It was seriously way more sad

Crawford and Meis continued to play together in the Dials, who in 2005 released the excellent Flex Time with Patti Gran on guitar and Emily Dennison on keys. They continued to play after Meis’s death, with Chad Romanski (a childhood friend of Crawford’s brother) filling in on drums and later joining the band. The tragedy also pushed Crawford and Kurzynski Villaseñor to put their band-ending blowout in perspective and rekindle their connection.

“We will continue our friendship and shenanigans to the grave,” Kurzynski Villaseñor says. The Dials put out a second record, Amoeba Amore, in 2008, and called it quits a few years later. Kurzynski Villaseñor made two albums with Telenovela, who became Swiss Dots and released a third in 2010. Crawford has also played with the Pamphleteers, who evolved into her current band, the Wet Look. Unsurprisingly, they need a new drummer!

After spending five years in Los Angeles, Kurzynski Villaseñor is back in the Chicago area (“because I missed Becky, naturally”).

She and Ward, the engineer on Return to Zero, are married and have a child. “I’m not playing in a band at all currently, though I do rock out in my basement in Oak Park whenever I can,” she says. “I’ve got a growing backlog of songs in my head that need to get out.”

To me, that sounds like a Puta-Pons reunion is entirely possible—provided they can find a drummer. I’ll sorely miss Meis, but I’d love to see the Puta-Pons play some of their catchy, freaky classics live again—who else wants to hear “Blank Xerox” and “I Am a Jelly Donut”? v

The radio version of the Secret History of Chicago Music airs on Outside the Loop on WGN Radio 720 AM, Saturdays at 5 AM with host Mike Stephen. Past shows are archived at outsidetheloopradio.com/tag/secrethistory-of-chicago-music.

Derrick

Recommended and notable shows with critics’ insights for the week of June 26

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Chicago trio Lifeguard make triumphant noise on Ripped and Torn

THURSDAY26

New Constellations Vinyl Palace open both shows. 7 PM and 10 PM, Schubas, 3159 N. Southport, $24.30, both shows sold out. 18+

The founding members of New Constellations, vocalist-guitarist Harlee Case and multi-instrumentalist and producer Josh Smith, are childhood pals. They met through a Christian youth group when Case was in seventh grade and Smith was in ninth, and when they were still teenagers Smith recorded Case’s first song in his family home in southern Oregon. After high school, their lives took different paths, but they kept making music—and about seven years ago, they started doing it together again. They were both living in Portland, and when Case posted on Instagram that she was looking for a new project, Smith immediately responded. As New Constellations, they make shimmering dance pop influenced by 80s synth bands and R&B, and they sometimes shake up their approachable, easygoing vibes with moodier, more experimental sounds. The band caught lightning in a bottle with their 2021 debut single, “Hot Blooded,” a serene 80s-flavored synth-pop tune that showcases Case’s expressive, full-throated vocals. The song picked up more fans the following year when New Constellations released a futuristic music video directed by Travis Abels (trailer editor for Bridgerton and Westworld), and it now has nearly 11 million views on YouTube. They’ve since expanded into a trio by recruiting another longtime friend, multi-instrumentalist Kyle Farook, and they’ve continued to put out singles, most recently November’s effervescent “Sun Chasing the Rain.” They’re building their fan base on the road, and they hope to release their first full-length album by the end of the year. At publication time, they’d sold out nearly every date on this five-week U.S. tour, including both of their two shows tonight at Schubas—but if you got your ticket, you’ll be able to brag that you saw them back when. —JAMIE LUDWIG

FRIDAY27

WHEN LIFEGUARD RELEASED their 2020 debut album, Dive, the Chicago trio’s raw, noisy sound breathed new life into posthardcore, no wave, and indie rock with an easy confidence that belied the members’ years. Guitarist-vocalist Kai Slater, bassist-vocalist Asher Case, and drummer Isaac Lowenstein were still in their teens, but they were already immersed in underground music. They’d met while attending live shows and music classes, and their parents supported their interest at every opportunity. (Carlos Lowenstein, Isaac’s dad, records as Sun Picture, and Brian Case, Asher’s dad, has played in 90 Day Men, Ponys, Disappears, and Facs.) Lifeguard came up in a close-knit DIY youth scene (documented since 2021 in Slater’s zine Hallogallo), which incubated their creativity during lockdown so that it could flower extravagantly once shows started up again. In 2023, the group signed with venerable indie label Matador (joining Horsegirl, where Lowenstein’s sister, Penelope, sings and plays guitar). Matador released the EP Dressed in Trenches in 2023, packaging it with a reissue of the 2022 EP Crowd Can Talk. Lifeguard’s first full-length for Matador, the brand-new Ripped and

Torn, lives up to the promise of those early recordings. Produced by Randy Randall of No Age, the album’s frenetic songs pluck influences from various times and places and situate them comfortably side by side. The dextrous guitars of “A Tightwire” vibrate like a wire stretched taut, as though animated by an electric current that could pop o at any moment, while the jangly garage pop of “It Will Get Worse” feels like smiling through gritted teeth. Ripped and Torn has no shortage of hooks, but it also gets interesting when Lifeguard find outlets for their desire for experimentation and noise—whether the colossal, oversaturated chord that appears exactly once in postpunk banger “France And,” the layers of electronics and breakneck percussion on the instrumental “Music for 3 Drums,” or the echoes of dub that open the somber, driving “Under Your Reach.” Every generation has its battles, and Lifeguard’s generation has already had more than its fair share, but Ripped and Torn strikes a balance between healthy optimism and weary disenchantment—it’s never ingenuous, but it never gives into cynicism either. —JAMIE

LUDWIG

Vijay Iyer & Wadada Leo Smith 8:30 PM, Constellation, 3111 N. Western, $46.63. 18+

Pianist and keyboardist Vijay Iyer (b. 1971) is a Harvard professor, MacArthur grant recipient, and composer whose versatile work has encompassed small jazz bands, large orchestral ensembles, and a genre-crossing collaboration with vocalist Arooj A ab and bassist Shahzad Ismaily. Trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith (b. 1941) is a Pulitzer Prize finalist and retired CalArts professor who has navigated a singular course that began with childhood exposure to the Delta blues and led to membership in the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. He’s led small groups that fleshed out an image-based scoring practice of his own design called Ankhrasmation, and he’s composed epic suites that use postbop, electric jazz, and chamber music to celebrate great American accomplishments, including the civil rights movement and the creation of the National Park System. The two musicians have worked together since 2005, when

LIFEGUARD, PARKING, TV BUDDHA, BUNGEE JUMPERS

Sat 6/28, 7:30 PM, Thalia Hall (in the round), 1807 S. Allport, $26.47. 17+

Lifeguard: Asher Case, Isaac Lowenstein, and Kai Slater GRACE BADER CONRAD

Iyer joined Smith’s Golden Quartet, and over time their relationship has shi ed from bandleader and sideman to nonhierarchical collaborators. They’ve released two duo albums on ECM, 2016’s A Cosmic Rhythm With Each Stroke and 2025’s Defiant Life. The new recording examines the duality of suffering and resilience within the human experience. Two notated pieces acknowledge the damage done by state-perpetrated violence; Iyer’s gently buoyant “Kite” marks the passing of Palestinian writer Refaat Alareer, killed by a targeted airstrike in Gaza City in 2023, while the sterner, more rhythmically turbulent “Floating River Requiem” remembers Congolese prime minister Patrice Lumumba, assassinated in January 1961. The rest of the album consists of firsttake, jointly conceived performances that offer relief as well as space for mourning. Throughout the album, Smith plays patient melodies that course inexorably through the open, rolling terrain of Iyer’s subdued, lyrical piano and subtle electronics.

—BILL MEYER

SATURDAY28

Lifeguard See Pick of the Week on page 22. Parking, TV Buddha, and Bungee Jumpers open. 7:30 PM, Thalia Hall (in the round), 1807 S. Allport, $26.47. 17+

Rhythm Fest This all-day event takes place in six different spaces inside and outside the venue and features sets by Third Coast Percussion, Jlin, Tyondai Braxton, Conrad Tao, Clarise Assad, Jessie Montgomery & Tahirah Whittington, Ayanna

Woods, Michael Burritt & Ivan Trevino with Jacob Nissly, Elori Saxl, Ensemble dal Niente, ~Nois, Beyond This Point, and more. Full schedule at thirdcoastpercussion.com. Noon–10 PM, Epiphany Center for the Arts, 201 S. Ashland, $68.72, $34.51 student, $133.90 VIP, group rate available, under 18 permitted if accompanied by an adult. 18+

Chicago quartet Third Coast Percussion continue to celebrate their 20th year with this kaleidoscopic all-day event at Epiphany Center for the Arts.

Rhythm Fest consists of 17 sets in four spaces (plus three open jams and an audiovisual installation by drummer Glenn Kotche), and the lineup is thick with TCP’s current and former collaborators. The program includes plenty of music that isn’t percussion based: Composer, vocalist, and bassist Ayanna Woods is bringing two singers and a keyboardist, for instance; violinist Jessie Montgomery and cellist Tahirah Whittington have assembled an ensemble of string players and poets; and ~Nois are a saxophone quartet. But this isn’t called “Percussion

Fest.” It’s Rhythm Fest, and you can’t have music without rhythm.

Third Coast Percussion headline in Epiphany Hall at 7:30 PM, and the day ends with an a erparty powered by avant-garde footwork producer Jlin. But the star of Rhythm Fest is the network of connections that TCP have nurtured over the decades and built into a thriving ecosystem that touches all the artists on the bill. Tonight’s TCP program includes contributions from many of those talents. The quartet will play the banging Jlin track “Derivative,” from the 2022 TCP album Perspectives , which demonstrates a skill she shares with the group: deploying a battery of tones and effects to create the impression of a huge three-dimensional volume. TCP will also perform Dri s by Elori Saxl, commissioned via the ensemble’s Currents Creative Partnership. She’ll use live electronic processing to turn TCP’s delicate double-stroke rolls, played on practice pads, into a serene procession of shivering chords. (She’ll also perform a solo electronic set in the catacombs at 1:30 PM.) Danny Clay, another Currents participant, wrote a collection of music games for TCP called Playbook, and on “Teeth” the quartet begin by plucking combs, adding tuned percussion for an effect rather like a gentle rain in a fairy tale. Pianist and composer Clarice Assad will accompany TCP for her rousing, swashbuckling piece “The Hero,” from their collaborative 2021 album Archetypes. (She’ll also play solo pieces by South American composers in the sanctuary at 6 PM.) TCP will present the Chicago premiere of Murmurs in Time, written for the quartet by the late Zakir Hussain and featuring Hussain’s student Salar Nader playing the master’s tabla parts. Former Northwestern University professor Michael Burritt (who taught the members of TCP) and composer Ivan Trevino will join the group on the frenzied, pointillistic “Torched and Wrecked,” a movement from Aliens With Extraordinary Abilities by TCP’s David Skidmore. Burritt and Trevino likewise have a slot on the day’s schedule, at 2:30 PM in Epiphany Hall, where they’ll focus on their own solo and duo marimba works, with additional percussion from Jake Nissly and members of TCP. Burritt’s Shadow Chasers, for marimba soloist

Vijay Iyer (right) and Wadada Leo Smith OGATA PHOTOGRAPHY

New Constellations

CAMERON BROWNE Clockwise from top le : Third Coast Percussion, Jlin, and Conrad Tao are among the dozens of musicians appearing at Rhythm Fest. SAVERIO TRUGLIA, LAWRENCE AGYEI, BRANTLEY GUTIERREZ

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continued from p. 23

and four percussionists, ought to entertain anybody who likes trying to follow a multicolored melody as it charges pell-mell through too many meters to count. TCP’s performance of Philip Glass’s hauntingly gorgeous “Madeira River,” part of the larger composition Aguas da Amazonia, will include dozens of the musicians at Rhythm Fest. And Sean Connors of TCP says that he and the other members— Skidmore, Robert Dillon, and Peter Martin—will be “popping in throughout the day on different artists’ sets to play some of our favorite music from the past 20 years.”

That doesn’t even cover everything Third Coast Percussion will do here, but the rest of Rhythm Fest deserves attention too. Former Currents partner Ayanna Woods will join keyboardist Nolan Chin and singers Tiana Sorensen and Eva Supreme in the sanctuary at 2 PM, performing adaptations of her vocal piece Infinite Body and the opera Force! as well as material from an upcoming EP by her band Yadda Yadda—whose playful, intricate neosoul can feel like chamber music. At 4 PM in the sanctuary, Jessie Montgomery and Tahirah Whittington, a founding member of Chicago ensemble D-Composed, will play three Whittington compositions and one Montgomery piece with six other musicians, three of whom also come from D-Composed.

In Epiphany Hall at 5 PM, prodigious pianist Conrad Tao plays music by John Adams, Donnacha Dennehy, Rebecca Saunders, and Mac Waters as well as one of his own compositions and an improvisation for which he’ll place magnets on the piano’s strings. Waters’s “Pop Song,” which closes Tao’s set, gradually builds from quiet, isolated plunks to a firehose of rampaging keys and coruscating electronics. Also on the bill are Chicago-based percussion duo Beyond This Point, New Jersey composer and electronic musician Tyondai Braxton, a complement of four players from local institution Ensemble dal Niente, Oregon multi-instrumentalist Machado Mijiga (another former Currents partner, who plays saxophone, piano, and drums), and many others. The

only reasonable complaint about the schedule is that many of the performances overlap, so that it’s impossible to hear everything.

Rhythm Fest includes two kid-friendly events in the Epiphany Center courtyard (a drum circle led by Third Coast Percussion at noon and a “Family Music Jam” with educator Meaghan Heinrich at 1 PM), several hands-on percussion installations throughout the venue, and a second jam session at 2:30 PM in the Chase House oriented toward improvisation, the notation of collectively created music, the science of sound, self-designed instruments, and more. At 6:45 PM in the Chase House, flutist Tim Munro will involve the audience in a musical invocation with an all-star ensemble of Rhythm Fest artists. They’ll perform Dillon’s meditative “Heaven We Need” and incorporate answers given throughout the day to the question “What brings you peace?” All peace is fleeting, of course, but ten solid hours of beautiful, inventive, and engrossing music ought to help you find sanctuary in your own head—at least for the duration.

—PHILIP MONTORO

SUNDAY29

U.S. Girls Alive Girl open. 8 PM, Lincoln Hall, 2424 N. Lincoln, $33.25. 18+

Meg Remy is one of the most exciting producers in the indie-rock ecosystem, and nothing showcases the breadth of her talent as effectively as the solo pop project U.S. Girls. Now based in Toronto, Remy was raised in the Chicago suburbs and began using the name U.S. Girls in 2007 a er spending her high school years playing in punk bands. Since then, she’s cra ed a compelling discography shaped by affinity for 60s girl groups, 70s funk and disco production, Kathleen Hanna’s sense of camp, and Jenny Lewis’s tenderly confessional songwriting.

My favorite album in the U.S. Girls catalog is 2018’s In a Poem Unlimited —a gorgeous symphonic journey through late-20th-century pop music

Find

that draws heavily on the lush, spacey production Brian Eno brought to David Bowie’s 1977 experimental classic Low . Remy doesn’t stop there, though. She cartwheels through the full-bodied electronic shimmer Georgio Moroder brought to early Donna Summers and the propulsive new-wave funk that defined Prince’s Controversy. On “Pearly Gates,” a song about seducing Saint Peter to get into heaven, Remy leaps full force into 90s hip-hop aesthetics. While following an indie-rock structure, she starts with a record scratch and segues into 808 samples, piano flourishes, and gospel-influenced backing vocals that would feel at home on an early Dr. Dre or Coolio track. Remy’s inspired ability to shi between eras and influences sounds effortless but results in a richly detailed album that’s perfect for testing headphones.

Remy recorded her brand-new seventh fulllength, Scratch It (4AD), directly to tape over the course of ten days, and the album meditates on themes of death and redemption. One of the first singles is “Bookends,” a 12-minute tribute to her friend Riley Gale, former vocalist for Power Trip, who passed away in August 2020. The raw, trippy, elegiac doo-woop track, which Remy wrote with Edwin de Goeij, treats death as inevitable but also beautiful and transitory. It’s exactly how you’d expect one audiophile to say goodbye to another. —MICCO CAPORALE

WEDNESDAY2

Juanita & Juan Clickbait open. 7 PM, Cobra Lounge, 235 N. Ashland, $32, $26 in advance. 17+

Juanita & Juan is a new band of old pals. Alice Bag and Kid Congo Powers, two of the most beloved punks to emerge from Los Angeles, met on the city’s scene in 1977. That was the year Bag started the Bags, her most famous band. A er they broke up in 1981, she played in several other groups,

including Alarma!, Castration Squad, and the Boneheads. In the mid-90s Bag took a break from music to raise her daughter, but about a decade ago she reemerged as a solo artist. Powers has a punk CV deep enough that his output would make a good starter record collection: From the late 70s through the late 90s, he played with the likes of the Gun Club, the Cramps, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, and Mark Eitzel, and since then his main outlet has been his own group, Kid Congo & the Pink Monkey Birds. Bag told Music Connection that she and Powers started Juanita & Juan a er being invited to write a song for the 2022 Peacock series The Resort and pretend to perform it poolside at the show’s fictional Mexican resort. “Our lounge duo seemed more unruly than a traditional lounge act, although we were trying to play it straight!” Powers said. “We could not disguise our rebellious nature, so we brought the fictional characters into our real lives.”

On their debut album as Juanita & Juan, Jungle Cruise , Bag and Powers sound so charming you’ll wish you were aboard their cruise ship. Over a backdrop of minimal electronics and lo-fi punk, pop, and cumbia, the duo tell fantastical stories, some autobiographical and some clearly embellished. On album opener “Aftertaste,” a slow groover tinged with 60s pop, they play former lovers following a toxic breakup; Bag calmly imagines setting his clothes on fire and hacking his Internet accounts, while Powers, in a deep, romantic voice, promises her the world. Elsewhere, the duo look back fondly on their formative years in the punk scene: “DBWMGWD” (“David Bowie Was My Gateway Drug”) describes the earthshaking impact the Thin White Duke had on a generation of teen misfits, and “The Prez” looks back on Powers’s days as president of a Ramones fan club in the mid-70s. The relaxing, slightly otherworldly sounds of Jungle Cruise have nostalgia and escapism baked in, but Bag and Powers, both dedicated activists, remain grounded in reality. On the somber closing track, “Put Your Weapons Down,” they call for sanity and peace in a world on fire. —JAMIE LUDWIG v

Meg Remy of U.S. Girls COLIN MEDLEY

Juanita & Juan, aka Alice Bag and Kid Congo Powers COURTESY THE ARTIST

SEX AND RELATIONSHIPS

Situation critical

Why did I stay in this situationship for so long?

By DAN SAVAGE

Q : I’m 27-year-old Italian guy. I just got out of a situationship with a woman five years older than me. It was a total mess.

She wanted everything to revolve around her and be in control of everything because she had bad relationships in the past. She wanted to date other people, but I was always against it. Not because I wanted to control her, but because she literally said she enjoyed “betraying and lying for fun.”

We argued a lot about her love of talking about her exes. That was her favorite argument.

She thought I was jealous, but I was just annoyed about being constantly compared to guys from her past and those comparisons stung because—spoiler alert—the sex we had wasn’t that great.

To make matters worse, she would complain to me during sex that all the men in her life had “performance issues” with her. Sometimes when I couldn’t get hard— mostly because images of her exes were playing in my head—she would have a literal panic attack.

And then there was this double standard: She would go on and on about how big this ex’s cock was and how amazing sex with this other ex was, but she didn’t want to hear about any of my past sexual encounters.

I told her all of this made me feel bad about myself, but she felt that since we weren’t a “real” couple she didn’t have to take my feelings into consideration.

Every one of her stories was about how she betrayed

her exes and messed up these monogamous relationships but somehow she was the victim.

I finally told her that I didn’t want to hear another word about her past. She didn’t like that and expected me to apologize for what I had said, but I never did. After that, I left her. Do you think I did the right thing?

Am I an asshole for leaving her? — UNPLEASANT SITUATIONSHIP ENDS DISASTROUSLY

a : You’re not an asshole for leaving, USED, but staying as long as you did—well, I don’t wanna call you an idiot (as you’re a reader), but staying with this woman for more than five minutes was a pretty idiotic thing to do.

She bragged about betraying her exes and lying to their faces for fun. She compared you to her exes (unfavorably!) during sex and then had a meltdown when you couldn’t stay hard.

She claimed she didn’t owe you consideration or even kindness because you weren’t a “real” couple. (Decent people are kind to their one-night stands.) That’s not the behavior of someone who’s had some bad experiences with previous partners and needs a little extra care and consideration from their current partner.

That’s the behavior of an emotionally abusive asshole in victim drag.

Now, usually when someone sticks around despite their partner being awful, USED, it’s because the sex is amazing or they did something stupid that makes walking away impossibly

your dick while you’re trying to use it. (Some men like that sort of thing—you’re not one of them.)

hard. They married the awful person or scrambled their DNA together with the awful person.

But in your case, USED, the sex was lousy, she was lousier, and you weren’t married and didn’t have kids. This woman wasn’t even your girlfriend! So, the question you should be asking yourself isn’t, “Am I the asshole for

Again, you did the right thing by leaving. Now you need to do the hard thing: learn from this experience. Drama is not romance. Traumatic past experiences (real or imaginary) are not GetOut-of-Human-DecencyFree cards. And if someone you’re fucking only has shitty things to say about their exes—if someone is the common denominator in a whole bunch of shitty relationships—then the person you’re fucking is the shitty one.

Q : I’m hoping you can put me in a better headspace

know. Shockingly, I am not worried that my partner has a wandering eye. He’s well known in our little island town and respected here by everyone. But on many occasions, some woman has openly flirted with him, touched him suggestively, looked at him seductively— or worse—has done those things right in front of me. He deflects these advances, and he always tells these women that he is mine. My issue is with my anger I have towards these women, as I feel they are testing me. I’m doing my best to let it go, even though it still gets to me. I would like to not let my emotions make me their bitch but some of these girls

leaving,” but rather, “Why the fuck did I put up with this shit for so long?”

You’re gonna need to figure out the answer to that question before you get with/on/in someone else.

And, you’re going to need to promise me you’ll grab your pants and run the next time someone puts down

know you’re together—and they know you’re exclusive— they may be testing you. But if these women are strangers or tourists, how are they supposed to know the hot guy serving them drinks has a girlfriend?

about external pressure on my relationship. I’ve got a fantastic partner; we are sharing a life together and we are very happy. The challenge I face is that we own a nightclub where we encounter loads of single people. There’s music, there’s alcohol, there’s dancing—it all sounds fun, I

are clearly testing me. What can I say in these situations that is both diplomatic and firm without creating friction? —PEACE NOT BEAST

a : Are you sure these women are testing you?

If we’re talking locals, you shouldn’t worry about being polite or diplomatic—you have every right to blow up— but you don’t wanna drive off regular paying customers either, right? And the alcohol isn’t “there,” PNB. You’re selling alcohol and profiting from it. Since booze is known to lower people’s inhibitions in ways that can impact their judgment, some tolerance for mild boundary violations and party fouls (and flirting with a hot-but-taken guy counts) are a cost of doing business. So, if we’re talking local bitches, I would advise you to stick to withering looks and let your boyfriend continue doing the shutting down. If they’re tourists . . . yeah, a tourist isn’t gonna know your boyfriend is taken. A tourist who makes a pass at your boyfriend is only guilty of shooting her shot. And as sex-and-relationship problems go, PNB, “Everyone wants to fuck my boyfriend” is a pretty good problem to have. So long as your boyfriend can be trusted not to bang two tourist girls at a time in the walk-in beer cooler—and it sounds like he can be trusted not to do that—I think you should take the high road and the compliment. Laugh and tell the tourist your boyfriend is taken, offer her a shot to toast her great taste in men, and then point her in the direction of someone who might wanna fuck the shit out of her in your beer cooler. v

Read the rest of this column, ask burning questions, download podcasts, read full column archives, and more at the URL savage.love. m mailbox@savage.love We

I mean, if the women who’ve hit on your boyfriend at the club are locals who

Let’s Play!

GOSSIP WOLF

IF YOU LOVE LISTENING to music while you work out, then Gossip Wolf can’t wait to tell you all about the inaugural Chicago House Run! The 5K race and walk will be soundtracked by Chicago house DJs, including DJ Lady D, Gant-Man, and DJ Heather and they’re not gonna be in your headphones. On the morning of Saturday, June 28, the DJs will set up sound systems every half mile along a lakefront route that starts on Special Olympics Drive right by Soldier Field and heads south. Chicago House Run copresenter Gino “Rockin’” Romo will DJ at an a erparty with former B96 mix master Tim “Spinnin’” Schommer and house veteran Gene Hunt Romo says promotion company Windy City Events reached out to him last year to propose the Chicago House Run. He was primed to love the idea. He’d jumped into running with both feet by tackling the Chicago Marathon in 2009. “I had never run a mile, really,” he says. “In February of that year, I decided, ‘I’m gonna start training.’” He ran the marathon in 2010 too. And he’s been into house music for much longer. As a 15-year-old in the late 1980s, he landed a DJ shift on WCYC 90.5 FM, then a ten-watt station run out of the Boys & Girls Club of America in Little Village. Despite its small broadcast radius, WCYC earned a reputation among south-side house heads, and Romo DJed there for ten years. Eventually he settled into a career as a dentist—he now runs three practices in Chicagoland—but he’s continued to DJ as a hobby.

During the pandemic, Romo started livestreaming DJ sets on Facebook, and it breathed new life into his DJing. “I was get-

ting a lot of emails from people that were in the hospital, that they were by themselves,” Romo says. “They would tell me, ‘Hey, this is my highlight—I get to see you do your thing. I get to see you have a good time, I get to listen to music, and my family at home is doing the same thing.’” As pandemic restrictions eased and vaccines rolled out, Romo started booking in-person gigs; in 2023 he landed on the main stage of the My House Music Festival (which also involved Windy City Events).

When Romo and Windy City Events started discussing the Chicago House Run, they wanted to book DJs who would showcase the breadth of house music. “We decided, ‘Let’s do different generations,’” Romo says. “‘Let’s do different genres.’ It’s all house music, but some of the DJs will focus more on older house music; some are focusing more on newer house music. . . . We wanted to diversify it.”

The Chicago House Run begins at 8 AM on Saturday. Registration costs $56.70 (or $45.77 per person for groups of ten) and includes a running bib and T-shirt. Participants are welcome to run, jog, walk, or even dance. Visit chicagohouserun.com for a course map, registration, and more information.

ON FRIDAY, JUNE 27, indie rockers Smut drop Tomorrow Comes Crashing , their second album since moving to Chicago from Cincinnati in 2020. They wrote most of their breakout sophomore full-length, the 2022 dream-pop delight How the Light Felt, while still in Ohio, which makes the new record the first one Smut have created soup to nuts as a Chicago band—and they think Chicago is at

Clockwise from le : DJ Lady D, Gant-Man, and DJ Heather will spin at the Chicago House Run.

A furry ear to the ground of the local music scene

least part of the reason it’s louder, more visceral, and more aspirational and anthemic.

“I feel like just living in Chicago and dayto-day life did inspire [the album] a bit,” says front woman Tay Roebuck . “Chicago, for us, is a bit more fast-paced than Cincinnati. I feel like a lot of that kinetic tension was felt while writing the album.” Roebuck founded Smut in 2014 with guitarists Andie Min and Sam Ruschman. A er six years in Cincinnati, the band had become a five-piece, and they went looking for a bigger city. Chicago was more affordable than its peers, and it had the advantage of being in the midwest. “When the pandemic hit,” Roebuck says, “we all got a stimulus check and were like, ‘Well, I guess it’s now or never.’”

The band landed in Humboldt Park, and as Chicago opened back up after the first year of the pandemic, they began to get a feel for the city. “There’s a lot of fun things to do here,” Roebuck says. “Rest in peace, the Freeze. That was such a great place for us as a band to meet up all the time in the summer.” Smut also had a friend from Ohio in the local scene—David Fuller, who plays bass in Friko. The two bands have gotten pretty chummy, and Smut played Friko’s record-release show at Metro last year.

Smut started writing Tomorrow Comes Crashing about six months after How the Light Felt came out. Smut needed a new bassist at the time, and they’d only figured out a couple songs by the time drummer Aidan O’Connor persuaded John Steiner to fill that role. “Once John joined the band, we powered into the rest of the album,” Roebuck says. “I would say the majority of it was written within one year, which is kind of crazy considering how long it took to write the last one.”

Roebuck says she wanted Tomorrow Comes Crashing to express her feelings about living in a society that’s indifferent if not outright hostile to artists of all kinds. “I felt super emotional about making music and making art,” she says. “Any time I was feeling what we would call a big emotion, I was like, ‘OK, we’re gonna make it into a song.’” Smut celebrate Tomorrow Comes Crashing with a headlining show at Schubas on Saturday, July 5.

who paid to post it. means they actually want to hear from you. AI-generated spam, no mystery recruiters. real work, in the real world.

LAST WEEK, RAPPER and Bookclub cofounder Kevante Weakley dropped Legend of the Doorman , his second album as TYGKO . On Thursday, June 26, he’ll celebrate with a release party at the Lincoln Park venue he co-owns; the free show starts at 8 PM. —LEOR GALIL

Got a tip? Tweet @Gossip_Wolf or email gossipwolf@chicagoreader.com.

CLASSIFIEDS

JOBS

AUDITIONS

HOUSING SERVICES

JOBS

We are seeking for a loyal and experienced Driver for my Elderly Parents

We are seeking for a loyal and experienced Driver for my Elderly Parents on a parttime basis (Mondays & Fridays) weekly pay $437 must Have a valid state-issued driver’s license Must be professional, safe and patient at all time email: l64194814@gmail. com 7739049407

CA Consulting LLC seeks two (2) Senior Associates - Investment Portfolio in Chicago, IL. Reqs BS in Financ, Accntng, Econ, Biz or clsly rltd fld + 18 mnths exp in clsly rltd ocptn. Reqs 18 months exp w/ fllwng: Fund modelng, deal wtrfll modelng; Mkt sizng and mpping; Valuatn and rtrn anlysis; Trnsltng venture legal docs into fincl models; Dvlpmt of fund theses; Due dilignc and structrng invstmts. Empl will accpt pre- or post-Bach degree exp. 20% domstc and intnl travel as needed. Bnfts: Medicl, Dntl, Vision, ShortTerm Disablty Insurnce, Long-Term Disablty Insurnce, Life Insurnce, 401(k). Slry: $144,200/yr. Mail resumes to Aurora Garcia at 222 N Canal Street, Floor 3, Chicago, IL 60606.

Civil Engineer - (Chicago, IL), WSP USA Inc.: Wth minmal sprvsn, asst wth collctng, cmpilng, & anlyzng data frm the physcl wrk site, srvys, bluprnts, GIS data, subsrface utlty info, maps, geotchncal

data, & othr matrices for prjct dvlpmnt, dsgn, & constrctn. Stnd corp benfts. Salary $78,755.04/ yr. EOE. Reqs: Bach (or frgn equiv) in Constrctn Engnrng, Archtctre, Cvl Engnrng, or a rltd fld + 1 yr of exp as a Trnsprtatn Engnr, Intrior Archtct, or a rltd rol. Intrnshp exp is accptd. Apply to: jobs@ wsp.com, Ref: 0419

Groupon, Inc. is seeking a Software Engineer in Chicago, IL w/ the following responsibilities: Design & implement scalable distributed applications & Big Data pipelines that solve a wide range of business critical use cases. Up to 75% remote work allowed. Must live w/ in normal commuting distance of the worksite. Full time: $147,472 - $150,700 per yr. Competitive compensation & benefits. Apply at https://job-boards.eu. greenhouse.io/ groupon/ jobs/4592173101 by searching keyword Requisition ID 67.

Disparti Law Group seeks Paralegals for Chicago, IL location to prepare legal docs to be sent to insurance companies & opposing counsel. Associates in legal studies/related field +1yr exp req’d. Req’d Exp/ Skills: Basic principles, concepts & methodology of legal proceedings & legal research; principles of legal writing; identification, analysis & eval of basic legal concepts; knowledge of computerized info & db recordkeeping sys; research & analyze statutory regs & case law related to clients’ req’s; legal doc prep & review; drafting legal memorandum incl case briefs; engaging directly w/clients to gather info; prior exp assisting w/ arbitration & facilitating outof-court dispute resolution. $50,000-75,000/yr REF:

KS Send resume to: leslie. fry@dispartilaw.com

Health Care Service Corporation seeks Application Architect (Chicago, IL) to ensure conceptual, logical, & physical application architecture for specific product. Own & maintain the product/application suite roadmap. REQS: Bach & 4 yrs exp. Flex role (3 ds in office / 2 ds remote). Pay: $127,754 - $164,200/ yr. Benefits: https://careers. hcsc.com/totalrewards. Email resume to hrciapp@ bcbsil.com, ref R0042220

Lainovic Management Corp,dba Premier Jiu-Jitsu Academy, Glenview, IL Seeks JiuJitsu Coach:teach and promote JJ Classes and competitions, issue stripes. Need HS Dip (frgn equiv ok) +2yrs exp in job w/ Customer Contact +JJ Black belt.Pay$45k/ yr Resumes to: tony@ premierbjjacademy.com

Mechanic Inc is seeking a Marketing Manager to manage comprehensive marketing efforts, including strategy development, advertising campaigns, and social media oversight, to drive customer engagement and brand consistency and etc. Position requires a Bachelor’s degree in marketing or related, any interested applicants can mail their resume with code T225 to: T2 Mechanic Inc. 3520 S Morgan St., Chicago, Il 60609.

Avant, LLC seeks the following in Chicago, IL: Sr Assoc, Data Science, $138,715 per yr (# 34375); Full-Stack Software Engineer, $155,000$160,000 per yr (# 78347). Remote work prmtd for both roles. Apply @ https:// www.jobpostingtoday. com/ w/ ref #.

Cars.com d/b/a Cars Commerce Inc. seeks multiple Data Engineers III in Chicago, IL. Build data pipelines to ingest data from various source

systems. Telecommuting permitted. Wage Range: $101,100-151,700/ year. Apply at https:// www.jobpostingtoday. com/ Ref #26437

Software Engineer sought by Amount, Inc. in Chicago, IL. Develop clean, maintainable, and efficient code. Remote work prmtd. Salary: $120,259 to $ 120,259 per yr. Apply at https:// www.jobpostingtoday. com/ Ref # 69159.

Youtech & Associates seeks a Senior Full Stack Developer in Lisle, IL to impl new features & funcs in WordPress, Shopify, and BigCommerce websites. Dom travel req up to 10% to attend meetings with clients. Offered wage: $127,754 to $130,000 annually. Med, dent and vis insurance, a 401(k) w/co match, PTO, paid holidays, and opportunities for prof dev. Apply @ www.jobpostingtoday. com Ref# 72382.

SERVICES

CHESTNUT

ORGANIZING AND CLEANING SERVICES: especially for people who need an organizing service because of depression, elderly, physical or mental challenges or other causes for your home’s clutter, disorganization, dysfunction, etc. We can organize for the downsizing of your current possessions to more easily move into a smaller home. With your help, we can help to organize your move. We can organize and clean for the deceased in lieu of having the bereaved needing to do the preparation to sell or rent the deceased’s

home. We are absolutely not judgmental; we’ve seen and done “worse” than your job assignment. With your help, can we please help you? Chestnut Cleaning Service: 312-332-5575. www.ChestnutCleaning. com www. ChestnutCleaning.com

AUDITIONS

Black Men Talk Play Festival 3 male actors needed Broroc312@gmail.com.

HOUSING

2 bedroom Logan Square apt for rent now!

5.5 rooms total. Street parking, onsite laundry in basement. 2nd floor unit. Pets okay. Heat included, rent is $1500/ month. Open house all this week from 12p - 2pm, starting Wednesday 6/18/25 through Saturday 6/21/25. Email Joe with questions at traceyrn36@gmail.com, or just come on by!

Written by NOAH DIAZ

“The interplay between (Namir) Smallwood and (Amy) Morton is hypnotic, funny, and absolutely truthful”

“Beautifully crafted performances” “Captivating and original storytelling... purely and deeply emotional” — BROADWAY WORLD