Cheesy Like Me
Or, How it feels to dress like an inflatable dinosaur for three days
By Carl Kozlowski

I admit, I’ll pretty much do anything for money. And make no mistake, it was all about the money. Two hundred and fifty dollars a day. The price for five hours of humiliation. It seemed like a fair deal. Read more.


St. Nicked
What happens when Santa goes on a holly-jolly spree of smoking, dancing and picking up chicks?
By Carl Kozlowski

DECEMBER 28, 1998:  Santa Claus. The name conjures up indelible images of a man in a red suit with a white beard who barrels down our chimneys and blasts through our skies on Christmas Eve. He is also a man who has spawned more imitators than Elvis, an icon so big in the world's collective consciousness that he has wrested Christmas straight from the stigmatized hands of Christ Himself. Read more.

Minister in a Mouse Click
By Carl Kozlowski

Last Friday night seemed like the perfect time for my first wedding. The sun was coming down in a beautifully clear sky over the crashing waves of a Malibu coastline, and I looked out past the smiling bride to see the faces of 60 guests waiting eagerly for the vows. Read more.

Strange Days
Punching the clock on some of Chicago's oddest jobs
By Carl Kozlowski

SEPTEMBER 20, 1999:  Face it: work sucks. And in the nineties it seems you're not well adjusted unless you hate your job. But have you ever wished you could scale the side of the Sears Tower'battling heat, rain and gusting winds'while getting paid to live a daily adventure? How about listening to crisis after crisis for hours on end? Or having to ask complete strangers about their most private bodily functions in order to determine if they've been poisoned? And did you realize you could get a job smelling the city's water supply? Read more.