Blog
The Hobo Smelt
At the end of March and in early April of every year, the smelts of Lake Michigan decide to kill themselves. The little fish haul ass from the ...
Star for the Eternal City
Chicago is never more beautiful or dangerous than it is at night.
The workman-like, bustling, hurly-burly like endless hustle of daylight become...
Star For The Naked City
Every night at 2 in the morning, the old man cable station, WE, plays an old Naked City rerun. I barely remember this show because the reruns w...
Bucktown All-Star (Goat Man)
My neighborhood, Bucktown, is named for goats; male goats, specifically. Four or five decades ago, this neighborhood was almost exclusively Uk...
Jesus of Chicago
I just got back from Maine–Rockland, Maine. One of those beautiful, bucolic towns that Edward Hopper, Robert Henri, and three generations of Wy...
Songbird for Nelson Algren
I’ve made more than a few tributes to the great Chicago writer Nelson Algren. His shadow looms large over how I see the city. Algren, of cour...
A No. 1
“Chicago is the greatest railway center in the United States. No one knows these facts better than the hobo. It is a fact that trains from all poi...
The Penny Poker Bird
“Never play cards with a man named Doc, never eat at a place called “Mom’s”, and never sleep with a woman who is in more trouble than you are.”
—...