Dime Stories: Steve Jesus, the Magic Lark and the Ghost of Jerry Garcia
By Tony Fitzpatrick My pal Steve Jesus was in town for the weekend’s Grateful Dead end of days. He was happily sad at the prospect of a final Dead show. He was determined to experience the holy trinity...
View ArticleDime Stories: Dime Stories is a Book and I’m Going to Lollapalooza!
By Tony Fitzpatrick If anyone would have told me four years ago that I’d have lasted at this job for four years, I’d have not believed them. This is the longest I’ve ever held a job. I think because I...
View ArticleDime Stories: Canaan Land
By Tony Fitzpatrick In Timothy Egan’s “The Worst Hard Time,” the Dust Bowl tragedy of the thirties is chronicled in painstaking and heartbreaking detail. The “Okies” that Steinbeck later brought to...
View ArticleDime Stories: In Montreal, Thinking of New Orleans
By Tony Fitzpatrick It’s an unusual experience applying for a work permit in another country. It makes one feel some empathy for those who have to go through this process in the U.S. I’m in Montreal,...
View ArticleDime Stories: A Bird for Jesus of Montreal
By Tony Fitzpatrick I’ve spent the last couple of weeks in Montreal working on a TV show. I’ve never been here before but in certain parts of the city and the subway, I’d gotten this odd feeling of...
View ArticleDime Stories: Bluejays and Rahm Emanuel’s September Surprise
By Tony Fitzpatrick In early folklore, blue jays were thought to be hand-servants of the devil because of their noisy and boisterous nature. I remember them as a pleasant and mysterious part of...
View ArticleDime Stories: Memories of a Caddy
By Tony Fitzpatrick When he was in his thirties, my friend Vince Solano could hit a golf ball 300 yards. He was thick, had huge arms and the strength of a weightlifter. Now, thirty-five years later, he...
View ArticleDime Stories: Win It for Mr. Cub!
By Tony Fitzpatrick As I write this, the Cubs have gone down two games to nothing to the hated Mets. I surprised a great many of my diehard Sox fan friends by wishing the Cubs well in the playoffs....
View ArticleDime Stories: The Best Living Former Sun-Timesman, Dave Hoekstra, Writes A...
By Tony Fitzpatrick In his new book, “The People’s Place: Soul Food Restaurants and Reminiscences from the Civil Rights Era to Today,” former Sun-Times man Dave Hoekstra relates the histories of...
View ArticleDime Stories: Some Thoughts From the Set of “Chi-Raq”
By Tony Fitzpatrick As of this writing, 2,631 people have been shot in the City of Chicago this year, 389 of them killed since January 1. Over this weekend, eight people were shot dead, and forty-five...
View ArticleDime Stories: One Week in Chicago
By Tony Fitzpatrick For the past week I’ve watched footage from the Paris attacks on the various news outlets. Some are respectful and measured, some are tantamount to the pornography of grief. There...
View ArticleDime Stories: Mr. Mayor, Step Down
By Tony Fitzpatrick The harpy eagle, the largest eagle in the Americas, lives high above the jungle canopy in Central and South America, at the top of the food chain. Centuries ago the Incas and the...
View ArticleDime Stories: The Avenue of American Stories
By Tony Fitzpatrick Chicago is never more beautiful or dangerous than it is at night. The workman-like, bustling, endless hustle of daylight becomes a fleet and sleek animal at night. Dressed in lights...
View ArticleDime Stories: I Feel Your Bern
By Tony Fitzpatrick Well the Iowa clown car has emptied and the good news is the only candidate who seems remotely presidential damn near ran the table. Two days ago, the pundits and talking heads on...
View ArticleDime Stories: Some Thoughts on 2666
By Tony Fitzpatrick Shortly before his death in 2003, Roberto Bolaño, the great Chilean novelist, mailed off the manuscript for “2666,” his sprawling, frustrating, multi-layered masterpiece about a...
View ArticleDime Stories: Smelting in Chicago
By Tony Fitzpatrick At the end of March and in early April of every year the smelts of Lake Michigan decide to kill themselves. The little fish haul ass from the deeper parts of this treacherous lake,...
View ArticleDime Stories: Donald Trump Versus the People, or Candy-Ass Takes His Ball and...
By Tony Fitzpatrick When I first took this job I had no intention of ever writing about politics. I don’t like politicians and the ones I do, I can count on one hand and still have enough fingers to...
View ArticleDime Stories: The Saddest Music on Western Avenue
By Tony Fitzpatrick As any good car thief or auto parts thief can tell you, Western Avenue is home to the Midnight Auto, the night-and-day marketplace for hot cars and parts (now mostly just parts) in...
View ArticleDime Stories: Guardian Peregrines at St. Mary’s
By Tony Fitzpatrick There is no faster animal on earth than a Peregrine falcon. They can drop at 200 miles per hour and have been clocked even faster. Often they hunt by turning themselves into a...
View ArticleDime Stories: Dick Tracy’s Chicago Crimestoppers
By Tony Fitzpatrick In the mid-sixties, the Sunday funnies were a portal to another world. They were really great then. My favorite strip was Dick Tracy, for all kinds of reasons. For one, it took...
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