Mike Doyle is a longtime autistic, gay, Jewish, Disnerd Chicago blogger.
Media
Rest in peace, acclaimed Windy City author-activist-broadcast personality and media luminary Studs Terkel, who died today in his North Side home at the age of 96. A fellow former New Yorker, like me Studs never drove a car and once he got to Chicago never left, by dint of simple, deep love of this p
Politics
During Election 2006, I had the good fortune to participate in 7 Days @ Minimum Wage, a video diary of working Americans struggling to keep their families afloat on minimum-wage pay. I interviewed Jessica, a single mom in Chicago. Her searing answers and barely contained sorrow made her, much to my
Politics
Here's an amazing ad which speaks beautifully and mercilessly for itself. It's why I early voted for Barack Obama. And why you should vote for him, too.
Media
This month, Community Media Workshop releases the 18th edition of its annual media guide, 'Getting On the Air, Online & into Print'. Long the undisputed bible of Chicagoland news media contacts, if you're a nonprofit communications manager or public-relations specialist working anywhere near the sou
Life
There are many words that your doctor can probably go ahead and edit out of an oral report on your CT scan results. 'Most likely benign' are not among them. Given the rigamarole and drang I went through that led up to the words being written, I felt I had earned hearing them.
Food and Drink
Last week, Take Me Out co-owner Karen Lim emailed to to report the eatery will be back in business starting Saturday, October 18th. She'll be celebrating by giving out free Little Hotties, and that's reason enough to show up in my book.
Life
There's nothing like the feeling that you're eternally just about to pass a frozen chicken to light a fire under your butt. Under those circumstances, however, home remedies can only go so far. Their effectiveness tends to run out much the same time that your dignity does, too. In my case, both limi
Backstory
Another in a string of recent unexpected happenings, last week, fellow blogger Chris Brunn asked to interview me for the Third Coast Audio Festival. He was fascinated by my being a fan of the Chicago Diner's Radical Reuben. So...he interviewed me eating one.
Food and Drink
Lately, my life has been a string of unexpected occurrences that have taken even this life-is-flux loving Buddhist by surprise. Some haven't been so pleasant (more on those later). Two of the happiest have been my rekindled friendship with pastry-chef Chris, and my discovery, through said fellow foo
Family
Perhaps the biggest open secret in my life is my heritage. The Irish last name is a red herring. I'm actually one-hundred percent Hispanic. Although I never did learn to speak Spanish in childhood, I did learn a thing or two in the kitchen. My most cherished culinary memory from childhood will alway
Life
The first step to getting healthy is admitting you have a problem. There's no getting around it, I am hopelessly addicted to Cincinnati chili. I find myself making excuses for being in Lincoln Square, eight miles from my downtown home, to accidentally drop in at Cinner's, Chicago's only authentic Qu
Food and Drink
When I told the Gapers Block editors last week that I wanted to take them up on their last-minute offer to interview Food Network celebrity chef Sandra Lee, creator of the Semi-Homemade television and cookbook empire, their response was instructive: 'You're not going to shred her, are you?'