Is this you? As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.
Claim your profile
Articles by Ted Kleine
The Inside Track
I've never walked into Hawthorne Race Course without pitching a quarter to the blind beggar who sits outside the grandstand. As they hunch toward the gate, most horseplayers ignore the clatter of coins in his tin cup, his long woodwind cry of "Please help the bliiiind!" I think he brings good luck. The first time I tipped him, I had a winning day, so I've been doing it since. I got my start at the Reader by writing a cover story about the racetrack.
Leave it to Beavers
Anything goes in the City Council's swinging new chambers. By Ted Kleine Alderman William Beavers is not ashamed of his vices. Back in April, during a City Council hearing on an honorary "Hugh Hefner Way" sign for Walton Street, a dissenting feminist quoted from Linda Lovelace's autobiography Ordeal, which portrays Hefner as a filthy pimp. Beavers interrupted the bluestocking. "Have you ever read it?" he asked. The woman confessed she hadn't. "Well, I've read it," he harrumphed.
Is Bobby Rush in Trouble?
Bobby Rush's enemies smell blood. Last year, in a mayoral bid that even one of Rush's supporters--Cook County Board president John Stroger--calls "a stupid political judgment," the congressman was flattened by the Daley machine. He won only 28 percent of the vote citywide: more significant, he lost the Second Ward, where he's committeeman, and barely eked out a majority of the black vote.
Is This Man a Monster?
The voice booming through the phone line belongs to Tom Smith, a commander at the Palatine Police Department. Thirteen summers ago, he answered a call reporting a "problem" at Robin's ranch house and stepped into the most gruesome scene he's ever witnessed. Robin, dressed only in shorts and a T-shirt, was sitting on the steps leading to his living room. His legs and feet were splattered with blood.
Shark Out of Water
It's been three decades since Waterdog disappeared into the neon wilderness of all-night poolrooms. He was 15 years old, a kid hustler from Connecticut carrying nothing but a cue stick and a bus ticket. In the late 1960s there was action in every town and even a skilled teenager could make money on the road. In Norfolk, Waterdog hustled sailors for $30 a rack.
Rat Patrol
Rats are the deadliest creatures on earth. Back in the 14th century, the lice that caused the Black Death rode into Europe on a herd of black rats. The insects sucked up the plague virus from the rodents' blood, then passed it on to the human race. Within four years one out of every three Europeans was dead, a decimation far worse than the continent suffered in World War II. In humanity's pantheon of loathsome creatures, rats rank right down there with snakes, spiders, cockroaches, and head lice.
Reality Bites - Chicago Reader
MTV wanted the hippest neighborhood in Chicago for the seven kids in its latest edition of The Real World. So it built a three-story dormitory in the building that used to house Urbus Orbis. As one of the spots that defined the Wicker Park scene of the 1990s, the place had some alternative juju. MTV spends a lot of time at the beach, filming booties in bikinis.
Reality Bites
News & Politics » Feature The Battle For Wicker Park: MTV Versus Its Target Audience by Ted Kleine August 02, 2001 MTV wanted the hippest neighborhood in Chicago for the seven kids in its latest edition of The Real World. So it built a three-story dormitory in the building that used to house Urbus Orbis. As one of the spots that defined the Wicker Park scene of the 1990s, the place had some alternative juju. MTV spends a lot of time at the beach, filming booties in bikinis.
A View From the Bridge
A View From the Bridge Two weeks before elections, the city cleaned out Joe’s campsite on the river. By Ted Kleine “It was like a pogrom against the homeless,” Joe recalls. A tall, angular man in a green army jacket, he’s staring at the ruins of a campsite under a bridge at Fullerton Avenue and the river. The riverbank had been his home for the last two years, but now it looks like a garbage dump. Clothes, milk jugs, and sheets of newspaper are strewn across the mud.
The Girl Can't Help It
There are two theories as to why house speaker Michael Madigan is working to elect his daughter to the state senate. There’s the southwest-side theory, which says that Madigan is a loyal father helping his daughter’s career. Then there’s the north-side theory: white south-side political bosses are losing their home turf to blacks and Latinos, and are looking to the white wards of the north lakefront to continue their families’ political dynasties.
Show More
loading
Actions
Is this you?
As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.Get in touch with Ted
Contact Ted, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.
Learn more about Muck Rack