He joined the editorial staff in 1987, and his news column began in 1996. In 2023, the National Headliner Awards honored him, for the second year in a row, for writing the best local interest column in the country.
He has also written for a variety of publications including Esquire, Rolling Stone, The New York Daily News — which ran his column regularly — The Washington Post, Sports Illustrated, Men’s Journal, Details, Granta, Rotary Magazine, Spy, National Lampoon, The New York Times Sunday Magazine, Washington Monthly, Chicago Magazine, Crain’s Chicago Business, the Chicago Reader and Michigan Avenue.