A few weeks ago Beth heard that Little Feat, one of my favorite bands, would be playing at The Vic, a great little old Vaudeville theater turned music venue. Here’s the deal: I usually pretty much avoid nostalgia trips. For one thing, if I’ve seen a band, and the show was good, I don’t feel […]

Just had a great weekend visiting a friend from the neighborhood who has since moved back to his hometown of St. Louis. I took the Amtrak with another Printers Row pal. The three of us originally met, where else, at the late, great Hackney’s. Miraculously, the trains to and from the Gateway City were very […]

Heads up to nearby friends and neighbors: if you see me walking around our Printers Row neighborhood with an invisible dog tomorrow, don’t call the authorities. I haven’t lost my marbles. Not yet. No need to worry about the stranger you’ll see holding the front of Whitney’s empty rectangular harness and leading me around, either. […]

Two weeks from today I’ll be standing on stage with the guy who wrote the book Game of Thrones. The Chicago Public Library and Chicago Public Library Foundation is honoring George R. R. Martin at their Carl Sandburg Literary Awards Dinner on Thursday, October 10, 2019 and I am absolutely thrilled to have been asked […]

Every weekend, a Chicago FM station called WXRT does the Saturday Morning Flashback. All morning, the DJ plays noteworthy music from a given year. A couple weeks ago the year was 1973, and among the songs played was Frank Zappa’s “Montana.” You know, the one where he’s going to be a dental floss farmer. What […]