A writer I admire is going on an absolute tear on Facebook. The subject is the Chicago Reader Best of Chicago 2016 live poll.
You can vote on the Reader’s website, although she wishes you wouldn’t. » Read the rest of this entry «
#631: Uncle Bathhouse
May 9th, 2016 § permalink
“Bathhouse John Coughlin was my great, great uncle,” she wrote. “Nothing to be proud of, I know.”
I’ve received several interesting letters since starting the corruption walking tour. Some are old friends letting me know they heard me on the radio and “Miss yer face.” One man wrote about his fears the demolition of his childhood home was a land scam.
And then there was Bathhouse Coughlin’s great-great niece, letting me know what the family had been up to. » Read the rest of this entry «
#630: The Partial Partial Guide Guide
May 6th, 2016 § permalink
Sometime between selling out through September, appearing on WBEZ and getting interviewed by the French-Canadian press, I realized that the Chicago Corruption Walking Tour is a hit.
I don’t have plans right now to add dates, in part because I want to have a summer too, in part because I’ve been asked to toss out the first pitch at the Kane County Cougars’ Aug. 18 Political Corruption Night and I throw like a drunken toddler.
So while I laze in parks and learn to pitch, here are a few ways you can spend your summer learning more about the city. It’s an incomplete list of tourism workers I have a fondness or slight bias toward, so I decided to call it the Partial Partial Guide Guide.
You don’t get to be Boing Boing’s pick for “Chicago’s hottest tourist ticket” without being able to rock a pun. And speaking of rocks… » Read the rest of this entry «
#629: In Brightest Day
May 4th, 2016 § permalink
What of the man sitting on the Grand/State Red Line platform? The one gazing around with thick-rimmed, thick-lensed bifocals, the one with the short gray afro peeking from beneath a baseball cap?
What of that man with the baseball cap with the Green Lantern’s superhero logo? And a hoodie with the Green Lantern’s superhero logo? And two Green Lantern rings, one for each hand? And a massive tattoo of Green Lantern John Stewart on his right forearm?
The train was delayed and he sat on one of the few bench seats, hunched and leaning on the extended arm of the luggage he carried around town.
He smiled when I asked about his hero. » Read the rest of this entry «
#628: Ink and Blood
May 2nd, 2016 § permalink
The Baron stood before the room. He stood in full regalia, military dress blues accented by a golden sash bandoliered across his shoulders and a white mask across his eyes.
Through that white mask, he tried to quiet the room with a glare.
“Take off the sash!” a woman in the crowd yelled for the third or fourth time.
“I told you before,” he said, gesturing to his face. “Ugly.”
The duel was about to begin. » Read the rest of this entry «
#627: Snap
April 29th, 2016 § permalink
I rode to Oak Park the other day for an event in a mansion.
I took the Green Line to get there, rumbling and bumbling a path out of the Loop, west west to the West Loop artist lofts and condos springing up on the old Skid Row, west west to the highways, train tracks, the vestiges of when we had industry and jobs humming a community alive with bustle and hustle.
The stores came then, the glimmering glintering shinies advertising checks cashed, predatory practices to keep the poor poorer. Then homes, stately once, keeping the fight alive just to stay standing. Homes got sparser on city blocks, homemade gates of corrugated steel protected a few backyards, a smatter of burnt and boarded husks memento moried the community’s vital bits.
Then, snap. It was lovely. » Read the rest of this entry «
#626: Chicag8 and My Delicious Ramps
April 27th, 2016 § permalink
It was our first time making risotto, and my first experience frying up a skillet of chicagos.
It’s ramp season in the Midwest, when the little onion-garlic goodies known as the ramp (Allium tricoccum) spring up for a few short weeks in forest preserves, gourmet restaurants and my girlfriend’s mom’s backyard.
It’s also the plant that named a city.
It starts with the word Chicag8. » Read the rest of this entry «
#625: The Chimes of Logan Square
April 25th, 2016 § permalink
We walked down the street, the three of us, east past California where the bars and grills and oh-so-on-trend little boozeries stopped and into the construction-clad dead zone separating the hip enclaves of Logan Square and Wicker Park.
It was dark, and I had my worries when sidewalk construction on two massive condo blocks dipped the pathway into the street. On our way out for the night, I had seen confused bikers use the walking path to ride. Under the dark, I was concerned they wouldn’t see us in time.
Over the dark air, the sound of wind chimes filled an otherwise empty road. » Read the rest of this entry «
#624: LRC
April 22nd, 2016 § permalink
The band was 20 acoustic guitars, a percussionist and a little girl in a dinosaur shirt dancing around in sneakers that lit up whenever her heel bopped.
My girlfriend called her “The Dancing Kid.” » Read the rest of this entry «
#623: Big Bill
April 20th, 2016 § permalink
The following is a selection from the Chicago Corruption Walking Tour, which I will be leading all summer.
Tickets are available at Dabble.co.
…
When researching 19-teens and 1920s Chicago Mayor William “Big Bill” Thompson, there were several moments when I thought “That is the greatest fact ever.”
When I found out Big Bill repeatedly threatened to punch the king of England in the face to court South Side Irish voters, I thought “That is the greatest fact ever.” When I found out he led a crusade to get pro-British books out of the Chicago Public Library, I thought “That is the greatest fact ever.”
When I found out that he kept his name in the papers after he lost his first re-election bid by announcing a massive expedition to South America in a ship called “The Big Bill” to capture footage of a fish that could climb trees, but then he just hung out in New Orleans for a while, I thought “That’s it! We’ve got it! That is the greatest fact ever.”
Big Bill was hilarious. And that’s what made him dangerous. This loud-mouthed, media-friendly clown in a cowboy hat — Chicago’s last Republican mayor — was the most corrupt public official in Illinois history. » Read the rest of this entry «
