ChicagoNOW: Sydney Sweeney-Scooter Braun, Good Good Golf & Englewood Music Fest
[Music] a poll today. If you won the jackpot, who would you share the money with? 74% of you say close. Close family. Close is the key word. All right, that’s going to do it for us here on Good Day Chicago. Stay right here. Chicago Now starts right now. Chicago now. Welcome to Studio 32. This is so strange you guys because if you haven’t been watching us streaming, I know I missed day one. How was day one yesterday? Day one was fantastic. Jake and I had a great time and then Anita and Tia had some wild guests as well. We did miss you though. But there was a good reason everybody. Caitlyn’s our main stay that Caitlyn was gone yesterday. This was this was a historic daycar for Caitlyn Cody did little Darcy Peach off to prek. So in case you know I’m sure you guys gave the the 411 the 31 the 211 of of sorts of the show. Um but this is a very relaxed kind of fun show. So for me this is like this is a big deal. We’re on on regular television. Exactly. And I describe it as the mother ship. The mother ship. You’re on your elliptical watching us. Um, but this is a really fun show. We just kind of hang out, chitchat, catch up on what’s going on. We hit the trenders. We hit the interesting topics. We ask all the questions. Um, and so, you know, this is just us hanging out with you. It’s 10:00 a.m. on a Thursday, and we’re just your friends chitchatting. Exactly. And on that note, tell tell our new family what why you were conspicuously absent. So my middle, she’s starting preschool, which you know, Birdie when she started preschool, she had the tears, the uh separation, anxiety. Um but Darcy, which no surprise because if you follow me on social media, she is a spitfire. I second. She typical middle kid. Um but she did great. You know, I I got a video of her when she was leaving the class, too, and she just ran over. There were no tears. Cuz sometimes that happens, too. You drop your kid off, they’re fine. You pick them up, they see mom or dad, and then it’s just um But no, she she started preschool yesterday. Now granted, it was only an hour. First day was only an hour. But it went well. It’s fun. It’s It’s a new stage of life now having kids that are going to school now that we’ve got two that are starting to go to school. It’s it’s it’s nice though in a way. Like I was all complaints at first about back to school because my babies are gone all day. But which is the opposite for a lot of parents. I’m like, “Oh, finally we got through the summer little freedom.” Yeah. Get out of my house. Um but the routine is nice. So like, you know, you get home from work, you do the sports, the dinner, and then 6 6:30 rolls around and it’s kids inside getting the bath, we’re going to bed where in the summer you’re out running around till 8 9:00. I will say, have you found in uh your household that the routine does tend to help when there’s when there’s timing for everything, whether it’s leaving for school, getting back from school, the start of sports, that routine that comes with the school year, tends to help your kids um thrive or do I think does it help your kids? I think that’s what you’re Yeah. Okay. In what way? Just be I think that there’s comfort a lot of times. Um certain kids take comfort in a routine. I know mine do. Everything just seems to go more smoothly. And even if it’s as is as as simple as, you know, we’re going to set a timer for your screen time and they know, you know, they get the five minute warning. They get that that that alarm. It kind of cues Yeah. their their brain for, hey, we’re about to do a transition here and transition to a new activity, whether it’s eating dinner or, you know, bath time or bedtime or whatever. So, we find that that that routine uh tends to help. I know your kids are a little bit younger, so they’re just kicking off this. Anthony, we are a hot mess at my house. Literally, I get home from work and I’m hungry, so I’m eating dinner at like, you know, 4:00. And then my kids, like, they eat we don’t sit at the table and eat dinner together. Like, we’re we’re kind of like fly by the seat of our pants, improvising, which maybe when they get a little bit older, to your point, maybe they’ll do maybe cuz your oldest is how old now? She’s kindergarten age. Six. Yeah. Kindergarten age in sports. Can we please? The sports thing is insane. Some of these kids, couple of hours of practice after school. Like when do you have time to do anything as working parents? You’ve got to clean. You also have to clean the kids, you know, get them bathed, fed, sports, homework, and then get enough sleep. It’s wild. I I don’t understand how some some parents do it with the travel sports where my my kids are also young too. They haven’t gravitated toward the the travel sports. Perhaps they will, but it is unbelievable. One of my friends whose son is in a uh club football and he’s I believe he’s eight or nine years old. Four practices a week and two games. That’s like your whole It’s your whole life. It’s your whole life. Why are you Why are you do I think I seriously I think I’m going to do one sport per kid. I mean if that because that’s kind of how we we do it. But I feel like we are like the most under scheduled family where we live. It it’s out of control. I just feel like your life goes so much faster when you’re constantly doing something like can we just slow it down a little bit? I think even just work in school. I mean it it’s so much. So sports on top of that is just a a smidge too high. How does your kids Everyone’s got like a swing coach now instead of like just running to the same I know, right? You know what I mean? That’s so true. Um, how do your kids handle homework? Um, um, by force. Is it? Yeah. Do your homework. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, this is our first like screen time, so you get the stuff done. Okay. Do you do it right after school then? Um, we give them a little bit of chill time and then it is homework. Homework. Yeah. How do you feel about homework as a parent? Uh, I I mean I went through it myself, so I’m fine with I mean I think I believe in Yeah. Do you? Yeah. Exactly. Are you I don’t think you should have homework yet. You don’t? No, I think homework should not happen. Interesting. That’s We’re going to have to unpack that, Caitlyn. But we have a very special individual on the line. Is he here? Yes. Are we talking with TMZ, our best? We’re kicking. We got a jam-packed hour. First of all, got all kinds of talk topics to run through. But be without further ado, Michael Babcock from TMZ. I’m waiting. Well, we should probably estab Do you guys Do you have young ones yourself, sir? Or I I I I don’t yet, but here’s hoping. Yes. Okay. Michael, how do you feel about Exactly. I want I want to go and, you know, do the sports thing. I’m I’m I’m getting here. I am I am jealously listening. A one day, sir. Yeah. Yeah. I can already tell he’d be an amazing dad. This guy. Michael, always great to have you on the show. Thank you for having me. We have a couple headlines to get to before we get into our interview segments. First and foremost, Harry Styles, Zoe Kravitz, what is happening, sir? Yeah, I guess we’ve got two relationships to talk about today. So, they are maybe relationship is the wrong word, especially with Zoe and Harry Styles, but they are casually dating each other and friends with benefits, I think, is the way that it was it was put to us. But they are they are a thing. They are very much into each other. They had been spotted last week in Rome together and they were walking arm in- arm and I think at that point obviously people said okay this is this is obviously something more than just a friendship here. They’re they’re uh they’re they’re obviously again they’re they’re almost you know sort of holding hands walking along the streets of Rome again looking very much into each other. Then she flies back. She actually has a new movie coming out. So she has to come back to New York for the premiere. She flies back alone, but then what do you know it? Who is there just a couple of days later? Harry Styles, they are once again seen in New York City together looking very happy, looking, you know, flirty and all that good stuff. And I, you know, we’ll see where it goes. I think they not putting a whole bunch of expectations on it at this point, but uh, yep, they’re they’re casually dating and and we’ll see ultimately what happens. I I I suppose, you know, she’s got a friendship with Taylor Swift and and Harry and Taylor Swift dated in the past. So, maybe this means ultimately that Harry Styles ends up at Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s wedding. You know, that’s the main question. We’ll see what happens. Well, I think they’re darling together. Wasn’t Zoe engaged before he was. Yeah. To uh to another actor who she was with for for a while and you know, they were serious. And obviously, like we said, he has been in a lot of maybe not as serious relationships, but he’s been in a lot of high-profile relationships, whether it’s been Taylor Swift or Kendall Jenner. There have been some other actresses out there that he’s been spotted or he’s been linked with. So, no short of celeb relationships on his part. Now, he has found himself in another one. Michael, it doesn’t seem doesn’t it seem like they’re not really making that big of an effort to hide this whatever the relationship is? You know, they’re out in public, they’re holding hands and everything. Do you anticipate that they will, you know, there’s rumors obviously swirling, oh, what’s their status? What’s their status online and all that? Do you anticipate them directly addressing the rumors or in situations like this to A-list celebrities like them just kind of let the rumor mill swirl and kind of bask in speculation? I think it happens both ways. I I don’t I don’t think there’s any, you know, playbook necessarily, but I mean, speaking of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey, they they had never really spoken about the relationship, but it was all anybody was talking about, at least when it came to celebrity news, and we saw them out. We we knew what we knew, but they just didn’t talk about it. But then on the other hand, you’ve got couples who will openly talk about the relationship. The one thing I will say is I think once once they allow us to see them out so openly, like you said, they’re not hiding it. They’re walking, you know, themselves out arm in- arm. I I think at that point they have already kind of tested the whatever you want to call it relationship, the friends with benefits. They they have tested that. They’ve made sure that they’ve liked it. I I think the last thing that a lot of these celebrities want is to go and be seen on a first date with somebody and then everyone is talking about them and then they don’t like each other and then the celebrities got to answer questions about that other person, you know, incessantly. So, I think once you see them together, they they know that they like each other, and I think it’s it’s usually a little bit further along at that point than we may think it is. So, I I am sure that they’re really again into each other, they like each other, and this if this turns into them dating and and something serious, I wouldn’t be in the least bit surprised. Well, like I said, I think they’re so cute together. Yeah, they really are. They are. So, speaking of another couple, we’re getting This is the one that’s fun. Sydney, Sweetie, and Scooter Braun reportedly dating. So they were spotted in Venice. Yeah. At the wedding. The the wedding. Yeah. The the You’re You’re right. The wedding. Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez. That’s where they met. They did not know each other before. I mean, I think they run in somewhat similar circles. He’s obviously not necessarily the star in his own right, but he is, you know, Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber. I mean, he’s worked with so many big stars and he’s so prominent in the entertainment industry that they had they had, you know, perhaps known each other, but they really got to spend time with each other last month in Venice at the wedding. It was a star-studded event. I mean, from Leonardo DiCaprio to Tom Brady, but they really gravitated towards each other, and they were actually seen kind of chatting during the wedding around the wedding wedding festivities. And I think a lot of people said, “Could that be a thing? Is this possible?” And what do you know? We’ve talked to people. They are casually dating each other. Another one, just like Zoe and Harry, not incredibly serious at this point, but it could get to that point. She’s coming off of just like Zoe was a serious relationship. She was engaged to a guy named Jonathan Deino. That for some reason did not ultimately work out. They split up. She had all of these rumors where she was attached to Glenn Powell, who was of course her co-star on a movie she was working on. That was never a thing. And now she finds Scooter Braun. Scooter Braun was married. He’s got the three children, but he is now single. And seems like they’re both happy with this new situation they’ve got going. My understanding is Scooter Braun is not without controversy. Correct. He’s not. Okay. Will you Will you get me I’m I’m sure I’m not the only one who might need a little more clarification on the background of this guy cuz he’s had tension right with like Taylor Swift. He he has and and Sydney Sweeny’s been making all kinds of headlines for this new controversial ad campaign as well. So, kind of get us updated on exactly who Scooter Braun is and why why he is a little bit ambiguous of a figure in Hollywood. Yeah, I didn’t think of that. They could probably bond over that they’ve both been involved in these really big controversies, Scooter and and Sydney. uh he was uh he was um you know really attacked by a lot of Taylor Swift fans because he ultimately ended up purchasing Taylor Swift’s music catalog and he owned her music and that’s why she was making a lot of those Taylor’s version if anyone might have heard Taylor Swift talk about that those Taylor’s version of the songs because she did not want to essentially make money for somebody that she was feuding with and that person happened to be Taylor Swift who again owned her music. she she thought she should be the rightful owner of the music, so she was actually re-recording these tracks. Now, she has ultimately purchased those back. And I I wouldn’t say that they’ve got any active beef or tension, however you want to describe it, with one another. They’re certainly not best friends. And it it all had to do with that Taylor Swift music catalog and the fact that Scooter Braun owned it. But he’s also had falling out. He’s had a falling out with Justin Bieber, too. He was at one time like a second father to Justin Bieber. I mean, he was when Justin was really coming up as a young kid, he was around Justin and he really made sure that Justin was okay as he was on the road with him all the time and they had a falling out as well. There was fighting over money. So, yeah, he has he has been involved in a lot of celebrities and he has helped build the careers of a lot of celebrities, but he has also not maintained a good positive relationship with a lot of those stars at the same time. Speaking of him being a father figure, um he’s 17 years older than her. Is there a buzz about that or is that just if I think people are talk I think people are talking about it. I think I I think for the most part people have said hey if they like each other that’s fine. Obviously especially when it comes to Hollywoods and celebrities dating we’ve seen we’ve seen far worse than that. I I was just talking about yesterday Bill Bich who was 70s something with his 24 year old girlfriend. So you know these guys you know nothing compared to that. No, no. Seeing the footage of Jordan Hudson on the sideline of that UNC game over the weekend, that was just bizarre. I’m like, I had one of those, is this real life moment, right? It’s it’s you could not make it up. It’s Oh my gosh. You never have anything. No shortage of stuff to talk about at TMZ. Michael, worry that we we might not have things to talk about. Never will happen. Thank you. Getting in the drama. Get Thank you so much as always, sir. Hope to check back in. Thank you so much for having me. I’ll see you soon. All right. We got a ton to get to over the next hour. I cannot wait. You know, I’m I’m kind of a nerd when it comes to like local ecology. Yeah. Not just local architecture, but there are these manmade floating islands that have been installed on the south branch of the Chicago River, and they’re leading to some great things. Kind of a resurgence of the river. We’ve been talking on Good Day Chicago a lot in recent weeks about the fact that in just a matter of weeks, they’re going to do the inaugural Chicago River Swim. M we’ve heard from some of them that the water quality is exactly that, at least right in that downtown area, exactly that of Lake Michigan, and that things are okay. So, we’re going to dive in and unpack this with Christina Kurt. She’s a a coordinator, a conservation action coordinator with Shed Aquarium when we come back right after this. Stay with us. [Music] I’m all [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] [Music] Welcome back. It’s 10:18. So, can we re-imagine the Chicago River? When most Chicagoans think of the river, they probably picture murky water, pollution, or maybe even Chonosaurus. Chonkasaurus, that’s snapping turtle. Big snapping turtle. So, what if we could reimagine the Chicago River as a place teeming with life, beauty, and community connection? Swimming. Swimming in the river. So, that’s the goal of this new restoration effort happening right now on the South Branch at Bubbly Creek. We’re joined by Christina Kurt from Shed Aquarium and Nick Wesley from Urban Rivers, two of the people who are leading this incredible project of floating wetlands. Good morning to you two. Morning. Good morning. How’s it going? Gorgeous out there. Where looks like you’re on the river or somewhere close. Where are you joining us from right now, guys? Yeah, we are joining you actually from the north branch of the river over by Goose Island at the flagship floating wetland. Um, so we’re surrounded by the gardens right now for you to see. Oh, cool. Thank you for giving us a little view there. Is that the same kind of man-made floating island that is going in on the south branch as well? Yeah. Yes, it looks big. Let’s talk about what is this. Yeah. Yeah. So right now we’re at the Wild Mile and so right here it’s a floating eco park in the Chicago River. And so we use a mixture of floating wetlands and other kind of habitat amenities to create and kind of emulate what you’d find on a normal natural river edge ecosystem. And so we’re kind of taking the same concept and expanding the gardens down at Bubbly Creek to kind of uh give some love down there. Where is Bubbly Creek? Say that one more time. Where is Bubbly Creek? Ah, yes. So, Bubbly Creek’s in Bridgeport, McKinley Park area. So, um, it’s on the south branch of the Chicago River and it’s a very notorious spot. You know, they had it Upton Sinclair wrote about it being bubbling from all of the cow carcasses and stuff. It has a long legacy of pollution, but, you know, the kind of tides are kind of shifting down there, which is pretty exciting. So, okay. Okay, so I’m looking at this video that you guys have. It looks like it’s attached to the shoreline. I imagined it literally like an island floating down the river. Um, why are we doing this and why is this necessary for the Chicago River? Yeah. Jump in on that one. Yeah, hit it. Yeah. So, what’s really unfortunate is when we were industrializing our river, we really dredged out those native banks that um Nick was talking about, this emergent habitat where all of our aquatic plants and a lot of our fish hang out. Um, so we have these steel walls throughout the Chicago River that really created this aquatic highway um for barge traffic which really helped Chicago to be the massive city that it is today. But it reduced the habitat that was available to all of our local wildlife. So when we put these floating wetlands back into the river, what’s really cool is the plants actually go grow through the modules down into the water. So, if we were to lift up these islands, we would see these root systems that are several feet deep, which create really wonderful habitat for fish, but also above the water for pollinators and birds and turtles. So, we’re really bringing back this emergent zone that we lost when we channelized our river. But, we’re finding a way to put this back without, you know, pulling out that steel wall and having our buildings fall into our river. We’re finding a way to kind of meet in the middle to make it a good space for people and wildlife alike. That is awesome. Before we talk about the organic matter that is on those modules, will one of you please talk about the modules themselves? I’m kind of curious how these things float, what they are made out of, and how they allow for the plants to actually grow, as you mentioned, right through them. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So these are a series of floating gardens. So they have kind of pontoons, things that add buoyancy that allow it to kind of sit on the top of the water. And then we put um basically a fabric down um and then layer on rocks and wood chips and other things uh so that the plants actually grow through this fabric and then the roots hang down below. And so it allows the kind of floating islands to be able to kind of move up and down as the river level changes and allows the roots of the plants to actually use the nutrients, all of the excess stuff in the water as fertilizer, which is uh kind of the secret sauce. I guess what’s cool is those rocks actually allow something for these plants to hold on to. That’s the biggest thing. A lot of these plants don’t need all that soil to survive. They’re getting that nutrients from the water like Nick said, but these modules are giving them that anchor, that thing to hold on to that they can no longer find in our current the way our infrastructure is at this time. Um, so then they grow on through all that material and it just gives them that anchor. So, who came up with this idea and are you guys going to do more? Are they meticulously placed along the river like certain spots that you have pointed out maybe for the future down the road to put more of these? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that this is something that, you know, as you know, the Wild Mile has kind of evolved and grown, as you know, parks like the floating gardens down at Bubbly Creek, the gardens up at River Park have kind of developed, it seems like it’s a solution that really is applicable throughout the river system. So, you know, when we look at just how we manufactured our canals and the the process that we uh went through to get here, where we have all steel and concrete edges, where there’s, you know, kind of a lack of habitat connection, um this seems like a perfect stop gap to create those connections in areas where you couldn’t before. So, it’s uh I think a pretty exciting time for the river. And as you know, you guys kind of alluded to earlier with the river swim coming up and all the kind of energy and momentum around uh you know the Chicago River being a real ecological asset for the city. I think this is this is part of that whole puzzle. It it really has been cool to you know I was born in the I grew up in the 80s so I have gone from seeing the river as this industrial kind like you mentioned Caitlyn like murky water you’d never go in to now we got the riverw walk now we got this swim happening I’ve been taking the water taxi with my kids down to Ping Park which is probably not far from Bubbly Creek to see the transformation is really cool now we’ve been taking a look guys at the at some of the footage of your crews installing this stuff. What kind of organic matter is on those modules? Are those cattails? What what what are we looking at being planted there? Yeah. So, it’s very similar to the stuff that’s around us. It’s everything you would find on a river edge that allows it to, you know, that can handle the wetness that can handle kind of the flooding and drying and stuff like that. So, a lot of different sedges, carrots, kimosa, things like that. We have these beautiful hibiscus plants that um I don’t know if you can see them behind me, but these big kind of dinner plate size flowers um really good for pollinators. But, you know, with the plant choices, we really focus on what is going to provide the most ecological benefit for the ecosystem around it. Because the the draw isn’t that it just looks nice. it’s that it actually creates uh an environment that allows other wildlife to kind of come there and populate and you know um that becomes the real attraction to seeing what what is in the Chicago River and what can survive here. A big goal is to bring that biodiversity back to this space. So on many areas of the river where you do still have some of that natural river bank, you’re seeing a lot of invasive species, species that are not native to the area kind of taking over. So here we have the opportunity to actually choose and curate what’s going into these and really bring back that vibrant biodiversity that then brings back that vibrant biodiversity from pollinator birds especially the swamp mala which are the ones that are the really big flowers that people really enjoy to see or some of the other plants are called lizards tail and water willow which are naturally found in rivers. Um we’re able to bring them back here. Can we talk a little bit about you two coming together together? So, the shed aquarium and urban rivers, how did this happen and this project? How did it all come, you know, along? It’s a pretty fun one. Um, one of Urban Rivers founding members had been doing some research at the aquarium when they were doing their posttock and it was just a relationship that we continued to hold on to as they went off into figuring out kind of the awesome projects that they wanted to put into the world. And so we kept in touch with them over several years. And in 2017, we saw Urban Rivers kind of launching their first gardens into the river. And in 2018, um, Shed, our amazing CEO, Bridget, kind of was like, pilot some really cool projects. Like, I want to hear what staff members across the aquarium want to see happen. And our conservation action team at SHED were like, well, we want to pull on this connection that we’ve held on to. we see this really cool at the time small project happening on the river and there’s an opportunity to bring people not just eye to eye to wildlife within the aquarium but to bring people eye to eye to the amazing wildlife that’s right here in our city in our backyard and so we had the opportunity to start helping fund urban rivers work actually get our hands dirty I’ve been joining it for island builds for many years now um and build these spaces together while bringing people out to come see them. And for many years there wasn’t a floating boardwalk. So we were bringing people out via architect for conservation program which we still do today to bring people to get eye to eye with these spaces from water level. And now we have the opportunity now where this project has come so far to bring people out whether it be on the boardwalk or from shed’s perspective. You know, we really want communities across all of Chicago to have access to these amazing spaces, and we know that that hasn’t always been accept accessible for every community. So, we were excited when we were able to pair together um in 2022 to start bringing the project to Bubbly Creek as well and to start offering programming for community members that live in those neighborhoods um to start seeing islands down on their end of the river. I cannot wait to see them myself. Now, you said you’ve been island building together, as you phrased it, for a couple years now. That first island that went in, the man-made one, I’m curious, how is it doing, and how much maintenance does it take? Or is it because these are naturally occurring species anyway? Is it pretty much self- sustaining at this point? Yeah. Yeah, it’s it’s doing great. You know, we get it kind of depends on how you choose to what you choose to plant, you know. So in some of the islands like on the wild mile, we do a lot of maintenance because we have a lot of volunteers and we like to try a lot of kind of riskier species, things that we’re not sure if they’ll work or not and really kind of build out that kind of plant pallet and plant knowledge. Um but on other areas, you know, we choose things that are much more hardy that will out compete a lot of the weeds and invasives, things like that. And those ones um really require very minimal maintenance. you know, we go out um every couple weeks to do uh to weed them, to make sure everything’s going well on them, pick up all of the trash around them. But um you know, it allows you I think that the flexibility with this whole system is that you can kind of scale it to whatever your your kind of capacity is, right? Maybe you’re speaking to someone who is passionate about nature and the river um and they want to get involved too. You mentioned cleaning up garbage, urban rivers. Is there any like opportunity for volunteers to maybe sign up? Do you guys have a website? How can people get involved? Yeah, so there’s a couple different ways. If you go to urban rivers.org, um you can see there’s a volunteer page to sign up. That’s where we post all of our um different opportunities. So whether that’s cleaning up trash in the river with a kayak or um weeding, replanting, doing some kind of fun building projects, things like that. um helping with research. So, that’s how you get involved on that front. Um we also have a uh website rangers.urban rivers.org where you can go and um actually categorize wildlife that we catch on our camera traps uh along our parks. So, yeah, there that’s a couple different ways. Cool. And folks can join the aquarium via archayak for conservation program to come and learn about these spaces from our experts that have been part of this project for a long time and can help you spot that wildlife. And we do wildlife monitoring during all of our tours because we’ve really noticed over the several years of us doing it like you were saying that you remember when you were a kid and talking about the river and kind of seeing it in a certain way. We’ve seen even through the few years that we’ve been running this kite for conservation program, people have gone from telling us, you know, I think the river is dirty. I only think about it when it comes to St. Patrick’s Day to now we asked them during the tour like, what are your thoughts on the river? And they’re like, oh, I’ve heard about Chonosaurus. I’ve heard about the turtles and the birds in the river and I want to be here to help check out what’s out there. Um, we’ve seen wildlife has really grown a lot both in diversity and density. And so on our kayak for conservation programs, we now actually track all the wildlife that we see during those paddles and we give it to the researchers at the aquarium so they can be keeping track of how these environments are changing as we continue to put in this new habitat. Cool. Can you give us a little sampling of what kinds of wildlife I mean Chonosaurus has gotten all the PR, right? But you said those roots are growing through the module. So I’m guessing that fish are using those as little colonies or whatever. paint. I’m guessing birds have been swooping through. Give us an idea of what kind of wildlife you guys have been tracking. Absolutely. So, at the aquarium, what’s really awesome is we really like to pair this engagement that we’re doing with people across the communities to research that the aquarium is conducting on how these spaces are changing. And so, we have a laral fish researcher, a baby fish researcher. His name is Dr. Austin Hap. and he is tracking actually what species of fish are showing up in these areas. We’re seeing that they’re increasing and also tracking their movements. So, we’re able to put little tiny trackers and fish similar to kind of the same um tracker that you might have in your dog or cat. And we actually can track their movements throughout the river. So, we’re seeing how they’re moving from one space to another. We’re seeing how they’re hanging out by the gardens, which is really awesome to see. So things from bass to carp and all different bluegill and things like that. It’s been really cool to see. And we also have been doing some community science fishing projects um where we’ve been fishing with the public, teaching folks how to fish and they’re helping us track what fish are hanging out here as well. And not just the fish, like you said, there’s lots of birds as well. We have the Illinois endangered black crown knighth heron, which is a really beautiful species of heron um that actually likes to nest over the wolf habitat at Lincoln Park Zoo. And they’ve been finding their way over here to the gardens where they can get some really awesome resources which is fun to see. So cool. Nick and Christina, thank you so much. Absolutely love what you guys are doing and can’t wait to see it in person. We can’t wait to have you. Thanks for having us. All right. The pleasure is ours. That is awesome. I They are on a fast track. This is going to become a recreational river before we know it. Swim. She just said those herand they nest above the wolf. The wolf den, but they swoop over the river, too. How cool is that? Amazing. Not a great spot to be though for a heron above the wolf den, you know. And you that seems high risk to me. Yeah. All right. All right. Coming up. A lot of people associate new baby arrivals with just like unencumbered joy. You know what I mean? It just just like bliss. Yeah. But there’s another side to this. The I mean it’s commonly called the baby blues. Or it could go past that. PPD, PPA, postpartum anxiety, postpartum depression. Yeah. So, we’re going to be speaking with the co-authors of a a method called the nurture method. It’s called mindful parenting with babies and how it impacts these kinds of uh mental health uh issues. And that is when we come back. So, stay with us here on Chicago Now. We will be right back. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. There [Music] [Music] it is. 10:37 and we were just having such a good conversation. I’m gonna want to talk to these ladies for like the next 90 minutes. 30. Yeah. 300 minutes. Okay. So, this is Lindsay Ambrose and Art and Joy. So, you know, when the new baby arrives, we were talking about this before. Parents are often told it’s the happiest time of their lives, which for some it can be. But for others, there have been studies that show the drop in happiness after having a baby is actually bigger than what people experience after unemployment, divorce, or even loss. Yet, we rarely talk about it. So, our next guests want to change that conversation, help new parents out. We’re talking about the authors of the Nurture Method, and in their book, they show parents how to weave mindfulness into the everyday chaos of caring for a newborn. Um, I’m so glad that you guys wrote this book, put it together because I do think that, you know, as a society, we push that on new parents that it’s going to be perfect. And coming from me, someone who has never experienced mental health issues, problems in my entire life, after I had my first daughter, I had postpartum anxiety. I had a little bout of depression and it was so scary. even from the recovery room at the hospital. I felt it immediately. So, can you talk a little bit first about what drew you guys to write this book? Yeah. So, um the idea came to me after my first child and I just was, you know, I have this background. I’m a Raiki master. I’m a yoga teacher and I was feeling all of what you’re describing, right? The depression, the anxiety, and I was looking to my mindfulness practices. what can I do to sort of ground myself and be present for my baby? And you can’t pop a squat and meditate for 20 minutes when you have a new baby. Um, and luckily I know Lindsay and she’s a mindfulness coach for families. And so I reached out to her and kind of said, “Okay, I’m not finding anything out there for babies on this topic. What do you do? How do you bring mindfulness into this new time?” And so what we came up with, yeah, we really we created this nurture method which is really a guide book of mindful tools and practices for modern parents and caregivers. And um all the techniques we share are rooted in research but really guided by heart because we remind parents that the greatest gift we give our children is our presence, right? And that’s something we can practice and nurture. And so we share the tools and the practices that you can just like you said weave into your day because it’s not about adding more to your plate. It’s about just having those moments to pause and those you know those small moments create momentum and create an energy that really moves with your family to create that rhythm as they grow through the seasons. Can you give us an example or two? Because you know we both we’re both parents. She’s got three. I’ve got two. So, I’m I part of me has probably blocked out some of those first 12 weeks. Maggie, you’ll be like, “Oh, you’re blocking them out. I’m on me.” Fair. Uh, but what are some examples of ways that you would encourage brand new parents, we have new parents that are tuning in right now, to be able to take a moment and and and and feed your mind, uh, rather than just be, oh, cleaning bottles and, you know, what’s my ne when’s my next feeding and oh my gosh, how’s my milk supply? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It’s Yeah. All those out. Right. So, we envision, you know, you’re at the changing table. It’s what, like your 10th 10th outfit change of the day, baby’s crying, the dogs barking, you know, all of those things are at play. That’s a moment to just notice, right? And you can take that moment to pause. Uh, one practice we recommend is just notice that and maybe place your hand on your heart. Place your hand on your baby’s heart. That is just a pause that can help you just reenter and regground. And it’s those moments that maybe you’ll be able to observe the way you’re feeling, allow it to come in, but then wow, you may have a different thought, right? A different question that you ask. And and that’s really what it is. You know, how can you take the way you’re speaking, you know, day by day, the the rituals you create, what can you do to just incorporate these little pauses in to bring in that presence. So, we talk about um even doing instead of this little piggy went to market, you can change it, right? So, you’re already playing with your baby, but you might say, “Pause. We are peace now.” And do each little toe and say something that’s affirming to you because what we know is that babies mirror us. Right? This starts with the smile, right? We smile, they smile. So here we are going through this biggest drop in happiness and we’re anxious and depressed and they’re new to this planet looking to us and we’re like you know and so all it takes is a little pause you know play with their toes and enjoy them in that way but connect with yourself so that they’re picking up on that in your research with this because again I can only speak from my own experience um I absolutely panicked because not only do you have the anxiety the depression sometimes but also intrusive thoughts or thinking is this normal? Um what would you recommend obviously your book but what other steps do you think cuz I know you guys are deep in this new parents should do to kind of find support in their you know this huge life change that they have cuz as you mentioned like that drop in happiness but and then I know that sounds drastic but it really is just you before you had kids and then you after you had it’s a flip. Yeah. So h how do you what what are you saying to parents to support them to lift them up? Yeah, I mean it’s really building those tools, right? And so we offer so many different techniques that you can try and we know it’s it’s really just practicing and seeing um but reaching out, creating a network, not being afraid to ask for help and really knowing that there’s no right way, right? You know, it’s really you have to tune in because it’s a little different for every parent, every family. So the more you can just kind of pause and turn in, you may be able to just see that, you know, we can create. Yeah, you got this. And so, yeah, and that’s really what we share and, you know, encourage that. How much uh I’m wondering like how many new mothers um experience some level of depression and anxiety as Caitlyn mentioned versus people who just kind of sail through and they’re fine. And also, if folks are affected by the fact that like you’re supposed to be so happy after a baby is born when you’re not, how often does that mess with people’s minds? Wait, wait, I should be happy now. Why am I bummed out? Yes. And we often talk about busting that myth, right? This idea that it’s just it is magical. It’s one of the best things ever. I think we can all agree that with that. And it’s really hard. And I would say I think a 100% of mothers feel some sense of anxiety and depression. And with social media, you start to really go, it’s supposed to be like this and I’m supposed to look like this and my baby is supposed to be doing this. And that was sort of kind of what this I mean the cover says, embrace the messy journey of parenthood because it is messy. And I think when you can pause, however you do that, and practice mindfulness, you will find that you’re just in the chaos and it’s okay. some of those I’m not doing this right will go away because you realize you are and you’re exactly who your baby needs I love that message and to your point about like taking those moments with your baby I think too we get on the social media and we think what should we be doing constantly with our newborn do we have to be playing with them all the time and just to tell them that you know what you’re doing is enough um do you have any recommendations for parents who maybe are about to have a baby or maybe They’re nervous about how it’s going to go after they have their baby. Like what do you speak to them? The ones who are pregnant. Yeah. I mean, we’re we talk about just our environment, right? So, how are we setting ourselves up? You know, maybe with the space that we have, is it feel, you know, make sure you’re feeling that energy of calm and you can set yourself up before the baby even comes. You can think about building your tools like your resources, you know, the support network like you talked about. So, you can ask for help. And I mean, what some other techniques? Get off social media. Get off social media. Um, don’t I mean I one of the things we talk about a lot is that companies want to make you think that you need stuff. You need this toy. You need the wipe warmer. Babies don’t need wipe warmers. In fact, don’t don’t do the wipe warmer. Wait, I use the wiper. Oh, no. Then they demand it. And when you have when you’re out on the road and you’ve got cold ones, then they’re like mad that they don’t. Yeah, I get it. No, that so they they make you feel like you need these things to make sure your baby is okay. And I tell new parents all the time, you need nothing. Like they need you. It’s the fourth trimester. They’re coming out and they need you more than anything. And so it’s really about, yeah, setting yourself up for success. You know, in this book, we talk about colors that are calming and grounding. So painting your walls, you know, a color that will connect with you. Like what what color? Um they’re lighter colors. Trying to pick things like it’s in our it’s in our on our website. You can find out. We’ve got a whole palette for you. Um, but even plants that can help oxygenate the room and just sort of create more breathing room. Um, so just getting intentional about what’s going to support you because when the chaos starts, it’s just you’re going to be up at 2 in the morning with a blowout, nursing a baby, you know, the whole thing. And it’s like, what is in that moment to support you? I think too, like what helped me this third time around especially is knowing how fast it goes. It’s so fast. So, new parents, I know when you’re in it, you’re in it and it’s and it can be awful, but it goes by so quick that before you know it, you’re going to be on to the next stage and you will be sleeping again. And also, I think too like um what works for you may not work for other people. Exactly. So, like even your next door neighbor could have a different way of doing things. I know ne my neighbors were doing things different than I did and it was okay. And it it don’t, you know, just do what works for you guys. Riding off of kind of what Caitlyn said about your messages to expectant mothers, I know that like a lot of expectant parents have a story that they’re telling themselves about exactly what their birth story going to look like. What would be your message for folks who may have a preconceived notion of exactly how it’s going to go? I mean, we all can get into that, right? Those stories. And so that’s really what mindfulness is, is just taking a moment to get still. And then you can observe that story you’re telling yourself. And with that with that pause, with that stillness, maybe you can say, “Huh, connect back to heart center and be open to a new story, right?” But yeah, when you’re in it, so if you just kind of have those tools of being able to notice what story is telling and instead get present to what is right now, what’s before me. Oh, wow. This is different than I imagined, but but I can do this. And so you have those mantras, you know, a little something to reenter you back so that you can show up for what’s showing up because it’s just in the midst of it and you know, you can find that calm inside even when there’s different things going on. But it’s awareness is the first step. That’s the shift. I will say that everything that you guys have said today can apply to future stages of parenting. Yes, absolutely. As well and not just we’re in different stages right now and it’s a conventation. Yes. All right. Lindsay Ambrose and Art and Joy, thank you both. Their book is called The Nurture Method. I’m assuming you can get this on Amazon, wherever books are sold. There it is right there. Thank you guys both so much for coming in and sharing your expertise. And don’t let this scare you. Donkeys be wonderful. Babies are the best thing in the whole world. It’s, you know, it’s it’s growing and it is magical. But it is indeed. Thank you both. We’re going to take a quick break. We got more Chicago now. We come back. [Music] Leaf. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] I got you. [Music] [Music] [Music] 10:51. Welcome back. So, The Jason Show with Jason Mat is back for its 11th season. You can catch the Jason Show on Fox Plus at 2 PM weekdays. And Jason joins us this morning with more on what’s in store this season. Good morning to you. Good morning, Kaylin. Good morning, Anthony. I was not to pick favorites, but I you guys in Orlando I was the most excited to talk about because I’m I’m a I’m a Chicagoland boy. Anthony Cubs. I I am I know you’re a Socks fan. I’m a Cubs fan, but that’s fine. We can continue. We can we can still dialogue. We can still dialogue. Congrats on 11 seasons. Thank you. Yeah, it and it’s great to be I I got to tell you, the fact that my high school bullies can watch the show is fantastic. They are they are um eating their words now. Look at this. 11 seasons at the helm of this show, the Jason Show. Tell us what is in store for season number 11. Sir, you guys have been going gang busters. Yeah, it’s great. You know, and and having grown up, you know, I’m from Michigan City, Indiana, so we got Chicagoland TV and Fox 32. I grew up watching He-Man on that station. But um I you know, I know I know how great, you know, Chicago was the home of of was like the talk show mecca in the in the 90s with Jenny Jones and Jerry Springer and the Oprah Winfrey Show in Donahghue. So, I know how great daytime can be. I love I mean you guys know um it’s it’s I it it excites me what the show can do for people and what I mean by that is what I’m what I’m most excited about is hearing from all the new friends all the new people in in our new cities and and emailing us and saying oh you know I had a really bad day and you know my car is in the shop it’s going to cost I don’t know $20,000 and I hope it’s not 20,000 but and and I turned on the show and you made me laugh for 10 minutes. I mean, that’s there’s really that’s few things are better. Few things are better than that. So, I’m most excited about all the new people that will be introduced to our goofy family uh in this 11th season, which is so weird to say. I still can’t believe it’s 11 years. That’s awesome. That’s awesome. Okay, so talking about your show, Fast Food Field Trip, your most popular segment. What is that? Yeah, that came out organically like most things do. Uh you guys know how it is like post show meetings. We’re just, you know, the crew cuz we’re like legit friends and we were just talking um about this guy on Instagram that eats all all the new fast food stuff and we thought, well, this will never end. All these fast food restaurants will always come out with the new stuff. Why don’t we go out and do what half the Tik Tockers do, just go out and try the new stuff, sit in our car and record it, you know, James Cordon style. And and we started getting we started getting special guest stars. I mean, we we started getting like uh you know, a little Fox love here. Uh Scott Wolf from Doc. Oh, yeah. And we have a we have a new one. Um we we have a new one for the the season premiere week. Uh Melissa Peterman from Fargo. Uh Reba McIntyre’s show, uh Happy Place. Yeah, you’re looking this one right here in the back is James Beard award-winning chef Yang. Uh we thought it would be fun to have a real chef eat with us. Uh we went to Taco Bell that day. Oh my gosh. What does a real chef think about Taco Bell? Cuz that’s my favorite. Anthony, let me tell you, he I know you. We’re we’re friends. And he it was funny. He knew he calls Wendy Wendy’s like his side girlfriend. Uh he the crew is laughing at that, but he said Wendy’s is like his girlfriend. And he loves even though he’s like a shishi poo poo chef, he’s like no, no, no. Fast food has its place. He’s not one of those chefs that like busts on, you know, Olive Garden and stuff like that. So, it was that was one of my favorites. A thousand%. Listen, I’m super excited for Tuesday. Tuesday, Taco Bell is bringing back its two Y2K menu. I don’t know if you’ve heard about this, but like the double-decker taco is coming out some of the old gordas. So, like, you know, all these favorites are about to roll out on Tuesday. I I think it should be a national holiday. What is a double-decker taco? I’ll explain that. You don’t know what a double-decker taco is like the Anthony. Do you like a double-decker taco? It’s my go-to. I was heartbroken when they What does that even mean? Okay. Do you want to take this one, Jason, or should I um Anthony, you take it. Get ready for what is about to be changed. Details. It’s a standard like crispy taco. Crispy taco, but there’s a layer of beans outside the hard shell and then there’s a tortilla on the outside of that. So, you get the soft and gooey. There it is right there. Thank you so much to our production team. That is the double-decker taco. For whatever reason, they discontinued it. But there are articles in like Food and Wine magazine about why this thing was discontinued. Where’s the tomatoes? It’s the It’s the Mona Lisa of Taco Bell. Thank you, Jason. You and I are fast friends, my friend. I’m gonna have to order even though you’re a Socks fan, but that’s what I Hey, we can bond over Double Decker Tacos. That’s just Okay, you mentioned Fargo. I want to know why. Okay, so you have the show in Minnesota. You’ve opted to keep the show taped out of Minnesota. Uh tell us about the thinking there. That Thank you. That’s you. You I love you guys. Um I’ll make it brief. Um the the show started here, you know, and and I love that because again, I’m I’m a TV nerd. Uh like Regis Filman, AM Chicago, which turned into the Oprah Winfrey Show. Uh, Good Day LA turned it. You know, I love a local show that goes on and and grows. Um, and I figured, my feeling is our teams fig uh Minnesota is where we started, Minneapolis. Um, we’re the home of Prince and it’s a great town and Minnesota was great to us, so we wanted to keep it here and use it as a a really good opportunity to show off where we live. Oh, there’s Missy right there, who is a Minnesota girl. You’re co-pilot. Yeah. Okay. And um so that’s why we want to keep it here. Jason, we’re getting the wrap, but tell us one more time before you go exactly where those of us here in Chicago can check out the Jason Show. Thank you for that. 2 p.m. on Fox 32 Plus. I love the Fox 32. Thanks, guys. All right. You cannot wait to catch season 11, Jason Mat, everybody. Thank you, sir. Good luck. Go get that double decker. Oh, you know, I’ll be there on Tuesday. I think I should be out live during that just planting. If you bring me one back, Jason, thank I’m going to bring Caitlyn a double-decker taco and I wish you double-decker taco goodness as well up there in Minnesota. We are going to take a quick break, but we are back with another hour of Chicago now when we return. So stay with us. [Music] [Music] [Music] Hey, [Music] baby. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Welcome to Chicago. Now look, we’re matching almost like who knew and I switched spots. This is weird, guys. This is like brushing your teeth with like the other hand. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried that. It’s really scary. I’m over here for the first time ever. It’s good to see you. This is your hour. Tia, I miss you. But we used to be together all the time. All the time. Working nights. And now we only see each other in passing. In passing. We’re like ships passing in the night cuz I’m up early early early and you work till when? Typically 6 o00 6 o’clock at night. Smooth schedule. This is a reunion for us. It is a reunion and we got a lot to talk about on today’s show. Uh really exciting stuff. We’re going to talk about the Englewood Music Festival, which I told you I went to last year. It was a really good time. Really good music, really good people. So, we’re going to talk about that. We’re also talking about uh Lake Michigan. Things that happen really in Chicago’s neighborhoods, but Lake Michigan, obviously part of that rings have been lost in Lake Michigan. also talking about a carfree takeover in Wicker Park. Block Club Chicago will be joining us to talk about that. I always love talking to John Hansen. He’s one of the editors over there at Block Club Chicago to dive into the Chicago neighborhoods. Chicago is a city of neighborhoods. Yes. And they’re going to do a deep dive because you’re right, there’s engagement rings and things like valuable stuff that have been found at the bottom of the lake. Did you hear about what’s been found at the bottom of the Chicago River yet? I just can’t believe it. I want to know the backstory to every single car. If you missed Good Day Chicago, I saw it earlier. Tia alluded to this. Okay. They were looking for a certain car that was involved in a cold case from like the 1970s. A couple they were at the Sheran Hotel which used to be located on Michigan Avenue. They they are believed to have gone inebriated into the river in their car. An older couple too. It’s actually really sad because they were trying to get back to Arlington Heights. Disappeared completely. So they were looking for their car on the riverbed. This crew I know found 97 cars on the bottom of the Chicago River. Actually, we just spoke. We had a segment. I We didn’t have time to ask him about that, but I’m curious if those have become fish habitats, too. And those old cars. Like, what’s going on? Yeah. Like, what’s the story behind it? I can’t wait to find out. 97 cars on the bottom of the Chicago River. I think, guys, I think we’re going to need to do a segment on those 97 cars. Absolutely. That could be a full That could be a full documentary series. Okay, before we get to all that, we have a very special guest joining us via Zoom to kick off the show. Golf isn’t just for the pros anymore. It is going social. All right, Mountain Dew and Good Golf, they are teaming up for a firstofits-kind tournament bringing creators, celebrities, and fans all together. Celebrity, I would love to participate in this. I do get out on the links once or twice a year, too. I’m not a pro by any means, but I love getting out there. It’s fun to get outside. It’s beautiful. Often times golf courses are always beautiful. Anyway, this is happening at Keer Lakes Golf Club in Kilder. From bracket style matches to fan competitions and even a live country concert. This is not your typical golf tournament. Okay. So, joining us to tell us all about it, Mr. Matt Kendrick, founder and CEO of Good Good Golf. Where are you joining us from today, sir? It is absolutely beautiful. I’m right here at Ker Lakes getting ready for for the for the event. I mean, we’ve it’s actually already going. We got tons of people out here hanging out and having fun. So, excited to be joining you all this morning. Okay. When when I think of a golf tournament, I think of like, you know, the pros, they’re matched up with someone else. There’s quiet clapping and everything like that. This is a really different kind of tournament. First event, I want you to run us through what it is. King of the Mountain. What is this all about? We uh we uh we partnered up with Mountain Dew and and couldn’t ask for a better partner to figure out how do we bring more entertainment to the sport and get people outside and and connecting with each other and and so this is really an all day uh cultural moment. It’s not just a a tournament, I would say. So like we are we’re we’re going to be out here all day uh from the as far as the bracket challenge goes. We are uh we’re doing something pretty unique and partnering up um one of one of our guys from from GoodG Good with another woman golf influencer. So, it’s it’s two person teams and they’re going to play scramble format in a in a match play. And uh you know, the last one standing is the king of the mountain today. You know, Matt, when I think of golf, um I actually used to cover golf when I was in college for a little bit. Wow. And it makes me think of who I would see out there on that golf course. And oftent times it it was an older age bracket. You know, it would be older people out there. But we’re starting to see a lot of these sports kind of, you know, intertwin with a young population. Like the US Open, for example. you’ve seen a lot of young people, a lot of young influencers show up there. Why is it so important, you think, to get young people involved in golf in this way that you’re doing? I think golf is just a really great connecting sport across generations. So, I think what you see is you you get fathers and sons or mothers and daughters playing together and and it’s very connecting and and so I think um for us we try to make it as entertaining as possible and we we try not to take it too serious but we’re also very family friendly and so I think that that’s what makes it uh even better that we we can bring a lot of different age groups together and and can enjoy what what we have going on. So I number one for us is we want to be extremely entertaining and have fun uh and and then people see that we’re having fun. That’s what we want. Matt, I want to talk about the partnership now. Everyone knows Mountain Dew, but uh for those who are unfamiliar with Good Golf, what is Good Golf all about? Good golf is is uh is about content and and and driving entertainment on the golf course. That’s what we’re about. That’s where we started on YouTube and that’s what’s made us so successful is we’ve had such great fans along the way that have uh been able to join us in our journey. And then and then we get to days like today where we partner with Mountain Dew on this great event. We have tons of people here um hanging out, having a fun time. So, uh but yeah, that’s what it’s all about for us. It’s it’s all about the content and then also we have some great products which we were lucky enough to to do a collab uh merch drop with Mountain Dew on this event and so um that’s another big piece of of what we do at Good. Let me ask you this. You know, oftentimes when you go to a golf tournament of sorts, you can watch. You don’t necessarily have to play. Is this a situation where you expect to have spectators out there on the green? Oh, yeah. We uh we’re going to have well over 2,000 people out here today. Um and it’s it’s going to be packed. And it since it’s a very small field, you’re going to see a lot of people, you know, around the groups fairs, which is fun. It’s it’s different than you see at a normal golf tournament where you’ve got groups all over the golf course. It’s very concentrated group. So, it’s going to be it’s going to look really awesome seeing seeing it on TV tonight. Um what’s the vibe like out there? You you know, we we mentioned all the different kind of parties you’re bringing together. It’s not just golfers, you got content creators, right? You got celebrities, you got fans. So, this sounds like it is not your typical, you know, u three-day tournament with with all pros where you got like the the soft golf claps going. Yeah, it’s it’s definitely not that. It’s much more fast-paced. Uh, and we’re also, you’re going to notice that it’s much more engaging from an entertainment standpoint because like I said, we’re not we’re not trying to say we have the best golfers on the planet that play in this, but we do think we have the most entertaining golfers on the planet. So, I think that that’s what you’re going to see the big difference of and and and uh it’s more than just golf. It is really a party out here. We’ve got a great concert tonight with Corey Kent as well um after after the golf. So, um it’s it’s going to be it’s going to look and feel very different than what you see on a normal uh weekend on the on the on the Golf Channel. When I think about traditional golf, there’s a purse. So, Matt, is there a purse involved in all of this? And how much money are we talking about? We’ve got a $100,000 purse. Um, and so it’s there is some high stakes on this. Uh, but we’re also giving $50,000 to charity today, too. So, that’s that’s another big piece of it. We’re we’re working with Jack and Barbara Nicholas on the on their Play Yellow Foundation, and so we’ll be giving $50,000 to them as well. You know, I can’t help but think about Happy Gilmore 2 as you’re as you’re talking about how, you know, this is a new kind of tournament. Does that ring a bell at all? Did you see the movie? Oh, yeah. I’ve seen the movie. It’s uh it was I thought it was great and I I could uh it’s definitely um this is this is definitely a new kind of tournament for sure. All right, I want to talk about some of the other activities uh while we have you on the line. We got a long drive, a chip shot challenge, and then there’s a Mountain Dew sampling. take us through how these all work. The long drive probably is pretty self-explanatory, but what’s the what’s like the chip shot challenge here? Uh the chip shot challenge is they they’re chipping into like a a um a kind of like playing cornhole. Think of it that way. That’s like the same kind of concept, the chip shot challenge. U but the long drive right now has got a massive line of people lined up right now ready to ready to hit long drive. Um, we do have some professional long drivers coming out which is going to be really cool to see cuz if you’ve never seen something like that in person, it’s it’s pretty unbelievable to watch those guys hit those golf balls. It’s hard. How many yards are we talking for for those professional long drivers? How how far can how many yards can they hit it? I mean, I you they can get it over 400 for sure. I mean, you’re talking guys with 220 mph ball speed. And if you were to look at a normal pro, you’re looking probably around like 180 m per hour ball speed. So to give some comparison there from what you see on from the PGA tour. Matt, let me ask you what what made you start this? Were you just someone that really loved the sport or were you a businessman and you just saw an opportunity? What made you start this to begin with? Uh, you know, I I’ve been an entrepreneur my whole life, but golf has always been something that I’ve loved more than more than any other hobby that I’ve had. And I think that I was in the right place at the right time with with guys like Garrett Clark and Matt Sharp and Stephen Casta who founded this founded this with me and you know we just said let’s go build one of the coolest golf companies in the world and I think that we just happen to have the right team and we’ve been very lucky and blessed to to to do it and and so um yeah it’s it’s been the one of the funnest rides ever and it’s been really quick and that’s also been it’s been really fun to to watch and see. That’s really cool. All right, Matt, before we let you go, sir, I got to ask you this. I’m going to put you on the spot. What is your favorite? What What events of the week of the tournament are you personally looking forward to the most? H that’s a good one. I I’m I am really looking forward to the competition to to the uh the actual match, Blake, because I think it’s going to be really fun and and I think you’re going to see a lot of people um uh getting pretty serious and pretty focused and I think you’re going to see a uh very competitive uh afternoon. But um I’m actually really excited to go over and watch the long drive and I didn’t realize how many people were signed up ready to go try to try and hit some golf balls. So I’m ready to go see uh some fans hit some shots as well. Let me ask you something because like you said this isn’t like everybody isn’t an expert out there. What is the craziest thing that you’ve seen since you’ve been doing this? Uh well I I would say our most viral moment is the hole in one on parlor. Um and we’ve had two of those actually. So, um, seeing those has been has been pretty unreal. And we’ve, uh, and and to catch it on camera is even is even better. Unbelievable. Yeah, it is. I want to I’m going to be googling that. All right, Matt. Thank you so much. Have an awesome time out there, sir. You got to invite this celebrity next year. I kind of want to do the long call up Anthony Pon next year. Hey, you and I could pair up on a scramble. That would be fun. Have you ever done a scramble? I haven’t. Okay. It’s There’s so much more comfort in that. Thank you so much, Matt, because you could just you just team up with your team and you do the best ball. So, you don’t need to like hit it. You It’s way better for for us amateurs than like the pressure’s a little Say I’m an amateur, too. I am. You’re right. I’m an amateur. Maybe we need to get out there together. We need to get out there more. All right. So, coming up, we’re going to be talking with John John Hansen. Everybody, we’re gonna be Exactly. After a quick twominut break. Oh my gosh. your wedding ring falls into Lake Michigan and then somebody finds out. Have no fear. We’re going to talk about how folks are reuniting with their lost metal objects when we come back. We’ll be right back. I initi Heat. [Music] [Music] Heat. [Music] [Music] I got you. [Music] [Music] down. [Music] back to Chicago. Now, this is something I don’t ever want to have to deal with is my wedding ring falling into Lake Michigan. I can’t even I don’t even know what I would be able to say to my husband about that, but it actually happened to someone. Is yours on fairly securely? Uh, yeah, I would say so. Okay. Yeah. Mine I feel like has become tighter and tighter over the years. I don’t know what that says. Maybe I’m eating too much salt. It could be a whole not going anywhere. We grow as we get older. Um, let’s talk to John Hansen with Block Club Chicago. Um, you actually are talking to us about that actually happened to someone. Their wedding ring fell into Lake Michigan and there’s a scuba scuba diver who goes in to retrieve these things. Tell us about it. Well, first and foremost, as you guys started talking, I started feeling my ring finger and realized I’m not wearing mine. I took a shower before coming on and I realized I didn’t put it on before going on TV. So, that’s going to get me in a little trouble. What’s up with that? Why do men take off their rings? Hey, listen. Sometimes before before exercising I do because it’ll dig it. John, do you ever get this where it digs into your t if you’re ever when I’m putting up 300 lb in the bench press? I don’t want a wedding ring getting Please, you guys. It doesn’t get in your way. Okay. No, other topic. Anyway, it’s good to see you, by the way. It’s really good to see you. Always good to see you, John. Yeah, you guys, too. Uh, we’re talking about this folk hero basically on the north side of Chicago who has gone in for wedding rings, went in for Anthony Rizzo’s World Series ring. His name is Yohi. Yeah, Johanna is his name. He was originally born in Japan, moved to Chicago, eventually was this great swimmer who eventually flocked out flunked out of college. Um, but found this kind of second career helping rescue people and now rescue a lot of things. He makes a living doing this in a boat with no name. M leadman wrote and he goes in and finds stuff. He’s found car keys. He’s found cell phones which he say will last three days at the bottom of Lake Michigan and he just finds the and he says there’s no way I’m not finding something. He is still looking for a $40,000 bracelet that someone lost and still is all after it. But he’s a really interesting character as a lot of folks are that live essentially on the water. He goes to the Bahamas with his boat in the winter and comes back up in the spring summer. But you know whether it’s the play pen up and down the Belmont Harbor to all these places, people are always dropping stuff in the lake and through word of mouth he’s basically become the guy that everyone knows will go fish it out for you. I’ve got so many questions. Yeah. Yeah. Do you want to go? Go ahead. Ladies first. Ladies first. I got to know how much is he charging people to go retrieve their things? Yeah. It’s usually just $100 to go get a phone or something along those lines. Sometimes they tip a little bit more, right? But for a phone that’s going to still work, that’s worth $100 to go down and fish out. And he says those are easy to find. The phones are easy. The rings obviously are smaller, harder to get. The bracelets, stuff like that that can kind of get down in the muck down there. It depends on how long it’s been in there. But he loves it. He just feels really calm in the water. He says his favorite place to be is underwater doing what he does. And it just seems to work for him. A scuba scuba diver for hire essentially. I love the Rizzo story. He said that Rizzo had lost a little weight and was enjoying some time on the lake and the ring just flew off. World Series ring went down and uh found that thing and uh funny things too. He found it. What’s that? He found it. Yeah, he finds everything. That’s a really cool story. He’s really interesting upbringing and why he likes to do this sort of stuff. He’s always kind of worked these knick-knack jobs. He spent some time helping Chicago fire departments find people, rescue people. He’s also pulled up unfortunately uh people that have passed away in the lake. So he is just very at home with finding things and he he says he gets a lot of joy out of uh people doing it and he like a lot of us he likes the challenge right of trying to find it’s a it really sounds like a labor of love. I didn’t because I was curious about the pricing structure too. It’s like, you know how like sometimes when you when you hire um a lawyer or someone who’s going to appeal your property uh taxes or something, they’re basically like, “All right, we will only charge you if we find it, but you know, there’s a there’s an hourly thing. You know, there’s different pricing structure.” John, it really sounds like this guy does it as a labor of love. He he does. I mean, he he’s going to get paid for it if he finds it. He says he’s basically found every single thing that someone has requested. Yeah. I don’t know exactly if he comes up and he comes up empty. I don’t think you have to pay him for his time. I’ll have to dig in with our reporter Mack to find out exactly how it works. He did the reporting on the story. But yeah, I I I don’t He doesn’t charge an hourly rate. He just goes down there, tries to find it, takes some cash tips, and uh continues and goes on to the next person. And look, we’ve all seen how many Boers are out there maybe having a cocktail or two. There’s no shortage of things at the bottom of the lake that people need. And you got to respect Anthony Rizzo for wearing that ring out on the water. The pride, you know, a lot of players will probably be like, “You know what? I’m gonna leave this thing on my dresser while I go on. Brizzo’s like, “No, no, no, no, no. We’re wearing I work for this.” Yeah. Yeah. Um, I got a follow-up question and then we’ll move on. Uh, is he using any technology? Yeah. To get this. No. I mean, for the most part, no. He goes down there with his hands and he looks and he’s got, you know, some lights sometimes to help accompany him if need be, like a lot of scuba divers do. A lot of tools to perhaps dig and cipher around. But, as far as I know, he doesn’t have like a metal detecting device. And maybe that’s in his tool chest for certain big projects, but I think for the most part, especially if it’s like he a lot of times it’s like simply he’s there and someone goes, “Hey, come on over here. I just lost this.” Or this guy over here I heard just lost his car keys and he’s not going to be able to drive away. So it kind of happens in the instant, which makes it a lot easier to find. Yohay Yamada. Okay. Can’t wait to read that story. All right, next up. So I guess if you were driving in Wicker Park this past Sunday, you weren’t driving on Milwaukee Avenue. I know this is like a pilot program. John, I believe you and I spoke about this on air before it happened. It was called Meet Me on Milwaukee. Kind of an experiment. Run us through what what the idea was here and and how it all went off. Yeah. Pedestrian malls have long been uh what a lot of neighbors want in busy communities, especially in Wicker Park. So, the older person instead of saying, “Well, yeah, let’s close down the street for a long time, let’s just do it on a couple different Sundays. Let’s get some of the businesses to bring their uh maybe the books from the myopic books outside to bring some of the retail they have onto the sidewalk. And here’s a picture from Quinn Myers who reported on this. Look how packed it was on Sunday. Now, it was gorgeous weather and you could still bike on the street that was still allowed, but no buses and no cars. And for the most part, everyone that Quinn talked to loved it. Now, some people loved it as an experiment and hey, maybe this is something we can do once a Sunday, right? Like similar to a street fest. But Quinn talked to people that say this is the way forward. We should eliminate cars through this incredibly busy stretch of traffic. And I think that’s really where the interesting debate will come in, right? Is our pedestrian malls, which have been tried in Chicago, famously on State Street for decades. They tried to make State Street into a pedestrian mall. Now they do it every couple Sundays or so. Uh but it was a spectacular failure in the 70s and 80s and beyond. Um, you know, also like around Wrigley Field, a lot of people want to see maybe Clark or Addison turned into a pedestrian only. So, I think this is a compromised way to try and see how it works, see if it is something that maybe could come back every now and then, but I don’t think we’re anywhere close to closing the roads, specifically this one permanently anytime soon. Well, yeah. You know, I’ve gone in that area of Milwaukee Avenue and you try to find a parking spot to even run into a location. Yeah. It’s really awful. So, I’m curious what the businesses would say. Did we get any feedback from the businesses on this? And did they see more foot traffic, no pun intended, than normal? Yeah. No, they said for a Sunday, this typical kind of Sunday was way more than they would normally experience. Now, again, it was like a circle date on the calendar, and I know a lot of, you know, pedestrian advocates, I mean, we’re all pedestrian advocates, but you know what I mean, people that are really transit focused on cycling and using public transportation, they made a point to come out. So, I think what’ll be interesting is they’re going to do another one in September. They’re going to do another one in October. The businesses all seem happy. Everyone seemed happy. Are we going to see that return of traffic on the next two? Is this something next year that we go to more? But yeah, Quinn talked to all these businesses to to your point and they all seem said, “Yeah, this was great. This was awesome to try in Lincoln Park or excuse me, Lincoln uh square earlier this year. There was some construction which knocked out a road.” And they did this on a more permanent basis, right? They did this for like a couple weeks because the road had to be closed anyways. And it was a mixed bag. Some businesses thought it went really well, like places that you just would walk up to. Coffee shops loved it. The liquor stores loved it. People just walked on up, grabbed their things, and go. For some of the places like Timeless Toys, that’s a great place up at Lincoln Square where people drive to come there, like destination places, um, they saw a decrease because their normal customers were like, I’m not going to have anywhere to park and load stuff up. So, I think that if you try this longer, maybe you’re going to see a little bit more dissents in some of the businesses. Uh because look, we are still I know we have, you know, pretty good public transportation for through all its faults, but we’re still a car city, guys. I mean, like people still drive in this city a lot and people still like to park parallel park if they have to. T I want to see you parallel park, Anthony, too. I love parallel parking contests. I could win, I think, every single one of them. But nice. I like confidence. Yeah, I know. I I I I’m like George Castanza. I take a lot of pride in being able to find parking spots. Point being, we’re still a driving city. So, I don’t know what could happen as we do this more long term. We’ll have to see. I turn down my music when I hear a little part. I used so confident, John. I used to be so confident like you and I’d brag to my friends. I’d be like, “Okay, now watch this.” I messed up one time. This is back when I was driving a stick and I had it in first instead of reverse and I hit the car in front of me. And ever since then, John, I have been the most humble parallel parker. I have shut my mouth cuz karma got me. So, you just let me tell you, I used to be really good at it and with with a with like an older car that didn’t have the backup window or the camera, right? I was fine. It was all instincts, right? You’re all in do it. Now, I have the camera in back and I’m so used to it. I went back to my old car, tried to parallel park without the camera. We’re getting Man, you’re relying on the new technology now. All right, we’re going to move on to another story. This one was fascinating. Okay. In West Ridge, Alderman Andre Vasquez has rejected a proposed dispensary operated by former Chicago police officers. Tell us the dynamics at play here. I’m having trouble kind of uh uh making sense out of like, you know, potential conflicts of interest. I haven’t thought it through. Give us the implications here. It’s fascinating because we have long reported, you guys have done great reporting on this too, that since cannabis became legalized, most of the dispensary owners are white, right? White wealthy Americans. We, the city and the state are trying to get more minority owned businesses and dispensaries to move in. Well, guess what? This company’s actually staffed 85% by black Chicagoans, but they are former police officers, which is rubbing some people in the community wrong. And here’s why. The argument from some opponents of a police officer-led organization opening a dispensary is police officers through their jobs, they were just doing their jobs, were arresting people for this very thing 10 years ago. Those people that got arrested no longer can get a license to do it legally. They can’t even work in dispensaries. So until that’s solved, why would you let former police officers open up one even though they were arresting people? Now again, a lot of people say, “Look, they were just doing their job. That’s what they do. Now they’re business owners and they want to do this and they actually say these owners say, “Look, we’re bringing a unique perspective to this. A lot of us are black and we’re trying to be part of this minority growth of selling cannabis legally, but some neighbors are like, “No, come on.” I mean, they we’re putting people away for this. So, I find that dynamic to be really interesting. I do find it to be interesting. I don’t want to get in trouble here, but I also think from the perspective of in some cases, there are things that you do on the job that you just have to do as part of the job. So in some cases maybe they were just following the job when they had to make some of these arrests. We don’t know and the laws have changed at the time. Yeah. At the time. So it sounds like John based on what you said it sounds like Alderman Vasquez rejected them not out of some kind of law per se that’s on the books but on principle. Yes. And he took a lot of feedback and they had a community meeting and some neighbors were swayed by the former police officer’s arguments. They were making a lot of the same points you were making, Tia. And I think that’s a valuable point, right? We were doing our jobs. In fact, one of the officers as part of the ownership group has some a child who is still in prison for marijuana possession. So very personal to these police officers. And that’s what they’re some of them are trying to say like we’re going to bring a new perspective to this and we’re going to do things in a in a way that shows uh perhaps that there is a new face to what dispensary ownership can be. Um, and and to the other person’s credit, Elder Mvasquez, he said, “Look, they were doing their jobs.” He’s not making a value judgment about whether they should have arrested people or not, they were following orders. But when you get a lot of people at these community meetings, right? And that’s where people need to show up. If there’s one lesson from all this, always be going to your community meetings and have the voice. Your voice is amplified when you are at a community meeting because most people don’t go to these things. And he heard from enough people and he’s putting the pause on it. I do think I didn’t mean to interject there, but I do think that we do need to have a conversation at some point though about the fact and not saying, you know, this is on your shoulders, but about the fact because we have heard that a lot of the owners of the dispensaries are not black. Meanwhile, most black and or brown for that that fact. And most people that were impacted by this by that specific crime were brown and black people. And so how is it that they reap no benefit from having these dispensaries in in some cases in their own communities? And so I do think there’s a larger question of how is that being allowed and who’s approving uh these dispensaries to set up shop without making sure that that is considered in all of this. Well, not only that, people that were arrested for it, they cannot open dispensaries. They can’t even work in dispensaries now. So the people that were directly like directly put in jail for this for doing something that now is completely legal can’t even participate in the process. So there’s been some strides made by the governor and the mayor and certain a couple mayors now to try and amp this up a little bit to to move this along. And that’s why I think some neighbors are upset that they’re not going to allow this dispenser to be open because here you have a majority minority owned company that’s trying to do it. Fascinating stories all on Block Club Chicago. John Hansen, editor, thank you very much for running us through that. Appreciate it. I gotta get my wedding ring on. Yeah, exactly. Go get it on so you don’t get trouble. All right, good to see you. It’s always good to talk to him. Oh my gosh, I love having such a bright light in this world. Okay, so something else that’s bright and brings a lot of lights that you went to this thing last year. Yes, it was so much fun, I tell you. We’re talking about the Englewood Music Festival. It’s happening what, about a week, a little bit over a week. And guess what? The weather is going to kick back up into the high7s. So hey, it may be fall. It may be a little bit cooler outside, but we are not done with festival season. We’re going to preview live with some very special guests, the Englewood Music Festival when we come back. Stay with us. Fox [Music] [Music] Yeah. [Music] Hey. Hey. [Music] [Music] [Music] world. All right, welcome back to Chicago. Now we are with Alderwoman Stephanie Coleman who is over the Englewood Music Festival that happens right in your actual ward. Uh it’s a really good time. I went last year like I told you. It was right where my old house used to be right in that area where I grew up. It’s no longer there. Yeah. So let’s talk about it. It was a good time. What’s going to be different this year? We are going to exemplify Englewood excellence for the fifth year. I’m so excited. What’s really different this year is we’ll be giving a car away thanks to ENR to Towing, which is so exciting to celebrate culture, to celebrate family, to celebrate arts, but to celebrate that Englewood is home. Inglewood will always be home and we truly are the heart of the city of Chicago. Excellence of Englewood. What does that mean to you? What does that phrase mean to you, Alderwoman? That means the community that we grew up in is still resilient and no matter what we do, we get back up in the morning and we exemplify excellence and that is what we’re going to show thousands on next Saturday. So, we’re looking at it right there. This is the flyer that has been circulated across the community. Tell us about some of these stars that are going to show up and hit the stage. Grammy awardwinning Leandria Johnson, one of the best gospel artists in this side of heaven. We have the fruit RL uh next. You know, will you be my wifey? And will you be my wifey? Yes, I’ll be your wifey. You better sing, man. Special guest too. Special guest. That’s one of my songs. And we’re going to end it out with one of the funniest, most talented Mr. Wipe Me Down himself, Booy. Booy, who’s always like stirring some stuff up on always. So appropriate for eagle it down. Yes. So this is your five for you guys. Number five. Number five. How does this come together? Like as soon as this happens, are you already planning for six or like what kinds of planning goes into each festival each year? Lots of planning, lots of prayer, and a whole lot of work. I know there’s music involved, but there’s a lot of food and and vendors and stuff. That was my next question. Absolutely. In addition to uh highlighting some of the best restaurants in Chicago on the south side and west side and south suburbs, we’ll also have an actual arts village thanks to the Englewoods Arts Collective who’s been our partners since year one. Shout out to Janelle and Tama Johnson. We love you EAC. As well as uh a health village, a senior village. Uh it’s literally something from the baby to the baby boomer for everyone to do. So we’re talking familyfriendly stuff. I mean something for everybody there. everyone. I love it. All right, give give us an idea. I want to dive a little deeper into the food options. You said you’re pulling some of Chicago’s best restaurants from the south suburbs as well. Who’s going to be on site? We’ve got Harolds. We’ve got Oh goodness. We have Wait, can we just stop at Harolds? Right. Harold. Do you like yours with mild sauce and lemon pepper? Of course. With a hot pepper on the side. Yeah. Who else? I’m sorry. Bronzeville, Hogi. Uh, I can’t believe it’s not meat. Oh gosh, so many food vendors. I’m just excited. I’m getting hungry. Thinking about Yeah, we got to go back to that car because that’s a big deal and that may be a huge draw for a lot of people. Anyone watching right now, how can they be part of this? Are you looking for a certain person to give the car to? Do they have to like do something driver’s license? Go to www.inglewoodmusicfest.com and just put your name in the drawing. Put your name and your driver’s license number. So, it’s like a it’s like a random draw. It’s a random drawing. So, it’s going to be a lucky winner. When does the winner get announced? They will be announced on September 13th at the Englewood Music Festival. And so, do they And so, then what happens? They get the car. Can you give I know you don’t want to give it away because it may get you may start getting everybody on the website. Are we talking a new car? Are we talking a SUV? Are we talking a two-seater with a top down? We’re talking a 2024. Yes. That’s all you gonna get. I had to stop her. Go tell it all. So, we Oh, okay. Okay. It’s gonna be unveiled there. There it is. It’s covered. That’s covered. All right. That’s right. Man, do you guys have a contest every year like this or is this kind of a first? This is a first thanks to Ian Aring. We’re so grateful for a partnership. What made you do it this year? What made you decide to go this big? Because this is big. I’ve never seen a music festival do something like this. What made you go this big? You know what, Tia Englewood, we get a um a bad rep sometimes, you know, and when we look at public safety and crime, and this has been not only a labor of love, but a labor of this is what my community really is. It’s not guns and gangs and and shootings and homicides. Uh if something happens on 63rd and King Drive, it’s it’s Englewood and it’s not. Uh, so every year I’m intentional about changing the narrative of my community and we’re going bigger and better every year. How big what kind of a turnout are you expecting? Yeah. Is there a crowd estimate? Year one we started out with 2,000 people. We were still in the pandemic. Still pretty big. Especially pandemic. Last year we were at 14,000 for our fourth year. I’m telling you, it was everywhere. Yeah, it was huge. And this and and really talk about this because I think when people hear Inglewood they think oh that’s everybody from Englewood but you pull people from suburbs from all over because Englewood is home. Englewood is the heartbeat of the city of Chicago. So I want everyone to come back home because no matter where you’re from west side everyone knows someone in Englewood and I want to exemplify that excellence or have grown up there. Right. Yes, there’s a lot of people in Chicago that have maybe moved on to other places, but they grew up there. Um, I know you mentioned this, and I’m not going to harp on this long, but you mentioned crime. Uh, we’ve had a lot of conversation about crime, the National Guard. I’m not putting you on on the spot when it comes to that, but when we talk about crime, you mentioned that a lot of people try to hang it up on Inglewood. Have you seen crime go down in the community of Englewood? Oh, Englewood has definitely decreased. And it doesn’t help that our superintendent is a son of Englewood. He Larry Snelling and we’ve been very intentional because seventh and 11th district are always at the highest of of crime and I’m just glad to report that the seventh districtlewood we’re doing very well. What do you hinge that on? Do you think that that has something to do with your community partners? There’s a lot of these organizations that are crime prevention. They hit the ground every day. Uh they’re not making the news for all of their amazing work, but they exist. Is that part of this, you think, of of keeping that crime down? I credit the leadership of Superintendent Snelling. Uh he actually knows unlike his predecessor who did not know Chicago, Larry Snelling knows Chicago. He knows where the hot spots are and being intentional. I just saw the other day actually riding here that bikers officers on bikes riding down Damon and riding down um racing. That’s something that we’ve never experienced in Englewood, but I know it came from the top. Yeah. 14,000 people there last year. right back to that music. I’m cur No, no, I’m curious. This is this is related though. Of that crowd, how much do you think are residents of your ward, people from Englewood? And what would be your message to people like Tia Tia alluded to, you know, folks who haven’t ventured down that way? They’re from other parts of the city. Um, how do you view the makeup of that crowd? And what would be your message to folks who might be from another part of the city uh in terms of welcoming down welcoming them down to your work? Certainly the bulk of the crowd I would say at least over half is truly Englewood bred uh and still reside in Englewood or grew up in Englewood and my message is to come back home, invest in community. The the Englewood is a land of opportunity and I want to make sure that black people come back home and that we uh reinvest and repopulate our community. I want to say this too because I think sometimes people hear Inglewood or like you know a certain point passed on the day in Ryan. People are like I’m not going that way. I don’t live in your community but I went last year and I will say this um for people that are watching because I know sometimes these communities people do think oh my god I can’t go there. I’ll be shot. It was so chill. It was so peaceful. There was police. You didn’t feel unsafe. And so I think, you know, sometimes we got to venture out of our own minds and, you know, stop putting these uh stereotypes on on different communities in Chicago because it does exist. I mean, we can act like it doesn’t, but it does. People that live on the north side typically don’t go a certain point, you know, past the Dan Ryan. And so, I do think it’s time for us to open our minds. One other question I have for you. A lot of these music festivals that we see, they’re charging people to get in. Is this free? Totally free. F R E. Love it. No excuses. No excuses. Good to see you. This is overdue. This is wild. This is her first time in person at Fox 32 because it was pandmic. It was pandemic. I was elected right eight months before going back like sunshine on a cloudy day in that beautiful team here. There’s just wonderful as you can tell. Wonderful people. Wonderful people for sure. And you you’re a wonderful person. We used to see each other way more often. This is kind of a reunion for us. Yeah, it is. We’re having a good time today. Yeah. It’s good to see you. That’s my Englewood Music Fest. It really is a family reunion. We’ve reunited folks that went to prom back in the 80s. Uh school teachers, they’ve Yeah, it’s rekindling old flames. Well, I ain’t going to say that. But what I Well, not for me. I was there with my husband. When I was there, I did see people that were like, “Hey, remember me? I went to school with you when.” And it was really like it was a really good time. Very special. All right, that’s the message. Come home to Anglewood, everybody. September 13th. And what time does it start? 12:00 noon. And what time does it end? 8:00 p.m. Noon to 9. Absolutely free. Carol’s chicken. Noon to 9. Noon to 9. Noon to 8. Get the facts right. Stick with me. Okay. Stick with me. You know, it’s worth the baseball field wide open. A whole lot of space. Musicfest.com. All right. Thanks to Alderwoman Coleman. And we’re going to take a quick break, but coming up, we’re going to speak with representatives from the American Writer Writers Museum’s new American Prophets program series. We’re going to learn all about that in just a moment. Stay with us. You were right. It’s noon night. [Music] Holy [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] them. Okay. Yeah. Welcome back. You’re still sticking with Chicago now? Yes, I am. Stuck with me for the whole hour. I know. It’s been a really good time. And now we have two very important guests. Yes. From the American Writers Museum, which has a new exhibit and program that explores the influence of religion and spirituality on American history. This thing is called American Prophets, Writers, Religion, and Culture. And uh we are joined by Carrie Cranston, the president of the museum and along uh and and bestselling author Arl Quan to talk about this new exhibit. We appreciate you both being here. Thank you so much. For folks, let’s start with Carrie, though. For those who are unfamiliar with the American Writers Museum, what is it and where can we find it? You can find it directly across the street from your studio. Um we are at 180 North Michigan um on the second floor. Uh the museum opened in 2017. It’s an interactive um and engaging space that celebrates all of American writing from the past to the present and really looks at its influence on our history and culture and American prophets as our upcoming special exhibit that’ll open in November that looks specifically at the theme of religion and spirituality in American writing and its influence on our culture. and it has a program series that goes along with it which started back in April where we brought in bestselling authors in science fiction to talk about religion and science fiction. We had a big program with uh Peter Seagel of Wait Wait, don’t tell me and a group of comedians talking about that and every month going forward we’re going to have more and more and tonight we have a great program and workshop with Arl Quan. Arl Quan, we are so happy that you’re here. Let’s talk about that. You have two books with you right now. How many books have you written? Uh I’ve written two novels, Exhibit and The Incendiaries. And yeah, those are my two books. You’re leading a workshop. Is it tonight? Yes. Okay. What is your workshop? Yes. So for the workshop, we’re going to it’s on it’s it’s based around religion um and writing in religion. And so it’s it’s for people who want to all kinds of um if they’re writing, if they’re if they’re walking toward religion, if they’re walking within a tradition, if they’re walking away from religion, any sort of relationship that people might have with religion, um we’re going to we’re going to work together and people are going to write. Let me ask you this. What made you delve into that? Did you have a personal story, a personal experience that led you down this path? Yeah, absolutely. So, um I grew up very Christian. I grew up so Christian that the shortorthhand I used to give was that I wanted to be a pastor. Um, but that’s that wasn’t actually it wasn’t accurate. It was it’s a it’s a far too easygoing version of what I wanted. I wanted to be a saint. I wanted to walk through fire. I wanted to see the face of God and live. I wanted to live in an in a cave as an isolated mystic. I just wanted to devote my life to the Lord. Um, and then right before college, I lost that faith and it was and is the pivotal loss of my life. And in some ways, it’s always what I’m writing about. Interesting. Have you have you gravitated back toward any kind of organized religion or is it still a journey for you? Uh no, I haven’t. I haven’t gravitated toward organized religion. I have so much respect for people who do, but it’s these are works of fiction here. Yes, they’re novels. Carrie, um when I think of like an American religious author, you know, my mind goes to like a Thomas Merin. um in the footage there are there other is it is it other fiction writers or are we talking u we are looking at the concept of writing and religion especially in places where people don’t always think about it um so as I mentioned we’ve done panel discussions on comedy and writing so people don’t think about the movie Groundhog Day as an overly religious or spiritual film but when it came out um a number of religious groups especially Buddhists saw saw um the underpinnings of their faith in that film. They saw the reflection of a life lived over and over building toward a better life which you know as we think about reincarnation and other belief systems. These are things that are often reflected in film. Harold Ramos, who we famously know as a Chicago, wrote that film and was Jewish as he was brought up, but actually was a very big fan of Buddhism and called himself Buddhist and used to give friends um a three-fold pamphlet on the general tenants of Buddhism. So, a lot of writers are influenced by their religion or their belief systems and a lot of Americans get their understandings of belief from writers. So we call them our American prophets because very often we might discover something like if someone my age learned more about Islam from the autobiography of Malcolm X than anything I had ever been exposed to in my life. So it is from other writers that we come to understand the plurality of this world that we live in. Well Carrie and Aro I first think of you know what’s been going on in our country when it comes to a lot of books that maybe we all read as children. uh there’s been attacks from different religious groups about some of these books that we read and we didn’t see a problem with them as children. What do you make of that and how does maybe what you’re doing this time around in November plays into any of that? Well, I mean, as an institution, we’re obviously an institution that celebrates writing and we are are very adamantly against censorship and we’re very adamantly pro-riter and we want voices to be heard. So we do feel that we want this exhibit to be something where there are a number of different points of view, a number of different feelings about the topic and we want people to engage in discussion and so you can’t engage in discussion if you repress or take away people’s voice. I a thousand% agree with that. Aro, your most recent best-selling novel, you brought it along with us. If you could u maybe show it to camera, the the middle camera here, it’s called Exhibit. It was an editor’s choice with the New York Times. Can you run us through a little bit about what this book is about and what inspired it? Sure. Um, there’s a woman, a photographer, at the center of the novel and um, and she’s an artist and she also experienced a tremendous loss of faith that has affected her life and has informed her work. Um, at the start of her novel, she and her husband who’ve been married for a while, who’ve been together for a while, realize um, they’d agreed they’d agreed before they got married that they weren’t going to have children. M and then it he wakes up one day and realizes, “Oh, dear God, I do want children.” And so I’m fascinated with my work um in general and in this book with what happens when people believe fundamentally different things about the world. What happens when people want fundamentally different things for their lives when compromise isn’t possible? How do we live with and through that kind of division? Oh my gosh. Holding those opposites at the same time. I’ve I don’t know, Tia, have you ever known a couple where they’re clicking on all c all cylinders, but they’re either engaged or recently married and now there’s a big disagreement like that where it’s a literally a fundamental different worldview. Yeah. And especially when it comes up to I think religion, it’s always a sensitive topic with people anyway. So, I find it very interesting that you’re even doing this because that is one of those topics that some people kind of shy away from. Uh are you working on any new uh writings right now? I am. Um, I’ve been working for two years on a novel that’s um centered around an an art heist of historically significant Korean antiques and art. Um, so I’ve been doing a lot of a lot of research. I uh read The Goldfinch. Oh, yes. Which I mean that wasn’t a heist, was it? Or It was It was There was a theft. There was a I would recommend that one, too. Um, that is super super cool. Carrie, let me ask you this. What additional programs are coming to the American uh prophets series? What what other exhibitions? You’ve got Aro in house tonight. Is this going to be kind of a nightly thing or a weekly thing where you have a workshop at le uh the workshops are going to happen. There will be multiple of them. We’re doing them in partnership with Story Studio. So people can find about all our programs on our website americanrit writers museum.org and look up the program section. But the um uh coming up we have a really great uh program with an author on James Baldwin and the idea of queer religion and uh and his life. And then um in the fall we in October we have a really great program which we’ll be doing down at the University of Chicago on horror writing and um and religion and how those overlap with the Divinity School at the University of Chicago. So we have a lot of really fun and interesting programs upcoming and I encourage people to look online and and find out more about them all. Very interesting. Fascinating horror horror series down at the Divinity School. Wow. I want to go back to something you said earlier years you’ve been working on that during that time because somebody may be watching and maybe they met never met an author before they don’t know really what goes into successful two bestsellers when you say two years what are you doing during that time to to really bring that piece of because I consider it art that art to life. Yeah. Um no thank you for asking that. So my first novel The Incendiaries um it took 10 years. This one took eight years. I’m really hoping I’m on a downward slope and then one maybe 60 is my hope. Um, but I draft and draft and draft. Um, the Incendiaries went through something somewhere somewhere between 70 and 100. I have no idea. This one drafts. Um, and so I’m I’m trying to work toward um I want to get to a place where I can open the book at random and not want to change anything. And so that seems to I wonder if any author has ever gotten to that open and don’t want to change a thing. Carrie, these workshops, are they the target audience here? Is it strictly for aspiring writers or existing writers? What would you say? Oh, no. I think when when we’re talking about the workshops that we’re doing with Story Studio, it can be anyone with a glimmer of an idea that they might want to write um to uh people who are are are well known or have been writing for a while but really want to take their writing to the next level. So, it’s very open-ended because we’re bringing in writers who have the capacity to really work with the audience and and try and engage them in the topic and and if they’re not familiar with Story Studio here in Chicago, Chicago Story Studio, I I would encourage people to look them up as well. Now, Ro has taught there. A number of great writers teach there. Um Rebecca Mai is one of their uh main writers in residence and and one of the creators of it. And it is a wonderful organization for people who have any interest in becoming a writer. M perfect. Anyone that’s watching right now know Carrie you gave the website but for you where can people find out about your next your next works. Where can they go buy your books? Oh sure. Um it’s uh the book is available at um any number of independent bookstores in in Chicago. Um and I’m on Instagram and Blue Sky and uh and yeah and my website. Well I I got one more really random question before we let because I think we have till 11:57. So, we got a couple seconds. AI. Okay. The generative AI. I’m just wondering is that how do you each see that changing the landscape here? You know, you were saying these that one took you 10 years, one took you eight years. How are Well, maybe we’ll start with ARO. How are authors either is AI a shortcut? Is it a tool? How do you see it playing into the whole landscape uh in the coming years? Well, I think um for me a first a primary consideration is that um is that is that these um these language models they took they took specifically our books um without paying us for them and they digested them um and uh and it’s an ongoing battle that that that that they and they say that they can’t pay us because it would bankrupt them and then it becomes well so you stole um you stole what you needed from from us. Art like Tia said it’s art. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And um you know I just don’t what I don’t I don’t I just don’t think humans are replaceable. I think that’s one of the lessons of literature. It’s one of the lessons of love, right? Every single person who I love, who I have lost, they have not been replaceable. Um we are singular in this world, each one of us. And I think that’s part of what’s so beautiful about literature and um and in love. And I don’t think AI can replace that. So bit of a threat in your mind then. It’s um I mean I don’t want to put words in your mouth. I don’t consider it um I mean I could be wrong but I don’t consider it a threat to what to what I do and to my writer friends do. Um I do consider it very much a threat to the world and its environmental impact and and to and the ways in which it’s um it it looks as though it’s going to be replacing a lot of jobs. Yep. How about you Carrie? Um I agree with um what Ro is saying. You know from our point of view it’s the writers that we celebrate and I do think that taking their art and digesting it is is is theft. And I also think that um people the readers of the world are very interested in knowing that the stories they read are connected to a human being. So if a large language model can generate a piece of fiction no matter Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] I got you. [Music] [Music] [Music] Live from Chicago, this is Fox 32 News at Noon. Now at noon, the fashion world just lost an icon designer Giorgio Armani. The National Guard could arrive in Chicago as early as tomorrow. Their arrival now prompting a big suburban festival that’s going to be cancelled. Cooler air now moving into our area. Let’s call it actual cold after this morning. Kayen’s going to tell us when these cool temperatures are going to be leaving or if they’re sticking around. Good afternoon everyone. Thanks for joining me today. I’m Sylvia Perez. We begin with some sad news in the fashion world. Designer Giorgio Armani has died. Armani was known for his classic pieces with modern style and elegance. He was also widely known for dressing celebrities on the red carpet and for their important life moments. The designer was planning a major event to celebrate 50 years of his signature Giorgio Armani Fashion House during Milan Fashion Week this month. No word on the cause of death. He was 91 years old. Let’s take a live look outside. And if you got outside at all, you feel the fall feeling in the air. Actually kind of pleasant. But I’m not ready to give up on warm temperatures just yet, Kaitlyn. No, I’m not. How about you? Oo, save my electric bill. Yes. the cool. I am all on board now, Silia. Um, this morning you mentioned how it was almost cold outside. A lot of us in the 40s this morning. Temperatures today are going to be cool. The kind of cool that you can keep your windows propped open all day long. Temperatures in the upper 60s, low 70s as our highs. Behind me, you can see our regional view showing just a few clouds out there. Outside of that, it’s perfect. 60° northwest breeze 5 to 10 miles per hour. We are going to have a quiet stretch of weather ahead of us with a few small disturbances. So, let me explain. First of all, temperatures outside right now in the upper 50s and low 60s. Tonight, we’re going to have the winds start to increase and we could see some high waves on Lake Michigan, especially in northwest Indiana and southwest Michigan with maybe some light rain tomorrow. But before that, today it’s just fall. We have 68 degrees by 3, 5:00 p.m. 68° temperatures again hovering right around 70. Tomorrow’s high 66. As I said, too, we’re going to have those gusty winds especially tonight into the first part of tomorrow. We could see a few sprinkles in the morning, maybe some light rain south of the city into the early afternoon. And then this weekend, dry skies and fall-like temperatures continue next week. Will we have a warmup? I’ll show you on your 7-day forecast ahead. Thanks, Caitlyn. Governor Pritker says National Guard troops are in Illinois ready to be deployed as soon as the weekend. Military operations are causing one community to cancel public events. Fox 32’s Joanie Lum has the latest. Parade organizers in Walkegan say they’ve been able to verify the presence of ICE agents and military assembling here in Lake County. They decided to cancel the Mexican Independence Day parade and festival for safety reasons to protect the community. What we’re hearing, Governor Pritsker says concerned citizens and military sources report the National Guard is gearing up and will be ready to deploy for the weekend in addition to 300 ICE agents sent here to ramp up immigration raids. The Department of Homeland Security contacted Naval Station Great Lakes for office space and support. It’s not known if the National Guard will be sent to Chicago or elsewhere. Walkagan residents have witnessed traumatic immigration enforcement before and say they cannot have the community being put at risk now. This is the first time in 30 years that the parade and festival have been cancelled. We had confirmation that there’s many more um agents coming, many more soldiers coming. So, um, you know, if anyone’s out there that thinks that they can, uh, resist against 4,000, um, go for it. Okay. We can’t, uh, we’re not going to, we find it, uh, we think it’s going to be very, very, um, horrible and, uh, we rather to this time around, take a step back, be proactive, protect our community. Lake County authorities addressed the concern in a statement saying these activities are coordinated entirely at a federal level. Under Illinois law, local and state law enforcement agencies do not and will not participate in federal immigration enforcement. Immigration matters remain solely under federal jurisdiction and our local resources remain focused on serving and protecting our residents. Thousands of people are on watch here in Waggan. They hope to reschedule the Mexican Independence Day parade for November, but they say right now that’s a target date. They hope that everyone remains safe first in Waggan. Joan Lum, Fox 32 Chicago. President Trump’s plan is facing a whole lot of push back from local and state leaders. And that is why Congressman Raja Krishna Morphy is introducing a new amendment that blocks the president from deploying the military unless state leaders request federal assistance. So, I’m actually asking Republican colleagues to remember that today, you know, the president could be targeting Democratic mayors and Democratic governors, but tomorrow he could be targeting whoever he views as his adversaries. Just talked to John Bolton, his former national security adviser, whose home was raided recently by the FBI under a pretense. And so, uh, I I’m asking my Republican colleagues to seriously consider voting for this particular measure. A federal judge just recently ruled that the Trump administration violated a federal law when it deployed the National Guard to Los Angeles. The administration has filed an appeal. Well, today the man charged in the death of a 9-year-old boy is back in court. 52-year-old Michael Corrosa is facing involuntary ma manslaughter charges. Police say nine-year-old Elijah Flores was on a Greenline train last month with his mother’s boyfriend. 22-year-old Jonah Seria and court documents say Seria took money out of another passenger’s hand and started running. That passenger and his friend Carrosa went after them. And that is when Seria picked Elijah up and put him over his shoulders. As they headed down the stairs, Seria fell down the stairs and dropped the young boy. Elijah was hospitalized with severe head trauma and brain damage. He died on August 16th. President Trump is asking the Supreme Court to quickly make a decision on whether he has the authority to impose his sweeping tariffs under federal emergency law. Lucas Tomlinson has the latest from Washington. It’s one of the most important cases I’ve ever seen. President Trump is taking his terror fight to the Supreme Court. On Wednesday, he asked the justices to quickly overturn a federal judge’s ruling that he doesn’t have the authority to impose tariffs under emergency law. And if he loses the appeal, the Treasury could have to pay back more than $200 billion of tariff revenue collected so far. Our country has a chance to be unbelievably rich again, but it can also be unbelievably poor again. If we don’t have if we don’t win that case, uh, our country is going to suffer so greatly. The legal battle comes as the tariff war is heating up. India announced Thursday it’s cutting taxes on hundreds of domestic goods as tariffs take a big hit out of its economy. But the White House says the current 50% rate won’t drop until India stops buying embargoed Russian oil. The road to peace in many ways runs at least partly through New Delhi. It’s time for for Modi to step up. India responding by making a new trade deal with the European Union and starting talks with dozens of other countries. It’s part of a growing trend that’s seen major trading partners pivot away from the United States in order to blunt the tariff impact. There’s no question that the changes we see in the world today uh do influence uh our policies. The Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to take up the case by September 10th. Schedule arguments for early November. In Washington, Lucas Tomlinson, Fox 32 Chicago. The Illinois Tollway and the city of Markham are celebrating the opening of a new customer service center on the tri-state tollway. The former 163rd Street Toll Plaza has been transformed into the new Markham Plaza, featuring an in-person iPass, customer service center, and new amenities for commercial trucks. So again, we are leading with sustainability. The Markham Plaza will offer level three EV charging stations for passenger vehicles.
What’s trending in Chicago? TMZ dives into Hollywood buzz with reports of Scooter Braun and Sydney Sweeney dating, and speculation about Harry Styles and Zoë Kravitz. We also explore efforts to restore the Chicago River and discuss mindful parenting with babies.
At 11 a.m., Mountain Dew and Good Good Golf host an innovative tournament at Kemper Lakes Golf Club in Kildeer, bringing together creators, celebrities, and fans. Block Club Chicago shares interesting neighborhood stories, from lost wedding rings in Lake Michigan to a car-free event in Wicker Park. Plus, the Englewood Music Festival returns to the South Side next weekend, promising “good food, good vibes, and great energy.”
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