At Large Wassup, Girls?
posted by on January 16 at 20:26 PM
Just got back to mom’s place after a wild night on the town. We drank our way up and down McHenry’s answer to Pike/Pine. Riverside Drive runs along the Fox River, and it’s home to McHenry’s not inconsiderable bar scene. There are some nice taverns in this town—the Town Club, the Old Bridge, The Fox Hole, After the Fox, and Bimbo’s (yes, Bimbo’s). We brought a deck of cards and at the Old Bridge we played a little gin rummy while we watched American Idol on the big screen TV. (No liquor control board to worry about here. “Yeah, you can play cards,” the bartender told me when I asked if it was alright to play cards. “So long as you’re not gambling—you know, gambling obviously—it’s not a problem.”) After Idol, we played some Monster Madness, a little pool, ate some popcorn. Then the bar started clearing out—it was almost 10—so we headed back to mom’s place.
But then… on my way out the door… I spotted two newspapers… competing… free… newspapers… stacked by the window… just like The Stranger and the Weekly… in the window… back at Linda’s.
Ladies and gentleman, I give you Suburban NiteLife…
And Wassup! Local Magazine…
But which is McHenry’s Stranger? And which is McHenry’s Weekly?
Hard to say. Wassup! has the Wassup! Girls. (They wish you a happy new year, by the way.) The Wassup! Girls serve the same desperate function, presumably, as the Weekly’s “street team.” But Suburban NiteLife has the “Best of the Burbs” issue. The Weekly,, of course, also runs a “Best of the Burbs” issue. Wassup! has an advice column—”Ask Margarette”—but no horoscope, and Suburban NiteLife has a horoscope—”A Look at the Stars through the Funhouse Mirror”—but no advice column. Wassup! clocks in at 48 pages; Suburban NiteLife blows ‘em away with 80 pages.
So I guess it’s a draw. Each of these papers is a little bit Weekly, a little bit Stranger—and, hey, without a doubt McHenry is the richer for it. Culturally speaking.
Oh and while Riverside Drive is McHenry’s answer to Pike/Pine, my mother actually lives on McHenry’s honest-to-God Pine Street. My mom, such a hipster—a replaced hipster, but still.
(And it looks like a smoking ban is coming to Illinois—and not a moment too soon. We’ve been here a week and we’ve had to change our clothes twice.)
Wait a minute. It's illegal to play cards in a bar in Washington?
Changed your clothes twice? So it's like a normal month at home?
Say what you will about Suburban Nitelife and Wassup!--they're both still a million times better than the Chicago Reader
So... it's an entire post about how lame the Weekly is? Played through the lens of smack talking other alternative weeklies in the midwest?
And using a Donny and Marie Osmond reference?
I mean, I like it, but this is like watching school boards have a knife fight.
Since Liz Armstrong left the Reader, that's probably true, unfortunately.
Oh, the Reader has sucked since way before Liz left. And it speaks volumes that even self-destructive, crazy Liz Armstrong--the Neely O'Hara of alt-weeklies, practically--finally realized that she was too good for them. It's unreadable.
Point taken. Maybe since Bill Wyman stopped writing for the music section?
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Next time any of you are in the Chicago Burbs give me a heads up and I'll hook you up. The prize locker is always full. Just don't ask me what going on in the city. We leave that to the Reader. Thanks for checking us out.
Bart
www.nitelife.org
SNL's girls are way hotter than Wassup's. :p
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