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Eateries,Kanye and TMZ

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By David Burke | Monday, June 23, 2008 |

SUMMERTIME and the living is easy enough to throw a few scattered notes your way:

- I have a new guilty pleasure: TMZ. I cringe every time I watch the TV series (9:30 p.m. weeknights on KLJB-TV) or sheepishly head to the Web site, TMZ.com. The paparazzi-fueled, celebrity-skewering show represents everything that’s wrong about my chosen journalistic specialty — but I can’t stay away from the TV show or the site.

- In praising the new theater at the Ohnward Fine Arts Center in Maquoketa, Iowa, a few weeks ago, I neglected to mention that the theater was named after Harlene Kopel of Moline, who died in 2004.

Even though Kopel and her husband, James, a retired accounting and finance professor at Black Hawk College, had no ties to Maquoketa, “Kopel said he and his wife enjoy small towns such as Maquoketa and believe there is a lot of talent in the community but no place to showcase it,” according to a Quad-City Times article published during 2000, when they donated $120,000 to the project.

- In another column, I mentioned that the Quad-Cities and Dubuque, Iowa, were not cross-promoting themselves as promised. Lo and behold, Joe Taylor, executive director of the Quad-Cities Convention & Visitors Bureau, immediately sends me a publication titled “Quad-Cities to Dubuque,” which is published by a newspaper in Des Plaines, Ill.

- Speaking of Taylor, he noticed the June 18 crossword puzzle in the Chicago Tribune included the clue “Mississippi Quartet,” with four subsequent clues that filled up more spaces in the puzzle.

- Any little bit of publicity helps, y’know.

- I haven’t received as much response to a column as I did with the one about TV’s upcoming digital conversion. I’m saving all of your questions and will get to a larger discussion of it in the future.

- Kanye West’s June 12 concert at the i wireless Center obviously made an impression on the star and his crew: A video blog at KanyeUniverseCity.com shows storms coming after the show, and his crew’s reaction to it. (The storm reaction itself deserves a parental advisory.)

- I may have to come to the realization that I’m bad luck for restaurants. Several of my favorites — R.J. Boar’s, Chi Chi’s, Lone Star Steakhouse, Fuddruckers and, now, Cheddar’s — have closed their Quad-City doors in the past few years. There are other places I find myself liking too much to jinx by showing up very often.