Mark “Max” Brumbach has a gift for me.
Because of that he has a gift for you, too.
As I walk into Brumbach’s new version of the music room-cafe Township, 2200 N. California Ave., he hands over a copy of the Images of America book “Chicago Entertainment Between the Wars 1919-1939.” The picture book is filled with stuff like an ad for Bert Kelly’s Stables, 431 Rush St.: Free Drinks Every Nite As Many As You Wish–no charge for dancing. Our waiter sings. Our Cook Dances. NOW FREDDIE KEPPARD World’s greatest colored jazz cornetist and his great dance band….”
Brumbach is a fine musician, [...]
Thomas Sweets and a wayward brown pelican from the Carolina Coast. The bird was tagged as a baby in the Carolinas and the young pelicans often get dehydrated on their first flight from home. (Dave Hoekstra photo)
KEY WEST, Fla.–The most serene spot in this once remote island on the southern tip of Florida is suddenly disturbed. Thomas Sweets is rushing through his small clinic carrying a large turkey vulture as if he was rescuing a baby from a fire. The bird’s squawking and the bitter stench recalls the halcyon ambiance at the Green Parrot, the former dive bar up the road.
Sweets is [...]
Frankie Knuckles
Most people don’t eat the same meal every day.
I search out different music to nurture my changing moods. Calypso for fun, old country for loneliness. My knowledge of house music is pedestrian but I’ve always been intrigued by its deep Chicago roots.
This became very clear on Saturday night when Chicago house music DJs Derrick Carter, Darlene “DJ Lady D” Jackson and Marea Renee “The Black Madonna” Stamper joined me live in studio for my Nocturnal Journal radio show on WGN-AM. The station’s Allstate Showcase Studio was filled with an expressive joy I [...]
Bruce Rickerd getting certified by the Guinness Book of World Records for not missing a performance in 21 years (Courtesy Cirque Du Soleil)
When I come home from my radio program I reflect on the show we made to share with you.
I consider questions I might have asked, a button I shouldn’t have pushed to aggravate my fine producer Dan Long or maybe an anecdote I could have contributed to inject some of my personality. I had a hard time getting to sleep after the Jan. 3 Nocturnal Journal. I was thinking about the thread of purposefulness that connected my guests:
* At the end of [...]
What a posse taking in a Havana ballgame: (Che’ Guevera (1928-1967) with beret); to his left is Raul Castro, to Che’s right is baseball player and revolutionary hero Camilo Cienfuegos (1932-1959), Fidel Castro is to the right of Cienfuegos. I bought this picture a few years ago at an antique store in Little Havana outside of Miami.
Joe Cambria charmed an island that is used to bewitching moments.
Once the owner of the largest laundry in Maryland, Cambria scouted Cuba for the Washington Senators/Minnesota Twins from 1934 to 1962. He is known for tooling around pre-Castro Cuba with a [...]
Tropicana 50th anniversary revue, 1989
It will be 25 years ago on Dec. 27 that I first set foot in Cuba.
I gained entry on a journalist visa.
I took a midnight charter flight on a Haitian airline out of Miami into Havana. A few days ago I found my receipt from Marazul Tours in New York: three nights at the Habana Libre (the former Hilton) for $192. I was alone in a very strange place. I arrived at my hotel around three in the morning and the staff claimed the room wasn’t “ready” for this American. slept on a lobby sofa for the next five hours. When you are alone like that you are very much alive. I wrote about [...]
Radio might be the last place you would find me.
I’ve liked being an observer. I’m uncomfortable at center stage. I’m the guy at the end of the bar. I’m the fly on the wall– behind the curtain.
I’ve been a guest plenty of times on radio and television, but to host a show–even for a couple of hours–seems daunting. Good radio is truth. And that’s the truth.
But I am curious.
I like to hear other people’s stories. I’ve been in print journalism for more than 40 years, dating back to my idealistic stint as editor of the Naperville (Ill.) Central High School [...]
Peggy Mullins from a distance (Rene’ Greblo photo)
SPRINGFIELD, MO.–It is nearly an hour before showtime at Luttrell’s Auction and Live Music Barn on a recent Saturday night. An elderly woman in a purple sweater walks through four aisles of empty white plastic chairs to find a spot in the front row. This is her place in the world. There cannot be a sense of history without a place.
Peggy Mullins was married to country singer-songwriter Johnny Lafayette Mullins for 53 years.
He died in October, 2009 and that’s when she started coming to hear music in the former feed [...]
Photo by Rene’ Greblo
SPRINGFIELD, Mo.—–The sameness that shades popular culture in America has not arrived along the Route 66 bypass on the northwest end of Springfield. A white aluminum shack that looks like a large trailer sits a good distance from the road. A portable barbecue stand is sizzling adjacent to the gravel driveway.
You have arrived at an unfiltered destination:
Luttrell’s Auction and Live Music Show, 2939 W. Kearney.
And the new Blue Grass BBQ.
Auction house owner Don Luttrell claims his business is [...]
Nelson Algren when Wicker Park was real.
Early in his first term President Obama made noise about bringing back a new deal of the WPA (Works Progress Administration) as a method to resurrect the economy. It is too bad this never came to pass.
Writers, artists, former newspaper journalists and photographers could chronicle the green economy, foodways and stories of the scores of immigrants who are changing America’s landscape.
Engaging state travel guides were written between 1935 and 1943 through the Federal Writer’s Project of the WPA. I still use them today when I travel. [...]
Caregiver art by Ted Crow, Cleveland Plain Dealer
We are a quiet but intrepid tribe, those of us who are in the growing number of parent caregivers.
We are the I’m Coming Soon Platoon.
I’ve refrained from posting much about my summer journey: taking care of my 92-year-old mom with dementia and heart disease and a father with Parkinson’s Disease who turned 94 on Nov. 17. Perhaps their challenges are private. But I now know the pharmaceutical department at the Meier store in Aurora like the back of my hand. Nitrile exam gloves? Aisle 4. Personal cleaning wipes: Aisle 2. [...]
Jeremy Pollack portrait made by James Iska two months ago.
Jeremy Pollack lived in a black and white world which fit him just fine.
His love of noir’, a 1950s love song and the smell of fresh newsprint shaped a colorful life. Pollack died on Nov. 17 after a short bout with pancreatic cancer. He was 55 years old.
His death came just two months after he released “The Hard-Boiled Detective 1,” an acclaimed collection of pulp short stories set in Chicago that he wrote under the pen name Ben Solomon. The writing is tight and rhythmic which amplifies the drama.
Copyright Hector Maldonado
Istanbul is an old city of deep shadows.
The density of 14 million people, regal mosques and the history of the capital of Turkey creates a humble stage. Istanbul has been the capital of four empires, ranging from the Roman Empire (330-395) to the Ottoman Empire (1453-1922).
We are all just passing through.
In March, 2012 I visited Istanbul. Chicago photographer Hector Maldonado and his wife Selin-Isin-Maldonado were my weekend tour guides and they took me to places I will never forget: coffee shops in Cihangir, which overlooked [...]
Thistle Farms staff hamming it up for the 2013 holiday season in their manufacturing area. (Photo by Peggy Napier)
Fiona Prine knows a few things about turning the page.
It has been 21 years since she moved to the United States. Fiona Whelan met her future husband, Maywood, Ill.-born singer-songwriter-storyteller John Prine when she was working in a recording studio in Dublin, Ireland. They married and she moved to Nashville, Tn. where they have raised three boys.
Fiona has said she heard all the words in the old country then found her voice in this country. Her sense of discovery [...]
Steve Liacopoulos of Rite Liquors helps launch Isaac’s art.
When you show your art on the outside border of the Renegade Craft Fair in Chicago, you must really be a renegade.
That is where I found Isaac G. Abarca last month. He was propping up his oil on canvas paintings on a sidewalk near the entrance to the popular arts and crafts fair. He also hung his paintings like Christmas ornaments in a large honeylocust shade tree in front of Rite Liquors, 1649 W. Division.
“Hanging paintings in a tree is a beautiful thing,” Abarca said during a Sunday alcohol free conversation at [...]
Lou. Enough said.
CUBA, Mo.—-Lou Whitney was proud to tell tourists and visiting musicians that the Carter Family lived in a two story Victorian brick house in 1949-50 when they appeared with Red Foley on the radio version of the Ozark Jubilee in Springfield, Mo.
That was Lou; talking about Springfield history before he would talk about himself.
In July we took Lou to the empty lot off of old Route 66 where Mother Maybellle, Anita, Helen and June Carter once lived. Lou stood tall, like a mountain in a meadow. His eyes squinted into the Ozark evening sun. He had his [...]
Ilse in Albuquerque on her Route 66 road trip. (Used with permission.)
I wonder what my roadie friend Ilse would say about Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel’s piece in Atlantic magazine where he wrote that he only wanted to live 75 years.
Ilse is 86 years old and just finished her solo Route 66 trip from Chicago to a photo conference in Albuquerque, N.M. Ilse is too busy to mope around and think about dying young.
Dr. Emanuel wrote, “The fact is that by 75, creativity, originality and producitivity are pretty much gone for the vast, vast majority of us….People can continue to be [...]
Route 66, Seligman, Az. 1991 (Photo by Dave Hoekstra)
Any doubts about the emotional power of Route 66 are cast to the wind when you read the road letters of my friend Ilse who is motoring west from the Great North Woods to a photo conference in Albuquerque, NM. Her words are butterflies, the modest car she calls Isabella is her net.
Ilse is 86 years old.
She has been to 140 countries. She is traveling Route 66 alone. (For details read the previous two posts on this site.) I asked her to stay in touch with us. Here is an essential take-away from her note of Thursday, Sept. [...]
Sleep in a wigwam; Route 66 California, 1991 (Dave Hoekstra photo)
Route 66 is one of America’s most historic common denominators, but because of the road’s accessible depth each traveler sees it in a different light. My friend Ilse has set foot in all seven continents and 140 countries but she had never traveled the Mother Road until this week.
Ilse is 86 years young.
The German-born roadie is driving alone in her “Isabella,” a camel-colored Hunday that is named after the Queen of Spain. Ilse has attended a couple of National Hobo Conventions in Iowa where fellow hobos [...]
Route 66, New Mexico, 1991 (Photo by Dave Hoekstra)
The gentle tones of the dispatch were from another time, one of car hops and flat tops.
Ilse e-mailed me about a week ago after reading Route 66 stories on my website. On Sunday, Sept. 21 she embarked on an eight day trip down Route 66 from Chicago to the 76th conference of the Photographic Society of America in Albuquerque, N.M. Ilse is driving her “Isabella,” a camel-colored Hyundai that she named after the Queen of Spain. She will listen to classic country music on satellite radio and German folk songs. She likes Johnny [...]
