Jan 15, 2022
Mike Stephen learns about the power of the art of spoken word poetry with the Oak Park & River Forest High School spoken word team. We hear from teacher and coach Peter Kahn as well as some students and alumni. Their upcoming anthology of writing is called Respect the Mic: Celebrating 20 Years of Poetry from a...
Jan 1, 2022
Mike Stephen talks to Greg Jacobs, co-director of a documentary called The Road Up, that tells the story of overcoming obstacles to employment, learns about the issues surrounding Chicago’s last black-owned bank with ProPublica journalist Mick Dumke, and talks to Kate Fagan about her new Holiday album. Happy new year...
Dec 25, 2021
Mike Stephen (with help from his youngest son Joey) plays some Holiday-themed clips from past years of the show. Happy Holidays from Outside the Loop to you!
Dec 18, 2021
Mike Stephen discusses the future of the tiki bar with Streetsblog Chicago editor & Chicago Reader columnist John Greenfield and local playwright & script writer Hannah Ii-Epstein. Then we learn the Secret History of 1960s Evanston garage-rockers The Peep Show. And Mike announces a programming note and gives an update...
Dec 11, 2021
Mike Stephen talks with University of Illinois professor emeritus Robert McChesney about a proposal to save local journalism and democracy and then chats with local singer-songwriter Peter Joly about his new album. And Mike gives an update on some previous segments that aired on the show...