I’ve written a few articles for The Chicago Machine. This was my first. Some might call this a “fake” or “satirical” news site. I prefer to say it’s news about events that haven’t happened yet.
Short Story: The Wallet
This one, The Wallet, is not science fiction. No aliens, ghosts, or magic potions. It’s a mystery. The publisher, Mysterical-E, runs only mysteries, so I’m flattered that they chose it. A 19-minute read.
Standup Comedy – Coming Out
Last night I debuted my standup comedy routine at the Revival Theater here in Hyde Park. The video misses the first 5 or 10 seconds, but it won’t take long to pick up the plot. 4:41.
Falling off the Wagon at the Chicago Lowrider Festival
This is a link to a travel piece I wrote about a short afternoon at the Chicago Lowrider Festival. You’ll enjoy it whether or not you like cars, and whether or not you like things that are low to the ground.
It got posted at Hack Writers.
A 3-minute read.
It Takes a (Ukrainian) Village
There was something off about the style of the leather jackets the two men were wearing. At first I thought they were holdovers from the 1980’s, but that wasn’t quite right. They looked more like a reverse engineering effort where someone had described the 1980s to a designer who hadn’t lived through them, and those jackets were the result. Continue reading “It Takes a (Ukrainian) Village”
Touring an Indian Grocery Store in Chicago
A Gastronomic Trip to the Other Side of the Planet
I have never shopped for groceries on Devon Avenue, the epicenter of Chicago’s Indian population (I should probably say, the epicenter of Chicago’s Indian Subcontinent population – I’ve seen signs advertising both Indian and Pakistani goods in the same store, leading me to wonder, “Are they divided down the middle? Are people shooting at each other across the aisles?”). Continue reading “Touring an Indian Grocery Store in Chicago”
Making no Little Plans, out of Legos
In the middle of July the Alumni Association at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) held their fifth annual Help Build a Lego City event. I took my two older children, four and five-years-old, but the event was attended by people of all ages. Some were there because playing with Legos is fun. Others, who had obviously graduated from “playing” with Legos to “working” with them, were creating projects of such gravitas that light was having trouble escaping. Continue reading “Making no Little Plans, out of Legos”
Fine Art Zombies
An Evening in Chicago with the Living Dead
Chicago is known for its vibrant amateur theater scene. Usually low budget and unvarnished, the stereotypical performance is clever and quirky (or at least aspires to be) and takes place in a subterranean space where maybe the heat works, and maybe it doesn’t. Continue reading “Fine Art Zombies”
The Rock n Roll Half-Marathon
A Musical Tour Through Downtown Chicago
The Rock n Roll Marathon Series is a corporate entity spawned in the late 1990s. One of their first races, a June marathon in San Diego, was a disaster. Marathon day was much warmer than expected, there wasn’t enough water, and at a post-race press conference the race director, in a quote he desperately and futilely tried to retract, Continue reading “The Rock n Roll Half-Marathon”
Getcher Zen On
A strict hierarchy governs the list of objects that can hold our childrens’ attention. Any body of water ranks high. Drilling down a little, moving water trumps standing water. Knowing this, I directed them towards the little waterfall. They’ll be playing there for hours, I presumed with a confident smirk. But as they approached the waterfall an enormous koi swam by in the pond, torpedoing my presumption. Continue reading “Getcher Zen On”