CHICAGO — Here's what we're reading on this moody Tuesday.
Dangerous funerals: Senior editor Andrew Herrmann is reading an NBC News story about Chicago funeral home directors who handle services in gang-related deaths. The work is not only depressing but also potentially dangerous. Charles Childs of A.A. Rayner and Sons says he often has to arrange police presence to control the crowds who show up at funerals of young people killed by gun violence. The smallest thing can turn grief to violence, the story says. "It could be something so minor, like somebody stepping on somebody's foot or not saying hello or being asked to take their hat off," Childs said. Two people were shot, one fatally, on the church steps of one funeral he arranged. "I was standing over him when his eyes rolled in the back of his head," Childs said.
Wait, TGI Friday's Used to Be Cool? Groundbreakingly hip aren't two words typically associated with TGI Friday's. So imagine reporter Patty Wetli's surprise when she discovered the chain's first location was a standalone saloon on Manhattan's Upper East Side. The bar, according to this enlightening New Yorker piece, was positively revolutionary for its time in that it attracted single women. According to the article, "In March of 1965, most co-ed drinking still took place in the home." TGI Friday's changed all that by creating a female-friendly environment where the sexes could mix and mingle. So next time you're out enjoying a drink with your male and female friends at some trendy cocktail bar, raise a glass to the joint that made it all possible.
Subway Spokesman's Secret? The Zionsville, Indiana home of Jared Fogle, a Subway pitchman who lost 245 pounds by eating a strict diet of sandwiches, was searched by police on Tuesday as part of an "ongoing child pornography investigation," according to Fox59. In May, a fired executive from the Jared Foundation, a nonprofit aimed at combating childhood obesity, tried to kill himself in jail while serving time for possessing and producing child pornography, but authorities are not saying yet if the cases are connected. Wicker Park's very own Colt Cabana — whose love of eating at Subway has been so well documented that fans of the professional wrestler have sent him coupons and a copy of Fogle's self-help book — tweeted about the developing story.
Beyonce, in Skyscraper Form: An Australian architect designed a curvy 68-story skyscraper that was inspired by Beyonce, according to Slate. The inspiration came from her "Ghost" music video. In it, the superstar songstress twists and turns while wrapped in fabric. Reporter Mina Bloom thinks it's only a matter of time before Beyonce becomes president.
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