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Go Out and Get “Get Capone”

Jonathan Eig has just released his new book, Get Capone: The Secret Plot that Captured America’s Most Wanted Gangster. By all accounts (check the advance reviews at the website), it is a terrific read, bringing alive a slice of Chicago history as vivid as a razor across the throat.

Jon allowed me to read a couple of passages early on, but I can’t wait to read the entire book. I also can’t wait to see him on The Daily Show at the end of the week.

Go out and get this book. IPhone users might also like to buy his app, Chicago Gangland Tours, which will allow you to find places in town connected with more than 600 historical facts. Makes me want to go buy an iPhone right now, just to cruise the city.

Jon allowed me to submit some questions for my column **cough cough** at True/Slant, exploring the role Chicago itself played in Capone’s rise and meteoric fall. You can find it by clicking here.

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New true/slant post up, FRESH!

Check it out, and if you’re curious about true/slant, browse around the site and tag me as a commentator you’re “following”. It’s the future, baby!!

GOP: Justice is more than NYC can handle

The announcement from Atty. Gen. Eric Holder that alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four other Guantanamo inmates would be tried in federal court was a strong statement of the primacy of the rule of law in this country.

Predictably, the GOP leadership hated it.

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Freelancers, Take Care of Yourselves

Just posted a little essay at true/slant, reminding all the freelancers and the self-employed to keep some perspective in this hard economic period. There are benefits to being your own boss, but a lot of pitfalls, and we should be good to ourselves so we don’t fall into them. Please check it out, and add any ideas that I might have left off my list:

Self-Employed? Take care of your best employee

….
There’s a reason you are working on your own, and that is because you’re good at it. Especially if you are in a creative field, take some consolation in the fact that your skills are unique and are a wondrous gift. It was true when you were young, idealistic and naïve, and it’s still true.

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New true/slant post up

Tired of those messages on license plates that carry messages other than “Live Free or Die” and “Famous Potatoes”? Check out my new post at True/slant.

And if you want to do a guy a favor, sign up for a free membership at true/slant, then mark me was one of the writers you’re “following.” The more followers I get, the more likely I’ll be asked to keep writing for them. You’ll also be supporting a web journalism model that actually pays the people who supply the content! Yes, let’s show them it can be done!!

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Lost Chicago, Post-Olympics

Okay, the big announcement for whether Chicago will get the 2016 Olympics is due in about 90 minutes. Maybe we’ll get it, maybe Rio de Janiero will be the dark horse/sentimental underdog and pull it out in the end. But in case the Windy City does land the games, I wanted to make a list of the things that will inevitably change or disappear in the next 7 years.

–The wide open, quiet, 19th-century feel of Washington Park

–The media neglect of the whole South Side.

–The quiet mornings on the Lincoln Park rowing course, which will be upgraded and lead to a new wave of Sculling-Mania!!

–The days when $1.5 billion seems like a large amount of money.

–the four-star Chicago flag, which will certainly get a fifth for the Games. (How interesting that the six-pointed star is now being graphically used all over the place, from T-shirts to company logos. Why did that take so long to think of?)

–Our feeling of being the Second City (though the condescension from New York will never stop–“It used to be the Hog Butcher to the world, now it’s the locker room.”)

–An affordable cab ride.

–the make-up of a good Chicago hot dog. There are bigger things to worry about, but I’m pretty certain that the recipes for basic local foods — hot dogs, Italian beef, Frango mints from The Store That Must Not Be Named — will all be watered down and homogenized to accommodate the new visitors. The opposite problem might be that every new restaurant in town is going to be a deep-dish pizzeria, “authentic Chicago style”.

–Richie Daley is just going to get scarier and scarier.

UPDATE: Wait, we DIDN’T get it??? Who the hell do they think they are????

Jaun Antonio Sumthinorother? He’s a DEAD man!!! Didn’t he watch The Untouchables??

Read my take at true/slant here.

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My First Post for true/slant

true/slant is a very interesting new site for news and opinion. My friend Lou Carlozo has been posting there for a few months now, and he helped me get connected with the site. It’s quite a lot of fun to bounce around and see what the writers are thinking and commenting on one another. A few are journalists you’ve heard of–Matt Taibbi, Jamie Malanowski–and some are unknown but reporting from all over the world. It’s worth checking out.

Now for the next few months (at least), I’ll also be a contributor to the site. I’ve posted my first commentary and think you’ll like it. (If you’re sniffing around my site now, you know what to expect from me. No much reasoned analysis, lots of infantile humor.) If you like the essay, please register with true/slant and mark me down as someone you’re following. If I get enough readers following me, I get a pony.

Here’s the link for the essay, and an excerpt is below:

Dear Hugh Hefner:

I don’t know whether to thank you or sue you. For decades you’ve been blanketing America with acres and acres of pink, blemish-free female skin. You’ve been hawking the Playboy lifestyle of sophistication, erudition, and expensive electronics. You’ve been responsible for more elevated mattresses than Serta, Sealy and the Craftmatic Adjustable Bed combined.

But you had an agenda. You were trying to make me gay, weren’t you? (And I thought that’s what Details Magazine was for.)