Sideways Mencken

I do a Q and A for the London Telegraph on the subject of Chicago: My kind of town. They cut some stuff. For example, under the category of...

So, I'm in London about halfway through this book tour thing. Today I did some improv stuff for Wordia.com. That went fine. As did th...

So, off to London this afternoon for a week-long book tour thing. Sign some books, schmooze with booksellers, hang out with the Egmont peop...

You know, I get that the AIG bonus thing makes for lots of fun cable news outrage.   For 24 hours.  But we're past that now.  So could w...

Today Stephen King — yeah, that Stephen King — wrote this to my editor, Katherine Tegen: I’ve been corresponding with your “Michael Grant” ...

That's me in the top picture. See, I have this packable fedora, right? I wear it to keep the sun out of my eyes as I write. But I als...

One of the many religious tenets of the Church of Saint Ronnie O'Reagan is this: if you raise marginal rates on the well-off, the well-...

What is the point in writing about politics now? I mean, I need some opposition to really get motivated. There has to be some jeopardy. I...

It seems I have a quota. Who knew? When I'm writing 5 or 6 pages a day of actual paid work, I blog here, I blog at my kidlit blog, I r...

We couldn't at first figure out why Bobby Jindal made us laugh so hard. One reason here. That plus the jaw-dropping content. Really,...

I swear to God I have tried to help my Republican and right-of-center friends. I've tried to warn you that Obama was neither a fool, no...

Can we dispense with one thing up front? It's not the "magic of the marketplace." There's no magic. There was never any...

You ever notice how an agile and disturbed mind can take a compliment and turn it into an insult? My wife is a genius at this. Most wives ...

Because life is good to bloggers: You'll never guess which two App Store developers have engaged in a legal battle over trademark righ...

Michael Reynolds (Grant), Katherine Appleg*te and Lady Liberty. Photo by our son, Jake.

Your preferences may vary. These are ours: 10) Dick! (Includes Dickhead!) 9) Cocksucker! 8) Motherfucker! 7) Bastard! 6) Son of a bitch! (V...

Mild-mannered Barack Obama is . . . the Stupidifier. It's amazing. Republicans of normal intelligence when confronted by Obama, suffer ...

I know what you think. You think Republicans hate America. You think Republicans care more about their own political necks than they do th...

We've been in California for a couple of months now. I love the weather. Today, February 2nd, I spoke with my friend Alex by phone. A...