Wednesday, August 26, 2009
I’ve known Chicago radio and television personality Bob Sirott longer than he knows.I’ll be on the Sunday Night Radio Special, hosted by Sirott and Marianne Murciano, at 10 p.m. Aug. 30 on WGN Radio (720 AM). I’ll be talking about my book “Cougars and Snappers and Loons (Oh My!),” a field guide to Midwest League baseball. But that’s not why I’m here.Deep in the bowels of my home office I found this picture of what must have been a listener give away when Sirott was an on-air personality at the rock n’ roll giant WLS-AM in Chicago.I’m guessing this was taken in 1978 before a Cubs game at Wrigley [...]
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpjNLjBbVd4?wmode=transparent&autohide=1&egm=0&hd=1&iv_load_policy=3&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&showsearch=0&w=500&h=375]
Monday, June 22, 2009
How did this guy make it to 2009?In a 1988 interview the master of the soul music cover told me he listens to nearly 500 songs before making his selections. Besides this ditty here Cocker has re-popularized Randy Newman’s “You Can Leave Your Hat On,” “You Are So Beautiful,” (co-written by the late Billy Preston) and the Box Top’s “The Letter,” among others.Cocker, now, 65, said there is no [...]
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Everyone says that over time dog owners begin to resemble their pets.
Maybe the same is true with rabbits—-this 20 pounder won top prize at last week’s Iowa State Fair.
Thanks to Nicole Bruskewitz for the photo from the trenches.
The lack of hipster quotient is one of the many things I like about state fairs.I just got back from spending a seven hour day at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines. I was wide-eyed at every turn. I saw a 1,900 pumpkin, a 20-pound rabbit and zero Lollapalooza tee shirts.My traveling companion Adriana said I was like an 11-year old. This is a vast improvement from my typical 18-year-old persona. I have been to the Illinois State Fair and the Ohio State Fair but there is nothing like the Iowa State Fair. The 400-acre grounds are more woody and hilly than Springfield, Ill. and Columbus, Ohio. In 1987 the Iowa State Fairgrounds were named to [...]
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Everybody has a spot.
This summer my spot became Lake Park Beach in the Edgewater neighborhood of Chicago. It is a neighborhood beach where African-Americans, Jamaicans, Hispanics, whites, gays and straights all mingle in a coarse sand along Lake Michigan.
A mound of jagged rocks define the north end of the small beach while the city skyline curves like a boomerang on the south end. I’ve been told the young lifeguards don’t like folks climbing those rocks. I like taking risks.
I was tired and needed to retreat. My day began at 5:30 a.m. as I scurried to WGN-AM radio studios in the Tribune Tower to talk about my [...]
Baseball & Bowling in Clinton, Iowa
Jerry Ramig as seen on his press pass.
Grass roots marketing is one of the joys of making independent art, whether it is books, music or paintings. That’s how I found myself across the street from Alliant Energy Field in Clinton, Ia., which hosted last week’s 45th annual Midwest League All-Star Game. I was signing copies of my new book “Cougars and Snappers and Loons (Oh My!)—A Midwest League Field Guide.” It was 97 degrees when the session began at 4 p.m.I sat at a table with my publisher George Rawlinson. He wore a leather biker’s cap and assumed the role of carnival barker in [...]
This news was just handed off to me:
John Joseph Houghtaling died June 17 at his home in Fort Pierce, Fla. He was 92. Houghtaling was the dude who invented the “Magic Fingers Vibrating Bed” mostly used in roadside motels and places like Las Vegas and Reno, Nev. Burned out travelers would deposit a quarter into a machine mounted on the bed and get 15 minutes of “tingling relaxation and ease” in return.I bet Houghtaling is going to have some great pallbearers.I used the Magic Fingers Vibrating Bed once, in a motel room outside of Gallup, N.M. The device was effective for a sore back after a long day’s drive, but it was noisy. There should be rock [...]
