1,001 Chicago Afternoons

When I was in Paris, you were cycling through 184 years of Chicago newspaper history.

When I was exploring Le Puy-en-Velay, you went 9.3 miles into the LGBTQ community.

While I was in Marseilles, you took your bike down our endangered lakefront.

My wife and I are following the Tour de France. You’re taking the Tour de Chicago. And for your last stage, a one-mile jaunt down LaSalle Street.

This one’s going to get weird. » Read the rest of this entry «

If all went according to plan, the wife and I are currently backpacking through Marseilles following the Tour de France and you’ve already taken bike routes through the history of newspapers and the LGBTQ community.

Now let’s talk about the lake. » Read the rest of this entry «

By the time you read these lines, my wife, two travelers backpacks, a whole ton of jetlag and I will have have landed in Paris, France (Motto: The Paris, Texas, of France) for our honeymoon.

Although there will be two days of pastries, Seine and wine, we’re spending the bulk of the trip backpacking, following the Tour de France. It’s a lifelong dream of my wife’s to watch the Tour and a lifelong dream of mine to get drunk at 10 a.m. with skinny Belgians in wicking fabric.

While I’m watching Austrians argue over what exactly went down between Cavendish and Sagan, I leave you my city with your own cycling tour. This and the next three stories will come in the form of bike tours I designed taking you to different sites in Chicago history. » Read the rest of this entry «

It was a pleasure to burn. » Read the rest of this entry «

The storefront is closed for the day, the workers off to turn a Tuesday holiday into four days of relaxation and barbecue.

Along the stretch of Michigan Avenue, other revelers wander by. It’s the morning, so they’re still happy and energetic. It will be hours before they slog back to the hotel lugging overtired children, too much SUE at the Field Museum merchandise and probably more than one Chicago Cubs hat.

The storefront, though, is unnoticed. Pasted print-up in the window pledging holiday hours and darkness inside. Which is too bad because I really wanted that damn magazine. » Read the rest of this entry «

Please take a moment to enjoy this image of JoJo the Bloodshot before beginning this story.

[Scene: A conference room in a spacious Loop skyscraper. A group of foam and fur creatures wander around the table, chatting and sipping coffee. A pantsless preteen bear trades business cards with a dancing pig as a giant eagle squats and starts to say “I’ve got something-” to an inflatable women’s basketball fan with a jetpack.]

[A giant green pile of sentient moss shaped like a child’s drawing of a dinosaur walks in, takes off his White Sox cap and places an attache case at the head of the conference table.] » Read the rest of this entry «

It starts with a reference at work, that’s where the machine rumbles to life.

We’re past the point as a culture where we tell people news. The assumption now is that we already know what happened. The assumption is that we already know who killed whom by firing what randomly where. The assumption when chatting in the office is that it’s OK to start right in on the references and skip the 5 Ws and the H (who, what, when, where, why and how many dead). » Read the rest of this entry «

Rod Balgovijic went to prison for six and a half… fourteen… life?

Richard L. Daily was the first mayor of the city, known as the Boss on Five.

Do I talk about the Omnibus Boodlers, or just start with Kinky Dink?

Oh wow, I have to be a tour guide again. » Read the rest of this entry «

By rights, it should be a chain restaurant.

That’s what the area’s best for. State Street, that great street where the only groups that can afford the ground-floor rents are multinational corporations shilling either cheap Chinese-made clothing or the finest of mass-produced sandwich meats. » Read the rest of this entry «