The Charlie Manson look alike on the right? He was my first.

The guy on the left with the happening ripped jeans---that's me. Long before kids in New York were paying top dollar for that look

When the picture was taken; it hadn't started yet.

He likes to tell the… Read full post »

“And you are?  . . . . .” asked the first of what looked like many receptionists standing guard on the outer reaches of the Oval Office of President Barack Obama.

It was raining hard in Washington DC. I didn’t have a power broker raincoat, so my only… Read full post »

5 minutes ago, the IOC slammed Chicago to the mat with a first round elimination from the bid to host the 2016 Olympics.

We lost.

The sputtering, half baked, shoddy journalistic shreiks of "Why?" will come. America is still fighting 2 wars. We've yet to make back all the fri… Read full post »

When Rep Joe Wilson, America’s new poster child for impotent rage, called the White House last night to apologize for his outburst; the President was busy.

I’m guessing there was a game on. Or he was reading to one of the kids. Or he and Michelle had snuck… Read full post »

I know there’s been no official announcement. But is it ever really too early to start sucking up?

So let me just say, “We’re glad you’re here.”

I’m sure you have a wonderful pedigree. Titles, experience at another on-l… Read full post »

When do the last really get to go first? When do those most vulnerable get to feel safe? What time does that happen? Here in Chicago, will it be marked in central standard time?

There is a moment, driving a cab all night, around 4:15- 4:30 in the morning, when… Read full post »

In the desolate 2:00 am blackened bedroom all the stories you tell yourself to bring sleep, shattered like a broken mirror in a million razor blade shards of all the things that could go wrong.  Eyes wide corpse like stiff. You don’t even toss and turn. You can only… Read full post »

Wednesday the phone never rang.

Thursday morning I picked it up and the line was dead. They had turned it off. The internet had been gone for a week or two. And it was getting cold; but the house kept me from the wind.

She… Read full post »

Put yourself back a couple hundred years ago on a creaking

schooner tossed by towering walls of terrifying waves that could

crush you and your dank smelling ship as if you were a single

drop of rain.

Huddled below deck, the black eyed brooding man next… Read full post »

It started with the tiny bubbling pops and smell of coffee percolating. An old silver coffee pot. In the Novak’s kitchen.

Who owns a coffee percolator in 2009?   Much less one that l… Read full post »

 Who

Fills these pages with such grace and wisdom.

Where was here?

Maybe here?

Just east of what is now St. Louis.  1,000 years ago.

Cahokia. That's what they called the place. Built by the river.

Ten thousand people lived there. With at least 20 or 30 thousand more in the surrounding towns and farms.

1,000 years ago.

How… Read full post »

Today. October 9^th,  a soft slow lazy rain hovered over Chicago. The day is almost over. But still time to wish you happy birthday.

Maybe Liverpool was like this too?

Maybe it was raining when you sat on the bedroom floor of your friend Paul's house… Read full post »

Remember that day?

The day the friendly grey haired woman walked up to you in the Walgreens in Evanston, smiled and said “Well, hello Maria? How are you? Are you still dancing?” Remember how you said, “Hi Mrs. Cusack! Good to see you. Ye… Read full post »

Mike Royko was at the far side of the big table in the back of the smoky old tavern on North Avenue in Chicago just a few blocks from the Lake. Head down. Scribbling in a ten cent notebook. He didn’t say anything when I told everybody at the… Read full post »

Barry Doyle’s “Dallas Iconography” is such a stunningly alive celebration of Dallas images that when the UPS man handed me the amazon.com box on my front steps in Chicago yesterday, I might have felt the box breathing in my hands.

O… Read full post »

Gertrude Kasebier thought so. In 1897 she was publicly advising women that photography could be a “gratifying and profitable success.”

 This was new. On all sorts of levels. This was new.

The print above, &ldquo… Read full post »

When my wife pulled the email off our printer at 5:30 this past Friday, telling her that she had been fired, she had no idea that she was now part of the $56.4 million dollar a week problem of wage theft across the United States.

Those of you who still… Read full post »

Finding more work. Or any work in 2009 as the true unemployment rate tops 25% in some areas of the country ---is mostly about rejection.

95% of the time you'll get no answer back on any type of inquiry.

That's not you. That's the way the system is structured. The decision… Read full post »

Pizza once sucked people into Chicago like a gigantic red tomato shaped magnet.

Back when everyone had regular jobs and no one had their hand stuck in your pocket grabbing at your health care; Chicago Style Pizza rivaled a trip to the Chicago museums, a walk down Michigan A… Read full post »

What is it that takes your breath away?

All you once had that’s gone? Physical and emotional pain? Greed and the fouling of the earth? The lies and the spin and the ever growing distance between you and hope?

Or--as is the case with lots of us: maybe… Read full post »

You could once smell chocolate shimmering through the air at

the spot they found the body, face down in the river. Otherwise,

at this death scene, you’d be alone. A kind of alone that’s unique

because you’d also be smack in the middle of 8… Read full post »

Now that it’s done; I can’t keep it secret. Not something this big.

Perhaps it was even a crime. Or maybe just a sin. I’m just not sure.

Only thing I’m sure of is that I suck at keeping secrets. I can keep a confidence. Tell me not to… Read full post »

“For no particular reason this afternoon

I am listening to Johnny Hartman

Whose dark voice can curl around

The concepts of love, beauty and foolishness

Like no one else’s can.

It feels like smoke curling up from a cigarette

Someone left burning on a baby grand pi… Read full post »

Take any piece of art. Would it feel the same through all the seasons of your life?

Use anything you want. The song that was playing that very first time. That sculpture you could never figure out. The poem that made you shout “AHA!” when somebody explained it to you.… Read full post »