February 2012
1 post
2 tags
Valentines from Chile
Feb. 14, 2012
VALPARAISO, Chile—-There is a love of stuff and stuff of love. This was found to be true on my recent visit to “La Sebastiana,” the playful house of Chilean poet and writer Pablo Neruda.
The Nobel Prize winning author died in the autumn of 1973 and his five-story home which overlooks the Pacific Ocean has turned into a highly stimulating museum. “La Sebastiana” gets its...
January 2012
1 post
3 tags
Church hills of Wisconsin
Jan. 4. 2012
The first steps I took in 2012 were up a steep hill off of Bay Shore Drive in Door County. That’s better than starting the year by going downhill.
The Northern Wisconsin wind slapped my face around like a pimp as I took a gentle curve to the Church Hill Inn in Sister Bay. I was heading to Ephraim. I felt old. I had booked myself into the frilly bed and breakfast because it was...
December 2011
2 posts
2 tags
Missing Christmas cards
December 19, 2011—
The writing was on the wall.
I would no longer be sending Christmas cards after 2011.
For the past several years I’ve purchased a couple of boxes of “holiday” cards from Chicago Lights at Fourth Presbyterian Church in downtown Chicago. It is a non-profit organization that opens doors to individuals and families who face challenges of aging, poverty and access to education...
2 tags
Sex with a view
Dec. 11, 2011—-
The most memorable place I’ve had sex is atop Mount Tamalpais, overlooking the East Bay in Marin County, Calif.
Like all magical moments, it wasn’t supposed to happen.
The weathered coastal mountain peaks at 2,500 feet. We drove about three-quarters of the way up Mount Tam and parked at a scenic turnaround. We hiked the rest of the way.
We sat down to rest on a grassy...
November 2011
1 post
5 tags
Shedding light on an old neighborhood
Nov. 29, 2011—
November in Chicago brings me down, down, down. Lower than Herman Cain’s pants.
Its been that way since I was a teenager. I remember getting up at seven on a mid-November Saturday morning and walking in a dark drizzle to take SAT tests at Naperville Central High School to gain entrance in a college I would never attend. I was too sleepy and confused to take a test. I felt...
October 2011
2 posts
1 tag
Saturday on the Mobile River
October 11, 2011—
The heart hangs like a thick branch of a cypress tree
over a wake in the narrow Mobile River.
Looking at the water and the sky
like the space between now and then.
*
Did you see the turkey vulture?
Flying over the side of the freedom highway. Look!
Maybe you were sleeping to a Mavis Staples lullaby
as I drove off into another day.
*
My father always said to...
4 tags
The King of St. Cloud
Oct. 3, 2011—
Travel is a stream of consciousness thing.
That’s what I was doing late Friday night when I was sitting alone at the Terrace Bar at Pioneer Place in downtown St. Cloud, Minn. Nightdreaming.
The bartender asked me if I had seen “The King.”
Well, of course I have been to Memphis. But he was referring to the monster porcelain floor urinal on the second...
September 2011
2 posts
4 tags
A Place in Time
Sept. 19, 2011—
The guy down at the middle of the bar told his friend how he didn’t do anything this summer. I overheard it because the bar is as small as a penny in a fountain. I asked Jackie for a bar napkin. It was interesting that in a season as compacted as summer in Chicago you can’t do anything. Bar napkins are good for three things: wiping up junk, drying tears and...
7 tags
Talkzone: Blues & Baseball With George Thorogood →
Bad to the bone.
August 2011
2 posts
3 tags
My day with butter cows
August 17, 2011—
DES MOINES, Ia.—-If it had been up to me I would have carved Southern Belle-isious chef Paula Deen out of a block of butter at the Iowa State Fair.
But like an ambitious diet, or big workout program it wasn’t meant to be.
I was invited to be a ringer in Monday’s “Battle of the Butter,” held daily on the fairgrounds in conjunction with the...
3 tags
The Way With Words
August 4, 2011—
I’m sure you have a ritual, too.
Maybe it is a weekly yoga class or a spot near the foggy window of a neighborhood bar. Maybe you carry your laptop to a favorite coffee shop where you add a daring dash of cinnamon to your java.
Perhaps you check blog posts every night at 11.
One of my rituals was to stop by the Borders book store every Sunday in suburban Oak Brook...
July 2011
2 posts
2 tags
Standing Still
July 22, 2011—
For me, the notion of bird watching was as impossible as marathon running.
Or playing golf.
But last spring I was standing in the Mississippi Sandhill Crane National Wildlife Refuge near Pascagoula, Miss. looking at birds. For a long time. I did not have binoculars or a pith helmet. I was not on a writing assignment. I was on vacation with my girl friend. She wandered...
3 tags
Fireworks of a Silent Sun
July 4, 2011-
The essence of music is deep and free. Like sprinkles of dust underneath blasted firecrackers and cherry bombs there is a distant salsa beat.
An old blue bicycle takes you to a group of men in Humboldt Park on the west side of Chicago. They are across the way from the 16-inch softball players with the sweeping uppercut swings and the pregnant woman with a light white smock...
June 2011
4 posts
3 tags
Laughing at Myself
It was his first Buffett concert, he squirted me with that gun.
June 26, 2011—
Children have the best dreams. They are pure and sometimes scary and what these visions lack in ambition they make up through innocence.
A Jimmy Buffett concert brings out the child in everyone—-if you are a willing participant.
Buffett is not for everyone. He is proud to play the role of jester, and...
mightyflynn asked: Just wanted to drop a line to let you know how much I enjoy seeing your posts pop up on my dashboard. Thanks.
4 tags
Seeing Rainbows
This is an edited version of an essay I wrote for my upcoming column for the Kane County Cougars of the Midwest League.
June 21, 2011
DAYTON, Ohio—-Baseball Hall of Fame writer Hal McCoy has covered 7,000 Cincinnati Reds games in his 39 year career with the Dayton Daily News.
He knows every game is as different as a cloud in the summer sky.
In late May I took McCoy to a Dayton Dragons...
4 tags
Grumpy record store guys
June 10, 2011—
What’s up with grumpy record store guys?
Everyone has a bad day, but I’ve visited three record stores in three states this year and each experience was as uplifting as walking into an H&R Block office.
This cannot be a coincidence.
My conclusion was drawn at Magnolia Thunderpussy on High Street in Columbus, Ohio. It was around 11 a.m. a few Mondays ago, I...
May 2011
1 post
3 tags
Road signs from New Orleans
May 16, 2011-
I have seen a lot of life through the windshield of a car.
My 2005 Pontiac has been hit by a tornado north of Memphis, Tenn. I’ve driven through a few floods. I’ve seen a broken heart scattered on the side of the road like a shattered vase of orchids.
But what are the chances of a gecko hitting your windshield—-and surviving? This happened on my recent drive...
March 2011
5 posts
2 tags
Opening Day in Chicago
March 29, 2011—
I’m approaching my 39th consecutive Cubs opener.
Opening Day is a chance to forget about the apathy of Lou Piniella and the narcolepsy of Bobby Murcer—-the last Cub I booed mercilessly. On Opening Day I can still smell the fervid bleacher cigars of the early 1970s and touch the gritty newspapers people brought to the game. On Opening Day I see my...
4 tags
Calypso Call & Response
March 19, 2011—
When I talk to aspiring writers-journalists I make sure to mention Joseph Mitchell. He was a long time staff writer for The New Yorker magazine. He made every word count. His style was that of a calypso breeze.
Mitchell, who died in 1996 at the age of 88, was born on a tobacco farm in North Carolina. He dropped out of the University of North Carolina to become a...
1 tag
Slammer of Spring
March 16, 2011—
TEMPE, Az.—-Spring Training is about refreshing fundamentals: bunting, throwing, base running, the things I didn’t see the Cubs do in Tuesday’s loss to Colorado.
It’s not about being a slammer.
I discovered The Slammer weekly newspaper (www.theslammer.com) in February at a Mesa gas station as I was touring Arizona Spring Training parks. I’m safe in my...
2 tags
Lou Pride, Soldier of Soul
MARCH 6, 2011—
There are no medals for Chicago soul singers. The emotive gospel based music has always been shot down by the city’s blues scene.
Someone was tellling me the other day about Bono’s choice cover Curtis Mayfield’s “People Get Ready” at a U2 concert in Chicago and asked the audience to sing along. I was told he was met mostly with a collective “Huh?”
Last night Lou Pride...
2 tags
American mirrors, Colombian gardens
The Red Lips at La Manigua Botanic Garden, Colombia.
They are used to make a poison—watch out. (Courtesy of Pilar Quintana)
MARCH 5, 2011—— The mirror in the hotel bathroom tells the truth. Who is that old piece of bark? Why are there dark rings of time under those eyes?
Almost all hotel bathroom mirrors are washed over with bright light. It creates an in your-face effect...
February 2011
2 posts
1 tag
Colombian High Life
Waiter crosses the street to get to the other side…..
Feb. 17, 2011—-
CALI, Colombia—-I have two nightlife memories of Cali, 2011. So far.
One involves aguardiente as it always does in Colombia.
The other is more unique.
I am on the 11th floor of the Hotel Obelisco in the El Penon hotel district of Cali. I have a balcony that looks over the Cali River and the busy Colombia avenue that...
3 tags
Moving Picture Postcard from Colombia
Feb. 16, 2011—
CALI, Colombia—-Across the boulevard from the briskly flowing Cali River there is a place where time stands still.
A storefront shop sits between the Nomeolvides (Forget Me Not) Floristeria where yellow roses bloom during the day and the Escoces’ strip club where black petals fall at night.
Between the passionate curtains Hugo Suarez Fiat keeps...
January 2011
4 posts
2 tags
Time for Milwaukee
Jan. 25, 2011—
The large antique mall in the northern shadow of Milwaukee’s four-sided Allen-Bradley clock was filled with people. It made Frankie Snuggs uneasy. His space was being invaded. These were his memories: the Herb Alpert and Tijuana Brass LPs you always find in thrift stores, the postcard of a one level Holiday Inn in Key Largo where he recalled a sunset version of...
2 tags
Polaroids and Bubbles
Midge.
Jan. 13, 2011—
The Old Town Ale House was not a happy bar when I drank there.
It is in the Old Town neighborhood of Chicago, just a lucky weave and blind step south of the Second City theater.
I haven’t been there in a couple years, but the last time I was at the Ale House it had been discovered by a new generation of late night revelvers. I was not happy.
The Ale House...
2 tags
Our corner bar
Jan. 11, 2011—
There is a corner bar at the end of the block on the street where I live. The classic Chicago workingman’s tavern has been there since 1943. Polka legend Lil’ Wally played “I Like Her Golabka” and “Polish Polka Twist” at this bar during the late 50s and early ’60s.
I have been there twice in recent weeks. The bar is on a one-way...
2 tags
Chuck Berry: American Poet
Congress Theater, Chicago, Jan. 1, 2011 (Photo by Diane Soubly)
Jan. 4, 2011— One moment was lost in the storm of Chuck Berry’s collapse during his New Year’s night concert at the Congress Theater in Chicago.
About halfway through the show a thin and somewhat wobbly Berry approached the front of the stage of the dank 85-year-old theater. Berry stood alone. He did not know...
December 2010
5 posts
1 tag
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Dec. 27, 2010—
Maybe there’s a...
2 tags
Approaching Fairview
The view of my Chicago street, 10 a.m. Dec. 25, 2010
Dec. 26, 2010—
I scoffed at the claim of rats chewing on the wiring of cars parked in our lot on the west side of Chicago. I’ve lived in Chicago for more than 25 years and never heard of this.
But rats disabled the cars of two neighbors and on Christmas Eve I think it happened to me. I’m taking my car in tomorrow.
I did...
2 tags
Reconsidering New Year's Eve
Meeting Black Elvis, New Year’s Eve 1987.
Dec. 23, 2010—
New Year’s Eve. Where do I begin? That’s what New Year’s Day is about, right? I’m getting the feeling this New Year’s Eve will be like New Year’s Eve 1998. My Chicago friends Bob and Cleo met me at the Snow Flake Lounge, a tiny bar adjacent to the Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired Snow Flake...
3 tags
Requiem for a Coney Island Bar
Dec. 14, 2010—
Maybe some of you have been to Ruby’s Bar & Grill on the Coney Island boardwalk in Brooklyn, N.Y. Maybe not.
But everyone has the desire for an endless summer.
Ruby’s closed last month. It opened in 1934 and was the oldest bar on Coney Island. You could sit outside, stare at the Atlantic Ocean and understand just how small you are in this world. Life is not meant to...
1 tag
A small Christmas story
Dec. 8, 2010—
I like to think I know a little about a lot of things, but I had never seen a real live tiny Christmas tree. I mean, a three-foot North Carolina Fraser Fir with real needles. You put a cup of water in a tree stand and everything.
The orange ribbon on one of about seven branches says it is a “Tabletop Tree.” It seems this tree is for someone in a transient...
November 2010
5 posts
2 tags
Truck Stop Music
November 25, 2010—-
She lived 7,000 steps beyond the truck stop.
The Midway truck stop was pretty much just as I left it about 10 years ago. The Midway is exactly 121 miles each way between Kansas City and St. Louis, which means it is no-way.
That’s why everything is going on at the Midway. There’s a general store stuck in ramshackle 1970s design filled with dusty bottles of Mountain...
My Dad's 90th Birthday
Nov. 17, 2010—
I like to think I do my better writing in the twilight. The pace becomes slower, the voices are softer and the mystery of the dark sheds light on all kinds of possibilties. I bet that’s why my Dad stays up until midnight. He watches “The Late Show with David Letterman” before retreating to his computer room. There, he checks out the latest online sales for his grandson Jude...
2 tags
Elgin's Hometown Heroes
Nov. 11, 2010
The turns in life are why you stay on the road. No exit. Just bear down and dream about the next stop. Something better is waiting for you. Sometimes it is someone.
That’s what World Series MVP Edgar Renteria did. He’s in my Midwest League book “Cougars, Snappers and Loons (Oh My!) ” reminiscing about his days with the Kane County Cougars. Renteria was...
2 tags
The Art of Playboy
Let’s party with Jim Flora album art (shot in D. Hoekstra tiki bar)
Nov. 2, 2010—
While driving around with Playboy founder Hugh Hefner and his extended family during last week’s poignant hometown tour of Chicago, I mentioned the Oct. 24 passing of S. Neil Fujita to Hef.
Fujita (foo-JEE-ta), 89, was the graphic designer known for Miles Davis’ moody “Round About...
Hugh Hefner Chicago Field Trip
Hef and Crystal Harris in front of the former Playboy Mansion, 1340 N. State.
I HEARD many interesting things during Hugh Hefner’s Friday afternoon bus tour of his hometown Chicago haunts. But the best item might have been when Hef’s girl friend Crystal Harris suggested he wear the plaid scarf that was a gift to Hef from her mother and stepfather. What do you get the man who...
October 2010
2 posts
3 tags
Postmarks and Teardrops
Me & Minette Goodman
Oct. 11, 2010
Let me take a minute to write about living in the moment.
Sunday 10/10/10 was a remarkable Indian Summer day in Chicago, something like the 11th straight day of clear blue skies. People were running around—literally-to soak up the sun. Even by dusk I saw folks from the Chicago Marathon strolling around north side streets with medallions around...
2 tags
Learning to salsa dance
Salsa albums I bartered for before they got ripped off at the Bogota airport.
Oct. 6, 2010
People are scared of things they don’t know.
So for most of September I was the only white guy taking introductory salsa at the Dance Academy of Salsa & Modern Latin Dance in the Humboldt Park neighborhood of Chicago. The storefront studio is not far from my home and before my first lesson I...
September 2010
1 post
New Kid on the Block
September 20, 2010
It was like one of those clear cylinders filled with cold cash that you shoot off to the bank teller, yes, that’s how I drove from Chicago to Flint, Mich. over the weekend. The CD player was serving up John Prine’s “Taking a Walk,” but I drove fast. You see things clearer from a distance.
The mood became more haunting the closer I got to Flint. A cool mist and dark skies...
August 2010
2 posts
1 tag
Airplane Diaries, 2; If the shoe fits......
August 27, 2010—
I only take an international flight a couple times a year but they always seem seamless. On an average of 20 annual domestic flights, I’d say there’s trouble on 15.
Last week I had a connection in Miami, Fla. on American Airlines. The flight was slated to leave Chicago at 11:40 a.m. When checking in I was informed of a 20 minute delay because one pilot had...
2 tags
Making Friends on an Airplane
August 17, 2010
Several of my female friends are chatty airline passengers. One friend in the advertising industry has even developed a couple of long-term relationships with a random seatmate. I generally don’t talk to any one. I’m sure I have negative body language and I’m always carting around a book and newspapers as hideaway devices.
Last week’s flight from...
July 2010
3 posts
2 tags
Edgewater Hotel Madison, Wis.
July 26, 2010—
MADISON, Wis.—-I’ve found the perfect comfort zone at the Edgewater Hotel on Lake Mendota in Madison. And it is about to get bigger.
The hotel’s porthole windows and flowed, curving exterior lines in original brick and steel reminds me of South Beach. But this less LeBron James and more of the smooth soul of Etta James.
In May the city council approved plans to move...
1 tag
A Garden of Books
July 18, 2010—
I’ve spent some of the summer wandering around my father’s library in the dark basement of my parents Naperville home. His ample bunker has always been a work in progress. There are no finished walls, old sofas where you could’ve made out as a kid and his books are propped up on rows of steel shelving like rusty rakes.
Dad used to go downstairs a lot to absorb a cool...
June 2010
2 posts
2 tags
Cliff Dwellers Book Release Party
June 29, 2010—
What a time it was. A good time. In 1907 the Chicago Cubs were in the midst of a dynasty. They won 107 games, lost 45 and beat Ty Cobb and the Detroit Tigers to win the World Series. The Cubs pitching staff was led by Orval Overall and Three Finger Brown and a guy named Wildfire Schilte patrolled right field like Smokey the Bear. Chicago was in a renaissance.
The Cubs...
2 tags
Floating to Portland Ore.
June 27, 2010—
You can’t outrace your heart.
I went to Portland, Oregon to write some stories for my newspaper. I thought it was good timing. I flew jets and props. I took Amtrak’s scenic Cascades between Portland and Seattle. I kayaked six miles of the Willamette River in Portand.
I walked from the Ace Hotel, a former 28 room flophouse in the Belltown neighborhood of Seattle down 1st...
May 2010
4 posts
1 tag
Chicago Blackhawks & Dixieland Jazz
May 28, 2010—
Maybe this is how my reporting career began.
I was 10 years old when I first sat in the smoky, stinky balcony of Chicago Stadium. On March 12, 1966 my Dad took me to my first Chicago Blackhawks game. In the third period the Blackhawks Bobby Hull fired a wicked slap shot past New York Rangers goalie Cesare Maniago to become the first player in the National Hockey League to...