So on the first day of 2014 a girl asked me for a ride and I said no. I drove down to Gary, Indiana, to help someone with a documentary he’s working on. It was a quiet, wintry day in murder city. I got lost while looking for an address and was deciding whether or not to turn onto 5th Avenue when on that street a bundled up black girl started running towards me waving her arm. I rolled down my window as she drew closer and asked me if I could give her a ride to Broadway (several blocks down 5th). I said I couldn’t, that I wasn’t going that way and was late for something. And I apologized. She shrugged and went…
Essays, Interviews, Observations, Pop Culture, Stories, and other Dodginess
Posts by Liffey
The first annual Dodgy Awards honors three women of 2013 who made their mark with beauty, passion, talent, and in at least two cases, controversy. Other year-end awards in various areas are also featured. And so, here are the 2013 Dodgys. The Women of the Year Nadia of “Pussy Riot” Nadezhda “Nadia” Tolokonnikova of the all-female Russian punk activist group Pussy Riot was recently released from prison after serving nearly two years for “hooliganism.” Fellow Riot member Maria “Masha” Aloykhina was released on the same day. The entire lineup of the Pussy girls could have all been Women of the Year. (“Deranged Vaginas” – The Dodgy) Syrian Girl There’s a great line from M*A*S*H in which Hawkeye Pierce tells Margaret ‘Hot Lips’ Houlihan…
Because David Bowie wouldn’t do it Chicago’s WXRT-FM/93.1 can’t get enough of the China Girl. The song was released by David Bowie on his 1983 smash hit album “Let’s Dance” and reached No. 2 on the U.K. singles chart and No. 10 on Billboard. Since then it’s become the most widely played song on “Chicago’s Finest Rock,” sometimes airing three times per hour. During the last few years, however, ‘XRT has encountered a problem – during its seasonal “Holiday Nights” in which the station plays all Yule tunes every night of the 12 days leading up to Christmas – hours worth of music were devoid of “China Girl.” The station tried to convince Bowie to pen a holiday version of the song, but his…
The Dodgy 