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Lead Story Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » In July, Joseph Manuel Augusto, 37, and Andres Diaz, 52, chased each other around a Burger King in Stratford, Connecticut, after Augusto confronted Diaz for taking too long in the men’s room; Augusto was swiping at Diaz with a small pocketknife, while Diaz tried to hit back with a straw dispenser. No one was injured. And the city of Monte Sereno, California (population 3,800), said in October that it would proceed with civil and criminal cases against former residents Joe and Darla Padgett....

Michael Miner’s Hot Type column, “Robert Novak’s Not Talking,” November 26, was remarkable for its display of contempt for facts. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Miner of course is entitled to his opinion about Novak and his column. He might not be concerned about a CIA employee using her position and the agency to try to influence political debate, but if he opens his mind a little perhaps he can recognize that some people might see such a scenario in this case....

I have a problem and I don’t know who else to turn to. My girlfriend and I have been toying with the idea of marriage, but a few weeks ago I left the country, and I got back yesterday. She told me that she cheated on me twice with two different guys when I was away and that she couldn’t really help it because she has cheated on almost every one of her significant others....

This is a fairly embarrassing situation for myself and my husband, and I hope you will consider helping. Not too long ago, we came home from a night at the theater and found my 14-year-old daughter “experimenting” with one of my dildos. Needless to say, we were both mortified. My husband quickly exited the room and left me to deal with it. My daughter claims she found it while innocently looking through my closet (something she is not allowed to do)....

Lucky Yates has only two rules for the guests on his metatheatrical talk show: come ready to gab and leave the bullshit at the door. His three-year-old mondo-bizarro venture The Lucky Yates Show, a self-described “fun way to kill time between performances,” has been wildly successful at Dad’s Garage Theatre, the Atlanta company where Yates also designs puppets and helps run a children’s-matinee program. The look he affects just screams mid-60s Vegas: thrift-store suits, pencil-thin John Waters mustache, severely parted hair shellacked with gobs of Brylcreem, a stogie that never leaves his right hand....

Sometimes the best photojournalism comes from being in the right place at the right time, which is certainly true of this lucid and gripping on-location account of the 2002 coup d’etat in Venezuela, instigated by oil barons (with the alleged support of the CIA), that toppled the democratically elected socialistic government of Hugo Chavez for 48 breathless hours. The role of the state-operated TV channel versus the more popular channels controlled by oil interests proved to be pivotal, and this part of the story alone makes the film well worth seeing....

Rock, Pop, etc. EVAPORATING POOL OF LOVE Free in-store performance. Fri 1/12, 8 PM, Borders Books & Music, 1144 Lake, Oak Park. 708-386-6927. DJ FRANKIE KNUCKLES, DISAPPEAR FEAR, KRISTEN HALL with DJ Lora Branch, DJ Gloria, the Lakeside Pride Jazz Ensemble, Pulsation, Venus Envy, and Women of Song; benefit concert for the Lesbian Community Cancer Project. Sat 1/20, 7 PM-1 AM, South Shore Cultural Center, 7059 S. South Shore Dr. 773-561-4662....

Seeing the twin towers burning from the office of his video company, Steven Mudrick set up a camera and kept it running until after the buildings collapsed, and in the days that followed he and Bryan Kortis roamed New York, taping interviews with survivors and sounds of the city. The sound track of this 76-minute video is a collage from those sessions heard over a nearly continuous view of the disaster, resulting in an intelligent and expansive treatment of that now-iconic imagery....

1776, Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire. Apparently the founding family was as dysfunctional as any, if you can believe the steamy squabbles depicted in this gently satirical musical. With a supple script by Peter Stone and serviceable if trivial music and lyrics by Sherman Edwards, this work goes beyond patriotic tableaux in its depiction of the Philadelphia convention that birthed a nation, exposing the human frailties (boozing, factionalism, a preoccupation with sex) behind an epic event shaped as much by personalities as principles....

BIG RIVER: THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN, Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire. Director Marc Robin’s rendition of Roger Miller and William Hauptman’s 1985 Broadway hit (the show’s second local production this season is a winning revival with a rich emotional texture one doesn’t usually associate with dinner theater. Robin and his cast capture both the exuberant humor and the dark side of Mark Twain’s classic: the horror of slavery, the pain of poverty, the human capacity for cruelty, and the anger and hurt that sometimes color the characters’ friendships....

Friday 4/26 – Thursday 5/2 Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Mercury, Venus, Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter are aligned on the same side of the sun this month, in honor of which Chicago musician Corky Siegel has composed a piece using a pentatonic scale for five instruments playing in 5/4 time. Agnostic on the subject of astrology, Siegel calls himself a “Scorpio with cholesterol rising....

Cartoonists Get the Picture The other two putative finalists were Nick Anderson of Louisville’s Courier-Journal and Jack Ohman of Portland’s Oregonian. (Syndicated cartoonist Doug Marlette is another name that comes up.) Like Luckovich, both say they’re not in touch with Dold. “I’ve just kind of moved on with my life,” says Ohman. “I E-mailed him I think it was last October, and he E-mailed me back saying this is the situation–they’re in very severe budget constraints and no decisions have been made....

JERRY GONZALEZ & THE FORT APACHE BAND Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » When trumpeter and conga player Jerry Gonzalez formed the Fort Apache Band nearly 20 years ago, the idea of wedding jazz and Caribbean music was hardly new. The two genres had been borrowing from each other since the 1920s, and Latin jazz had flowered flamboyantly in the 60s; by the 70s the burgeoning interest in “world music” had focused attention on emerging hybrid idioms, like the music of Airto Moreira in Brazil or Irakere in Cuba....

The U.S. military’s rout of the Taliban in 2001 scarcely restored Afghanistan to peace and prosperity, but some things have changed for the better. One of the first images the media brought us after the fall of the fundamentalist Islamic regime was that of Afghans listening to music–a thing forbidden by the mullahs, who destroyed instruments and imprisoned musicians. Even with a new government in power, however, some of Afghanistan’s finest performers still practice their art in exile, notably the Geneva-based Ensemble Kaboul and singer Farida Mahwash, who’s lived in LA since 1992....

The village of Sheridan, about a 70-mile drive west of the Loop, is a picturesque small town in a mostly rural area that prides itself on being a summer recreation destination, the gateway to the Fox River Dells. Freight trains still rumble through the village a block north of the main street, and from the main crossing you can spot the library, the school, the grocery store, three taverns, and two flashing stoplights–one for each gas station....

I was a waitress here at one point in my illustrious service industry career. It was a Friday evening, and very busy. My entire section had just filled up when I got another two-top, a couple. It was a moment before I could get to their table, and their entire experience ended up taking much longer than expected. Before the entrees came out I told them to save room for dessert, as it would be on me because of their wait....

When you warn against being a huge fucking slut, I know that I agree but I don’t know if I’m being a huge fucking slut. I’ve had anal sex (with protection!) on the first date, and I’ve had sex with guys without quite remembering their names. But my lifetime sex partner count is not that high (20!), even if I am a youngish gay guy who can’t go on-line without some dude asking me if I “bb” (bareback!...

There are seven signs placed around the wire bin holding the plastic bouncing balls. Two state the price–$1.99. The other five warn customers not to bounce the balls. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Perhaps it would help to know that Hecht’s first job out of college was as a minor-league baseball umpire in Oklahoma. Players gave him a tough time, and he wasn’t afraid to show them who was boss....

A Ritual of Faith Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » On a June night in 1858, a marshall appeared at Momolo Mortaro’s door in Bologna and announced, “Your son Edgardo has been baptized and I have been ordered to take him with me.” He was acting in accordance with church law, which applied to those living in the rapidly shrinking Papal States: it was illegal for Jews to raise a baptized child....

The ninth annual International Exposition of Sculpture Objects & Functional Art brings 80-some dealers in ceramics, furniture, jewelry, and other three-dimensional media to Navy Pier’s Festival Hall, 600 E. Grand, Friday and Saturday, October 25 and 26, 11 to 8, and Sunday, October 27, noon to 6. A series of lectures takes place Friday and Saturday; the schedule follows. Presentations marked 4 focus on this year’s six special exhibits. Admission to the talks is free with ticket purchase: $12 per day, $10 for students and seniors, or $20 for a three-day pass....