This is an edited version of an essay I wrote for my upcoming column for the Kane County Cougars of the Midwest League.
June 21, 2011
DAYTON, Ohio—-Baseball Hall of Fame writer Hal McCoy has covered 7,000 Cincinnati Reds games in his 39 year career with the Dayton Daily News.
He knows every game is as different as a cloud in the summer sky.
In late May I took McCoy to a Dayton Dragons game at Fifth Third Field in Dayton. McCoy, 70, said he is semi-retired but he still does a popular “Real McCoy” blog for the Daily News and appears on the Fox Sports affiliate in Cincinnati.
He is legally blind.
He said it was the first time he [...]
June 10, 2011—
What’s up with grumpy record store guys?
Everyone has a bad day, but I’ve visited three record stores in three states this year and each experience was as uplifting as walking into an H&R Block office.
This cannot be a coincidence.
My conclusion was drawn at Magnolia Thunderpussy on High Street in Columbus, Ohio. It was around 11 a.m. a few Mondays ago, I was jacked up on coffee and Mountain Dew, the sun was shining and I was in a good mood. When I am on the road I go to record stores with the same M.O. as a visit to a Farmer’s Market. I ask questions about local stuff. I pick up newspapers, fanzines and buttons.
And I [...]
May 16, 2011-
I have seen a lot of life through the windshield of a car.
My 2005 Pontiac has been hit by a tornado north of Memphis, Tenn. I’ve driven through a few floods. I’ve seen a broken heart scattered on the side of the road like a shattered vase of orchids.
But what are the chances of a gecko hitting your windshield—-and surviving? This happened on my recent drive back to Chicago from New Orleans Jazz Fest.
John the Mailman and I were on I-55, south of Jackson, Miss. We were listening to the Creole String Beans swamp pop I bought at jazz fest. And damn, if I didn’t see this fine-sized gecko crawling across my windshield. Of course I swerved [...]
March 29, 2011—
I’m approaching my 39th consecutive Cubs opener.
Opening Day is a chance to forget about the apathy of Lou Piniella and the narcolepsy of Bobby Murcer—-the last Cub I booed mercilessly. On Opening Day I can still smell the fervid bleacher cigars of the early 1970s and touch the gritty newspapers people brought to the game. On Opening Day I see my father’s healthy legs leading me through the grandstands to see Hank Aaron. On Opening Day I see my unborn children. In Cubs hats.
Opening Day is the real chance to turn the page.
Buy new sheets. Send someone yellow flowers on a chance. It’s a grand day to renew distant friendships like Charley [...]
March 19, 2011—
When I talk to aspiring writers-journalists I make sure to mention Joseph Mitchell. He was a long time staff writer for The New Yorker magazine. He made every word count. His style was that of a calypso breeze.
Mitchell, who died in 1996 at the age of 88, was born on a tobacco farm in North Carolina. He dropped out of the University of North Carolina to become a journalist in New York City. He wrote about carnies, gypsies, strippers, vagabonds, drunks and oddballs in the side pocket. He illuminated the hearts who beat in dark shadows.
Its the kind of world today’s newspapers discourage writers from pursuing. I’ve given several writers [...]
March 16, 2011—
TEMPE, Az.—-Spring Training is about refreshing fundamentals: bunting, throwing, base running, the things I didn’t see the Cubs do in Tuesday’s loss to Colorado.
It’s not about being a slammer.
I discovered The Slammer weekly newspaper (www.theslammer.com) in February at a Mesa gas station as I was touring Arizona Spring Training parks. I’m safe in my hotel room tonight writing this so I don’t end up in The Slammer.
The Slammer is a 20-page newspaper featuring hundreds of mug shots. For a buck I picked up the [...]
MARCH 6, 2011—
There are no medals for Chicago soul singers. The emotive gospel based music has always been shot down by the city’s blues scene.
Someone was tellling me the other day about Bono’s choice cover Curtis Mayfield’s “People Get Ready” at a U2 concert in Chicago and asked the audience to sing along. I was told he was met mostly with a collective “Huh?”
Last night Lou Pride stood tall on the stage of the American Legion Hall Post 42 in Evanston, Ill. Pride is a locally overlooked 61-year-old soul singer who lives in north suburban Waukegan. He was appearing as part of the Bluegrass & Legends series held periodically at the roadhouse hall (ask [...]
The Red Lips at La Manigua Botanic Garden, Colombia.
They are used to make a poison—watch out. (Courtesy of Pilar Quintana)
MARCH 5, 2011—— The mirror in the hotel bathroom tells the truth. Who is that old piece of bark? Why are there dark rings of time under those eyes?
Almost all hotel bathroom mirrors are washed over with bright light. It creates an in your-face effect you don’t get at home. Sometimes it may be the luster of a clean loo, other times it could be the magical distance from a known place.
In the mid-1980s I stayed at the Covent Hotel, a men’s only pay-by-the-week flophouse near Lincoln Park in Chicago. I have seen cypress trees made [...]
Waiter crosses the street to get to the other side…..
Feb. 17, 2011—-
CALI, Colombia—-I have two nightlife memories of Cali, 2011. So far.
One involves aguardiente as it always does in Colombia.
The other is more unique.
I am on the 11th floor of the Hotel Obelisco in the El Penon hotel district of Cali. I have a balcony that looks over the Cali River and the busy Colombia avenue that coils through the dense neighborhood.
The boulevard’s speeding motorcycles and mopeds remind me of [...]
Feb. 16, 2011—
CALI, Colombia—-Across the boulevard from the briskly flowing Cali River there is a place where time stands still.
A storefront shop sits between the Nomeolvides (Forget Me Not) Floristeria where yellow roses bloom during the day and the Escoces’ strip club where black petals fall at night.
Between the passionate curtains Hugo Suarez Fiat keeps his collection of 20 vintage movie theater projectors in the small storefront on Cali Avenue.
The steel dream machines are from the 1930s, 40s, 50s and have [...]
Jan. 25, 2011—
The large antique mall in the northern shadow of Milwaukee’s four-sided Allen-Bradley clock was filled with people. It made Frankie Snuggs uneasy. His space was being invaded. These were his memories: the Herb Alpert and Tijuana Brass LPs you always find in thrift stores, the postcard of a one level Holiday Inn in Key Largo where he recalled a sunset version of “Come Monday,” the irony of a paisley shirt from the 1970s.
Time stands still for Frankie Snuggs.
He still wears paisley shirts. For real.
But even the four-sided clock had changed on him. Up until last summer Milwaukee’s “Polish Moon” had been the tallest four-sided clock in [...]
Midge.
Jan. 13, 2011—
The Old Town Ale House was not a happy bar when I drank there.
It is in the Old Town neighborhood of Chicago, just a lucky weave and blind step south of the Second City theater.
I haven’t been there in a couple years, but the last time I was at the Ale House it had been discovered by a new generation of late night revelvers. I was not happy.
The Ale House is open until 5 a.m. on Sunday and 4 a.m. the rest of the week. It has always been a lighthouse for just-off-the-shift bartenders and waitstaff, miserable deadline reporters and Second City actors trying to bottle their adrenaline.
As we drove by the Ale House [...]
Jan. 11, 2011—
There is a corner bar at the end of the block on the street where I live. The classic Chicago workingman’s tavern has been there since 1943. Polka legend Lil’ Wally played “I Like Her Golabka” and “Polish Polka Twist” at this bar during the late 50s and early ’60s.
I have been there twice in recent weeks. The bar is on a one-way street and I walk the other way. During the summer I hear Mexican rancheros spilling out from the windows of brick three-flats. The bar has a good CD jukebox with Merle Haggard, the Ramones and a fuzzy sound system. I like the songs although I don’t need to hear “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” for the rest of my [...]
Congress Theater, Chicago, Jan. 1, 2011 (Photo by Diane Soubly)
Jan. 4, 2011— One moment was lost in the storm of Chuck Berry’s collapse during his New Year’s night concert at the Congress Theater in Chicago.
About halfway through the show a thin and somewhat wobbly Berry approached the front of the stage of the dank 85-year-old theater. Berry stood alone. He did not know his band. He hadn’t been to Chicago in years. He was out of the shadows.
Berry began to recite a prose poem about winter. It was difficult to decipher all the words from my perch in the steamy first balcony. I’ve seen Berry several times, including his home base of the Duck Room at [...]
The view of my Chicago street, 10 a.m. Dec. 25, 2010
Dec. 26, 2010—
I scoffed at the claim of rats chewing on the wiring of cars parked in our lot on the west side of Chicago. I’ve lived in Chicago for more than 25 years and never heard of this.
But rats disabled the cars of two neighbors and on Christmas Eve I think it happened to me. I’m taking my car in tomorrow.
I did some research and in recent years auto manufacturers have used more environmentally acceptable (and cheaper) soy based plastics as wiring insulation. I guess that’s like a beer and a shot for rodents. We’ve been using mothballs as a deterrent and that has seemed to do the trick [...]
Meeting Black Elvis, New Year’s Eve 1987.
Dec. 23, 2010—
New Year’s Eve. Where do I begin? That’s what New Year’s Day is about, right? I’m getting the feeling this New Year’s Eve will be like New Year’s Eve 1998. My Chicago friends Bob and Cleo met me at the Snow Flake Lounge, a tiny bar adjacent to the Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired Snow Flake Motel south of St. Joseph, Mich.
A local Elvis Presley and Patsy Cline husband-and-wife team hosted a karaoke party. Bob and Cleo were staying with some friends. I stayed at the Snow Flake, where my one-light bulb room had minimal heat and a mattress that was crazy hard. The lounge was packed with locals on a snowy [...]
Dec. 14, 2010—
Maybe some of you have been to Ruby’s Bar & Grill on the Coney Island boardwalk in Brooklyn, N.Y. Maybe not.
But everyone has the desire for an endless summer.
Ruby’s closed last month. It opened in 1934 and was the oldest bar on Coney Island. You could sit outside, stare at the Atlantic Ocean and understand just how small you are in this world. Life is not meant to be taken so seriously. They knew that at Ruby’s.
I remember dancing to Tito Puente and Ronnie Hawkins’ “Who Do You Love?” near Ruby’s jukebox. One time I saw a middle-aged African-American woman in breathless hip-huggers and chesty halter top. She was sucking on a [...]
Dec. 8, 2010—
I like to think I know a little about a lot of things, but I had never seen a real live tiny Christmas tree. I mean, a three-foot North Carolina Fraser Fir with real needles. You put a cup of water in a tree stand and everything.
The orange ribbon on one of about seven branches says it is a “Tabletop Tree.” It seems this tree is for someone in a transient apartment or prison.
I do live alone and over the weekend forked over $20 for one of these lame trees. No one could stop me. I’ve seen three-foot tall artifical trees, but not real ones. What’s next? Live micro-palm trees?
I recently decorated my Christmas tree. It took about three [...]
November 25, 2010—-
She lived 7,000 steps beyond the truck stop.
The Midway truck stop was pretty much just as I left it about 10 years ago. The Midway is exactly 121 miles each way between Kansas City and St. Louis, which means it is no-way.
That’s why everything is going on at the Midway. There’s a general store stuck in ramshackle 1970s design filled with dusty bottles of Mountain Dew and souvenir wooden toothpick holders for $1.99. A 24-hour diner serves mashed potatoes drenched in gravy and green beans out of the can. There’s a tattoo parlor, a beauty shop and 85-room motel. The boot store has closed.
The country-western bar still plays [...]
Nov. 17, 2010—
I like to think I do my better writing in the twilight. The pace becomes slower, the voices are softer and the mystery of the dark sheds light on all kinds of possibilties. I bet that’s why my Dad stays up until midnight. He watches “The Late Show with David Letterman” before retreating to his computer room. There, he checks out the latest online sales for his grandson Jude and Googles medical remedies for my Mom.
My Dad turns 90 today.
That’s big news. I’ve known only one person over 90 and that was Studs Terkel. At tonight’s dinner I will again ask my Dad to what he has attributed his long life. He will lean back, smile and [...]
