Chicago Horror Stories

Sustaining and Maintaining Our Core Listenership in an Increasingly Fragmented Market

Sorry for the lack of activity around these parts. Been hard at work on something I’ll hopefully be able to share before too long. In the meantime: Four Lions, which I wrote about back when this site first went live, is finally rolling out in U.S. theaters. And in other UK comedy news: there’s a new Alan Partridge series! It’s really good! See for yourself:

Patient Zero

Big indicator of how different life is in Los Angeles? The porn industry shuts down after an unidentified actor, known publicly as Patient Zero, is diagnosed with HIV, and it’s covered on local TV as a (more or less) straight-ahead business story. Even bigger indicator? You bring up how unusual that is at a party and everyone looks at you like you just fell off the turnip truck.

I suppose if it had been a story about the Gush [caution: tread lightly with that link], people might have been more taken aback.

A Snowball’s Chance in Spuddy Hell

Unless you live in the area or you’re a devoted fan of Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, the recent closing of Philadelphia’s Hot Potato Cafe likely won’t mean much. For me, it’s the sad conclusion to a bizarre turn of events involving my friend Brian McManus, a guy I’ve known half my life and who Ramsay once claimed, to my great amusement and disbelief, “has the power to make or break restaurants.” Turns out Ramsay was right. At least about the “break” part.

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