Lazare: "Chicago doesn't deserve 'Time Out'"

For those who don't know, a Chicago edition of the venerable hipster guide Time Out just launched this week. Chicago Sun-Times media columnist Lewis Lazare puts his usual 'I wish I lived in New York' spin on it, claiming that Chicago simply doesn't have enough hipsters to support a publication like Time Out: "For better or worse, Chicago is not New York or London, two worldly cities with much in common. Much as some might want to think otherwise, Chicago is -- and always will be -- middle America."

Long-time citizens, of course, will remember Lazare's previous job as culture critic for the Chicago Reader, and how for years there he had a similar habit - of putting down the Chicago arts as often as he could get away with, and constantly comparing the city unfavorably to such places as New York and Los Angeles. This was pretty ridiculous when he was at the Reader, considering that he was the top arts critic for the largest arts publication in the city; his tone has settled somewhat with his current business column for the Sun-Times, now that he can simply focus most of his articles on New York-based projects in the first place. This recent article, however, proves all over again just how Chicago-bashing he can still be. (Thanks to actual cool hipster guide Chicagoist.com for pointing this out.)