Adam Lopez faces more charges
Adam Lopez, former Springfield School Board member who’s been jailed since November on suspicion of stealing from people who entrusted him with money to invest, is in trouble again. Lopez was indicted today on two counts of theft. He is scheduled for arraignment on Friday. Multiple sources tell Illinois Times that Lopez is suspected of…
Weed-a-licious
Operators of a downtown Springfield medical marijuana dispensary are working on opening a second outlet within city limits. Chris Stone, CEO of HCI Alternatives, confirmed that the company has identified a second Springfield site where the company hopes to sell recreational marijuana when legal sales are allowed beginning Jan. 1. He declined to identify the…
Bernadette a confused mess
It’s rare that I have the reaction to a movie that I had to Richard Linklater’s Where’d You Go, Bernadette. Adapted from the novel by Maria Semple, this story of a woman who puts her career to the side in order to raise her daughter, only to find herself adrift and unstable years later as…
Bad Company is anything but
As British bands from the classic rock era go, Bad Company isn’t one that instantly rises to the top, compared with, say, Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd. Along with a lot of other groups, Bad Company long has been snubbed by folks who think that they know everything, which is why there is a Facebook…
Vince Neil and guests bring back the 80s hits for dedicated fans
Megadeth was originally scheduled to perform at the Illinois State Fair Grandstand for Friday, Aug. 9. However, not long after the announcement was made public, lead singer and band founder Dave Mustaine was diagnosed with throat cancer and immediately canceled the tour for health reasons. A replacement tour was soon found to fill the date.…
Wyndham under new ownership
The downtown Wyndham Centre hotel has changed hands. Crescent Hotels and Resorts, which had been managing the property that went through foreclosure last year, no longer has the hotel in its portfolio, according to a woman at Crescent headquarters in Virginia. The liquor license was transferred on Wednesday from Crescent to Tower Capital Group, said…
Win a pair of tickets to see PAW Patrol Live
Enter to win a pair of tickets to PAW Patrol Live – The Great Pirate Adventure
Boozing and teetotaling
The Last Chance Saloon in Salisbury, like the unincorporated village surrounding it, is a small place, lacking both paved parking and pretension. On a recent Monday, there is lament at the lack of Budweiser Select – just one bottle is left. The walls are mostly bare. Fireball, served in shot glasses, appears to be the…
Madigan values loyalty above all else
When House Speaker Michael Madigan announced in February of 2018 that he’d fired Kevin Quinn, the brother of Madigan’s alderman and political general, he said he made the decision because of Quinn’s “inappropriate conduct” with Alaina Hampton, whom he called a “courageous woman.” Hampton had come forward with allegations of sexual harassment by Quinn and…
Letters to the Editor
BRINGING BACK MACARTHUR BOULEVARDThis is my neighborhood where I’ve lived most of my life from birth to age 70. In a perfect world, this intersection would be a public gathering space, a square, surrounded by markets and other small businesses. Right now, it’s only a connected expanse of roads and asphalt parking lots. As a…
Consider more inpatient mental health treatment
Santa Fe, Texas – Last week, I sat in this small Texas town and listened to a mother tell me how a gunman killed her son as he hunkered in a classroom closet. Her boy was one of 10 people killed in the May 18, 2018, shooting at Santa Fe High School. In the wake…
Heartfelt Banks a bit heavy-handed
On July 8, 2002, fate threw 17-year-old Brain Banks a curveball that would alter his life forever. Falsely accused of rape, he was arrested and ultimately brought to trial as an adult. On faulty advice from his lawyer, he accepted a plea bargain that would result in his serving six years in jail, five years…
Editor’s Note
There is no shortage of good proposals to whittle away at the gun problem. The fact that the Ohio shooter killed nine people in 30 seconds puts the focus once again on AK-47s and large capacity magazines in guns made to kill people, not to hunt wildlife. But the primary focus should be on politics..…
The exhibition of farming implements, however, was of the most valuable character
In October 1853, with a net profit of $853 after paying $1,500 in premiums and with an attendance of over 15,000, the first Illinois State Fair was deemed a success. For the admission price of 25 cents that year you could visit the cattle, horse and sheep venues and also see displays of reapers, mowers,…
The Country and the City
Operatic soprano Christine Brewer and banjo virtuoso Noam Pikelny will perform as part of Illinois Humanities’ “The Country and the City” series that brings together rural and urban Illinoisans around shared concerns. Grammy award-winning Brewer has been named by BBC Music as one of the top 20 operatic sopranos of all time and is originally from…
A wonderful Wizard of Oz
The Wizard of Oz is part of American entertainment’s DNA. Since its publication in 1900, L. Frank Baum’s book, and the films and stage versions to follow, have been celebrated and analyzed as a political allegory, a coming of age story, and even a spiritual quest. The 1939 film won Academy Awards for best song and best…
The art of the fair
Mention the Illinois State Fair, and things like corn dogs, lemon shakeups, the giant slide, concerts in the Grandstand, animal barns, dizzying rides and all types of food on a stick come to mind. But a professional art exhibition is also a stalwart of the Illinois State Fair. There has been a professional art exhibition…
Fair time folks
It’s time for the Illinois State Fair, and that means it’s fairly crazy in Springfield for about 10 days. I promise no puns every year, but that just wouldn’t be fair, would it? And I couldn’t be fairly reporting the music news if I only did the fair without relating some of the other fantastic…
NCR
This band lineup of Jessica Dooley (vocals, guitar), Chris Harris (bass, vocals), Allan Harris (guitar, vocals), Josh Hutchison (guitar, vocals) and Tim Lynn (drums) is tearing up the place wherever they go with years of stage experience and heartfelt emotion driving the good stuff home. You can tell when the musicians in a band are…
Illinois State Fair-y tales
A quarter-century ago, Harper’s magazine published what is considered one of the finest essays penned by an American writer during the 20th century. Ticket To The Fair describes, in sometimes brutal detail, a transplant’s return to flyover country to attend the 1993 Illinois State Fair. The 15,000-word tome, reprinted in David Foster Wallace’s collection of…
Too much watermelon!
The average American household throws away more than $1,500 worth of food every year, according to the James Beard Foundation. Last year the foundation launched Waste Not, a multi-year campaign to educate consumers on full-use cooking – how to use all the food you buy and avoid food waste. Waste Not: How to Get the…
