Laura Hawbaker

A sheet of paper is transformed into a launch missile.

It’s Monday at the Globe Pub, and paper bedecks the tables like place settings. Typed on the face of each sheet are detailed instructions: crumple into a ball and hurl at the performers deemed "a waste of time." Patrons boo at the top of their lungs and gleefully chuck wads at the stage. Hecklers shout with free abandon. Occasionally the on-stage act scoops up a projectile and lobs it back at the crowd.

"A comedian needs to be comfortable bombing to become great," says the host for the evening, Jason Fever. He conducts this madcap ceremony, "Globe Gong Idol," an open-mic gong show in which the participating comedians and musicians are lucky if they last a minute without earning the ire of the volatile (and fully armed) crowd.

Comedian Ken Barnard has arrived prepared. He wears a white jumpsuit and goggles. After duct-taping shower curtains to the wall behind him and covering the floor, he produces three-dozen packs of tomatoes and sets them on a ledge within easy reach of the crowd. "You all are pathetic," he sneers. A wadded paper whizzes by his head. "And your aim sucks." Another wad hits his forehead. "Oooh…paper," he jeers. "You wusses, throwing your pathetic paper…" Barnard continues to abuse the rowdy audience, until at last a patron seizes the taunting tomatoes and passes them out to the crowd.

Paper no more. Barnard adjusts his goggles and buckles down for the onslaught.

(2008-04-08)

Also by Laura Hawbaker

Mass Religion
It is Saturday at the Epiphany Episcopal Church, a 120-year-old house of worship that is pounding bass music from within. Lucas is performing with the Final Salvation, one of many music acts at Collaboraction’s fifth annual Carnaval, a fundraiser for the innovative non-profit theater troupe. Bushmills, Solve RGB, Dark Wave Disco and the Blue Ribbon Glee Club all contribute their time, money and talent to the divinity of this ethereal rock party
(2008-04-01)

Boarding School
March 20, the five-year anniversary of the Iraq War. Kristen Brooks, a Mother McAuley High School student, is participating in a protest against waterboarding, the controversial interrogation technique that the Bush administration claims is within the limits of the Geneva conventions, but which many condemn as torture
(2008-03-25)

Five Long Years
Within spitting distance of the United Center, a Bush/Cheney ’04 campaign sign hangs askance from a chain link fence; it’s the only indicator a poster revolution is taking place. Inside the otherwise nondescript brick compound, volunteers in ink-splattered jeans use stencils, silk screens and spray paint to create hundreds of anti-war posters. They’ll paste their work in neighborhoods across the city to coincide with the five-year anniversary of the Iraq War on March 19
(2008-03-18)

The Pursuit of Chicagoist
It’s Thursday night and a raucous group from Chicagoist.com gathers in the candlelit back room of Sheffield’s for a Trivial Pursuit smack-down.
(2008-03-05)

Monster Mash
(2008-02-26)

Everyone's Got Issues
(2008-02-12)

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