Ministry of Fun

By Pete Beatty / April 28, 2003

Pete Yorn/Grandaddy/Rooney Riviera Theater 4746 N. Racine Although Chicagoland Pete Yorn fans snapped up all the tickets to this show weeks ago, it still might be worth up trekking to Uptown’s Riv to catch openers Grandaddy and Rooney and trying to scalp a seat. California space-rockers Grandaddy, in an unfortunately rare Chicago appearance, will air...

A valediction, featuring Dylan

By Pete Beatty / March 11, 2003

I’m, uh, resurrecting some brand of tradition with this here valedictory op-ed. The occasion of said valediction: My retirement from active duty as editor of The Maroon. Superficially this might not mean anything to you, if you don’t know me or work here, so I’ll do what I can to make this meaningful in a...

Maroon Sports: American League Preview

By Pete Beatty / March 11, 2003

AL East New York Yankees Are there any original ways to say that the Yankees always win and are obviously war criminals? Please write a letter to the Maroon if you think there are. Here’s a personal anecdote: Once when I was working at a radio station in New York a guy called in and...

The Maroon’s Top 5 Songs of All Time

By Pete Beatty / March 11, 2003

Editor in Chief Pete Beatty Depending on the sequencing of the various parts of this opus, I might be letting some sort of feline out of a pillowcase here, or I might be sewing that pillowcase shut long after the cat’s been sent out to its reward. What I’m getting at is that this article...

Dear Diary: The Interview

By Pete Beatty / March 11, 2003

This is an end of Dear Diary, at least in some liminal sense. I’m not going to be EIC as of Friday morning, so if I ever feel like doing something really dumb in this space, there would theoretically be someone who could say no to that idea. So this is the end of the...

Dear Diary

By Pete Beatty / February 25, 2003

Pete couldn’t make it tonight, so we did what we could with his notes. This is specifically not a case of Refrigerator Dear Diary, or Make Your Own Dear Diary. This is just an emergency kit, really. Nothing like the real thing of course. We cut some corners, but whatever. Just imagine there’s a picture...

It’s dark and lonely in here

By Pete Beatty / February 18, 2003

John Lucas was fired from his position as head coach of the Cavs almost one month ago. Lucas’s bald pate still graced the front page of Cavs.com, your and my official Internet home of the Cadavaliers, until some undisclosed time in the middle of the night a few days ago. This is some weird nouvelle...

Dear Diary

By Pete Beatty / February 14, 2003

WE ARE back with an all-new métier with which one might use the cow’s head to navigate this bitch. First, some bad stand-up comedy. Ah, crap, the producer is giving me the speed-it-up sign. First, some trite observations: o The weather here in the winter is terrible! I did not see this coming at all....

Dear Diary

By Pete Beatty / January 14, 2003

1/13/02 The University of Chicago only gets something like eight more editions of this bitch. So let’s make it special! I did not fail to notice that Ohio State won the NCAA D-IA Men’s Football title. I can’t help but feel somehow largely responsible for this. Letters and personal checks characterizing me as prescient and...

Dear Diary

By Pete Beatty / November 19, 2002

Things I mean: I am really, really sorry. This column is not normally home to things I sincerely mean. This is an exception. Back to the well: Dear state of Illinois, Way to be worse than your cousin Ohio in every important measure of state quality, specifically college football prowess. Thanks, Pete How to beat...

Dear Diary

By Pete Beatty / November 12, 2002

Dear diary, 11/11/02 (when I wrote it) Coming under fire now for things…Having hard time taking things seriously… Shit… Shit… I was going to write about Ohio State football and I am probably going to do that anyway, so look out for that. But I might actually write seriously for a little while. Kind of...

Dear Diary

By Pete Beatty / October 29, 2002

Today’s theme: “IDENTITY” Dedicated to Big Money #94 Gerard Warren Letters Department Dear Gerard Warren Don’t take any shit from Tommy TJ Jackson. PS I love you PPS please kill mark brunell Love Pete Dear Veb U tyoed tgus ketter wutgiyt kiijubg at the cionoeter tgher are a lot of tyopos, u an lklooking at...

Dear Diary

By Pete Beatty / October 21, 2002

Axes to grind (1, 2, 3, 4) 1º What is the significance of L.A.K.E.S.(1)? Read before even attempting to touch my shit: http://geography.about.com/library/weekly/aa030298.htm http://www.glc.org/announce/02/01-02stclair.html http://www.timeforkids.com/TFK/magazines/story/0,6277,90798,00.html Epigram U.S. Rep. Fred Upton, the St. Joseph Republican, whose Michigan district runs along the shoreline of a real Great Lake, calls the designation “crazy” and also “sneaky.”(2) dramatis personae...

Dear Diary

By Pete Beatty / October 14, 2002

Dear Diary fourteen October 2002 I’m told that Foul Tips might allegedly be explaining this AS WE SPEAK, but the fact of the matter: The Angels are incredibly good at baseball. Bad on everybody for not noticing and doing something to prevent the Angels from being good or at least destroying the city of Anaheim,...

Pavement’s debut redux

By Pete Beatty / October 14, 2002

Pavement Slanted & Enchanted: Luxe & Reduxe Matador Records Luxe & Reduxe is a curious reissue—Slanted itself is a mere ten years old, and while the tidiness of a ten-years-later reissue is neat, the argument remains as to whether or not it’s entirely necessary. Pavement completists likely own almost everything, although it’s obvious that no...

Enrollment and teaching report published

By Pete Beatty / August 15, 2002

Five years after the implementation of a controversial plan to increase undergraduate enrollment in the College by approximately 1,000 students, the University of Chicago Council on Teaching has completed its “Report on Enrollment and Teaching, 1996 to 2001.” The report, authored by Constantin Fasolt, professor in the history department and the College, was released in...

Dear Diary with Mr. Pete Beatty

By Pete Beatty / July 25, 2002

I’ll ask you politely to check out the hot new v.3 Dear Diary graphical user interface. For those reading on the Internet, a group comprised solely of me and my dad, well, I’ll mail it to you. It’s a horrible world we live in. Most people wake up five days out of seven and drag...

Harper Court protesters: Bring back chess

By Pete Beatty / July 25, 2002

Over 70 people last Friday called for the return of chess benches to Harper Court in a protest rally. Since the sudden removal of the benches in April, Harper Court chess has become a rallying point for those touting Hyde Park’s diversity, while others have alleged that the benches were removed due to racial tensions....

Keep handguns out of Chicago

By Pete Beatty / July 18, 2002

Well, I guess I’m writing for two reasons: first, in response to J.H. Huebert’s article from last week, “Citizens need self-defense,” in which Mr. Huebert argued for a rethinking of Chicago’s law banning handguns. My second reason is just to say that I hate guns. Right out of the box I’ll say this: Mr. Huebert’s...

Bird resigns as ORCSA head

By Pete Beatty / July 18, 2002

Office of the Reynolds Club and Student Activities (ORCSA) Director Jennifer Bird has resigned her position and is leaving the University, effective August 2. A search committee has been created and is already in the process of finding a new ORCSA director. “I’m off to Jackson, Mississippi,” Bird said. “My husband has accepted a clerkship...

F#$%ing predictable

By Pete Beatty / July 11, 2002

The Fucking Champs V Drag City Records If you’re reading this, you probably have some idea who the Fucking Champs are, so I’ll skip the boring Record Review 101 crap and get started right away. Just in case: Fucking Champs are a instrumental heavy metal band who cater to an indie rock audience. There may...

Dear Diary with Mr. Pete Beatty

By Pete Beatty / July 11, 2002

It happens in half-moments, I guess. A trip to the bathroom. Catching your own reflection in a car window. Thinking about forging signatures. A realization that your things are not what they used to be. Hate for everyone may be winning its long tussle with good manners. Beer. Beers. Cough drops, cheeseburgers. Transition. If you...

I hate Cleveland GM Mark Shapiro

By Pete Beatty / July 7, 2002

Last week, my beloved Cleveland Indians, die Indianer von Cleveland, traded staff ace/goofy fat guy/waddling enigma Bartolo Colon to the Montreal Expos. A superficial consideration reveals the following: My favorite baseball team traded its best player for a bunch of prospects. To wit, my favorite baseball team is less concerned with delivering a world series...

Dear Diary with Mr. Pete Beatty

By Pete Beatty / July 7, 2002

Dear Diary Birthday Edition 2002 Birthday coming up. For those of you currently in funds, I would like: 1. Turntable 2. New shoes 3. A nice hat 4. A slightly less nice but a still very nice second hat and matching handkerchief 5. A Biggie-sized dog. Basset hound, IFF you’re in it for the long...

Latest from Silkworm is good times for all involved

By Pete Beatty / July 7, 2002

For some reason, Silkworm got tagged as the next Pavement about five years ago. It’s hard to explain exactly why. Both have eight letter names and hail from the west coast, and I guess they’re both indie rock bands, and Stephen Malkmus did play a few shows with the gents from Silkworm as “The Crust...

New Garfield Express route begins service

By Pete Beatty / July 7, 2002

The Chicago Transit Authority commenced service on an experimental express bus route on 55th St on June 24. The new bus, designated as the #X55 Garfield Express, runs every fifteen minutes from 5:30 a.m. to 10 a.m., then from 1 p.m. to 7 a.m., along the regular #55 Garfield route, traveling along 55th St. from...

Dear Diary with Mr. Pete Beatty

By Pete Beatty / June 27, 2002

Blackstone Avenue Freeze-Out.com Whoooo, what a summer it has been already. I do not have a job, I do not have a job, I do not have a job. I wish I had a job. My dad does not own a Fortune 500 company. It might be cooler if he did, but you know what?...

Jay Berwanger, Heisman winner, dies at 88

By Pete Beatty / June 27, 2002

Jay Berwanger, the most celebrated athlete in University of Chicago history, passed away on Wednesday night at his Oak Brook home. He was 88 years old. Berwanger, a native of Dubuque, IA, will be remembered as a great athlete as well as one of Chicago’s most devoted alumni. In 1935, Berwanger was the first winner...

Super Furry Animals

By Pete Beatty / April 22, 2002

The magestically talented Cex was afforded a mere half-hour with which to break minds, but what little time Cex was given was ample enough to intrigue at most five people in the audience, not counting the initial five who were already down with the Cex. Not to damn the man with faint praise, but Cex...

Dear Diary

By Pete Beatty / April 11, 2002

This one goes out to a young man who thinks he hasn’t seen anything good today RECORDED BUT NEVER RELEASED Are deaf people really missing that much, as far as music goes? I know that on TV they THEME: CH-CH-CHA-CHANGES Good Expansions Expos/Blue Jays/Nordiques/Senators: Milk ads in stadiums, nationalized health care. Height of average Canadian...

Dear Diary

By Pete Beatty / April 2, 2002

BASEBALL Look, no matter how badly you want to invent sexual tension between Tatum O’Neal and Walter Matthau in The Bad News Bears, it’s not there. It’s not there. Let it go, Indiana. UNREQUITED LOVE The best kind in my opinion. Porque e-e-everything you want never lives up to your prerationalized expectations of what it...

Dear Diary

By Pete Beatty / February 19, 2002

Real quick before we get started Lagaan deserves to win the best foreign film Oscar over Amelie. I haven’t seen Amelie, but unless it is four hours long and about cricket, it is probably not as good as Lagaan. A long story about nothing in particular I worked in a pet store once. One time...

Dear Diary

By Pete Beatty / February 12, 2002

Dear Diary, I’m not in much of a mood for the usual nonsense. I wanna be your dog I saw a car this weekend that said I can make up to $450 a month by allowing companies to advertise on my vehicle. The car didn’t talk, it had an ad painted on it. Unfortunately I...

Dear Diary

By Pete Beatty / January 29, 2002

Dear Diary, Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance Someone (me) said something about the National Football League to someone else (people) on their (mine) porch some time ago. I said the AFL-NFL championship game, which some (all) have been referring to by the unfortunate term of “Super Bowl” would be contested between the Boston...

Dear Diary

By Pete Beatty / November 6, 2001

Dear Diary (1) Well, it’s Monday night. I’m not going to lie to you again. Nothing has changed in the last seven days. And if anything had changed, this would not be the place to read about it. I have a paper to write. So I figure there are three things I could be doing...

They have quite the nerve

By Pete Beatty / October 15, 2001

For someone who owns a lot of records and is supposed to really like music, I really hate music. As of the last couple weeks anyway. I missed a concert I really wanted to go see. I don’t really have anyone to blame for that except myself, seeing as I was asleep on the bathroom...

Dear Diary,

By Pete Beatty / October 15, 2001

Last Tuesday, I asked for a half-page and quickly realized that I didn’t have anything to say. This Tuesday I again am realizing that I have not so much to say. In fact, I have even less to say today than I did last time. I didn’t have much at all to say last time....

The government is lying to us about the drugs

By Pete Beatty / October 11, 2001

When I was five, I said “fuck” for the first time. It happens. Everybody says it, sooner or later. The circumstances of my first f-bomb, however, were more graphic and personally demeaning than most. “Fuck,” now such an indispensable part of my verbal retinue, made its jungfrau appearance at a family dinner. It was me,...

Dear Diary,

By Pete Beatty / October 8, 2001

I don’t really have anything to say but I asked for this half-page so I had better come up with something. Sometimes I have a hard time coming up with stuff to write because I am hesitant to be overtly self-referential. It’s not because I am afraid people will think I am some sort of...

A white boy is a terrible thing to waste: Cusack Theory

By Pete Beatty / October 4, 2001

We here at the Maroon have many crazy theories. Some of them are just that: crazy theories. But much like Mel Gibson in Conspiracy Theory, some of our crazy theories are so sane they might just blow your mind. Coming straight from that “so-sane-it-will-blow-your-almond” mold is our insistence that the personality of every single one...

Jalapeño’s fusion works culinary wonders

By Pete Beatty / October 4, 2001

I done lived here in Hyde Park for three years now, and let me tell you, I hate this fucking place. The stadium’s falling apart, we don’t draw dick, and the weather’s lousy. Another few years of this and I’m gonna have to start feeding Cha Cha real dog food. I am getting what some...

What I read on my summer vacation

By Pete Beatty / October 1, 2001

I really hate books. One, you always have to buy a whole bunch of them for class. Two, they’re expensive as shit. $100 for one book? No book is worth $100 unless it has a $100 bill tucked into it as a bookmark. My Spanish book cost $100. The entire Spanish language, if you could...

Dear Diary

By Pete Beatty / September 27, 2001

Dear Diary, It’s been a long, hot, bearded summer for this STUNNINGLY CHISELED man. While I staved off the entreaties of dementia with my daily lifting schedule, the summer was no less long or hot or bearded even when I was BLASTING MY LATS and MAXING THE NEGATIVE and GOOD REP and SKULLCRUSHING WITH LIKE,...

Time for Movies!

By Pete Beatty / September 18, 2001

This just in: College students like to procrastinate. Once the weather turns here in the Chicagoland area, that means you’ll have to take your procrastinating indoors. As fate would have it, most movie theaters are indoors. So, why would you want to spend your time studying or sleeping when you could spend your time getting...

Cuomo gives up the lesbians and embraces wiener

By Pete Beatty / May 24, 2001

British accents make everything better. I’m not talking about stupid Americans pretending to be British. Fuck Mike Myers. Fake Scottish accent equals funny. Fake British accents equals vast quantities of open ass. But authentic British accents make everything better and by everything I mean sex. They make sex better. They are erotic as all get-out....

Mos Def: Mushroom pants, Metallica, and the future

By Pete Beatty / May 21, 2001

On Saturday night after Mos Def’s Summer Breeze set, Voices emissaries Pete and Gabe sat down with for an all-too-brief interview with the artist. Voices was understandably intimidated at the prospect of sitting down for a chat with the mind that brought you Black Star and Black on Both Sides, and we were a little...

I hate the Charlotte Whore-Nets cuz they iced Bobby Phills

By Pete Beatty / May 17, 2001

Does anyone in the fucking world like the Charlotte Hornets? Because I sure as fuck don’t, and I have a hard time believing that anyone anywhere has ever liked the Charlotte Hornets. Let’s look at some notable assholes who have played for the Charlotte Whore-Nets over their storied history: Larry Johnson. Alonzo Mourning. Derrick Coleman....

Go to Summer Breeze of contend with my wrath

By Pete Beatty / May 17, 2001

Summer Breeze is a-coming. Good. Great. See if I care. Actually, I do care. At least I care more about this than I do about most other things, which isn’t saying much. Anyway, I am talking now so please listen carefully. I think MAB and the perfectly decent Summer Breeze concert lineup they put together...