Don't Call The Ice Cream Police

Battling the flu one January evening, I could no longer tolerate my sore throat and took action.  On several occasions, I passed a tiny convenience store about three blocks from my apartment so I set out that snowy night to brave the elements in hopes of getting some ice cream to sooth the razor blades in my throat.  When I entered the store, a short bald Russian man paid me no attention as he sat behind the counter watching a tiny black and white TV.  With my head throbbing, I quickly moved to the large cooler at the back of the store, but I found no ice cream.  An aisle over, I stumbled upon a small freezer filled with ice cream, but a strip of masking tape stood guard over the freezer door.  In my fevered state, my brain couldn’t compute why the freezer was haphazardly taped shut, so I headed to the counter to ask the Russian.  He stammered in broken English something about the bureaucrats at city hall and that he did not have an ice cream license.  I stood there confused and dumbfounded.  Was there such a thing as an ice cream license?  Did you have to stand in line at a DMV-like facility to get said license?  Did I take too much ibuprofen?  The Russian nervously eyed around the store until he eventually broke the silence.  “

You’re not working undercover for the city?” he asked. 

“No,” I said. 

“OK.  I sell you ice cream.”

"Alright," I said as I quietly questioned whether I really wanted unlicensed ice cream. 

As the two of us shuffled to the back of the store, the old Russian mumbled to himself before cautiously lifting the tape off the freezer doors allowing unrestricted access to the frozen concoction.  Without much deliberation, I grabbed a pint of Butter Pecan, paid him, and trekked home.  A few months later I happened upon the corner store and noticed a “FOR LEASE” sign in the now empty storefront.  I bet the Chicago Department of Ice Cream Licensing shut him down. 

Desperately Seeking Sunshine

You've heard the expression: "the only certainties in life are death and taxes."  As Chicagoans, we're guaranteed death, taxes, corrupt politicians, and endless complaining about the weather.  This unseasonably cold winter has earned high marks on my annoyance scale followed closely by complaints about the weather.  Aside from selfies, Facebook is littered with pictures of thermometers that read "-4."  It's cold.  Brutal cold.  High temperatures that are numbers less than zero.  We already had more snow in mid-January than we normally should get all season.  You know what, we have every right to complain!

To cope, I've found myself scheduling my weekend showers at noon.  Who schedules their showers, you're asking?  I do.  At noon, the sun shines directly above my bathroom window and brightens my bathtub in a way that makes bleach blush.  These days my body is craving Vitamin D like a plant desperately seeks sunshine.  If this cold doesn't let up soon, I may call off work....in order to catch my noon appointment with my shower.      

Let's Go To The Beach....And Stay in the Car.

This beautiful view exists beyond the parking lot.

There's a reason that Facebook is populated with numerous pictures of Chicago's lakefront...it's breathtaking.  Just one trip to any of this city's 24 gorgeous beaches reminds us why we tolerate Chicago in January. Any visit to the beach is time well spent.

Recently, I spent an afternoon walking along the lakefront from Hollywood Beach (now called Osterman Beach) all the way south to Montrose Beach.  The weather that day was a thing of beauty: clear blue skies and a temperature that vacillated from sultry to perfect. 

 

Why bother with a view of the skyline when there's this?

That afternoon, I was shocked at how many people were also out enjoying the beaches that afternoon especially considering it was a Thursday.  Most interesting, however, was the number of people at the beach who were sitting in their cars.  Nearly everywhere I went, there was a car parked with someone (usually a man) sitting in the driver's seat.  They weren't on their phones.  They weren't napping.  They were all just sitting in their front seats seemingly doing nothing.  Did these people forget their swim trunks at home?  Were they afraid of sand?  Or were they glued to their radios waiting to hear Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines" for the 9,000th time?  What am I missing here?

The Heat Is....(sigh) On

10/7/12

I compare it to seeing how far you can continue to drive a car once the "Low Fuel" light illuminates.  In this case, once the thermostat in my condo dipped to 62 degrees yesterday evening, I knew that I couldn't hold out any longer.  It was time to flip the switch.  My furnace roared to life and the temperature slowly returned to tolerable allowing me to remove my indoor fleece jacket.  Then came that odd scent that the furnace emits after sitting idle for months.  The reality that winter is near was no longer deniable.  Both stunk up the place.

When Will They Invent An App for This?

9/21/12

Question:
What happens when you wait in line all night to buy the iPhone 5, spend a couple hundred bucks on the gadget, and then walk out of the Apple store? 

Answer:
You drop your phone.  I hope there's an app for this.

A Room of Strangers Unites

The sales departments of eight different magazines shared the same Chicago office where I worked in 2001.  In all, there were about 30 people who worked on the 11th floor, yet I only really knew a handful of those people.  That all changed on the morning of September 11^th.  All of us started that day as strangers standing in a crowded corner office while watching the gruesome images of the World Trade Center flicker on a 13-inch television.  When the first tower collapsed, there were gasps followed by tears, hugs, and then more tears.  By later that morning, bonds had formed in that room that would outlast all of our respective jobs with that company.  I’ll never forget what I saw the morning of 9/11, and I’ll never forget the support from all the strangers in that corner office who I now call friends.    

The First Person To Let Me Through The Door

2/18/12

A skinny 18 year-old kid from Schererville, Indiana jumped off the South Shore train at Chicago’s Randolph Street Station that November morning in 1995.  It was my first day as an intern at a radio station called “FM-100” (100.3FM/WPNT-FM) and I couldn't be more thrilled to get to work.  During an impromptu trip to Chicago a few weeks earlier, my friend Steve and I stopped by the studios of that same radio station seeking a tour.  By the conclusion of the tour, I had talked myself into an internship with Lynne Murray—the midday personality who doubled as the Music Director of the station.  Lynne was a radio veteran who had worked at stations all across the west before landing in Chicago.  Her colleagues referred to her as a “tough broad” and a lover of “boy scouts.”  The latter was made clear on my first day as an intern.  Before slipping on her headphones to go on the air, she turned to me and said, “Oh, and by the way, I don’t date the men I work with.”  I didn’t know why she was telling me that, but I did learn later than she had a penchant for younger men.  

Having worked in the Adult Contemporary format for the bulk of her career, Lynne was used to working with men who programmed stations geared toward women.  She couldn’t stand hearing her male colleagues tell her what women want.  She made mention of it multiple times during my four-month internship.  The following year after my internship ended, I made another surprise visit to Lynne at the studios in the Hancock Tower.  My timing was perfect since she was looking to hire someone to run the controls for an upcoming Sunday morning shift.  I happily accepted and, with that, started my radio career.  I would end up outlasting Lynne at the radio station—she (along with the majority of the on-air staff) was fired in 1997 when the station was sold.  We kept in touch over the next few years through letters, phone calls, and email.  I’ll never forget one particular email that still stands out in my head.  In the spring of 2001, Lynne wrote, “So I’m standing at White Hen on Sunday morning buying a cup of coffee…imagine my surprise when I heard my only intern’s voice on the radio giving me the weather!  My heart was bursting with pride!  I’m so proud of you!”  I consider it high praise especially considering Lynne had another intern after my internship expired.  You couldn’t wipe the smile off my face.  It was—and remains—the greatest compliment that anyone in the business has ever paid me.  A few weeks later, a colleague phoned me with some terrible news: Lynne was found dead in her apartment.  

A packed room filled with friends and former colleagues gathered at Mike Ditka’s Restaurant to honor Lynne’s memory.  We celebrated her the way she would have wanted—sharing our favorite Lynne stories and, of course, wine.  That evening as I exited, I saw a prayer card sitting on a table next to some photos of Lynne.  I slid the card into my pocket.  Since that day, I haven’t gone to work without Lynne at my side.  That same prayer card that I slid into my pocket in 2001 still remains in a special compartment of my work bag.  The card looks a bit weathered these days, but it still serves as a reminder of the woman who took a chance by hiring some teenaged kid from Indiana.  Thank you, Lynne, for believing in me and for being at my side all these many years.   

Peter Cetera Puts A Song to Bed

4/19/11

Show us those pearly whites, Peter!

Songs that fade out seem and don't contain a proper ending seem incomplete to me.  I picture a young Phil Collins struggling to come up with an ending to his big 1980 hit, "One More Night."  "No problem," said his producer.  "Just keep singing 'Oooh oooh oooh' and get Phillip Bailey to wail on the sax while I fade out all the tracks."  The literary equivalent would be to write a story but not come up with an ending—just put an ellipsis at the end.  For example: “That’s when I realized that my life’s purpose was about to change for the worse.  The next portion of my life would be dedicated toward finding out why I...”  Wait a minute, there’s no conclusion!  The ending is undefined.  Now, take a song like that ends abruptly (or “cold” as they say in the biz).  Think about the song “Hard to Say I’m Sorry” from Chicago.  Musical genius Peter Cetera brought in a brass section, piano, drums, guitars, and possibly even a glockenspiel to put a big old exclamation point on the end of that song.  Go ahead and listen to it, I think that you’ll find it to be...