Nov. 11, 2010
The turns in life are why you stay on the road. No exit. Just bear down and dream about the next stop. Something better is waiting for you. Sometimes it is someone.
That’s what World Series MVP Edgar Renteria did. He’s in my Midwest League book “Cougars, Snappers and Loons (Oh My!) ” reminiscing about his days with the Kane County Cougars. Renteria was just 17 years old in 1993 when he was the Cougars starting shortstop. He was homesick for his native Colombia.
His host family Brian and Jane Mooberry of west suburban Elgin, Ill. met Renteria when he was fidgeting in the Cougars front office in Geneva. The team was trying to prevent him [...]
Let’s party with Jim Flora album art (shot in D. Hoekstra tiki bar)
Nov. 2, 2010—
While driving around with Playboy founder Hugh Hefner and his extended family during last week’s poignant hometown tour of Chicago, I mentioned the Oct. 24 passing of S. Neil Fujita to Hef.
Fujita (foo-JEE-ta), 89, was the graphic designer known for Miles Davis’ moody “Round About Midnight” album cover (photography by Marvin Koner) and the abstract design of Dave Brubeck’s “Time Out.” He also did the minmalist book cover for the Truman Capote classic “In Cold Blood.” I knew Hef is a jazz fan and who doesn’t love hot, stunning album art of the 1950s and 60s? Along with [...]
Hef and Crystal Harris in front of the former Playboy Mansion, 1340 N. State.
I HEARD many interesting things during Hugh Hefner’s Friday afternoon bus tour of his hometown Chicago haunts. But the best item might have been when Hef’s girl friend Crystal Harris suggested he wear the plaid scarf that was a gift to Hef from her mother and stepfather. What do you get the man who has everything? And doesn’t like clothes?
“It was a guess,” answered Harris, 24. “I got him the iPad and I didn’t know if he would like it. He uses it every day.” Harris grew up in San Diego, Ca. Her mother is a real estate broker, her stepfather is a financial [...]
Me & Minette Goodman
Oct. 11, 2010
Let me take a minute to write about living in the moment.
Sunday 10/10/10 was a remarkable Indian Summer day in Chicago, something like the 11th straight day of clear blue skies. People were running around—literally-to soak up the sun. Even by dusk I saw folks from the Chicago Marathon strolling around north side streets with medallions around their neck. There always is a finish line, but no so much if you are truly in the moment.
My weekend was filled with thoughts from Chicago past. On Saturday night I began reading “Royko in Love,” (University of Chicago Press, David Royko.com, a [...]
Salsa albums I bartered for before they got ripped off at the Bogota airport.
Oct. 6, 2010
People are scared of things they don’t know.
So for most of September I was the only white guy taking introductory salsa at the Dance Academy of Salsa & Modern Latin Dance in the Humboldt Park neighborhood of Chicago. The storefront studio is not far from my home and before my first lesson I circled the block with the windmilled apprehension of a first date.
But on my first visit I cut the rug with awkward Puerto Rican men, a fun Cuban woman, a shy Africn-American guy and an African-American woman who said I made her laugh.I did not pursue further [...]
September 20, 2010
It was like one of those clear cylinders filled with cold cash that you shoot off to the bank teller, yes, that’s how I drove from Chicago to Flint, Mich. over the weekend. The CD player was serving up John Prine’s “Taking a Walk,” but I drove fast.You see things clearer from a distance.
The mood became more haunting the closer I got to Flint. A cool mist and dark skies made it seem more like November than mid-September. My summer had been masked and now autum was being robbed.Whitey Morgan of the Flint hard honky tonk band Whitey Morgan & the ’78s told me about a great jukebox at the Torch Bar & Grill in a dark alley in [...]
August 27, 2010—
I only take an international flight a couple times a year but they always seem seamless. On an average of 20 annual domestic flights, I’d say there’s trouble on 15.
Last week I had a connection in Miami, Fla. on American Airlines. The flight was slated to leave Chicago at 11:40 a.m. When checking in I was informed of a 20 minute delay because one pilot had not shown up.
To cut to the chase, we were all on the plane at 1 p.m. and sat on the runway for another hour, waiting for another pilot. Or maybe it was the same pilot. The flight attendants told the eight of us our connection had already beenmissed. We were going to [...]
August 17, 2010
Several of my female friends are chatty airline passengers. One friend in the advertising industry has even developed a couple of long-term relationships with a random seatmate. I generally don’t talk to any one. I’m sure I have negative body language and I’m always carting around a book and newspapers as hideaway devices.
Last week’s flight from Stockholm to Chicago was different. I jostled down the aisle and saw my seatmate all hopped up about having a window view. He had one of those wallet sized plastic ID-ticket holders around his neck, a sure sign of a professional traveler.
He was 12 years [...]
July 26, 2010—
MADISON, Wis.—-I’ve found the perfect comfort zone at the Edgewater Hotel on Lake Mendota in Madison.And it is about to get bigger.
The hotel’s porthole windows and flowed, curving exterior lines in original brick and steel reminds me of South Beach. But this less LeBron James and more of the smooth soul of Etta James.
In May the city council approved plans to move ahead on major redevelopment of the property, which opened in 1948. Regular readers of my stuff in the Chicago Sun-Times and my blog know of my affinity of the Edgewater and its streamlined design that replicates a cruise ship.I love the hotel’s cute names like the [...]
July 18, 2010—
I’ve spent some of the summer wandering around my father’s library in the dark basement of my parents Naperville home. His ample bunker has always been a work in progress. There are no finished walls, old sofas where you could’ve made out as a kid and his books are propped up on rows of steel shelving like rusty rakes.
Dad used to go downstairs a lot to absorb a cool still during these hot summer months. I also think his books took him to another time. Now he can no longer walk downstairs and has invited me and my brother to “take what we want.” My entire apartment is like his basement, so I don’t need many more books. I have books in my [...]
letterheady:
Letterhead used by Disney Productions in 1968 to promote The Jungle Book.
Previously: Fantasia; Alice in Wonderland; Peter Pan; Snow White; Wonderful World of Color.
Walt Disney’s The Jungle Book, 1968 | Source
June 29, 2010—
What a time it was. A good time. In 1907 the Chicago Cubs were in the midst of a dynasty. They won 107 games, lost 45 and beat Ty Cobb and the Detroit Tigers to win the World Series. The Cubs pitching staff was led by Orval Overall and Three Finger Brown and a guy named Wildfire Schilte patrolled right field like Smokey the Bear. Chicago was in a renaissance.
The Cubs were second in the National League in attendance (422,550) and a couple miles east of their beloved West Side Grounds (Wrigley Field wasn’t built) Chicago author Hamlin Garland founded the Attic Club atop Symphony Center (formerly Orchestra Hall).
In 1909 the non-profit [...]
June 27, 2010—
You can’t outrace your heart.
I went to Portland, Oregon to write some stories for my newspaper. I thought it was good timing. I flew jets and props. I took Amtrak’s scenic Cascades between Portland and Seattle. I kayaked six miles of the Willamette River in Portand.
I walked from the Ace Hotel, a former 28 room flophouse in the Belltown neighborhood of Seattle down 1st Street to Safeco Field to watch my Cubs. It is one of my favorite walks in America because I pass lush flower stands, 1950s neon and the Pike Place newspaper stand filled with periodicals of places I’ve never seen and where she went.
I read Willy Vlautin’s “Lean [...]
May 28, 2010—
Maybe this is how my reporting career began.
I was 10 years old when I first sat in the smoky, stinky balcony of Chicago Stadium. On March 12, 1966 my Dad took me to my first Chicago Blackhawks game. In the third period the Blackhawks Bobby Hull fired a wicked slap shot past New York Rangers goalie Cesare Maniago to become the first player in the National Hockey League to score more than 50 goals in a season.
Apparently I was excited by all the beer and confetti.
I still get excited by beer and confetti.
Everyone in Chicago is talking about bandwagon jumping as the Blackhawks play in the Stanley Cup for the first time [...]
May 24, 2010-
It took too long to take my first bike ride to Humboldt Park this spring.
Humboldt Park is a rambling 3 1/2 square mile area on the near northwest side of Chicago regarded as the cultural capital of the Puerto Rican midwest. On Sunday the park was filled with people despite the bandwagon jumpers who watching the Chicago Blackhawks hockey game. [Quick—who is Lou Angotti?] The sound of salsa music filled the air and fathers played soccer with their sons. I could smell the richly grilled steak and onions of the jibarito sandwich.
I live on the border of Humboldt Park and Ukranian Village, my favorite bridge in [...]
May 19, 2010
I got up at 7 a.m. last Sunday after spending all of Saturday night listening to Nashville icon Pat McLaughlin sing roadhouse soul at FitzGerald’s in Berwyn, Ill.
My mission was to eat a Cudighi Yooper sandwich at Fifth Third Field, home of the Midwest League’s West Michigan Whitecaps just north of Grand Rapids.
The Yooper—not to be confused with major league hurler Brandon Looper—is a spicy coarsley ground sausage patty smothered in white cheddar cheese, roasted onions, Marinara sauce, green and red peppers and served on a sesame seed bun. ($5.75).
The Cudighi (pronounced could-a-key) Yooper was chosen by fans [...]
10:30 p.m. May 4
We had Mary Frances Veeck—who turns a glorious 90 years old this fall—and her daughter Marya on our little weekly radio show this afternoon:
http://www.talkzone.com/shows/199/fancave.html
They talked about their life with late Baseball Hall of Famer Bill Veeck and his underreated appreciation of art. I nudged Mary Frances about the story she told me in 1986 where she and Bill would send off a bottle of Champagne to a celebrating couple.
”We had a history of that,” she said in a 1986 interview at Bill’s beloved Miller’s Pub in Chicago’s Loop. “We were married about six months and we went to a [...]
April 22, 2010
I’m never sure if Marya Veeck asks me to participate in her art shows because I’m a friend or if she actually thinks I’m a decent artist.
I have sold all three pieces I’ve exhibited in her warm August House Studio, 2113 W. Roscoe in Chicago. Bring a treat for Beasley, her docile, wide eyed beagle that watches over the artwork.
Veeck is an accomplished artist. We’ve connected not only for our love of baseball and irreverence (her father was Baseball Hall of Famer Bill, her brother is baseball’s marketing maverick Mike) but for our appreciation of the outdoors.
Early in her career I was drawn to the oil paintings and [...]
Aroldis Chapman: I can’t face the future.
April 18, 2010
Like a pie in the sky, last weekend I launched my baseball season by driving 460 miles round trip from Chicago to Toledo, Ohio to watch the professional debut of Cuban pitcher Ardolis Chapman.
During the off season the Cincinnati Reds snuck up on all the big shooters and signed the left-hander to a six-year $30 million deal. He was assigned to the Class AAA Louisville Bats who visited Toledo.
I’m a huge fan of the passion behind Cuban baseball—I visited the island in the late 1980s to watch games in Havana—and I wanted to see what Chapman was all about. I knew he [...]
