Randolph Street: Keokuk And Beyond…

Randolph Street: Keokuk and beyond…

More scenes from Highway 61, shot by Chicago’s finest photojournalist, Jon Randolph from 1975 through 1986.

“Main Cafe”  Keokuk, Iowa

“County Fair”  Barnum, Minnesota

“News Stand”  New Orleans Louisiana 

See more from Jon Randolph next Friday. Randolph Street appears here every Friday. Join us every day for more words and images at The Third City.

Benny Jay: Dog Intervention

Racing downstairs to get the mail, I spot Nicky, the dog, cowering under the bed, head on paws, and her big, round, brown eyes open wide in fright.

Oh, no — trouble. Nicky is clearly having a nervous breakdown.

The specific reason is that our home has been invaded by a couple of strangers in white work clothes who are painting the kitchen.

But, really, her problems are much bigger than the painters. Nicky lives a life of fear. It’s not just the big things that scare her, it’s everything — even the small stuff. Like the vacuum cleaner. The other day I left it leaning against a bookcase outside my bedroom. She wouldn’t leave the bedroom. Just sat at the door barking at the vacuum cleaner — like it was a cat who had invaded her turf. It was like some weird doggie version of agoraphobia — you know, fear of crossing the vacuum cleaner.

Then there’s her thing with the backyard. When I let her out in the back yard to do her business, she refuses to return on her own, even if the back door is ajar. Instead, she’ll stand at the foot of the back steps, barking at the open door, until I personally come out to usher her in. I think she wants to make sure I’m still home because she has a fear of entering an empty house. Look, I tell you this dog’s not being rational — the dog’s lost her mind!

Now it’s the painters. They came at eight in the morning and stay until four in the afternoon. When they first showed up, Nicky raced to the door bravely barking. She’s always tough as nails with people and dogs walking down the street.

But the painters called her bluff. They entered the house and took it over — setting up their ladders and equipment. Nicky ran upstairs and hasn’t come down since. Call it complete capitulation….

With each passing day, they’re driving her closer to the brink. She won’t come out from under the bed — I wouldn’t even know she’s there, if I didn’t see the tip of her nose peeking out. Any sound the painters make — the clanging of the ladder, the slamming of the door — makes her jump. She’s always got her ears perked up, like she’s scouring the air for silent sounds coming from those painters.  This dog, I tell you, is a lunatic — if she keeps this up, I’ll lose my mind!

The time has come for an intervention — I must take her aside and give her a talk. By the way, it’s not unusual for me to talk to the dog. I talk to her all the time, though usually about the Bulls.

Anyway, I walk into the bedroom and sit on the chair and pat my knees, encouraging her to come out from under the bed. She waits a moment and then wiggles out and rests her head on my knee.

“There, there, Nicky — there, there,” I say, gently petting her on her head. “Now, look, it’s okay to be afraid of somethings. We all have our fears. But you can’t be afraid of everything. Like vacuum cleaners. I mean, that’s a little weird — what’s with you and the vacuum cleaners?”

She stares at me with her big brown eyes. I go on: “The thing is — you can’t let your fears control your life. You have to control your fears.”

Wow, good line! I like it so much, I say it again. It’s a shame this is being wasted on a dog.

I stop talking. The thing about talking to dogs is that you’re never sure they’re listening.

“Well, anyway,” I continue, “you gotta be braver. Okay, Nicky?”

From the downstairs comes a voice. It’s one of the painters. “Hey, mister,” he calls out. “We’re leaving’….”

“Okay….”

“Be back tomorrow at eight….”

“Yeah, sure — no problem….”

I turn back to finish my pep talk. But Nicky’s disappeared. All I can see is her nose sticking out from under the bed.

Oh, brother. This is going to take longer than I thought.

Big Mike: Be Reasonable – Like Me!

I like to think of myself as a brilliant arguer. Well-read. Informed. Reasonable. Not swayed by emotion. Convincing. Civilized.

Hell, the United States Senate ought to hire me as a debate coach. The Palestinians and the Jews would solve their problems by this afternoon of only they’d pattern themselves after me.

I’ve been involved in a couple of recent contretemps that have tested my dazzling rhetorical powers.

The other day, Benny Jay and I launched into a lengthy exchange over the relative merits of one Samuel Babson Fuld. We swapped countless emails and engaged in endless phone conversations about him. We easily expended more energy and spent more time on the consideration of his contributions to society than we’ve ever given to, say, Albert Einstein or even Stephen Colbert.

You’ve never heard of Samuel Babson Fuld? You’re not alone. All I can say with assurance is that his parents and he know who he is. And Benny Jay and I.

He’s a ballplayer, the 26th man on the Cubs’ 25-man roster. He’s called up whenever a Cub outfielder strains a ligament. Benny suggested that it’s a shame Fuld can’t get a real shot at making the big club. He’s an example, Benny opined, of baseball’s arbitrary decision-making process. Once a guy is labeled a non-prospect, he’s out of luck. No matter what he does, baseball brains will forever consider him lacking.

Upon hearing this, I leaped into action. I created extensive spreadsheet analyses comparing Fuld to other young guys who have gaudier statistics. I accused Benny of thinking with his heart rather than his brain. I defended the professionalism of major league general managers. Our arguments grew heated. Voices were raised. Benny called me stubborn. I called his thought processes idiosyncratic. It was really a veiled way of calling him an idiot.

Now, the second episode of contention. Monday night, after Trivia at Dick’s Pizza, my pal Printer Bob, with whom I’ve had a run-in or two in the past, was pontificating on politics. He held court with a couple who nodded continuously as he spoke.

“Can you believe this crazy woman?” Printer Bob howled. “Just another one of Obama’s socialists! It ain’t gonna be long now – hold on to your wallets!”

I was returning from the men’s room at this moment. A voice inside me warned, Don’t do it! But I couldn’t resist.

“Okay, Bob, how are you gonna aggravate me now? Who said what?”

“This woman Obama just named as Surgeon General. What’s her name? Benjamin? Regina? Whatever. She said, ‘Doctors should not make a profit. What they do is a public service and they shouldn’t make any money off it!’ Now what in the hell is that all about?”

I’d never heard of any such statement uttered by Regina Benjamin. Had I missed it? Uh oh. Did Barack Obama make a mistake, choosing someone who wants to overturn the capitalist system? I took a chance.

“I knew you’d aggravate me,” I said. “She never said that.”

“Oh no?” Bob yelled. “I just heard about it on the way here! She said it!

“No she didn’t.”

“Yeah? Well, what did she say then?”

Uh oh, again. Damn. Had she said something that was being twisted by the anti-Obama gang? I had no idea what it might have been. Still, I dug my hells in deeper.

“Listen to me. She never said that.”

“C’mon, c’mon. What’d she say? You don’t know what she said, do you? You don’t know!”

I didn’t. Well, I figured, may as well shoot the moon.

“You know why I have a fat ass, Bob? The easier it is for you to kiss it!”

Like I said – reasonable, civilized, urbane.

That night, after I got home, I did some research and found Dr. Benjamin had never said any such thing. The purported quote was invented by none other than Rush Limbaugh because she’d opened a non-profit clinic in Alabama. Natch.

Phew!

As long as I was at it, I decided to reread the Sam Fuld emails that Benny Jay and I had exchanged. The more I read, the more convinced I became – Benny Jay was right! Baseball men are narrow-minded thinkers, wedded to preconceived notions, loath to change their minds. Yet I’d fought him tooth and nail.

So there you have it. I’d argued one point based on nothing more than a dumb hunch. I’d argued another even though I didn’t believe in what the hell I was talking about.

Sheesh. If the Palestinians and Jews did pattern themselves after me, the Middle East would be a mess.

Benny Jay: My Home Town

What a day — what a glorious day! It’s such a beautiful day and I’m so happy to be riding my bike along the glistening lakefront that I’m singing a song.

“Never Can Say Goodbye,” to be exact. My all-time favorite from the King of Pop.

I can’t remember the words, so I keep repeating the line that goes: “Every time I think I’ve had enough, I started heading for the door….”

Riding thirteen miles south from Irving Park Road, I wind up at 64th and Hayes Drive. I pull off the bike trail, head into Jackson Park, stop besides a basketball court, flop under a tree, watch some kids shooting hoops and fall asleep.

I wake to the sounds of a hard-thumping bass, which I follow to the west, and stumble upon a House Music Festival. There must be five-thousand people wedged into this corner of the park, dancing, singing, re-living the old songs from their glory days….

As I wander through the crowd — piecing my way around tents and barbecue grills — I start to wonder: Where are the white people? I mean, everybody at this party is black!

OK, all right, I don’t mean to get all heavy here, but, people, really, what the hell: You mean to tell me there’s not one white person in this whole freakin’ town of two point something million people who likes House Music? I mean, white people can send black people to the White House but they can’t party with `em?

Hold it, hold it — I take it back. I see a white person — a woman with pink hair. Well, I guess one’s better than none….

I stay long enough to remind myself that I didn’t like House Music when it first came out and I’m not about to like it now that I’m two-hundred-and-ninety-seven, or however old I am these days. I’m winding my way out of the park when they bring on a singer who breaks into — I kid you not — “Never Can Say Goodbye.”

That stops me in my tracks. I’ve always loved the way Michael Jackson scales this song like a rock climber climbing to the top of a cliff. Up, up, up he goes until he reaches the peak, only to fall to the ground and start the climb again in the next verse.

This singer’s not as good as Michael Jackson, but he’s good enough. And as he makes his climb through the verses, the words come back to me and I can’t help myself. I sing it loud as I walk along: “There’s a very strong vibration piercing me right to the core — it says turn around you fool, you know you love her more and more, tell me why — is it so….”

I sing that song all the way to Irving Park Road — wind up at an outdoor festival in Welles Park. There’s got to be at least three thousand people in a big field, listening to Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears, this kick-ass band out of Austin, Texas with a lead singer who sounds a little like James Brown — I kid you not….

The place is jumping: Folks dancing, singing, laughing — having a great time. Milo’s there — the old pussy magnet himself. He feeds me a fried chicken leg and offers me a glass of wine. Then he tells me this pretty girl in a skimpy skirt’s making goo-goo eyes at me.

“Why you acting so surprised,” I tell him. “Pretty girls in skimpy skirts are always making goo-goo eyes at Benny Jay….”

But here’s the thing. It’s the reverse of Jackson Park — everybody’s white. Wait, wait — let’s be accurate. I count five, maybe six, black people in the crowd, not including the lead singer, of course.

So let’s put the question in a different fashion: You mean to tell me that in this whole freakin’ city of two point something million, we can’t find more than five or six black people who want to hear the next James Brown?

C’mon, Chicago, why you gotta be so damn up tight? Whites here, blacks there — Hispanics and Asians somewhere else. Still clinging to your tribes, still living in your caves.

Don’t worry — that’s enough social commentary for me. I’m gonna shut up, eat a fried chicken leg, drink a glass of red wine, go home, get in bed and go to sleep.  Just like everyone else….

Letter From Milo: The Advice Columnist

As I mentioned in a few earlier posts, money is tight and jobs are hard to find. Like many others I’ve been looking around for something to supplement my income. I was reading the newspaper the other day when I came across the answer to my economic woes. I saw that the newspaper was packed with advice columns. After reading several of the columns I realized that giving people advice is an easy way to make money. After all, if people like Ann Landers and Dan Savage can do it, why can’t I? I mean, shit, it looks easy enough. So, I decided to set myself up as an advice columnist and just wait for the money to come rolling in. Here’s my first column.

Dear Milo:
I am 15 years old and a sophomore in high school. I’ve always had a great relationship with my mom and dad. I thought they were cool. They always told me that I could talk to them about anything and there would be no consequences. Well, the other day we had one of our regular heart-to-heart talks. They asked me if I ever thought about smoking weed. I told them  the truth and said yes, I smoked weed a few times a week. Suddenly, they went all ballistic on me, screaming, yelling and calling me all sorts of names. Then they took away my cell phone and grounded me for three months. I don’t know if I can ever trust them again. What can I do?

Milo says:
How can you be so fucking stupid! You must be the dumbest little shit in your class, and maybe the entire high school. What on earth possessed you to tell your parents the truth. Never, ever, tell your parents the truth – about anything! I don’t even know why I’m wasting my time on a dumbass kid like you. I suspect you’re a nerdy little bastard who spends all of his time in his room, watching porn on the internet and jacking off. What you need to do is get out of the house and hang around a pool room or the race track. Maybe you’ll wise up and learn a few things.

Dear Milo:
There’s a guy in my neighborhood who’s making my life miserable. He’s the worst sort of bully and for some reason he’s made me his prime target. Every time he sees me he abuses me. I mean he literally beats me up. I’m always covered in bruises. It’s gotten so bad that I’m afraid to leave the house. Please help me. What can I do to get this guy off my back?

Milo Says:
Oh, man, I hate assholes like that. Here’s a surefire way to get him to leave you alone. It’s always worked for me. Get yourself a gun and shoot the cocksucker. Make sure you kill him. If you just wound him he might recover and come after you. He sounds like a vindictive brute.

Dear Milo:
I married a beautiful woman. She’s got the face of a supermodel and the body of a centerfold. We’ve been married for a little more than a year and some serious problems have come up in our relationship. You see, my wife is sexually insatiable. She’s a wild woman in bed and, to be brutally honest, I can’t keep up with her. There’s nothing she won’t try and she’s getting kinkier all the time. Recently she started bringing sex toys to bed and then she started talking about threesomes and making nasty home videos. But last night was the worst. She told me that I no longer satisfied her and that she wanted an open marriage. She wants to be free to make love to any man or woman who strikes her fancy. Milo, I can’t stand the thought of my gorgeous wife in bed with someone else. I’m at my wits end. Please help me.

Milo says:
You’ve found yourself in a very delicate situation, my friend. Fortunately, you’ve come to the right man for help. I just happen to have quite a bit of experience with marriage counseling. In fact, I’ve got a diploma from the Triple A Marriage Counseling & Bail Bondsman School in Gary, Indiana. As I said, this situation has to be handled very carefully. In order to help you, I’ll have to schedule several private counseling sessions with your wife. My Michigan Avenue office is closed for the summer, due to costly and extensive renovations, which I’m paying for out of my own pocket. While the construction is in progress I’ve rented temporary office space in the Diplomat Motel on North Lincoln Avenue.  If you can have your wife meet me there this Thursday at two o’clock, we can begin the process of saving your marriage and restoring peace and tranquility to your home. Don’t forget, Thursday, two o’clock at the Diplomat Motel.

Note From The Eds:
Due to the staggering number of complaints, bomb threats and police queries we are receiving concerning Milo’s advice column, we are suspending the column indefinitely. We wish to sincerely apologize for the offensive nature of Milo’s comments. We do not in any way condone criminal activity, juvenile delinquency or marital infidelity. On the advice of our attorneys, the firm of Leopold and Loeb, we can say no more.

Big Mike: They Can Be Heroes (Almost)

It’s been such a long time since I had heroes. To listen to conventional wisdom, you’d think my life and soul would be deprived and depraved because I don’t swoon over the likes of firefighters, US Marines, Angelina Jolie, Bono, Sarah Palin, the Hugging Saint or even Barack Obama.

The hero-worshipping corner of my brain died when I was 14 years old. Believe it or not, baseball was responsible for its death. Yup. That’s when I first read the book, “Ball Four,” by Jim Bouton. The fringe pitcher for the Seattle Pilots and the Houston Astros had kept a diary of the 1969 season. In it, Bouton mused on leadership, rebels, tyrants, philanderers, drunks, anti-war protesters, civil rights activists, bigots, bullies and intellectuals. He wrote about prejudiced coaches, lying, penny-pinching general managers and narrow-minded sportswriters. Yet he remained joyous and hopeful throughout, trying to stay in the game by throwing an oddball pitch, the knuckleball. I loved it so much that I re-read it a dozen times.

Bouton’s anecdotes of epic drinking by the game’s greatest stars, serial infidelities, even entire packs of ballplayers scudding over the Shoreham Hotel rooftop in Washington, trying to get a good angle to peep into women’s rooms, disabused me of the notion that baseball players – or any athletes, for that matter – should be venerated. After reading Bouton’s book, I realized ballplayers were just guys who happened to be able to hit and catch balls better than the rest of us, nothing more.

Yet, after losing my awe for the likes of Mickey Mantle, I came to appreciate them all the more. These men excelled at their craft despite battling the same venal, venial and sometimes downright evil urges we all have.

That’s why, when baseball’s steroids scandal came to light, I wasn’t crushed that my “heroes” had betrayed me. I figured, what else would you expect normal people to do? Some of them, I reasoned, would find the temptation to cheat irresistible.

Life is a hell of a lot more palatable and nowhere near as disappointing when your worldview isn’t twisted by delusions of “heroes.”

This all comes up because July 20th is the fortieth anniversary of humankind’s first moon landing. I remember that Sunday as vividly as last weekend. I stood in the middle of Natchez Avenue staring at the moon, wishing with all my heart that I had a telescope powerful enough to see Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin cavorting on its surface.

A few weeks later, I sat atop Thunder Mountain, a ridiculously-named 150-foot tall pile of debris from a clay pit on the grounds of the brickyard at Narragansett and Fullerton avenues. I watched from ten miles away a blimp and several helicopters hovering over downtown Chicago as the ticker tape parade carrying Armstrong, Aldrin and their poor colleague Michael Collins (who’d had the misfortune of remaining in lunar orbit as the other two got to walk on the moon) inched up LaSalle Street.

In later years, I’d develop a myriad of phobias, not the least of which was of heights. At its worst, my height aversion made standing on a third-floor deck as terrifying for me as, well, being launched into space by the Saturn V rocket (1.5 million pounds of thrust) would be to a normal human being. The sheer courage of astronauts and cosmonauts never was so apparent to me as during those times I’d be wiping the sweat off my forehead and palms because I’d dared to peek over the rail of a back porch.

I did have heroes. Back when I was six and seven years old I swooned over Wally Schirra and Gus Grissom, two of the original seven US astronauts. Every photo of Schirra showed him with a smile on his face. Grissom, only 5′5″ tall, was fully half a foot shorter than his colleagues. In group photos, he was always placed in the middle or in front, as if he were the other astronauts’ kid brother. Those were my childhood criteria for hero status – an easy smile and shortness.

When Grissom was killed in the Apollo 1 launch pad fire in 1967, I mourned as if I’d lost a favorite uncle.

In later years, I’d learn that some of the early astronauts were arrogant, pugnacious, insensitive, prone to drink and drive or otherwise benighted. One or two of the astronauts who walked on the moon turned out to entertain notions that I consider laughable. Edgar Mitchell of Apollo 14, for example, believes in remote healing, is certain the Earth has been visited by thousands of alien spaceships over the last few decades, and buys into psychic phenomena hook, line and sinker. Brother.

Even though the idea of heroes is as anathema to me as that of ESP, every one of the astronauts comes as close as can be to that pedestal in my mind. I’m a jaded, skeptical, often cynical middle-aged fart yet the idea that humans flew hundreds of miles above the Earth, spacewalked, repaired satellites in orbit, conducted experiments in zero gravity and – wow! – landed on the moon still takes my breath away.

I buy into Albert Einstein’s dictum: “Everyone should be respected as an individual, but no one idolized.” I idolize no one. Not Michael Jackson. Not Barack Obama. Not even Albert Einstein. But it gets hard to resist the urge when it comes to the astronauts.

Benny Jay: Dave Fremon Lives

In the middle of the day, I get a call from Big Mike, who’s looking to launch phase three of our ongoing debate about Sam Fuld, backup center fielder for the Chicago Cubs.

Don’t worry — I promise to spare you the details.

The thing is — in the middle of our endless chatter, I flashback to another baseball argument from years ago. And out of the blue, I think of Dave Fremon. I see his face and hear his voice. It’s almost like he’s in the same room. It gives me a chill, almost makes me cry.  God, I miss Dave Fremon.

I met him in the early `80s, either right before or right after Harold Washington was elected mayor, and that would have been 1983. He reminded me of myself: Poorly dressed, clothes never matched, hair rarely combed — usually looked like he just climbed out of bed.

He was one of the smartest guys I knew. Lord, lord, the things he had crammed in his brain. He knew more about baseball than any man alive, with the possible exception of Big Mike himself.

Dave and I had this longstanding argument about the Rick Sutcliffe/Joe Carter trade of 1984. It went like this….

Me: The Cubs gave up too much in that deal cause Carter’s gonna be a Hall of Famer….

Dave: Without Sutcliffe, the Cubs never would have won the `84 Division, so the deal’s good, no matter what….

Me: Considering how the Cubs blew the `84 playoffs to the Padres, I wish they hadn’t won the damn division to begin with….

Dave: That’s just too illogical to believe….

We must have had a variation on that argument for — I don’t know — ten, twelve, fifteen years. It’s amazing, but we never got tired of it.

By the way, just to set you straight, Dave did a lot of other far more significant things than carry on silly baseball arguments with me and his other friends. He got married, had a son, and wrote “Chicago Politics: Ward by Ward.” It’s a great book — an almanac of politics in Chicago. I got a well-worn copy of it on my book shelf. Take it down whenever I need to look up a fact and I wind up reading at least a few pages. It’s so wry and funny — it’s hard to put down. The only problem is that it’s 22 years old and needs an update.

I wish Dave were around to update it. But he died of cancer back in 1999.

There’s a lot of ways people live on after they’re gone. There are monuments and statues; there’s plaques attached to buildings or bridges. There’s the books, songs, plays and/or movies they create. If they’re really famous, there’s the books, songs, plays and/or movies other people write about them.

Or they live on in the memories of the friends they’ve left behind….