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By Ted Klein In his closing statement, Burns ended with the words, “Remember: George Ryan.” Like Burris, Poshard, and Schmidt, Burns is presenting himself as the only Democrat who can beat Ryan in November. But first he has to win the Democratic primary, and right now he’s running dead last. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » But Burns isn’t reassessing anything; he says “the hardworking people who play by the rules every day” want a governor who will “restore faith and confidence in government....

With the return of Scottie Pippen, the swagger returned to the Bulls. They had always retained a certain air of confidence; after a slow 8-7 start they persistently improved to 24-11 before Pippen’s return a week ago last Saturday. Yet with Pippen that natural confidence took on an added dimension, sort of puffed out its chest–and that is entirely his contribution. Michael Jordan is a supremely confident athlete, but like a panther he seems to be slouching, even when he’s just strolling out to center court for the tip-off....

HANK SHIZZOE 6/13, FITZGERALD’S I was suckered in by the guitar-playing garden gnome on the cover of Swiss guitarist Hank Shizzoe’s Low Budget, but after repeated listening I have to admit there’s nothing remotely as clever about his friendly and reverent blues rock. In fact, his version of Robert Johnson’s “32-20 Blues” sounds more like he’s covering the Black Crowes covering the Stones covering Johnson, and his “Stagger Lee” is so laid-back it makes Dave Matthews sound like Howlin’ Wolf....

One of the greatest soul singers Chicago’s ever produced is coming home next month to sing a few songs. It’s been over 40 years since Butler got his start, and it sometimes seems to him as though every corner of the city reverberates with memories of those early days. The Arie Crown, for instance, isn’t far from the address on South Michigan Avenue of the old studio where he recorded “For Your Precious Love,” his first hit....

They’re All Connected Larry Bloom, former alderman. Government tapes show that the City Council’s Mr. Clean needed a good scrubbing. The biggest catch for the federal Silver Shovel investigation, Bloom shocked former colleagues and City Hall watchers when, just before his December trial, he pleaded guilty to lying on a tax return–and admitted taking $14,000 in bribes from government mole John Christopher. Christopher gave Bloom $10,000 for his unsuccessful run for county treasurer, and Bloom asked for fake names to disguise it as campaign contributions....

TRICKY Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Loaded with instantly forgettable songs, filled out by who’s-that-who-cares guest vocalists like Mad Dog, D’na, and Kioka, and (barely) beefed up by producers DJ Muggs and Grease, Tricky’s latest album, Juxtapose (Island), is so slapdash it makes his 1996 demos-with-famous-people collection Nearly God sound as labored-over as “River Deep, Mountain High.” But at least a couple of the new songs (“For Real” and “Hot Like a Sauna”) will add fuel to his live show, which has gathered so much extra steam since his first, tentative outings behind 1995’s Maxinquaye that it would appear he’s made some Faustian bargain: his albums get slighter every time out, but he put on the single best live show I saw in 1998....

Zen Guerrilla, Nebula Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Both live and on the recent Trance States in Tongues (Sub Pop), San Francisco’s Zen Guerrilla drags hirsute psych-blues into the post-everything present, flinging Stooges choogle, Hendrix flash, and Bluesbreakers stomp off the intensity meter with a hardcore-derived strength. Hulking, pacing front man Marcus Durant, who could use Jon Spencer for a toothpick, feeds his vocals through a haze of reverb and distortion and cranks up his phlegmy moans to the same gut-thumping level as the bass, guitar, and drums....

Alderman Edward Burke introduced a laudatory death resolution for a former Illinois state treasurer who was convicted of bank fraud for a multimillion dollar check-kiting scheme. No one noticed. It passed. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » That is not, however, the way most people would describe avoiding prison due to poor health. Alderman Burton Natarus is rather defensive about his crusade to purge dog waste from Chicago....

GOODIE MOB Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Outkast, Witchdoctor, and Goodie Mob haven’t just put Atlanta (ATL in the parlance) on the hip-hop map–they’ve turned it into a hip-hop capital. And so far, Goodie Mob’s recently released second album, Still Standing (La Face), is the scene’s Washington Monument. On its 1995 debut, Soul Food, the foursome showcased a mix of countrified drawls, doo-wop harmonies, live instrumentation, and positive, intelligent content; the follow-up positions the group as hip-hop’s answer to Parliament-Funkadelic....

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Good choreography is hard to find. But Spanish choreographer Nacho Duato is that rare bird who can do it all: Hubbard Street now has three of his dances in its repertoire, and all are musically, kinetically, and emotionally satisfying and tell elusive yet intriguing stories. The latest, receiving its Chicago premiere during this HSDC engagement, is Rassemblement (“The Gathering”), a piece for eight dancers with music by Haitian composer Toto Bissainthe....

Into the Pressure Cooker Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Alpaugh’s skills as an arts administrator should come in handy. For six years he was managing director of the Arizona Theatre Co., where he helped retire a $680,000 deficit and set up a $1 million reserve fund. Most recently Alpaugh served a short stint as associate director of the arts education group Urban Gateways. Though his predecessor at the Joffrey, Arnold Breman, is officially stepping down to complete a book of show business anecdotes, it appears the company’s board has been searching for a director with some experience running a troubled arts organization....

Lead Stories Bad Ideas Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » According to a January Associated Press report from Zinnowitz, Germany, Cuban pro boxer Juan Carlos Gomez, in town training for his next fight, was racially insulted by two skinheads in a billiard hall. Gomez punched one man in the face, and the skinheads left. Three days later, a larger group of skinheads confronted Gomez and his entourage in front of their hotel and resumed the insults....

Intrigued by two etching books her husband had given her, which reminded her of works she’d seen at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, Bertha Jaques began experimenting in the art. Using an old dentist’s drill, she scratched images into copper plate. The first time she tried to make a print she let the acid burn too long and ruined the plate. The second attempt worked. Best of Chicago voting is live now....

ANDREW BIRD’S BOWL OF FIRE 9/11, OLD TOWN SCHOOL Without question this Chicago band and its brother combo, Kevin O’Donnell’s Quality Six, are top-tier revivalists, so devoted to detail that when they snore it probably sounds like the crackle of a well-loved 78. But their boyish look-ma-no-hands cleverness is starting to get on my nerves. This gig is a release party for the Bowl of Fire’s second CD on Rykodisc, Oh!...

Pushing Tin With John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton, Cate Blanchett, Angelina Jolie, Jake Weber, Kurt Fuller, Vicki Lewis, Matt It’s impossible to imagine a gun distributor saying, “We’re going to attempt to get as many of these guns off the shelf as possible. We think it’s the responsible thing to do under the circumstances.” After all, this is America, where the freedom of teenage boys to buy guns and the freedom of gun manufacturers to turn a profit are precious to our way of life....

The Vagabond Mr. 420 When Fire, the first film directed by Raj Kapoor, premiered in 1948, Indian popular cinema was on the verge of a golden age. Directly influenced by the nautanki tradition, which combined dance and melodrama, it produced romances, family stories, historical dramas, and mythology. From the moment sound was introduced, Indian films incorporated songs; singing stars were in such high demand that many nonsinging actors and actresses had to have their songs dubbed by other people....

Can you explain to me where does it come from that the French are supposed to be Jerry Lewis fans? As soon as somebody recognize my accent I’m asked, “How can you like Jerry Lewis movies?” I lived this last 30 years in France and I never met any Jerry Lewis fan. If you ask to 100 persons in the street for a J.L. movie title you’d difficultly have a few answers, and lot of people would made a confusion with a rock ‘n’ roll star....

Michael K. Meyers charts his own course. Three years ago he thought he’d retired from performance for good. But he is about to emerge from that imagined retirement with a new piece this weekend at the Rhinoceros Theater Festival, a piece that follows a fictional “M.K. Meyers” through a series of incongruous lives across history. The piece isn’t strictly autobiographical–Meyers was never a Greek god, for example–but its peripatetic structure mirrors the author’s mercurial life....

I think that the Orisha must be something like a wind, it comes toward you like a wind and embraces you….My heart beats as fast as the lead drum plays, my head grows, and it seems like I see a blue light ahead of me and a hole appears in the middle of the room. Then I want to run, to grab someone, but people seem far away, out of reach....

Boppin’ With the Ancestors, ETA Creative Arts Foundation. Rob Penny, whose comedy Good Black recently won ETA Creative Arts Foundation’s “pick of the decade,” returns with a more complex play: two young gangbangers are challenged by the supernatural intervention of Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and an ancient African goddess. Penny’s themes–the survival of African-American youth, their lack of education, their disrespect for their elders and heritage–are powerful, but his script is still a few rewrites short of delivering his message clearly....