John Howell out at WLS: Some things are more important than a job.

   
    When I write a column that really touches people, it's easy to tell. The clicks climb. The comments surge. And the producers from talk radio shows call, particularly from John Williams over at WGN and John Howell at WLS. I love doing both shows, because both hosts are thoughtful pros with a sense of what gets people talking. I never say no, because spending 10 or 15 minutes discussing that morning's column is both a great commercial for the newspaper and just plain fun.  
    I won't be hearing from John Howell anymore, at least not as a host on WLS, which let him go Wednesday. The statement on the AM 890 Facebook page was the typical bright spin piffle:

     Yesterday was John Howell’s last show on The Big 89.
     He has been a staple of 890 WLS for over a decade. His wit, political prowess, and focus on Chicago conversations has given our audience a destination for smart, local radio in the afternoons.
     Thank you, John, for being a part of the fabric of The Big 89.

     That's it. Here's where you really miss Robert Feder, who would have dug up the inside story of what really happened and had it embroidered on a hankie and framed on the wall before anybody else knew Howell had been let go. Though just by looking at the WLS lineup, you could sense what's happening: the station is drifting further right. Howell was always an outlier, someone who hadn't drunk the Red State Punch Kool Aid. Trump wasn't his God, and that caused trouble — it was an act of courage for him to invite a guy like me on the show, and sooner or later his bosses were going to object. Any radio station that values the services of Trump Youth leader Ben Shapiro can't also shelter a moderate like John Howell.
    WLS hasn't said who will be replacing him — Alex Jones maybe? Word is that WLS is clearing the decks of people who think and feel, assembling a droid army of MAGA maniacs in preparation for the 2024 election. John might have kept his job if he parroted the party line, but that isn't his way. There's more to life than keeping a job. 

     "His conscience is clean that he spoke the truth about the evil of Trump, even though that cost him his job," one of Howell's many friends said.
     "It's appalling," said another.

     Yes it is. But it's also encouraging. You can say no. You can refuse. Howell's departure is a preview of the kind of choice many will have to make in the months and years to come. Go along or resist? There's always money to be made in betraying everything America ever stood for, and people are lining up to feed the right wing media machine, just as they line up to watch and listen. Word is that Cumulus Media plans to make WLS "the most conservative station in the country," a source said. Though I would debate that word, "conservative." These people aren't conserving anything. They're destroyers, wild radicals giddily tossing away everything important about the American democracy. 

     Kudos to John Howell. I respected him when he worked for WLS, and I respect him even more now that he doesn't. Much evil in the world is done by men trying to keep their jobs, or make a buck off someone else's ignorance, malice, fear and gullibility. It takes courage to walk away, or do what your heart tells you is right until your bosses can't stand it any more and show you the gate.

Give your car to a good cause — the Sun-Times

     God, it was a good car. The term “van” always stuck in my throat, with its implication of a rolling crackerbox shifting overindulged children from one soulless suburban nowhere to another.
     No, the 2005 Honda Odyssey was a car, in my mind. With a certain crouching, brawny beanishness, a V-6 engine that could punch the thing up to ... well, let’s just say, if another owner, not me, said he once got an Odyssey up to 120 miles an hour on a stretch of deserted Wyoming highway before some kind of electronic inhibitor system kicked in, I would tend to believe that anonymous, irresponsible person.

On the Bonneville Salt Flats.

     The Honda never needed repair — change the oil, fill the tank, and we were good to go.
     And go, go, go we did.
     We took the Honda from Malibu to Nova Scotia. It parked in New York City and Los Angeles, navigated the Smoky Mountains and the Rocky Mountains, Venice Beach and Virginia Beach.
     For five weeks in 2009, when the recession rattled the country and everybody at the paper was forced to take two weeks of unpaid vacation, the family drove from Chicago to the Redwood Forest, down the coast to Santa Monica, then back. Five weeks, 7,000 miles, nine national parks, 13 states, including a 20-minute nip through Idaho.
     Not to forget the 10,000 tiny journeys, to the supermarket and chess tournaments, football practice and viola lessons. 

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The odometer read 180,240 miles when we said goodbye. 

"It's my own damn fault"

     "Part of loving opera is hating operas," I used to say, back when I attended operas regularly. Meaning, you can have an affection for the form, generally, and still flinch at the prospect of sitting through "Wozzeck," which I've done twice in 25 years, which is two times too many.
     Similarly, part of reading The New York Times is cringing when you read the New York Times. Sometimes. Maybe even often, despite the publications unquestioned general excellence. Not just for the tendency for its Style section to be periodically duped by three teenagers into presenting some unique outlier as a popular trend. Or because large parts of the paper seem written for people pulling down half a million dollars a year.
     But for their occasional tone deafness. The sense of something being slightly askew, off, wrong. We saw it again in their obituary of Jimmy Buffett, particularly that initial headline:
     "Jimmy Buffett, Roguish Bard of Island Escapism, Is Dead at 76"
     The first two words — the singer's name — are fine, accurate, unobjectionable. As are the last four. No argument there.

     But "Roguish Bard of Island Escapism"? Really?
     First "roguish." Is that a word you've ever used in your life? Or heard used? "He's a rogue," maybe, though even that is an arcane way once used to describe Hugh Grant types. It's like calling Buffett " scoundrelly."
     Next "bard." Another word thick with dust, welded to Shakespeare. An antique, affected term. I could see using it sarcastically. "Donald Trump, the bard of bitching..." But would you call someone you respect a "bard"? I think that's my problem with the Times obit of Buffett — there's a smirk in it.
     "Island" just shows how wrong the other three words are. Simple, natural apt. Jimmy Buffett's job was island the way Ken's job was beach. And "escapism" — way to go all Freudian on us, Grey Lady. Is there a single Parrot Head who, firing up the blender and blasting "Cheeseburger in Paradise" thinks, "And now for a little Jimmy Buffett island escapism."
     If you haven't read Bill Friskics-Warren's obituary, you can find it here.
     Meh, right? The opening sentence also pokes the reader in the eye with its odd qualifiers: "Jimmy Buffett, the singer, songwriter, author, sailor and entrepreneur whose roguish brand of island escapism on hits like 'Margaritaville' and 'Cheeseburger in Paradise' made him something of a latter-day folk hero, especially among his devoted following of so-called Parrot Heads, died on Friday."
   "Something of a latter-day folk hero." Buffett fans live in retirement communities — Latitude Margaritaville, oddly left out of the obit — built around his songs. I'd say he's a full-fuckin' fledged latter-day folk hero.
    "So-called Parrott Heads." No, that's what they are actually called. Later, the obit mentions "Dead Heads" without the lift-up-the-term-with-tweezers "so-called." Which either denotes "this is really what they're called" for some theoretically reader who never heard of Buffett. Or carries a sniff of skepticism.
     Frankly, I'd still have let the whole thing slide, except for this paragraph:

     "Mr. Buffett’s music was often described as 'Gulf and western' — a play on the name of the conglomerate Gulf & Western, the former parent of Paramount Pictures, as well as a nod to his fusion of laid-back twang and island-themed lyrics."

     Does what jumped out at me jump out at you? "The former parent of Paramount Pictures." Thanks for the background, New York Times! Talk about sliding into the weeds. And I've never heard Buffett's music described as "Gulf and western."
     I could go on. Certain word choices were so wrong they stopped me dead. "A supporter of conservationist causes" read as "conservative causes." I went back to read it again; still, a very odd way to describe somebody concerned about the environment.
     Understand, I don't have a dog in this race. While I liked my margaritas well enough, back in the day, I was never much of a Buffett fan. I never attended a concert of his or bought one of his albums.  But that doesn't mean I don't have a sense of what he was about, a sense that obviously eluded the New York Times. You don't have to be an admirer of a person to write their obit, but you do need to have an understanding of what they were about. You have to grasp their essence. To fail to do so is like reviewing a book by weighing it.

    Before we go, I don't like to criticize anybody's headline without providing a better one, because headlines can be tough.
     Deep breath. Think for three seconds ... okay, how about:
     "Jimmy Buffett, who blended up billions singing of boozy, sun-baked fun, dead at 76." Not perfect. But an improvement. I bet you could come up with an even better one.

A chance to get rid of the Trump sign?

     There’s a lot of money in the world. It can be a challenge to figure out new ways to show it off.
     Not one but two homeowners within dog-walking distance of my place in Northbrook have bought the lot next door and added a second, ancillary new home attached to their already ample present house.
     A practice I’d never seen, or even imagined, before. Nor can I imagine now, really, and I’m watching it done. An intriguing mystery: Why? The thing to do would be to knock on the door of the owner and simply ask, though I’m worried the question would come out, “What’s wrong with you?”
     So I wait.
     Of course truly rich people buy and sell residences at the drop of a hat. Hedge fund multi-billionaire Ken Griffin owns $1 billion in high-end properties. He paid $58 million for a four-floor penthouse at No. 9 Walton, bought a $250 million condominium in New York City and assembled a “colossal” $450 million estate, with a quarter mile of beach, in Florida. The Versailles he’s building is a sprawling 44,000 square feet, the floor space of a dozen typical North Shore mansions.
     Before he fled to Florida to be among his people, Griffin tossed a condo’s worth of cash — $125 million — at the Museum of Science and Industry, buying the promise to rename the Kenneth C. Griffin Museum of Science and Industry.
     To its credit, the MSI has been slow walking the change the past three years. I imagine its administrators, whenever the subject arises, slumping in their chairs and moaning, “Awwww, do we hafta?”
     The change will sting. I remember older Jewish relatives who called the place “The Rosenwald,” a de facto honor to Julius Rosenwald, who fronted the $3 million in 1926 — $51 million today — to create the Museum of Science and Industry, modestly declining the chance to put his name on it, knowing that a man is remembered by his good works, not by ponying up bucks to plaster his name over things in a self-aggrandizing fashion.

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"Look at this!"

Charlie Bliss

     Some work you can't do at home. For instance, you can't stop by the People's Republic of China Consulate on Erie, to talk to an official from the embassy in Washington, who's in town and asked you to stop by (nor can you decline; the Chinese, they're kinda important).
     Nor can you, in your home office, run into Charlie Bliss — or, rather, have Charlie run over to you at the Northbrook train station, where the retired Chicago firefighter and Maine South legend (Charlie retired as offensive coach in May after 22 seasons leading the highest scoring offense in Illinois) runs the coffee stand. 

     We hadn't seen each other in years, the thousand days that COVID compressed and scattered. He was glad to see me, and I was sure glad to see him. We hugged. He disappeared behind the coffee bar and emerged with the blog poster I'd given him a decade ago — taken down for safekeeping. He put it back up while I watched approvingly, then bought a coffee out of gratitude. So can you, Monday through Thursday. It seems a doable outing for those working at home in Northbrook. Head over to the train station, buy a donut and coffee from Charlie, support local business. I plan to. It's good coffee.
     Another thing you can't do making coffee in your kitchen is walk from Union Station to the Chinese consulate. Or stop in at Atlas Stationers on Lake Street. Where you greet Therese and Don Schmidt, the owners, and their son, Brandon — Brian works here too — and learn about the newest trainee, age 7.

The backing of the frame letters is carpeting 
from before the remodelling.

     "He loved it," said Therese, after we hugged. "The fifth generation."

      You might remember, we met Therese a dozen years ago, running deliveries through the underground streets beneath the Loop. Not much call for that lately. The store has shifted from an office supply store supplying file folders to surrounding businesses to a luxury pen emporium doing huge internet sales. Improvise. Adapt. Overcome.

     "We ship out so much," she said. "So many people come in."

    A thousand people came to their sidewalk sale. Yes, there was a person threatening to jump off building next door and that kind of got in the way for a while It's still Chicago. But the jumper was coaxed back inside and the sale was a great success. 

     We talked about the traditions of Atlas, founded in 1939. She showed me a table built by Don's father in 1948, and the one they had recently constructed — by an 80-year-old carpenter, which makes it kind of an honorary antique. They're covered with interesting notebooks and pens. 

     "I need to buy a pen," I said — not really needing to buy a pen, but wanting to contribute to the cause. She showed me some brawny $10 pens, and, being me, I picked out a promising orange Caran d'Ache pen from some cups holding less pricey pens, tested it to see the ink was indeed blue, paid the $6 or so, and tucked it into my sport coat pocket.

     Therese was so happy to see me, she followed me in the street when I left, talking about how the city seems to her from the perspective of running a business on the corner of Lake and Orleans.
     "People are nice," she said. An 'L' train rumbled by on the tracks directly above our heads, down Lake Street.
     "Look at this!" she said, gesturing toward the train and the tracks and the buildings beyond that and the sky above, the great big frenetic world. I understood what she meant, and headed toward the river and the consulate. I had walked several blocks when it struck me: next time, buy a more expensive pen.
     You can't figure that kind of thing out at home.

Chicago Voices, #1: Little Village

A reader, E. S., writes (the emails are complete and unedited, the ellipses are his):

     Greetings! You and I had emailed about the state of things on the streets of Chicago, some time back. You and I are both old enough to understand that change is difficult and slow ... if it ever happens at all.
     I happened to come upon a situation last Saturday morning and I had to laugh ... crying is a luxury many of us in these neighborhoods cannot afford. On the corner of 24th Street and Sacramento Ave ... in the middle of the intersection was a garbage dumpster. No one seemed to mind it. I guess the police had other things to do as well. But it's meant to convey that Satan disciples aren't welcome here. I think the bigger message conveyed is that everyone around these neighborhoods knows who the law is ... and sadly who it isn't. It's a very sad story told over and over again.
     The end result was that half a block from the dumpster and less than 24 hours after this picture was taken. 3 people were shot. Someone somewhere needs to tell these stories everyday. I wish I could ... but that's a story for another day.

     I asked him how he knows what a dumpster being in the middle of the intersection means.

     That one is easy Sir. It's a roadblock ... much like the ones we used in Iraq and Kuwait when I was there. Except we used armored vehicles... haahaa. The upside down pitchfork is a warning to the Satan disciples who use that moniker in their graffiti and have used it for decades. On the street it means DK disciple killers.
     The roadblock functions to slow the traffic to identify potential targets. Once that's done ... well the shooting normally follows. Military tactics on a rudimentary scale ... often with the desired results for one group ... and detrimental results for the other ... and the wars ... on our streets ... go on.
     It's more socioeconomic than most people think. It's not lack of opportunities or deficiency in schooling that drives the violence. I too am from these streets. However, violence prevention begins in the home and without adequate father figures ... or discipline..kids turn to the streets. As Glenn Frey once sang ... it's the lure of easy money and has a very strong appeal.
     School is hard..work is hard ... life is hard. But if you tell a kid I'll give you 20 grand for 20 hours ... and no one at joke to say HELL NO! Well that settles that.

   I asked if he'd mind my posting the photo on my blog, with maybe a few of his remarks, shielding his identity of course. He replied:

     Sir ... you can post anything you wish ... and I'm not afraid of being identified. You can share anything I've shared with you, words or images. Fear is what feeds these situations. And until someone, somewhere stops being afraid ... whether in city hall or the CTU or the CPD ... kids will keep killing kids.
   Will someone give a shit? I don't know. At least not where we live. If someone is shot in Lincoln Park ... there's wall to wall coverage. The tragic shooting in Highland Park produced an assault weapons ban. But kids in Chicago's poorest neighborhoods are killed every single day ... and yeah some of it is reported ... but most of it isn't.
     We live in a world where we know nobody cares ... it makes us indifferent to the suffering everywhere else. They don't give a shit about us ...why in the world should we give a shit about them.
     And so it goes.. I do thank you for giving a shit ... and replying to my emails. I should work for the Sun-Times ... the stories ... I could tell.

Keep Chicago ‘a good place to be’

     I was working on April 13, 1992, and covered the Loop Flood, when the Chicago River poured through a crack into a forgotten freight tunnel and shut down businesses across downtown.
     My central memory, besides the phalanx of six mounted Chicago policemen cantering up an otherwise deserted Wabash Avenue, is of the streets around City Hall.
     They were jammed with equipment — big pumps, banks of high-powered lights, communications gear and command centers — was rushed to the scene.
     “God bless America,” I thought. We might be as woefully inept as anybody, but when disaster strikes, we’ve got the resources.
     Sometimes. Had the crack been fixed in a timely fashion, the repair might have cost $10,000. Instead, billions were lost, the result of being overly addicted to regulations. Someone could have said, “Screw the bidding process; just get it fixed.” Someone didn’t.
     That happens a lot. We gawp at a problem until disaster strikes. I’m still shaking my head over how the city torpedoed the Friday Morning Swim Club at Montrose Harbor.
     You’ve certainly heard of the swim club — a couple of young professionals started jumping into the lake Friday mornings to kick off their busy weekends. Quickly hundreds, then thousands, of young folks joined them.
     It wasn’t just innocent fun; it represents something important.
     Think about it. What’s the biggest problem facing Chicago? Besides residents being robbed or shot. That’s only a contributing factor to an even larger problem: the hollowing out of downtown. Emptied by COVID and post-George Floyd unrest, ruthlessly mocked across the country as a nest of crime. Employees happy to work in their underwear at home. Tourists staying away.

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