Video: Where’s My Congressman?

Why are Democrat Congressmen avoiding Summer townhalls? Here is a little explanation of that…

Featuring Clint Howard, little brother of the very liberal Hollywood director Ron Howard, this film does a great job skewering the Democrats. Brought to you by Heritage Action for America.

Ill. State Rep. Randy Ramey (55th District) Will Introduce Arizona-Style Anti-Illegal Immigrant Law in Springfield

On August 8, Representative Randy Ramey of the 55th District told an audience at the Tri-County Tea Party that he’d introduce a law in Illinois that mirrors Arizona’s anti-illegal immigrant law.

Ramey told the crowd that in August he would be introducing the Arizona-like law here in Illinois “in the next few weeks.”

On what that law means, Ramey said, “We’re not pulling people off the streets, we’re not pulling them out of ice cream stores, we are not taking them out of their houses.”

“If you break the law, they’re going to ask you for your identification. If you don’t have your identification then they can start asking questions about your naturalization and are you a citizen of this country. It’s that simple ladies and gentlemen and that’s what we’re going to take care of here in Illinois.”

Obama is America’s New Jim Jones

On November 18, 1978 the world was shocked to learn that more than 900 members of the People’s Temple had committed suicide in Jonestown, Guyana. They took their lives at the urging of Jim Jones, the Temple’s founder.

Until 9/11 it was the single loss of American civilian life in a non-natural disaster and the tragedy still ranks high among the largest mass suicides in history. Jones had been a charismatic preacher who founded the Temple in the 1950s in Indiana, later moving it to California.

It is increasingly evident with every passing day that Barack Obama is America’s Jim Jones, undermining the U.S. Constitution while urging Americans to drink his Kool-Aid lies. Need a reminder? Here are a few:

Stimulus Act Kool-Aid
Obamacare Kool-Aid
Financial Reform Kool-Aid
Reach out to Muslims Kool-Aid
Mosque at Ground Zero Kool-Aid
Amnesty for illegal Aliens Kool-Aid
Bailout General Motors Kool-Aid
Cash-for-Clunkers Kool-Aid
Union Card Check Kool-Aid
Green Jobs Kool-Aid
Close Down Gitmo Kool-Aid
Climate Change Kool-Aid
Regulate Carbon Dioxide Kool-Aid
Gulf Oil Drilling Moratorium Kool-Aid

Americans are resisting the behemoth of the federal government under Obama’s control. The Tea Party movement is evidence that the American spirit is far from spent. Many states are joining together in legal suits to oppose Obamacare and to demand the federal government shut down the border traffic that is breeding crime and other costs.

It is a life or death struggle for America. Niall Ferguson, a British historian and author of “The Ascent of Money”, recently gave a lecture for the Center for Independent Studies in Sydney, Australia. He warned that “In the history of empires the end is abrupt and those that rely on them need to be ready.”

I have often referred to America as an empire and so have others, given its global military presence, the global reliance on the U.S. dollar as the standard against which other currencies are measured, its moral stature as a defender of human rights and advocate for freedom, and its vast worldwide cultural impact.

“Alarm bells should therefore be ringing very loudly in Washington,” said Ferguson, “as the United States contemplates a deficit for 2010 of more than $1.47 trillion, about ten percent of GDP for the second year running.” He further warned that “half the U.S. federal debt in public hands is in the hands of foreign creditors. Of that, a fifth (22%) is held by the monetary authorities of the People’s Republic of China, down from 27% in July last year.”

“The United States is on a completely unsustainable fiscal course with no apparent political means of self-correcting,” said Ferguson.

The indicators are, however, that on November 2nd, the midterm elections will provide a self-correction IF the power in Congress changes from the Democrats to the Republican Party. It’s a very big IF because, short of anything less, the damage that President Obama can inflict is still significant. Even so, some of his more noxious programs can be defunded.

The President and the Democrats in Congress are possibly the most anti-energy administration in the history of the nation. Everything in our economy and our lives is dependent on access to plentiful and affordable energy whether it comes from oil, coal, natural gas or hydroelectricity.

The Obama administration has blandished billions on “alternative”, “clean” or “green” energy in the form of solar, wind, and biofuels. Nothing about any of these options represents a reliable and viable power source to replace or provide the nation’s huge energy requirements.

The most rogue federal agency in U.S. history, the Environmental Protection Agency, is pursuing the power to regulate “greenhouse gases” despite having no authorization to do so. The justification offered is the totally discredited “global warming” theory. Other nations that have invested in solar or wind power only to discover that neither provides sufficient energy and both eliminate jobs in the process.

That, I suggest, is the very reason why the Obama administration wants to impose them on the nation while at the same time gutting the oil and coal industries.

The moratoriums imposed on the drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico, despite two court injunctions against them, will cost the Gulf Coast states an estimated 8,000 jobs or more, nearly $500 million in wages, more than $2.1 billion in economic activity, and nearly $100 million in state and local tax revenue. Outside of the states immediately affected, the moratorium will cost the nation 12,000 jobs and nearly $3 billion, including almost $200 million in federal tax revenues.

Allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire will raise taxes across the board at the worst possible time in the midst of a major recession.

This isn’t delusional, it’s intentional.

It is Barack Obama’s Kool-Aid for America.

Kagan Declines To Say Gov’t Has No Power to Tell Americans What To Eat

Obama and the Trouble With Voting ‘Present’

Weak and radical, the president looks more like Jimmy Carter all the time.

When Barack Obama announced he was running for president in February 2007, Nathan Gonzales of the Rothenberg Political Report wrote “Obama’s history of voting ‘present’” in Springfield, Ill.—even on some of the most controversial and politically explosive issues . . . raises questions . . . Voting ‘present’ is one of the three options in the Illinois Legislature (along with ‘yes’ and ‘no’) but it’s almost never an option for the occupant of the Oval Office.”

Mr. Gonzales’s words were prescient. Barack Obama may now be president, but at times he appears to be merely present. That has been the case with his response to the environmental catastrophe unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico. The president was late recognizing the disaster’s magnitude, late in visiting the region, late in approving requests by Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, and late in feigning outrage. He has never offered an independent plan to stop the leak.

Mr. Obama also seems disinterested in hearing from experts about the spill. The White House’s “Deep Water Horizon Response Timeline” doesn’t list a single meeting between Mr. Obama and industry experts, though he did send Energy Secretary Steven Chu and others to Houston May 12 to meet with BP and others.

Yet while the president says his Noble Prize-winning energy secretary has been “examining every contingency,” Mr. Chu was clueless about BP’s plans to install a cap over the well to funnel oil to a vessel on the surface. As the New York Times reported last Saturday, “After the cap was successfully placed, Mr. Chu wondered aloud why oil was still spewing.” BP engineers had to explain that oil was still coming from vents that “would be closed very slowly to ensure that mounting pressure would not force the cap off.”

Even now, Mr. Obama looks like a spectator, albeit an angry one, barking at White House aides to “plug the damn hole” (now that’s a good idea no one has thought of) and telling NBC’s Matt Lauer he’s in search of an “ass to kick.”

But the main political behind that’s being kicked is Mr. Obama’s. The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll says Americans give the federal government a 69% negative rating for its handling of the spill, compared to a 62% negative rating for Washington’s handling of Katrina in August 2005.

This pattern of being merely present has been apparent almost since the first days of the Obama presidency. He may unveil his mighty teleprompter to help pass what Congress has drafted, but this White House seems strangely disconnected from crafting legislation. For example, last year’s stimulus was largely drafted by House Appropriations Chairman David Obey of Wisconsin, one of Congress’s most liberal members. As a result, what passed was a wasteful spending bill rather than an economic growth package.

And faced with a growing mountain of debt, Mr. Obama passed the issue off to an ineffectual commission whose report is due after the election. After growing the size of the federal government by a quarter in just over a year, he now says he’d like agencies to try to find 5% cuts in their budgets.

On other controversies—the attempt of high-ranking aides to entice candidates not to challenge incumbent Democratic senators, the details of cap-and-trade legislation, the resolution of big conflicts between the House and Senate versions of financial regulation, and the drafting of comprehensive immigration reform—Mr. Obama appears to be removed, distant and detached, unwilling or unable to provide the adult supervision Washington requires.

The result is that he receives a 38% approval and 52% disapproval rating on his handling of the economy in the latest Economist/YouGov poll. The GOP enjoys a nine-point lead over Democrats in Rasmussen’s latest generic ballot.

This is causing the public to revisit concerns it’s had about Mr. Obama since he clinched the Democratic nomination in March 2008. Then the ABC/Washington Post Poll reported that 46% of Americans found him too “inexperienced” to be an effective president, the highest number ever for a major party presidential nominee. In October, just before the election, ABC/Washington Post asked the question again: 44% called Mr. Obama too inexperienced. On issue after issue, Mr. Obama is providing plenty of evidence to validate those concerns.

Americans might hope the president’s diffidence when it comes to the hard work of government might mitigate his more extreme liberal tendencies. No such luck. Mr. Obama is an odd mixture of passivity and radicalism. He’s happy to be a cheerleader for policies (like nationalizing health care) that many Americans find dangerously liberal.

The country has had another president both weak and radical at the same time: Jimmy Carter.

General McChrystal Tells Army He’ll Retire

WASHINGTON — Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who was fired last week as the top U.S. general in the stalemated Afghanistan war, told the Army on Monday that he will retire.

Army spokesman Col. Tom Collins said McChrystal, 55, notified the service of his plans, but he has not yet submitted formal retirement papers. It is not clear when he will leave the service, but the process usually take a few months.

In announcing McChrystal’s ouster on Wednesday, President Barack Obama praised his long Army career but said his intemperate remarks in a magazine article that appeared last week could not be abided.

McChrystal apologized for the remarks in Rolling Stone magazine and flew to Washington last week to resign as commanding general of the war.

The Army has been McChrystal’s only career.

McChrystal was promoted to the selective and coveted rank of four-star general last year. It is not clear whether McChrystal will be able to retain that rank in retirement. Under Army rules, generals need to serve three years as a four-star officer to retain that rank, with its prestige and retirement benefits.

The secretary of the Army can allow officers with as little as two years of service to keep their retirement rank, Collins said.

Three military and defense officials in Washington said Obama may use his power as commander in chief to allow McChrystal to keep all four stars. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because McChrystal has not yet submitted his paperwork.

McChrystal was the Pentagon’s choice to run the war following a year of Taliban advances in 2008 and early 2009. He replaced Gen. David McKiernan, also a four-star Army general, after McKiernan was fired for failing to apply the counterinsurgency strategy McChrystal represented. McKiernan retired from the Army almost immediately.

The Senate Armed Service Committee will hold a confirmation hearing Tuesday for Gen. David Petraeus, nominated to succeed McChrystal as the top U.S. and NATO general in Kabul.

Hock Flock

‘Pawn Stars’ is newest Vegas tourist attraction

LAS VEGAS — Sudden fame is starting to take a toll on the “Pawn Stars.”

“I can’t stop at a gas station without someone wanting to take my picture,” says Corey “Big Hoss” Harrison, the 27-year-old general manager of Gold & Silver Pawn Shop, where the History Channel’s overnight sensation is almost constantly being filmed.

In less than a year, Corey, his father Rick, grandfather Richard and best friend Chumlee have gone from being everyday Las Vegas pawnbrokers to four of the most improbable TV stars in America.

Last week’s show was seen by nearly 6 million people. By way of comparison, the “Real Housewives” series — over which oceans of ink have been spilled — calls it a good week when 2 million are watching.

“A year ago,” Harrison tells The Post, “we had a staff of 13. Today, we employ 43.”

Since “Pawn Stars” debuted last July, business at Gold & Silver Pawn Shop has tripled, says Corey.

The pawn shop is in an uninviting area of downtown Las Vegas, just a couple blocks north of Main Street and Charleston Boulevard. It’s in a seedy neighborhood dotted with adult bookstores and bail bond businesses.

That hasn’t stopped the show’s faithful from coming by the busloads every day to visit the pawn shop, which is open until 8 p.m. — and has a 24-hour window for late-night business.

“We took The Deuce [a double-decker tour bus] here to the pawn shop from our hotel,” said 30-year-old Josh Jones who, with his wife Kristin, traveled from New Washington, Ohio to visit Gold & Silver. “We wouldn’t miss coming here for anything.

“I’ve seen all the shows,” Josh says. “It’s wonderful being here and seeing all this great stuff, but I’d really like to see Chumlee. Some people think he’s dumb, but I think he’s neat — and I just want to give him a hug.”

Cory’s father Rick believes it’s the bartering that is the key to the “Beverly Hillbillies-meets-Let’s-Make-a-Deal” appeal of “Pawn Stars.”

Viewers like to root for the guy hoping he will get top dollar for that vintage grandfather clock.

“Sometimes it’s difficult to say no when I’m negotiating,” Rick says. “I want people to be happy. But this is a business, and some of the stuff people try to sell us — you wouldn’t believe.”

Dave Walker, 49, of Kokomo, Ind., stopped by Gold & Silver while vacationing in Las Vegas to try to sell an antique original key to Room 630 of the Waldorf Astoria.

“They offered me only $50 for my Waldorf Astoria key,” Walker says. “That’s not enough. I saw one just like it on eBay for $150.”

Rick is fighting exhaustion after arriving back in Vegas on an early-morning flight from New York, where he’d appeared on “The Early Show” with Harry Smith — and then been bumped by a late guest from a scheduled appearance on David Letterman’s show.

“It was a lot of fun,” Rick said, as a staff member interrupts to show Rick a 1934 $1,000 bill that a customer wants to sell.

“How much does he want for it?” Rick asks.

“Fourteen-hundred dollars.”

“I don’t know,” Rick says with a grimace. “Offer him $1,300 for it.”

Cruzin Winfield Steamrolled

What a shame last Monday night’s Cruzin Winfield was marred by construction equipment left parked on the street in front of John’s. Cruzin Winfield is an exciting event which promotes the towncenter and is designed to bring guests and foot traffic to the downtown. The bigger question is why wasn’t this resurfacing put off until after Monday’s car show?

It’s not like Cruzin Winfield was not a last minute addition, the event is schedule every Monday from June through Good Old Days and is prominently displayed on the Chamber’s website. The lack of communication between the village and the Chamber of Commerce is very disheartening. Furthermore, where is the Winfield Chamber of Commerce and town support for this event?

Once again Village President Deborah Birutis is out of the country for two months on her yearly sabbatical. Sadly, our remaining elected officials appear to be just as disinterested in the success of Cruzin Winfield as our missing village president.

Remembering ‘Blues Brothers’ 30 years later

30 years ago, ‘The Blues Brothers’ hit the big screen, crashing their way through Chicago. In the process, they cleared a path between Hollywood and the city

John Belushi walked into Jane Byrne’s office, sweat beading on his forehead. Dan Aykroyd waited outside the door. He gave Belushi, a Wheaton native, the breathing room to appeal to the mayor, hat in hand, local boy to local girl. Belushi was nervous. Byrne expected him to be. She sat at her desk stone-faced and silent, she recalled, offering no relief.

Belushi and Aykroyd wanted to shoot a movie in Chicago, but, as everyone knew, Chicago government wasn’t exactly amenable to movie production. There wasn’t an official policy or anything. Movies did shoot here. Brian DePalma shot The Fury here a year earlier. A lot of commercials were shot here. There was even a cottage porn industry in River North. But the cooperation needed for a large-scale Hollywood production — the kind Belushi, Aykroyd and director John Landis had in mind, only bigger — was out of the question. It had been for years.

It was 1979, and Byrne had just started her term. Mayor Richard J. Daley, the reason movie studios usually didn’t consider Chicago a viable location, had died three years earlier. Byrne, now 76, remembered that Belushi “looked kind of fat, a sweaty guy already, but he wore a suit jacket and I thought he looked sick, to be honest. To the point that his hair was getting wet. I was a fan of his. But, of course, I wasn’t going to say this right away.”

So, for a laugh, she let him drown. She thought it would be funnier if she “acted like the first Daley, nodding like Buddha.”

“I know how Chicago feels about movies,” the comedian said to the mayor. Byrne nodded. Belushi said the studio would like to donate some money to Chicago orphanages in lieu of throwing a big, expensive premiere. “How much money?” she asked. He said, “$200,000.” She nodded again.

“And so he kept talking,” Byrne recalled. “Finally, I just said, ‘Fine.’ But he kept going. So again I said, ‘Look, I said fine.’ He said, ‘Wait. We also want to drive a car through the lobby of Daley Plaza. Right though the window.’ I remember what was in my mind as he said it. I had the whole 11th Ward against me anyway, and most of Daley’s people against me. They owned this city for years, so when Belushi asked me to drive a car through Daley Plaza, the only thing I could say was, ‘Be my guest!’ He said, ‘We’ll have it like new by the morning.’ I said, ‘Look, I told you yes.’ And that’s how they got my blessing.”

And that, more or less, is how Chicago became a regular location for movie production.

On June 16, 1980, 30 years ago today, “The Blues Brothers” premiered. Keeping with Belushi’s promise to eschew a flashy debut, it screened in Norridge for local crew and politicians only; the musical- comedy-action-film about two bluesmen on the run opened nationally a few days later. There will not be a parade to mark this moment, but there should be. Not just because, as film critic Gene Siskel wrote in his four-star review in the Tribune, it is “the best movie ever made in Chicago,” etching iconic images in the imagination (Daley Plaza surrounded by hundreds of police and soldiers, a car chase in a shopping mall); not because it serves as a reminder of a city long gone, with nods to everything from the Illinois Nazi party to Maxwell Street to the swanky, now-defunct restaurant Chez Paul; not even because, as Aykroyd said by phone earlier this week, “it changed the way Chicago looked on film, and probably turned a lot of people on to Chicago in the first place.”

But because without “The Blues Brothers” — “which we conceived as a love letter to the city,” Landis said — Chicago might not have had much of a film industry. Or rather, it might have taken longer to develop. We might not have had the 900 film and TV productions that have shot in Illinois since 1980, spending an estimated $1 billion, mostly in Chicago, according to the Chicago Film Office. Comparatively, before 1980 (not including Chicago’s healthy silent film industry in the 1910s and ’20s), fewer than 100 features were shot here, and usually only for a scene or two. Indeed, if you have ever worked on a film here, recognized your office in “The Dark Knight” or pondered the havoc “Transformers 3,” which starts shooting next month, could wreak on July traffic, thank “The Blues Brothers.”

“I still hear from people who say they were 9 but they were in the background of this or that scene,” Aykroyd said. “And you know what I tell people? You know the four stars on the Chicago flag? I tell them the stars represent the Chicago fire, the city’s founding, the first Daley and ‘The Blues Brothers.’”

It closed Lake Shore Drive. A car was dropped from 1,000 feet. A mall was demolished. “I remember the 1968 Democratic Convention,” Landis said, recalling the police beatings in Grant Park that still characterized Chicago in 1979. “And here we were getting permission on outrageous requests: Shut downtown streets? Yes. Allow 90-mile-an-hour car chases with 50 vehicles? Yes. ‘How do you propose (doing) this?’ they asked. Weekend mornings. ‘OK.’”

“I remember old-timers thoroughly amazed at what the city was allowing,” said Mark Hogan, who served as an electrician for production of the film, “because Daley wouldn’t have closed a lane of traffic for a film, and now they had entire streets closed.” Hogan is now business manager of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Local 476, which represents more than 800 crew members on Chicago sets. Before 1980, it had 300 members. Jane Alderman, a well-known local casting director who retired last year, said, “All the things Chicago has to make a movie, like crews of people who know what they’re doing, just didn’t exist at that time.” In fact, the Chicago Film Office was microscopic — a minor part of the mayor’s press office — and hadn’t established itself until interest from “The Blues Brothers” led to both a need for movie productions to run more smoothly and a need to attract more movie business.

Ron Falzone, an assistant film professor at Columbia College Chicago, was an intern in the Chicago-based Illinois Film Office in 1979. A year earlier, he said, the most his office could brag about was an architecture poll that ranked Chicago among the most beautiful cities in the world. “Then ‘Blues Brothers’ arrived and became this dividing line in terms of what was possible. What it said to Hollywood was: ‘Chicago will do whatever you need to get a movie made here. Just please clean up after yourselves.’ That was the message we sent. And the right film received it.” Said Rich Moskal, director of the Chicago Film Office since 1996: The over-the-top scope of “The Blues Brothers” (a $32 million film when $8 million production budgets were average) served as “a lesson in how to develop a (film) office and deal with the industry, while respecting concerns of the community. It was before my time, but, as I understand, it got made the way movies were made here then — a mix of carte blanche and finding permission through back channels.”

Lucy Salenger leaned toward the widescreen TV in her Hyde Park condo and set her tortoiseshell frames on her nose. Jake and Elwood Blues, Belushi and Aykroyd, 30 and 27 when the film was shot, were hugging at the gates of the Joliet Correction Center, which Salenger had pushed Landis to use. Salenger — “the woman who built the film industry in Illinois,” as Oprah Winfrey once described her (Winfrey later hired Salenger to help build Harpo Studios) — was the head of the Illinois Film Office in 1979. “Oh, look at those guys,” she said lovingly, clapping a hand to her cheek. She hadn’t seen the movie in years, she said.

“I would fly to Los Angeles and ask studios to just visit,” she said. “And they’d say, ‘Aren’t dust balls running through Chicago?’ I’m from Southern California. I know the temperament, but Chicago offered new visuals, (film) equipment was getting light, more films were on location. Why not here?”

This meant picking up hesitant directors at O’Hare to scout locations, driving Robert Altman and Sidney Poitier around “in a state car with no shocks.”

Many of the people instrumental to production of “The Blues Brothers” said the biggest hurdle to clear was Daley’s legacy. He had a reputation for not cooperating with prospective filmmakers because he feared Hollywood would only exploit Chicago’s gangland history. Landis heard that Daley once saw an actor playing a Chicago cop take a bribe and resented the image. Others say his resistance to production even lost Chicago the show that became “Streets of San Francisco.” Dominick Frigo, the Chicago police lieutenant in charge of special events in 1979, said Daley meant well, but when Frigo became the primary go-between for filmmakers and the city, he would get into arguments with his superiors about the necessity for film production.

“They would say, ‘Are you crazy? We can’t assign police to a movie,’” Frigo, 83, said. “I would say, ‘We’re losing a lot of money over this.’ I would explain that movies are going to be set in Chicago regardless. But we could control those images, and get the money back into the city.”

Nevertheless, Frigo was not in awe of filmmaking. Assigned to “Blues Brothers,” he insisted police cars not involved with a stunt be driven by off-duty officers. He organized the chases on Lake Shore Drive and remembers tourists accidentally driving into the scene. He said he once grabbed Landis by the shirt because a police officer in the film “used foul language.” “I didn’t approve and said, ‘I don’t know if you ever met anyone from Chicago, but we don’t take this crap.’” He also remembers having to talk city departments into performing the smallest of tasks, such as opening a fire hydrant for a scene.

Still, when production reached Daley Plaza — a sequence shot over Labor Day weekend requiring tanks, helicopters, several hundred actors and costing $3.5 million, according to news reports at the time — Landis found himself without permission from Cook County commissioners to shoot in the old Cook County building. So he said he visited Sidney Korshak, a powerful Chicago lawyer and fixer with mob ties (who died in 1996). “Within 24 hours, I got a call, and we were set,” Landis said. As for Belushi driving through the corner windows of the Richard J. Daley Center, Julie Chandler was location manager and recalled a $17,000 bill to replace the glass. “We couldn’t get anybody to come out because they would not work Labor Day. They would only come out at 5 a.m. on Tuesday morning.”

By the time production wrapped in October, word had made it to Hollywood about “The Blues Brothers” shoot, Salenger said, and three more movies began filming here — Steve McQueen’s “The Hunter,” “My Bodyguard,” with Matt Dillon, and Robert Redford’s “Ordinary People,” though the latter filmed mostly on the North Shore. While Landis was crashing Chicago police cars along Lower Wacker Drive — Universal, which made the film, bought more than 60 of the vehicles — “The Hunter” was driving a car off the Marina Towers into the Chicago River. Decades later, Moskal said, it’s not unusual for his office to get calls from producers asking if Chicago has anything they can destroy, a question he ties to 1979. “But today I would hate to have the reputation as a place where filmmakers can do anything. Within reason, maybe,” he said. “On the other hand, flip a truck end over end down LaSalle (as in “The Dark Knight”), that sends a particular message.”

As does a 30 percent tax credit for productions in Illinois, enacted in 2008, though competition among states for films has grown so intense that New York now offers a 35 percent credit and Michigan offers a 42 percent credit. In 1979, the only thing Chicago had to offer, Salenger said, “was the ability to try and cut red tape.”

Few claim “The Blues Brothers” changed filmmaking here overnight — retired casting director Alderman, for instance, pointed out that the industry has gone through dramatic swings, generating $24 million in 2003, $155 million in 2007. But few debate that those 14 weeks of production in 1979 were the turning point. Indeed, to Byrne, “The Blues Brothers” should be remembered as no less than the dawn of contemporary Chicago, “part of one big push to remind people how attractive their city was.” “I didn’t see it any different from sidewalk dining or Taste of Chicago,” both of which started during her term, she said.

Landis, however, doesn’t remember it as a bright, new civic dawn. By summer 1980, he was one of the hottest directors in Hollywood. His previous film was “Animal House.” “The Blues Brothers” was then one of the most expensive movies ever made (and became a blockbuster). But as he entered the lobby after the Norridge screening, he said the tension seemed elsewhere.

“These two Cook County commissioners approach Jane,” Landis said. “And they start shouting at her. They were really abusive, and you could see her getting mad. ‘How could you have let them do this?’ they screamed. ‘They ruined the floors! Troops on Daley Plaza!’ It was the most bizarre scene. She’s saying back, ‘They replaced the floors!’ A guy’s shouting, ‘No way we let this happen!’ She’s saying, ‘It happened months ago! And you didn’t even notice!’”

Byrne said she doesn’t remember this exchange. “But it was long ago, a different time.”

Read about Dan Aykroyd’s “Blues Brothers” memories and check out photos of the filming locations as they look today versus 30 years ago.

At the Board Meeting with Mr. Allen

Village Board Meeting News, June 03, – 2010

Not a lot happened at the village board meeting:

1. Klein Creek Golf Club got their noise variance. The only NO vote was Trustee Olson.
2. Jed and Karen Skillman got their variance for a sun room on their house.
3. The village board heard a review of the flag lot ordinance with the only real interesting part being when Cliff Mortenson got up and explained the reason’s why we do the things we do with regard to planning and zoning. His explanation of zoning regulation with regard to fire protection issues was very informative. I believe it is a great asset to have Cliff as Chairman of the Planning Commission.
4. There was more discussion of killing the free leaf vacuuming service in the fall. You should expect to have to bag your leaves, if not this year then next year for certain. I offered some clever and entrepreneurial solutions to the problem and was laughed at by the village manager.
5. Village President Deborah Birutis has been hard at work talking with our neighboring towns about border agreements. I have FOI’d the maps and will get them to you ASAP.