It's 8:58 a.m., two minutes until show time and there he is, rushing through the studio door with his graying, shoulder length mane bobbing behind. Chuck Mertz, the host of WNUR's This Is Hell, is a bit late, which is to say right about on schedule. The last show tune from Breakfast With Broadway cuts off and an ambient track fills up the dead air.… Post the First Comment

In the past six months, Lindsay Lohan has watched from the sidelines while Paris hooked up with a pizza delivery guy and Brit-Brit was strapped to a gurney. She stopped drinking, reconciled with her estranged father, kicked that alleged cocaine addiction, and even started shooting a new movie (the tango-centric Dare to Love Me).… 7 Comments

DELT'S SLOPPY SECONDS When Delta Tau Delta was suspended indefinitely from Northwestern in July, the men had to relinquish their frat crown and move out of 2317 Sheridan. And while it's too late to give away any dignity you had left after Spring Break for booty shorts and keychains at their Anything For a Buck event, here's some recruitment advice from the boys whose house you wish you joined.… 1 Comment

Sat I flew in at like 4 p.m. I went to dinner with my dad and a bunch of my friends and drank beer and wine. Went to Manor around 11:30. I had Black Label and coke at about three or four. I was pretty drunk. I wasn't shitfaced. Sun Someone had a party on Garnett first.… 6 Comments

For Joe Foran, what had started as a quiet night during his first month of college was about to end in a hospital. "I was on the phone when somebody from behind said something, so I turned around," Foran, now a SESP sophomore, says. "I got hit in the eye and couldn't see anything.… Post the First Comment

Calling all bachelors working on your bachelor's: Lisa Hogan, the coed-at-heart promoter behind Tappa Kegga Bru Events and student-friendly specials like $10 Fridays at Union, is looking to give away even more beer to a lucky 21-plus undergrad. Besides unlimited free drinks at all Hogan's parties, the selected bloke will enjoy privileges like first dibs on t-shirts and gear she gets from liquor sponsors, her plus-one invites to rooftop parties and VIP events, and tickets to go to see the Bears, Cubs and concerts for the rest of the school year.… Post the First Comment

"Tomorrow Never Knows" is classic Beatles: the finale of an album, Revolver, that launched a thousand bands. It's one of the first songs constructed entirely from tape loops, and one of John Lennon's first forays into psychedelia. To offset the depth of spiritual lyrics, he gave it a throwaway title inspired by reading the Tibetan Book of the Dead while on LSD.… 1 Comment

Long-term Chicago resident Greg Kot is a host on Chicago Public Radio's "Sound Opinion" and a religiously read Chicago Tribune music critic. Not to mention he wrote the quintessential book on Windy City's prize alt-folkies, Wilco, and has occasionally dropped a line in Rolling Stone and Blender.… Post the First Comment

"Violence is as American as apple pie," Black Panther leader H. Rap Brown once said. It is still true as ever in these wartime zeitgeist, and in 2007, Hollywood took initiative to examine violence as a mechanism turning the wheels of history. Among the year's most memorable images: an unstoppable hitman with a cattle gun, an oil man beating a priest to death with a bowling pin, a fame-obsessed serial killer who sends clues to his pursuers, a legendary Western gunslinger shot dead as the price of his own fame, and a vengeful barber exacting his deranged justice through the edge of a razor blade.… Post the First Comment

Trendspotters and cultural critics started buzzing about DIY eons ago. At the turn of the millennium, market-watch publications noted DIY (Do-It-Yourself) manifesting in the profitability of Home Depot and Lowe's, HGTV and Martha Stewart. ReadyMade magazine, dedicated to handmade projects and a hipster aesthetic, launched in 2001.… Post the First Comment

LOW BROW: Spice Girls, Greatest Hits They aren't sexin' music, despite "2 Become 1." They're not really party music, unless said party is prefaced by the word 'slumber.' Hell, they're not even good music. But the Spice Girls still make me smile, out of nostalgic irony, and love of all things plastic and shiny.… 1 Comment