Joe Janes 10/23/19 Joe Janes 10/23/19

The Minutes of Our Last Meeting | Lynching Lite

Are you telling me white people aren’t allowed to be lynched? That’s racist!

Contributing Writer 10/22/19 Contributing Writer 10/22/19

The Case Against Joe Biden

With the House formally going forward with impeachment, the premise of Joe Biden’s whole campaign is obsolete. He and his campaign claimed he was the most electable and the best candidate to beat Donald Trump – patently not true anymore.

Don Hall 10/21/19 Don Hall 10/21/19

I Believe... [Insurance is Only an Entry Fee]

…that insurance is no more than the membership fee for entering a doctor’s office. It is not actually insurance against catastrophe but a payment to be allowed in the room.

David Himmel 10/21/19 David Himmel 10/21/19

Hope Idiotic | Part 15

Chuck was going to write. He was going to edit the magazine. He was going to be productive. But he miscalculated the balance of booze and pills and his ability to work, so he instead ended up getting plowed, destroyed the motel room and slept on the beach with his head inside the empty beer case to protect his glasses.

Don Hall 10/20/19 Don Hall 10/20/19

The Destructiveness of Deprivation and Want

In 1974, I used to troll around my Arizona neighborhood and beat up Cub Scouts regularly.

Elizabeth Harper 10/19/19 Elizabeth Harper 10/19/19

Tutoring Chicago’s Got Talent, or Hey Kids, Let’s Put on a Show at The Store

Tutoring Chicago’s Got Talent is a variety show featuring volunteer tutors and their friends performing music, comedy, poetry, and more. Current and potential volunteers and supporters will have a chance to socialize while enjoying the show. Donations and proceeds from raffle ticket sales will go to benefit Tutoring Chicago.

David Himmel 10/18/19 David Himmel 10/18/19

Notes from the Post-it Wall | Week of October 13, 2019

The Eagles are a grossly overrated band. Separate from that, Hotel California might be the most terrible song ever recorded. Worse, yes, than Rebecca Black’s Friday.

Guest User 10/18/19 Guest User 10/18/19

The Throwing Muse

Here’s what’s wrong with Eric and Marie: Eric is a twenty-eight-year-old writer. He’s alright at it and lives off of it when it pays well, which is most of the time, and he’s made a comfortable space for he and Marie in their marriage in the world. But as of the past two months, and for no particular reason, Eric has the unfortunate luck to be experiencing what writers sometimes call a "block," which some claim does not really exist and others claim can be all but deadly. This is Eric’s problem.

David Himmel 10/17/19 David Himmel 10/17/19

Hope Idiotic | Part 14

CHUCK CLAIMED HE WAS ATTENDING AA MEETINGS ON A REGULAR BASIS. So each morning, Melvin stuck his nose right into Chuck’s open mouth and told him to breathe. These closed-door sessions were disguised as short, daily program meetings so as not to drum up any suspicion that something covert was going on. Not that anyone could have guessed that Chuck was allowing his superior to huff his morning breath.

Joe Janes 10/16/19 Joe Janes 10/16/19

The Minutes of Our Last Meeting | Kellyanne and George Conway Eat Dinner

Nothing can taint my experience of enjoying this steak.

David Himmel 10/16/19 David Himmel 10/16/19

Losing a Best Friend 10 Years Later — Remembering Mike Zigler

On Friday, October 16, 2009, one of my best friends, Mike Zigler, died.

It was a stupid death. One that was completely avoidable if Zigler hadn’t been the man he was, and maybe, if I hadn’t left Las Vegas two years before to continue my life in Chicago. When people ask me how he died I joke and say, “With his hands at two and ten” — the textbook instruction on where a driver should place their hands on the steering wheel. Zigler died in his car, in the garage of my Las Vegas house, which he was renting from me.

Kari Castor 10/15/19 Kari Castor 10/15/19

Book Club Made Me Read It | Sophie's Choice

This sheer meaninglessness, is one of the key overarching themes of Sophie’s Choice. It’s a book that seems frequently to yearn towards meaning and yet has strong undercurrents of nihilism.

Don Hall 10/14/19 Don Hall 10/14/19

I Believe... [Baby Boomers With a Christian Bale Growl]

…that nothing is more true about the Baby Boomer generation than the truth about The Dark Knight: “You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” Remember that Batman was always the hero.

David Himmel 10/14/19 David Himmel 10/14/19

Hope Idiotic | Part 13

She spent the majority of her day sitting at that wall unit writing summary judgments and answering the flurry of emails that poured in. Many of them were only one or two sentences — conversations that could have been easily had over the phone in less time and with less interruption to her train of thought. There’s nothing more distracting for a working writer than to have an email notification going off in the corner of the computer screen every other minute. When she needed a moment to think, she would lean back in her chair and look at the shelf just above her computer at the two framed photographs of her and Lou.

Don Hall 10/13/19 Don Hall 10/13/19

I Like To Watch | Enter the Mollusk (2019)

When I watched Vincent Truman and David Himmel’s Enter the Mollusk, I laughed… hard. It’s both very funny and very on point as all good parody should be. The characters are all very recognizable for someone with my personal connection and yet are universal to someone unfamiliar. Sending up all the pretense and pompous posturing of the entire Chicago storytelling community with a laser-like focus on The Moth in specific.

Guest User 10/12/19 Guest User 10/12/19

Peach Pie — Of Memory, Family, and Home

To mine this impulse buried into everything deep. From the urge to take selfies to the number of children one believes it necessary to have in order to establish a family. Knitted into consumption, desire and expression is this essence which expands and contracts like a lung whose air is self-esteem and self-worth.

David Himmel 10/11/19 David Himmel 10/11/19

Notes from the Post-it Wall | Week of October 7, 2019

It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it that matters. I’ve said this before, and yet, some people still don’t get it. Maybe it’s the way I’m saying it.

Sponsored Content 10/11/19 Sponsored Content 10/11/19

Windy City Empire Singer-Songwriter Night at The Store in Chicago

David Himmel 10/10/19 David Himmel 10/10/19

Hope Idiotic | Part 12

What kind of a boyfriend was he? What kind of a man lets his girlfriend of two years — a close friend for eight years before that — foot the bill for her big thirtieth birthday trip?

Joe Janes 10/9/19 Joe Janes 10/9/19

The Minutes of Our Last Meeting: Improv is Hard

The suggestion is “spatula”. It’s always going to be spatula.