July 13, 2024: Assassination attempt on President Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
I was at an early dinner with a friend when I got a text that simply said, “Holy shit.” That seemed a strange message. So I texted back, “What the heck?? What is holy shit?”
That is how I found out that Trump was shot.
Continue reading “RNC: Thoughts on Assassination Attempt”
What started as a single exercise to get me out of my comfort zone has grown into a regular gig photographing protests here in Chicago. Over the past two years, I have improved my skills dramatically, I have found the courage to photograph people unapologetically, I have claimed the authority to record what is going on out in the streets, I have befriended a handful of photographers who are doing the same thing as I am, and I have learned a LOT about people, politics, and propaganda.
We are about to embark on what is likely to be a crazy timeline to be living through (as if the past four + years haven’t already been insane!) as we count down the days to the 2024 presidential election.
Continue reading “Election 2024: traveling to the RNC and the DNC”
I have been taking photos of protests here in Chicago for a couple of years now. And I am addicted! One reason I love it is because the opportunity for creative, interesting photos is unlimited at these events. Another reason is that as someone who used to teach journalism, and assigned a book in my classes that was specifically about fake news (Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News by Bernard Goldberg) even over twenty years ago, long before Trump coined the term. I only bring that up because I have had people explain to me that there is no such thing as fake news, that Trump made it up because he didn’t like the coverage about him. I always try to explain that no, the news has always been “fake.” So I really love the opportunity to witness a newsworthy event in person and then compare it to the news coverage. I don’t think there has been a single time when I have felt that the coverage was objective and/or fair.
For those who think I’m exaggerating, I would ask you to think about a time you were involved in what became a news event. How did the media coverage compare to your experience? How accurate were the stories with basic facts? Knowing that the media struggle to report the stories that you actually know something about accurately, you have to ask yourself what evidence there is that would make you assume they get all of the other stories right. But I digress…
Continue reading “Thoughts on Attending a Trump Rally”
Last month I reflected on the best days of my 25-year teaching career. You can read about that HERE.
But it should be no surprise that not all days were great. What might be a surprise is that the worst days had absolutely nothing to do with my classes or with my students. The worst days were thanks to administrators and fellow professors and instructors. Those were the days of charges of racism and sexual harassment, of lawsuits, of spying, of cruel gossip, of corruption. That, however, is a subject for another day.
Right now, I want to focus on my four worst days in the classroom.
Continue reading “The Worst of Times: Thoughts on Teaching”
Watching the current protests occurring on university campuses has gotten me thinking back on my own teaching career and the controversies and protests that I lived through at my own campus.
I spent 25 years as an English professor in Los Angeles, and when I moved to Chicago in 2019, I stepped back in my career and sought a part-time position at a community college in the Loop. Unfortunately, a month and a half into my first semester there, politicians imposed the “14 days to stop the spread” lockdown, which ultimately lasted for multiple semesters. It also resulted in my decision to permanently walk away from teaching.
I have no regrets. I simply refused to teach under the circumstances given to us during COVID lockdowns. Remote teaching for an at-risk population with limited resources, such as at Harold Washington College, was useless. Maybe not for all classes but certainly for a developmental English course. So I refused to participate.
Continue reading “The Best of Times: Thoughts on Teaching”
In the early 2000s when my kids were very young, I wrote a monthly column for a Los Angeles parenting magazine, but I also spent my free time away from teaching writing opinion pieces, narrative nonfiction, personal essays, political commentary, and anything else that interested me. Some of those were submitted to (and often published in!) a variety of magazines, newspapers, and even websites. Others were never sent anywhere but served as a means of honing my craft. After all, according to Malcolm Gladwell and his book Outliers, I needed to clock my 10,000 hours. So I wrote and wrote.
What follows is an essay I wrote in 2003 – over twenty years ago! The fun part about this is I completely forgot about the day my daughter discovered I was the tooth fairy, leaving me eternally grateful for having captured this in words.
How about you? Do you remember when your kids discovered that you were the tooth fairy?
Continue reading “Thoughts on the Demise of the Tooth Fairy”
The other day I had a semi-complicated transaction that required my presence at the bank, something that could not just be done at the ATM outside. Having to go into the bank is an errand I rarely look forward to. When running errands, I often find myself doing everything I can to keep from interacting with customer service people. I keep my head down, avoid eye contact, complete my transaction, and get out of there. Usually it’s because I am simply trying to check off items on my list. But it is probably also because ever since COVID lockdowns, I am shockingly willing to go out in public looking like I just rolled out of bed. (Yes, I am working on that!).
Continue reading “Thoughts on Chatting with Strangers”This is the first in a series I am writing titled “Praying in Chicago: Religion in the Windy City” that will be published on Substack going forward. You can read the introduction to the project HERE to get more information on what is to come! Then you can subscribe to Substack for free for the rest of the series.
I chose Holy Name Cathedral as the first church I would attend for a couple of reasons. For one, it is close by. And across the street from my gym, which means I walk by it four to five times a week. And second, it is the seat of the Catholic Archdiocese here in Chicago. So that seemed as good a place to start as any.
As for a little bit of history, this Roman Catholic congregation was established in 1852. Right before the church was formed, in 1846, Chicago had a population of around 14,000 people. An influx of German and Irish immigrants, most of whom were Catholic, were settling in large numbers north of the Chicago River. The only Catholic church around was St. Josephs, which was built by the Germans. As a result, mass was in Latin, but the sermons and confessions were in German.
Continue reading “Visiting Holy Name Cathedral”I don’t attend church. And I haven’t attended church in years.
Currently, I live right in the heart of Chicago: a block off Michigan Avenue and across the street from the Hancock building. And there are dozens of churches within walking distance from my apartment. One day I realized that I had not stepped foot into a single one since moving here a few years ago. Which is strange because whenever I travel, visiting churches is near the top of my list of sights to see.
I’m a bit of an amateur photographer (although I have been hired out a few times for events), but since moving here, I have been drawn to capturing urban landscapes and street photography. You can probably imagine that Chicago has provided me with more material than I could exhaust in a lifetime.
Continue reading “Praying in Chicago: Religion in the Windy City”
I am pissed.
Whether or not that is the appropriate emotion to have, I can’t say, but that is what boils up most days I walk down Michigan Avenue lately.
Sanctuary city Chicago is now learning what it actually means to be a sanctuary city. Before this year, the moniker was just another in a series of virtue signals so often practiced by our politicians to manipulate us and by everyone else on social media to impress their friends and to signal their alignment with the current cause célèbre.
Continue reading “Thoughts on Sanctuary Cities”
The Writing Life 