I’m young, on a bare stage with two chairs, a woman named Tina, and somebody in the darkness beyond the spotlight shouts out, “A monkey. A pirate’s treasure map. And a diamond!” And right then, that millisecond, is when Tina and I go to work creating—what others before us have described as “something wonderful right […]
Gray foggy, damp and weirdly warm in Chicago this morning. Christmas coming. The rushing of lesser angels stops cold for a stolen moment and you start missing past times and people you can see, text, email or call up on the phone. Which makes me remember Raspberry Pi. The idea behind Raspberry Pi is to […]
It was in a cold, gray October rain, late on a Saturday afternoon, that Trump slipped into Chicago. The eyes of the city aimed at college football games, cleaning the house, doing errands. Trump’s usual grand entrance to the city, civic trumpets blowing, military guards and closed expressways; all that would come later as he […]
Listen. Pete Seeger is singing a song for Mom’s Birthday that’s bigger than all of us. Starts out—“ Come and take a walk with me, thru this green and growing land” Mom at any age is listening, She hears Seeger sing Phil Ochs’ lyrics,“Here is a land full of power and glory”Beauty that words cannot […]
WORLDS BEST ACTRESS? (Sorry Meryl. It was close.) Years ago. Walking past the upscale Italian restaurant on Halsted Street in Chicago. Rain coming soon. And in the window of this place, sitting by herself at a table for one, was the most ferocious looking, raggedly dressed street woman I’d ever seen. Crossing Halsted I couldn’t […]
Just west of Graceland Cemetery in Chicago. Around the corner from Diner Grill. There is a tent that looks like it could have been Ulysses S. Grant’s battlefield headquarters. Or maybe someplace Hemingway would stay on a hunting trip to the green fields of Africa. Through the screens you can see what looks like another […]
I hear Jackson Browne sing, “The road is filled with homeless souls.” How breathtakingly horrific it must be to grab your kids and just start walking. I think how their feet must hurt. The choice is death or blisters on your feet. The stunning loss of human dignity in the hopes of survival. I […]
It’s just her now. The two of them built the retail business together over 35 years. Now she counts the days since one of the nation’s most prestigious hospitals could not help him and he died. She counts the days since he’s been gone and when the store is empty she cries. He was the […]
It was hot in Chicago on the day Aretha Franklin died. Probably hot in Detroit as well. And I wondered if maybe on her way to go sing for the angels, Aretha stopped to sit for a moment, and took a rest, at Buckingham Fountain. One of her favorite places in Chicago. Sometimes she’d go […]
It’s so much more than the first voice you hear every workday morning over the past forty some years. This Gift. Carl Grapentine, morning guy on Chicago’s WFMT is calling it a career. Friday is his last show. Last meeting of the “5:58 Club” called to order with his warm and cheery voice biding […]