Sixty years ago John Sheetz was doing some business in Milwaukee and wandered into the Red Room of the Plankington Hotel, where a pianist calling himself Walter Busterkeys was tickling the ivories. “My father talked to him,” recalls John’s son Jack, now 80. “Walter had a two-week engagement at the Red Room. My father asked […]
Author Archives: Dave Hoekstra
Posted inNews & Politics
How to Roast a Wild Soul Singer
Tyrone Davis’s friends look back on his greatest hits and some near misses.
Posted inNews & Politics
Team Player
Team Player By Dave Hoekstra Yosh Kawano’s trademark is his floppy white sailor’s hat, which bobs around the Cubs’ blue-capped dugout like a gull at sea. “When you come up,” says Mark Grace, “everybody already knows Yosh. Yosh is the king of Wrigley Field. Anything that happens in this clubhouse has to go through him.” […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Poets’ Corner
Weeds regulars chew on the resignation of Boston Globe coluimnist and poetry slam queen Patricia Smith
Posted inArts & Culture
In Business: a mobile sex shop’s good vibrations
At the Gizzmotic Lounge in Fort Wayne, Indiana, a roadside billboard advertises: “Trucker’s Rate. Cable TV. Coin Laundry.” On a Friday night this spring, the billboard didn’t mention “Ben Wa Balls,” “Old Man Condoms,” or “Pina Colada Nipple Drops,” but those items were available within too. It was slumber party night. Melody Gordon, the local […]