Blog Posts

All week long after work I’ve been watching Spike Lee’s documentary, “When The Levees Broke.” The film, subtitled, “A Requiem In Four Acts,” is harrowing, heartfelt, and heartbreaking. It’s made for a few sobering ends to a few long days. But man, oh man, does it make ya’ wonder, What the fuck is going on?…

I was ducking into Andy’s Deli on the corner of 80th & Columbus on my way home from a beloved colleagues bon voyage party when I spotted it there, big as a whale. An 18-wheeler loaded twenty deep with Christmas trees was straddling the east side of Columbus behind the Natural History Museum. Where one…

I’m certainly guilty of a few rock cliché. Sometimes intentionally. Luckily, none in the top twenty. Well, one maybe. Yunno those email lists you can’t get off of no matter how many times you unsusbscribe? I’m on a few of ’em. One of ’em is music related. Comes from a guy named Mikel Derby. I…

I played third base on the Oak Park T-ball All Star team. The All Star Game was on July 4, 1980, on Ridgeland Commons field, just across the street from OPRF High School. It was the first time I played baseball on a manicured, grass and dirt diamond. I hit the first RBI, a triple…

Some forty-six blocks downtown, my colleagues are toasting another banner year at the MTV Holiday Party. I just washed down a fistfull of pills with my third fruit smoothy of the night. There’s nothing lamer than reading blog posts about illness, and how this hurts and that hurts and so on. And lord knows I’ve…

Addictive substances cause the synapses of the mesolimbic dopamine system to flood with excessive amounts of dopamine, creating a brief rush of euphoria more commonly called a “high.” Depressants, such as alcohol, increase concentrations of gamma-aminobutyric acid in the brain resulting in slowed brain activity and a drowsy or calm feeling. THC (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol) — the…