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DJ Randall Ellison has called Champaign his home for most of his life. He was born in Madison, but grew up here and attended Centennial High School. After graduating from the University of Illinois in Chicago, he returned and has been working and DJing in the Champaign-Urbana area for about 12 years. Randall is mainly known through his work as DJ SorceryKid and through Nekromancy, his Monday night audio/visual mixshow of dark, alternative, industrial, and goth music. Tonight, Ellison will …
| The campaign Kony2012 is a movement that has created a lot of buzz across social networking sites for the past month and a half. This past March, nonprofit organization Invisible Children Inc. — founded in 2004 to bring awareness of the Lord’s Resistance Army — produced a short video calling for African warlord Joseph Kony’s arrest (see below). An initial wave of sympathy seen on Facebook and Twitter was quickly followed by a wave of criticism. With critiques ranging from …
Take a former prostitute and porn star, add an advanced degree, stir in over three decades of research, lectures, performances, films, workshops and life experience, and you're sure to have one of the most interesting guest speakers to appear in East Central Illinois in a long while. Annie Sprinkle has been on the sex-positive and feminist scenes for longer than I've been alive. In fact, upon hearing she would be in town this week, my father excitedly asked me to …
The C/U Stand Up Spectacular: A Night Of Stand Up Comedy takes place Friday at 9 p.m. at the Canopy Club. Cover is eight bucks. Eight stand-up comedians (Trey Mowder, Ryan Nallen, Sirifax, Lane Pieschel, Drew Michael, Ryan Walker, Sam Norton, and Collin A. Bullock) will do their best to make you laugh. In the interest of introductions, Pieschel, Bullock, and Nallen answered a few of our questions below.
It's easy to forget (now that you have been named the "Person of the Year!" for blogging about your exotic life in Marrakesh and filling out your Facebook profile and we can watch videos of any spectacle, political or not, almost immediately after it happens) that things weren't always like this. When the GEO strike happened a few weeks back, videos of the picketing were published online almost instantaneously, all without waiting for the mass media: the News-Gazette or local …
Rick Ross has had quite a life, and he's coming to Champaign on Thursday to share some of his experiences with local young people. In a free event in conjunction with Chicago-based Hip Hop Detoxx, Ross will be appearing at the Don Moyer Boys and Girls Club (201 E. Park St., Champaign) from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. on Thursday. C-U Citizens for Peace and Justice organized the event "in the wake of the police shooting of Kiwane Carrington and part …
Ever since Italian neo-realist director Vittorio De Sica decided that art could only exist if it made bicycles disappear, bikes and art have had a mutually hostile relationship. The few times they've met since then have been disasters: recall Sears's in-house bicycle brand "Free Spirit" (named, evidently, for the impulse wordy philosopher George Hegel believes art embodies), or Breaking Away, the state of Indiana's greatest "artwork," or the countless pictures of unrideable fixies and project bikes posted by their "curators" …
When my friend Amy first told my about a new kind of event that was being organized in Champaign-Urbana, it took me a while to understand the concept. "A what?" "Pecha Kucha," she explained, "it's a sort of show where designers present slides on their work. You should find out more about it, maybe you could present." Which is how I ended up meeting Christina Tapp and Madelin Woods, the organizers of Pecha Kucha in C-U. A rapid-fire format for …
The Urbana Sweetcorn Festival kicks off this afternoon at 5 p.m. in downtown Urbana. The festival is taking place from 5 to 11 p.m. tonight and from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. tomorrow. There's entertainment available on three stages, with headlining acts War, 33 Miles, and Days of the New, as well as other interactive activities. You can download the full entertainment schedule flier here. However, in this preview I'm going to focus on the festival's namesake: sweet corn. Namely, …
There's more going on around town than you may realize. As much as some of us former big city-dwellers like to bemoan the lack of anything worthwhile to do here in Champaign-Urbana, that's just simply not true. What we lack in terms of massive art museums, slam-poetry readings, open-air concerts, and professional sporting events, we make up for with elbow grease and ingenuity (otherwise known as the DIY spirit), as evidenced by this selection of offerings to add to your …
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@Jason: You’re right about that. I get groceries at Schnucks (they carry what I buy, which I can’t say of any other single grocery store in town), and if they have a beer I’m in the market for it’s usually a quarter or two cheaper per 6-…
Best Neighborhood Bar (& Grill) : Urbana - My ‘hood- the ‘Boom! http://www.boomerangbarandgrill.com Go on a Wing Wednesday or Fish Friday, or see a band play some night. Local blue-collar Urbana terroir galore. My only beer snobbish gripe is lack of a pale hopped ale, but you…
The one thing that’s bothered me for a while about the Friar is that, for most commonly purchased adult beverages, you can actually walk down the strip mall to Schnucks and get them cheaper. It makes no sense, but there it is. I suspect it’s because Schnucks…
Maybe I complained enough in person. One time I even explained to the (wholly uninterested) clerk how to navigate the Illinois Statutes web page, and Savoy’s Municipal Code database I wouldn’t know because I only go there when I want to pay 30% more for anything, which is never.
@Rob: You seem to have the weirdest experiences. I’m in Friar Tuck every other week (don’t tell my mom that I’m a lush). They never fail to ask for my birth date but never my age, they never card afterwards, and they often allow me to use…
This column affords me a long-awaited opportunity. I’ve wanted to write my own column called Fuck You Friar Tuck Liquors. but I always thought it’d be too pithy. Here, I can say Fuck You Friar Tuck Liquors and not feel bothered to stretch it out to 750…
Ha! Exactly. You, sir, are welcome at the bar in My House.
Why wait ‘til 3 pm?
I’m excited to go tonight- should be very fun!
Most Recent Comments
“It was at this point, before he started his business, that working with city employees should’ve raised red flags…” But they didn’t because: 1) The City Clerk’s office originally mis-interpreted the rules, or are indeed re-interpreting them. 2) Champaign’s brick-n-mortar merchants hadn’t yet started whining about The Crave Truck.
Super cool! Excellent track, Excellent band.
Looking forward to trying this place!
I’m in the middle (or the beginning or end, depending on how you look at it) of re-reading Slaughterhouse Five. What a great companion column.
Get yours early. The Rave’s CD will be available at Exile and at The C-U Flea on Saturday. C-U Flea details here: http://www.smilepolitely.com/news/sp_radio_podcast_c-u_flea_arrives/
I don’t know about Gerard and a random police sargeant. My (mild) outrage is based on this: “...he worked closely with Champaign City Clerk Marilyn Banks to make sure he was licensed properly as a transient food peddler, filling out the necessary paperwork and paying a $225…
Local Yocal pretty much nails it here. I suspect there will be merchants who oppose food trucks because they arguably don’t pay their fair share to locate their trucks in high traffic (high rent) areas. The food trucks take away business from rent payers, park in city…
Oh nice! I’d totally vote for Matt Campbell!
“Smile Politely sports writer announces candidacy for city government.”
I also got to visit Big Grove Tavern during the soft open and definitely enjoyed the pork belly the most of all the dishes I sampled. The cheesy grits and the vinegary pickled vegetables were a perfect compliment to the rich pork belly.
The Alan Partridge lookalike on the right in the first small photo has nothing to condescend to anyone about. AH HA!
Snell and the little Hitlers of the neighborhood association need to chill out. Legitimate businesses should have the freedom to exist without having to endure the slings and arrows of ignorant and misguided opposition.
represent, Matt.
Yeah, I’d agree that Transporter Room 3 is the worst house venue I’ve ever seen.
Food trucks are the start-up, small businesses of the future for those unable to afford real estate. No surprise, that merchants who pay rent, utilities, and maintenance on a property would despise the traveling competition. Or developers who build more empty retail spaces would want to close…
Not so much far-right Tea Party as a balanced, moderate viewpoint between letting businesses succeed and protecting society with reasonable regulations. In spite of what the city reps are saying, the interpretation of policy on this issue certainly has changed. Letting a business start up under one…
I think it’s neat that SP has turned rightward, now espousing a Tea Party-style frustration with government regulations & taxes.
This makes me so sad. (Happy to live in Urbana, though!) Crave Truck has been a GREAT addition to the food choices in C-U, and it’d be a travesty to chase them away. This town should be supporting small businesses. I’m glad to hear that they’ll still…
*slow. clap.* Still offering no threat of intelligence…. I know I said I thought you should just write this whole column yourself next year, Isaac, but now that you’ve gone and taken a “part deux” run at it, I’d like to modify my request: Best Music 2013,…
Actually, it’s kind of nice, the quiet. John Heoffleur’s engaging commentary/dialogue is sorely missed, however. In lieu of someone intelligent saying something, I’ve compiled a list of Honourable Mentions: BEST ROCK BAND: Take Care ::these gentlemen have four completely different sets at their disposal right now (which…
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The Alan Partridge lookalike on the right in the first small photo has nothing to condescend to anyone about. AH HA!