“Well, it’s because you’re ugly,” I said, walking off.
“Don’t forget stupid,” he called after me.
“How could I?” I called back, turning around and almost walking into a waitress. » Read the rest of this entry «
#212: Labor’s Love Lost
September 4th, 2013 § permalink
They clambered over each other to lift the speaker.
Faceless, identity-free, the blocky brown figures held together the cart, hoisting boxes, planks and wheels with mismatched spokes, using their own bodies to fill gaps and shove the speaker up against an empty sky. » Read the rest of this entry «
#211: Writing About a City
September 2nd, 2013 § permalink
Writing about a city is writing about oddness and absurdity. It’s writing about the details rather than the broad strokes. There are no broad strokes here, no skylines that go on for miles of undiluted, beautiful sameness. » Read the rest of this entry «
#210: Free Show
August 30th, 2013 § permalink
In the darkened street where the road bends for no reason, the woman leaning against the motorcycle shook her head.
She didn’t know.
The man wandering down Milwaukee, head up in the air and body doing that search-stumble thing you do when you’re not looking where you’re going, I didn’t ask. He clearly didn’t know.
Nor did the two women who slowed their conversation to look up to the roof as well. Nor did the woman walking stately on in a kinte cloth dress and matching head wrap. She didn’t look or care where the music was coming from, this one. She just kept going, as unstoppable and elegant as an ocean liner heading out to sea. » Read the rest of this entry «
#209: Gong Show is Full of Shitheads
August 28th, 2013 § permalink
I think the turning point was when the guy swept up the beer bottle. » Read the rest of this entry «
#208: Trapped in Fake Chicago
August 26th, 2013 § permalink
So I was at the Grant Street Metro Transit station, waiting for the Blue Line to Fremont or, if the spirit moved me, hop over to the Black Line to Banacaville. » Read the rest of this entry «
#207: Zebra’s of Bridgeport
August 23rd, 2013 § permalink
She sat at a table by the men’s bathroom at the back of the restaurant, playing solitaire on a laptop as a Peter Francis Geraci commercial interrupted “Judge Joe Brown” on the opposite wall. » Read the rest of this entry «
#206: The Open Road
August 21st, 2013 § permalink
… great haircut at a great price. And enter to win Apple prizes at GreatClips.com or by texting PRIZE to 47328. See official rules for details. Great Clips: It’s going to be great. Over one hundred and forty-five great Chicagoland locations. And we’re back with the Castle Chicks, White Castle’s newest stars. Let’s take a call. “Hello, I-
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Want a new car? Well-qualified buyers can get 0.9 percent APR financing at the Honda Summer Clearance Event, happening n- » Read the rest of this entry «
#205: The Spirit We Have Here
August 19th, 2013 § permalink
The man with the dusty Obama/Biden cap, with the “Born to be Wild” leather vest that said he rode Harleys, with the natty-trimmed white-dappled mustache overlooking a tidy-trim soul patch has been coming to the beach since 1966.
“Every day,” he said as his fingers gently flitted along a recorder’s surface as the drumbeat slowed in the background. » Read the rest of this entry «
#204: In Which I Think It Went Pretty Well
August 16th, 2013 § permalink
It didn’t hit me until later, after the bar, the packed crowd, after the sweat-covered me with my hair standing on end cooled and combed and got safely back at home where my girlfriend now slumbered as I kept checking @ourmaninchicago’s live-tweeting of the bottle of Jeppson’s Malört he won at the thing, it didn’t hit me until then what we just did.
We put on a show. » Read the rest of this entry «
