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Pinball 1977

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This week's cover story in Chicago Reader is about Roger Sharpe , the man who played a huge role in legalizing pinball machines in the 1970s. His two sons are still involved in the scene and do their part in promoting pinball machines. The author of the article, Ryan Smith, put a post on the paper's blog Bleader about how pinball machines were illegal in Chicago for decades , and how the ban was overturned in 1977. The reason why is because pinball machines were considered "gambling," and the big fear was that mob bosses would use them as a way to make money. As late as 1976 Alderman Ed Burke (who's still in the city council) argued against legalizing pinball machines for this reason - he was also concerned that kids would waste their lunch money on the machines. I bring all this up because despite this ban, Chicago was one of the big centers for manufacturing pinball machines - Stern Pinball, American Pinball, and the Chicago Gaming Company are some of the...
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Who are my idols?

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When I joined the publishing company, I visited folks at a media startup I interned at a few months previously. One of them was an advisor and an ex-journalist who'd gone into venture capital investing, and he suggested I find a mentor: someone who could "take [me] under their wing, teach you the ins and outs of the craft, and help you realize your full potential." A few years later, the publishing company collapsed, and the publisher and I were at each others throats over what went wrong, who was responsible and other petty shit when we should've moved on with our lives. The company collapsed because a book I wrote (or "co-wrote" with the publisher) didn't meet sales expectations, and they spent so much money on it out of their own coffers that they couldn't function anymore. I didn't have a mentor there - I had a bully of a boss who I couldn't question or challenge. I don't like being in an adversarial relationship with anyone, esp...
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Doing a lot at once

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I'm no multitasker - I agree with the growing consensus that it's a bad idea. It overtaxes your brain and the tasks you do suffer because you don't concentrate as hard on them as you should. Having said that, what I've always pride myself on is "doing a lot of things at once." In college I wrote for the school newspaper, had my own radio show for a spell, took internships, and had a load and a half of classes. It was overwhelming (and my work did suffer for it at times), but the most satisfying thing about this was I'd go back to my bed exhausted from doing so much. I felt like I'd earned sleep. When I worked at the publisher I said once "I enjoy doing a lot of things at once," and this irked the publisher. He may have thought I said I "enjoy multitasking," which I don't. Unfortunately I got out of the habit by concentrating so hard on one thing: Writing a book. I devoted myself to it, working on it all day, every day for...
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"Always and forever a Journalist"

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The opening line of Rudyard Kipling's short story "A Matter of Fact" is "Once a priest, always a priest; once a mason, always a mason; but once a journalist, always and forever a journalist." I did that for a while. I wasn't any good, but I did it. And now that I'm looking to do something else I find myself unable to shake the label. Maybe it's because I didn't go into journalism out of a burning desire to tell the truth, but it was one avenue of things I wanted to do. I wanted to write, and journalism is one way to write and get paid - at least it was in 2007. Then 2008 hit and verifying the truth wasn't necessary anymore. But, it got burrowed into me, that importance of checking the facts, writing crisp copy. It'll never leave. It led me into a publishing job working for someone who didn't give a damn about facts, relevance, or any of that stuff you need to worry about as a journalist. But I cared, and it cost me just about e...
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