Hibernian Media and its chairman, Mike Houlihan – with the help of Hibernian’s Irish American Labor Alliance – launch the Monthly Movie Hooley Friday, Oct. 24 at Gaelic Park and Saturday, Oct. 25 at the Irish American Center with a screening of a film based on Houlihan’s comic recollection of growing up in Chicago,… Continue Reading
By Mike Danahey August is almost over. Summer blazed by, and boy was it a busy month for me. At least by my sometimes slothful standards. Which is to say, on occasion I double nap. When I get so tired from a nap I take another one. This usually happens in the fall, during football… Continue Reading
If my recent trip to Nashville taught me anything, it’s that visiting tourist attractions on the third and final day of a three-day holiday weekend is a grand idea. See, we headed down for the Labor Day weekend. That sounds like a Jimmy Buffett lyric. But he went to San Francisco. We spent… Continue Reading
There aren’t any bears living along Little Bear Ridge Road, the new play by Samuel Hunter running at the Steppenwolf through Aug. 4. I was disappointed. Bears are having their pop culture moment. Of course, here in Chicago, the Bears are basically the Taylor Swift of sports. There’s The Bear on Hulu. I haven’t… Continue Reading
Louis Armstrong is the subject of the musical “A Wonderful World” which is playing at the Cadillac Palace Theatre in downtown Chicago through Sunday, Nov. 2. No matter how well they are done, when I see works of fiction based on the lives of real people, I’m always wary. Events get changed around. Characters… Continue Reading
The Broadway-bound musical Paradise Square is not based on Meatloaf’s Paradise by the Dashboard Light. And if you have two tickets to Paradise Square at the Nederlander in Chicago, please, for your show date’s sake, don’t start singing along to Eddie Money’s hit from the late 1970s. Glad we got that out of the way.… Continue Reading
Hibernian Media is in the final stages of editing their masterpiece IN SEARCH OF WEEPING JIM, the story of the late 31st Ward Chicago Alderman James Ambrose Kearns and his role as the “father of the Chicago flag.” The film is financed by the Consulate General of Ireland in Chicago and other generous donors. Kearns… Continue Reading
I first interviewed writer John McNally some 15 years ago, upon the publication of The Book of Ralph. It’s the only novel I’ve read set on the southwest side of Chicago, and quite possibly the only novel, ever, that mentions the band Styx. Back then, when bookstores weren’t so rare, I was out visiting family… Continue Reading
Welcome to my not-so-novel coronavirus chronicle. It’s just like Narnia, sans the lion, the witch and the wardrobe. How are things in your little corner of the quarantine, your safe space shelter-in-place? I’m fortunate enough to have a 5-year-old serving as my life coach through all this. She’s way better than the dimwits you find on… Continue Reading
Hollywood can’t make up its mind, whether to call it “Movie Hooley II” or “Son of Movie Hooley”. But Barbara Scharres, program director of The Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago, and Irish American News columnist and radio personality Mike Houlihan, have announced their plan to present the second annual “Irish American Movie Hooley” at… Continue Reading