Joel Reese

Ahhh yes, the “About Me” section, in which I demonstrate why I am so infinitely fascinating. Oh, ’tis so very true — read on for proof.

I grew up in Chicago in far north Rogers Park, and I spent pretty much every day when I was little at the beach. It’s funny, because I now reside several miles from the water, and every time I go there I think, “Oh yeah, Chicago has a lakefront.” But I used to basically live at the beach.

We moved to Evanston when I was in 3rd grade, probably because the Chicago Public School system isn’t exactly the Ivy League. Not to be an elitist, don’t get me wrong, but the school I attended up until 2nd grade was Gale School, right off of Howard Street. Have you been on Howard Street lately?

Exactly.

Anyway, we moved to Evanston, and I went to St. Francis Elementary School. Which was fine, but I wasn’t Catholic, so I was the only kid who wasn’t able to take Communion. I had no idea what they were doing up there, what with the little circular wafer and the grape juice, but it sure looked cool. I moved on and…

You know what? I realized that I’m writing a lot about my elementary school education, which is interesting to no one except me — and even I’m getting bored. So I’ll fast-forward to high school (slightly less uninteresting): I went to Evanston Township High School, home of the Wildkits. Like many ETHS grads, I’m disproportionately proud of this fact — seriously, have you ever heard Jeremy Piven talk about being from Evanston? It’s like the dude split the atom because he was a Wildkit. (I always hated that name, by the way.)

Anyway, from there it was up to Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, where I spent four years as a completely mediocre cross-country and track runner, an average student, and an above-average boozehound. In retrospect, I wish I’d taken academics more seriously, but hey, I was young. Things changed my senior year, though, when on April 22, 1989, I was playing Frisbee (note correct capitalization) with a friend. Long story short, I ran into a lightpole and ruptured my spleen (the dude in that link is way more ripped than I was).

That led to a splenectomy (can someone explain while you have a spleen [two e's], but its removal is a splenectomy [one e]?), and a somewhat serious examination of my priorities. In other words, at the age of 21, I finally started acting like I was 19.

After graduating, I was bewildered to find that the world didn’t beat a path to my door because I had an English degree from Lawrence University. That one still perplexes me. Finally, I took a job as an intern in Sen. Paul Simon’s office, which was great except for the whole not-getting-paid thing. I worked there several months, then took a job as a proofreader at a small educational publishing company.

I worked there for two years, then went to the University of Montana for grad school in journalism. I loved Missoula — there, I felt like my emotional age caught up with my chronological age. Such a great town. I would have loved to stay there forever, but I was making about $17k with no benefits, I had student loans up the wazoo, and so on. So I took a slightly better paying job at a small newspaper in northern California (again, no benefits).

I stayed there for two years, then moved back to Chicago. I freelanced for a while, then took a job at Chicago Lawyer magazine. I was there for all of seven months, then took a job as a features writer at the Daily Herald newspaper. I worked there for seven years, and can’t complain: I interviewed stars like Harrison Ford (a jerk), reviewed all sorts of concerts (the Stones, Radiohead, David Bowie, etc.), got to write about everything from autism to albinism to the concept of selling out, and so on.

I then moved to Time Out Chicago, where I started as a senior editor. I then became the features editor, then the magazine’s Editor. That led to a nomination for a National Magazine Award, which alas I didn’t win. Time Out and I parted ways and I freelanced for a while, then I’ve been the managing editor of a site called WeSeed for a while. Check it out.

To be continued….