June 6th - June 13th - 2011

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The Pritzker Pavilion at Millennium Park is hosting the "Downtown Sound": New Music Mondays this summer, a free event highlighting different musical genres, bring your own food and go on down to the park, but get there EARLY as it fills up quick depending on the weather.

June also heralds the return of the annual Taste of Chicago, which opens next door from Millennium Park at Grant Park on June 27th. We are confused why the city banned suburban food vendors from the event this year, but 50 CITY vendors will be on hand at least.

Ditto for "Ribfest" at North Center (Lincoln Ave And Irving Park Road) on June 12th and on June 19th Taste of Randolph returns to the West Loop if you are in need of superior food and music in a summer setting.

Of course, how can we forget the BIGGEST FREE Blues festival in the world on June 10th at Grant Park, when "Blues Fest" returns to the HOME of the Blues, Chicago..

Did you know that Robert Johnson, King of the blues who died at the sweet young age of 27 years old (just like Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin AND Jim Morrison of the Doors) after recording ONLY 29 songs in his short career wrote the words and music to "Sweet Home Chicago" in the 1930's, YEARS before the renaissance of the blues that took hold in the early 60's in the UK, and the pioneers of that sound still resonate today, notably Eric Clapton (Crossroads by Cream), The Rolling Stones (Love in vain from the Beggars Banquet LP) Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page with the Yardbirds AND John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, among MANY others, not to mention notable homegrown artists Son Seals and Muddy Waters, both no longer with us.

As a matter of fact, I distinctly remember attending a 1979 Eric Clapton concert at the Chicago Stadium that featured Muddy Waters, who hailed from west suburban Westmont Illinois, AND Johnny Winter joining Clapton on stage as a tribute to his talent and influence during the encore of his song "Mannish Boy', Waters, known as McKinley Morganfield in real life, was born on April 4, 1913 and died April 30, 1983, just after celebrating his 70th birthday.

This year's "Blues Fest" takes on special importance as this year marks the 100 year anniversary of the birth of Robert Johnson, who was born May 8th 1911.

Chess Records and the rich legacy of the blues that was born here in Chicago owe its roots to the heart and soul of Robert Johnson, the first REAL recognized bluesman in American music history.

Johnson, who was black, reportedly was quite the dude and slick dresser who relished the company of fine white women in the day and paid the ultimate price by being poisoned to death, but this is only conjecture and not verified according to several biographies on him, although he DID die young under murky circumstances in the Deep South.

If you are REALLY blue after feasting on the message AND MUSIC of the blues AFTER the "Blues Fest", the next day, June 11th Chicago plays host to the WORLD NAKED BIKE RIDE CHICAGO.

Yes, that's right, an OPTIONAL bike ride of scant clothing that is INTERNATIONAL in scope (worldnakedbikeride.org for more info) and highlights our weakness of oil dependency, oil spills and their impact on the environment and the fact we NEED to develop alternate forms of transportation to help the planet by riding bikes in various states of nudity to make the point. Does this make the participants Non clothes horses? Ahem.

This will, most definitely, cheer you up if you STILL have the blues and need to "mount"' or "ride" something to make you feel better. See how we intersect sex , music and the environment and the city of Chicago all in one thought.

Who says Metro Pulse® doesn't TOTALLY ROCK. :

Good thing the "Slutwalk" we referenced in last week's Metro Pulse® didn't intersect with this event or there could have been a LOT of confusion and misunderstandings, a real pedal to the metal situation.

Photos from last year's biking event available by targeted search illustrate people in all forms of underwear and swimwear riding their bikes for this worthy cause to help the planet, go to the site to register and for more information as you need to register to ride and let them know who you are for future correspondences.

In another sex related Chicago institution and connection, PLAYBOY has created the "World's sexiest time machine" by archiving ALL 682 issues of the magazine over 57 years at Playboy.com.

Charges are $60.00 a year for unlimited access to your fondest adolescent memories or $8.00 a month and remember, the written articles are ALSO included for you intellectuals out there.

Notable authors included thru the years include Jack Kerouac, Kurt Vonnegut, Norman Mailer and Hunter S. Thompson, not to mention insightful interviews with John Lennon, Jimmy Carter and other celebrities that dominated certain eras. There is a feature that allows for inserting the name of the writer in the prompt box and the site will reference the articles of that particular author for you, as their press release states, "The Anthology of Cool'.

Michael Jackson's Thriller jacket is up for auction.

The Music Icons sale also includes: one of Eric Clapton's guitars, Frank Sinatra's patent leather boots and 1986 Jaguar, handwritten lyrics and a leather jacket from Johnny Cash, jackets and a guitar from Elvis Presley, a signed harmonica from Bob Dylan and nearly 600 other pieces of music memorabilia from Bruce Springsteen, Madonna, The Beatles and others.

The Music Icons auction is on June 25 and 26 at Julien's Auctions in Beverly Hills so you know where to go.

As we watch our summer season of sports unfold, with the finals being played out in both basketball and hockey WITHOUT either Chicago team represented, an interesting fact has come to light about TEXAS.

In the "Super Bowl" era, defined as beginning in the 1966-67 season, Texas is the only state to have hosted 4 MAJOR sporting events that were of a championship caliber in a 12 month period. The Dallas Mavericks play the Miami Heat in the finals with the first home game in Dallas played by press time, The Super Bowl was hosted at the gargantuan Cowboy Stadium this last February 6th, The Texas Rangers made it to their first World Series last fall, remember the George H. W. and George W Bush photo op with the dual appearance of our 41st and 43rd presidents cruising in from the outfield in the convertible?

Tellingly, even after the appearance by only the SECOND father and son tandem to occupy the White House in our storied history, The Rangers choked anyway to the San Francisco Giants, FINALLY giving 80 year old Willie Mays his wish of another championship for his beloved Giants before he passed.

Remember the Giants have won 6 championships in their history, 21 NATIONAL LEAGUE pennants, and have won more games than ANY team in baseball history, as well as having more players elected to the Hall of Fame than any other team, AND no North American PROFESSIONAL sports team has won more games than them IN ANY SPORT so at least the Rangers choked to a real COMPETITOR. (Statistical information courtesy of Wikipedia so you know)

The final event to round out the 4 pack of championships played (hosted) in Texas in the last 12 months was the NCAA Mens basketball Championship (known as the Final Four) in April at Reliant Stadium in Houston.

If you are hankering for some basketball in Chicago this summer after the Bulls were so rudely ejected from the playoffs, June 10th is the first game of the WNBA's (women's) Chicago Sky at the Allstate arena, call 866 Sky -NBA for ticket availability and /or go to Chicagosky.net for more information.

Speaking of basketball, the Finals are in Dallas at press time at the American Airlines Center, after playing the first 2 games in Miami at the American Airlines Arena.

Looks like American Airlines, ironically based in Dallas/Fort Worth, is the hands down winner in arena name recognition no matter what happens in the series, but one has to think they are partial to their hometown Mavericks.

At press time Miami is up 2 to 1 with game 4 in Dallas Tuesday June 7th.

The Smithsonian Institution, the collector of our culture for the ages, has optioned the 1,200 pound aluminum P-Funk (Parliament/Funkadelic) Mothership stage prop for inclusion for permanent display in the National museum of African/American culture slated to open in 2015 .

The stage prop, a replica as the original was sold for scrap when the band faced financial issues in the early 80's, is immortalized in the 1975 concept album release "The Mothership Connection" , a release Rolling Stone magazine heralded as the 274th of the 500 MOST influential albums ever and this prop will join Louis Armstrong's trumpet and other notable memorabilia highlighting the major cultural impact African Americans had in our society and the arts.

The Wall Street Journal ran a fascinating article on Lady Gaga on June 2nd, deftly tying in insight on entrepreneurs with the ascent of Lady Gaga and integrating her mantra as business tools to be motivated, educated and guided by.

The major points that seemed to be the focus revolved around the simple facts of life, that you don't need a "silver spoon" to succeed at a young age (see last weeks Metro Pulse® on facts on Gaga), you can promote yourself online with little or no money and you can ride the wave of popularity by being associated with a "popular" cause, which, in Gaga's case is the gay movement.

Notably absent in the article was the fact that the "Monster Ball" world tour is bankrupting her in it's outrageous expense structure and she has incurred HEAVY losses on this tour due to the exorbitant staging costs, not quite the entrepreneurial lesson on making money for sure.

In an interesting non making money Gaga footnote 2, Amazon, in it's battle to stay a player in the online music business, turbo charged the May 23rd release of the NEW Lady Gaga release "Born this way" with a special price of 99 cents per download for the WHOLE album, prompting Billboard to estimate that Amazon sold 440,000 units, double the amount of the Apple I-Tunes store, which sold the release at full price of $11.99, giving the release the rare first week sales of OVER 1 million units.

Soundscan, which was started in 1991, has only reported 17 releases in the last 20 years to reach 1 million sales in the FIRST WEEK.

It is being reported that Amazon incurred a loss of $8.01 per download as they paid the wholesale price of $9.00 per album to Universal Music, but their system COLLAPSED from the strain of the demand on the initial day of release according to the Wall Street Journal.

Amazon was promoting their "Cloud Drive" online storage service with this promotion, a savvy move in our opinion and to their credit, the technical snafus were addressed when they rereleased the deal a few days later. Apple plans to release their competing I-Cloud service by the time you read this article.

The New York Times ran an article on June 6th that was an insightful look into the "backbone" of Gaga'a operation, revealing that her management company, Coalition Media Group, operated by manager Tony Carter, has made prudent moves to establish and fortify her position online by creating a company that is defined as a platform with customized abilities that allow it to harness the various social media in a targeted manner for celebrities to manage and maintain their fan base and new content offerings.

As a testimony to Gaga's web appeal, she is the first Twitter personality to reach 10 million followers, her Facebook page has an astounding 36 million followers, her videos have garnered 1 BILLION hits on You Tube and she has entered promotional deals with Google and Zynga, owner of virtual community Farmville, which has introduced Gaga virtual crystals via a targeted promotion called "Gagaville" to add to the virtual farm products offered.

Now THAT is a sweet way to make money and a lesson to be learned for would be entrepreneurs, VIRTUAL products to turn over to make money.

The company created by Gaga's team, named Backplane, is addressing the issue of content consumption and how traditional avenues and networks are being bypassed as the internet generation migrates to mobile appliances from desktop and laptop and the cutting edge devices that are providing access to people on the go, and how they are EXPOSED to new content because of this ubiquitous ANYWHERE access.

Expounding upon the concept of Rock and Roll and going to class , Robert E. Weir (Bob Weir) teaches a course at the University of Massachusetts on the social and political context of the band "THE GRATEFUL DEAD", of which he is a founding member. And, the class is NOT an easy one, according to students attending.

In case you STILL think rockers are dumb, Brian May, lead guitarist of Queen, recently earned his doctorate in astrophysics.

Roger Daltrey, lead singer of the Who, is playing the Venue at the Horseshoe Casino in Hammond on Oct 7th and he will be playing the 1969 rock opera "Tommy" in it's entirety for this performance.

Yet as Roger tours the states, Guitarist Pete Townshend announced on his web site that this fall, and about the same time Daltrey is on tour singing "Tommy", watch for a DELUXE box set re-release of the OTHER rock opera from 1973 by the Who "Quadrephenia" as Pete is currently going over the original notes and lyric sheets at his home studio and is pumped to include demo tracks and unseen liner notes in this set.

Coupled with the massive EMI effort to rerelease the Pink Floyd catalogue to commence on Sept 26th, it seems to be old home week for rock re-releases this fall.

The Eagles play Las Vegas for 2 shows Nov 5th and 19th at the MGM Grand Hotel and these gigs are touted as the ONLY 2 shows the band will play in North America this year, so you know.

Presale tickets and VIP packages for the Eagles available thru the Live Nation owned I LOVE ALL ACCESS.com if you are enamored of a "Peaceful Easy Feeling" or want to "Take it to the Limit" with your credit card as packages start in the hundreds of dollars. Maybe your credit card is "Already Gone" eh?

What do Charlie Chaplin's signature bowler hat, Judy Garland's ruby red slippers from the Wizard of Oz, Marilyn Monroe's white dress that blew up around her waist in the "Seven Year Itch" movie and the hat worn by Scarlett O'Hara to woo Rhett in the classic "Gone with the Wind" ALL have in common?

Answer, they are a SMALL part of the world class collection of movie props and original costumes of one Debbie Reynolds, who sadly must sell the stash to satisfy creditors after failing to find a permanent home for the pieces recently and incurring substantial debt in the process, she even left a 25,000 square foot building about 5 minutes from Dolly wood in Tennessee empty and unfinished when a potential partner in the venture went bankrupt.

Ms. Reynolds has been collecting the iconic pieces since 1970 and will sell them in 3 sale events over the next 9 months, beginning June 18th, then the second sale in December, then Spring 2012, with the auction house "Profiles in History" entrusted with selling the literally thousands of pieces spanning over 100 years of the Golden age of Hollywood, including vintage pieces from Douglas Fairbanks Sr. and Greta Garbo, it is estimated the collection will sell in the MILLIONS of dollars, in no small part to the impeccable provenance Ms. Reynolds's Hollywood pedigree brings to the collection.

In the scandal of the 1950's when the late Elizabeth Taylor stole husband Eddie Fisher from Ms Reynolds AFTER the tragic death of her own husband Mike Todd in a plane crash in 1957, there was a chill between the 2 women for years, but astoundingly a "Cleopatra" dress from the 1963 20th Century Fox film that starred Taylor (the first million dollar actress) and future husband Richard Burton and almost bankrupted the studio is included in the sale, a gift from Taylor to Reynolds before she died, testimony that time DOES HEAL all wounds.

Expanding upon the icon/superhero theme, D.C comics, the home to the original Batman, Superman and Green Lantern , (The Green Lantern movie opens June 17th) Wonder Woman, The Flash and Aquaman is renumbering all of their superhero titles back to No #1 for the 21st century, beginning with Justice League of America being released as a NEW number #1 on Aug 31st , creating a gaggle of collector's items as a new generation retools their collections.-

The month of September will see the debut of 51 renumbered titles infused with 21st century events and themes tailored to the younger internet generation but remaining true to the spirit and legend of the characters as developed thru the years.

To address the internet phenomenon and it's massive effect on the world of publishing, all titles will be available via the DC web site and various mobile apps on the SAME DAY the printed copies arrive in the comic shops, a first for a comic publisher in regards to giving potential new readers a look at their wares DIGITALLY on mobile devices like I -Phones, Kindles and Nooks.

Speaking of the Internet, know what a "Bitcoin" is? It is electronic currency and 1 year ago a unit was worth approximately a HALF A PENNY.

Now, it has shot up 200,000% to $10.50 a unit as of Thursday June 2nd, according to Smart Money magazine.

A secure system that is touted as EVEN safer than banks, it is designed as a peer to peer payment structure that highlights full disclosure thru transactional histories that accompany each transfer, more information is available thru searching for the "Bitcoin Consultancy" on the net.

I am liking this payment venture because you know what I think of banks. 9 I will investigate further and update you on my progress.

And, finally, a message for the ages, literally.

In March 1919 at the ripe old age of 87 years , Wellington R. Burt, at the time one of the 8 richest men in America due to his massive lumber holdings in Michigan, died, and the terms of his will was a shocker.

A Michigan native, he was distraught about giving his immediate family ANY MONEY at all for reasons unknown and in a HAND WRITTEN will dated 1917 stipulated that NO MONEY from his estate was to be distributed UNTIL 21 years after the death of his LAST grandchild, which just transpired in this year in the NEXT CENTURY 2011.

The 12 remaining PROVEN heirs will split an estimated $100 million dollars as mandated by Judge Patrick McGraw of Saginaw County Michigan in a recent ruling upholding the stipulations of the will, AFTER ALL THESE YEARS.

Money makes people do strange things eh?

Respectfully

Till the next time MD
Michael E. Dehn
metropulseinc@hotmail.com

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