Time to Settle Accounts
January 1, 2013: Because it’s cold out there.
“I need food!” Train grumbled after Rose left. The New Years party had ended up back at my place, and after we all said goodbye to Rose in the morning, the group was down to me, Train, MJ, and Rota. “Breakfast,” he specified, “I must have breakfast.” Continue reading “Because it’s cold out there.”
Time To Settle Accounts
May 2, 2012: Up on cripple creak.
I was walking past Trump Tower heading to Clark & Lake when I saw southbound traffic at a standstill on Wabash. It was a hot, sticky afternoon, and drivers honked horns and dipped their sweaty foreheads out of their open windows, squinting ahead. Continue reading “Up on cripple creak.”
Time to Settle Accounts
February 13, 2012: Ingenuity.
I was downtown, walking east on Van Buren when, just west of Wabash, I saw a man standing by the Van Buren fence “holding” a change cup supported by what looked like a bronze hook that clasped to the rim of the cup and then led to the man’s pocket. Four people, including one man wearing a hat that read “Jesus is #1,” passed him walking the other way, toward me and scoffed at the man’s request for change. Continue reading “Ingenuity.”
Time To Settle Accounts
January 30, 2012: Buzz off.
From roof beams to wall rails to the platform and back, they flapped and soared and pecked at food. Crumbs of bread, bits of artificial chocolate, all dropped by the lanky, talking creatures; they fed. They perched on the rails in clusters, watching the talkers enter and exit the speeding metal boxes. They swarmed the bits of meal that fell to the wooden planks, eating, scouring, survival of the fittest, rabid, nourished. They zoomed past the stationary heads, showing off for each other and mocking the talkers. Continue reading “Buzz off.”
Time to Settle Accounts
January 7, 2012: One size fits all.
“Well what about this?” the woman asked her son about a sharp-looking argyle, the two of them exploring the men’s department at Nordstrom Rack. She looked a bit older than me, worn down from the battle of reluctant shopping. I was in the coat section, waiting for a Nordstrom employee to return with news about my potential winter coat – did they have my size? We would see… Continue reading “One size fits all.”
Time to Settle Accounts
January 4, 2012: Negotiating.
“Socks! Got those tube socks!” the man shouted on the westbound Green Line. “One pair for a dollar, pack of six for five.” He was a short man in a black leather coat and a black toque with furry ear flaps, and he was marching through the aisles as people looked away. A man seated nearby finished a phone conversation and looked up, briefly making eye contact with the salesman. Continue reading “Negotiating.”
Time to Settle Accounts
January 1, 2012: Life of a party.
After discussing several potential iterations, New Years 2012 ended up being a loft party in a building at the six corners, followed by a post-midnight gathering at my apartment. My lone objective was to be with Ric and Rota, and once that was in hand, location was secondary.
The loft is an enormous space segmented into three parts – a large room used as the main dance hall, a smaller back room with the bar, and a secluded upstairs storage area off limits to guests. Large men in black SECURITY t-shirts greeted us upon our arrival, and after some confusion over my name and the comp list, Ric (my +1) and I entered. Rota and his law school friends were already inside, having bought tickets the night before. Continue reading “Life of a party.”
Last year I released Good Tunes For Two Bucks, a compilation of 12 songs from 12 Chicago artists. Due to time, budgets, and schedule constraints, I am not releasing a mixtape for 2011. But who cares? Here are 21 artists I had the pleasure of meeting/interviewing/working with/listening to in 2011, mostly Chicago artists along with some non-Chicagoans I covered.
These are not necessarily songs that were released this year, (though most are) but rather songs and artists that I discovered in 2011. Below is a six-pack snack pack. For the full list, please hit up PerformerMag.com. Happy New Year! Be safe, have fun, drink champagne. Continue reading “Good Tunes for 2011”
A Friday salute to my old friend MC Rota of the Nocturnals! More clips below…
Download “To Be Continued…” the second album from The Nocturnals
A People with Passion series
Chicago journalism
August 17, 2011: Clayton Hauck
In June 2006, photographer Clayton Hauck began snapping photos of drinkers in Chicago’s nightlife scene, a project that became the widely-beloved everyoneisfamous.com. In February 2011, after nearly five years of shooting, Hauck hung up his nightlife camera and began working in the news arena for the Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Reader, and Hoy.
In the fifth installment of Jack M Silverstein’s Chicago journalism People With Passion interview series, Hauck discusses his introduction to photography, the benefits of shooting the nightlife scene, and the time he (nearly) got Arab Spring photos in Morocco. Continue reading “People With Passion: Clayton Hauck”
ReadJack.com 