EXTRA: Politics ain’t beanbag; or is it?

I’m not quite sure what to think of former President Barack Obama’s comments during his eulogy Saturday for late Sen. John McCain.

Difference between toughness and political bluster?

Both Obama and former President George W. Bush (the men who defeated McCain’s own presidential aspirations in 2008 and 2000, respectively) were a part of the program put together to pay tribute to the Arizona senator on Saturday at the National Cathedral, one day before his burial on the grounds of the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.

MUCH WAS MADE of the fact that McCain, before he died a week ago at age 81, asked Obama and Bush to speak in tribute, whereas incumbent President Donald Trump wasn’t even invited.

Obama was willing to go along with the theme of challenging the political style of Trump – which seems determined to challenge the styles of everyone who came before him as somehow being illegitimate.

As Obama put it, “So much of our politics, our public life, our public discourse can seem small and mean and petty, trafficking in bombast and insult and phony controversies and manufactured outrage. It’s a politics that pretends to be brave and tough but in fact is born in fear.”

But that shouldn’t mean that political activity is meant to be for the meek at heart – for people who can’t handle a punch or two.

REMEMBER BACK TO Peter Finley Dunne’s “Mr. Dooley” character, the 19^th Century Chicago Sout’ Side bartender who told us, “politics ain’t beanbag.”

Meaning it was played for keeps, with the people succeeding the most being the ones capable of fighting it out. Which is what I’m sure Trump thinks he’s doing every time he concocts another insipid tweet on his Twitter account to try to motivate the segment of the masses who actually enjoy this Age of Trump we now live in.

Should we fight back against Trump?

Could it be the difference between Trump and a legitimate political leader is that the former president had ideas – or in the case of Bush knew when to trust more knowledgeable people and defer to their better judgment. Would Mr. Dooley today think our problem is that we need to aggressively fight back against The Donald?

As opposed to the current chief executive who seems determined to have our society think he’s a one-man governmental show; which to my mindset is about as legitimate as a one-man band is to music – usually a whole lot of noise that’s ridiculously out-of-tune.

OF COURSE, I suspect most people will little remember anything either Bush or Obama said. The “quote” of the day seems to come from McCain’s daughter, Meghan, when she said, “the America of John McCain has no need to be made great again because America was always great.”

Either that, or perhaps they will focus their attention on another former president. Bill Clinton, along with former first lady, senator, secretary of state AND presidential hopeful Hillary, were at the funeral services in Detroit held for legendary soul singer Aretha Franklin.

That might seem like the more significant event, compared to the McCain services that I’m sure the Trump fanatics will be determined to think of as a gathering of people out-of-touch with the common man.

Will Meghan get more support now from fans of The View?

Truly evidence that the Trump-types are off living in their own world, and who want the rest of us to be forced to live in it with them while in a subservient position.

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EXTRA: Aretha at rest; or Give the Lady some R-E-S-P-E-C-T

It was not long ago I felt compelled to write a little ditty concerning the death of Matt "Guitar" Murphy, the blues musician who had a classic moment in the 1980 film "The Blues Brothers" with the Queen of Soul herself, Aretha Franklin.

Now, Aretha herself has departed this realm of existence. Reports of her pancreatic cancer became public earlier this week, and her people say she died early Thursday. She was 76.

I SUPPOSE I could make quips about the reunification in Heaven of Franklin and Murphy -- running a soul food joint on Chicago's Maxwell Street in the hereafter. Perhaps even John Belushi would stop by and try to order his "four fried chickens and a Coke."

Only to get thrown out on his keister by Franklin for being blasphemous.

But the career of Franklin went so much further beyond that film based off the old Saturday Night Live sketches by Belushi and Dan Aykroyd. They also went so much further than the song "R-E-S-P-E-C-T," which is one I fear many people are going to play to death in coming days as they try to do video tributes to Aretha's life.

Personally, a favorite Franklin song of mine is her take on "Chain of Fools" It is one I suspect I'll enjoy hearing until the day I depart this lifespan.

OR THERE'S ALSO this video snippet off television in Nigeria. What's more memorable -- Franklin's take on "You Make Me Feel (like a natural woman)?"

Or seeing then-President Barack Obama tear up at her performance? Who also got to hear her perform when she sang as part of the Inauguration ceremonies when Obama was sworn in as president back in that long-ago day in 2009.

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EXTRA: Matt "Guitar" Murphy gets to "Think" about consequences of his life

Matt "Guitar" Murphy was a long-time studio session blues guitar player, appearing with such legends as Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Memphis Slim, Etta James and James Cotton.

Yet let's be honest -- the reason most people would ever have heard him play was because he was one of the guitar players sought out by John Belushi and Dan Ackroyd when they put together their parody of a blues band, The Blues Brothers. And the memory most of us would have of ever seeing him?

HE WAS THE "husband" to Aretha Franklin's Maxwell Street diner operator who was told (in song) to "Think" about the consequences of his actions. A scene from "The Blues Brothers" 1980 film that may well be played over and over on that future date when Franklin departs this realm of existence, but which wouldn't have been complete without Matt's presence.

And now, it's all over. Murphy died this week at age 88. In more recent years, he had put together his own self-named band. But a stroke had essentially pushed him into retirement. And now, he gets that eternal rest, where he can "Think!" about the lifetime he had, perhaps engage in a few afterlife guitar riffs with Jimi Hendrix, and maybe have Belushi himself doing that goofy little "fat man" dance of his while listening to the beautiful music being made.

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Did Belushi/Ackroyd give Chicago history lesson w/ The Blues Brothers?

I’m honest enough to realize that “The Blues Brothers” isn’t classic cinema.

It came out the summer following by first year of high school – a time in life when I had the time to watch the many movies that were made. The film based off the Belushi/Ackroyd “Saturday Night Live” characters was long (and would have been longer if director John Landis had had his original vision approved), over-convoluted and in some points nonsensical.

BUT THERE IS one reason why I will never tune away from a showing of the film if I happen to stumble across it – the film depicts a segment of Chicago that just doesn’t exist any longer and never got much attention paid to it when it was around (unlike “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” which shows us the official take on touristy Chicago).

As someone who was born in the South Chicago neighborhood and who was raised in suburban Calumet City, The Blues Brothers was the film that was made in my home neighborhoods (although to be honest, there never was a Our Lady of the Blessed Shroud orphanage in Cal City that needed saving).

In fact, the closest to Calumet City that the film came was when they used the remains of the old Dixie Square shopping mall in Harvey (two towns to the west) for the chase scenes involving the Illinois State Police.

But the 95^th Street bridge, the Baptist church that served as the “Triple Rock Church” and home of the Rev. Cleophus James (a.k.a., singer James Brown) and the “Curl Up and Dye” hair salon where the late Carrie Fisher’s vengeful hair stylist plotted the Belushi character’s death.

ALL ARE PLACES I could take you to in the old neighborhood and show you where movies were made nearly four decades ago.

Even outside of the city’s 10^th Ward, the film gives us the sight of what was once the old Maxwell Street market where one could easily repurchase any item that might have been ripped off from you.

Or that flophouse of a residency where Ackroyd’s character lived (and which Fisher’s character took a bazooka to)? It was under the “el” tracks down on Van Buren Street in the South Loop (back when the area was decrepit), and I still remember one of my first assignments for the now-defunct City News Bureau of Chicago was to report on the fire that destroyed the building for real.

So what brings all of this to mind? The city’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events likes to show movies on a giant screen in Millennium Park. Tuesday night will be a showing of The Blues Brothers. Admission is free and you can sit outside and get a laugh (unless you’re so politically uptight that you can’t bear the thought of watching a film in the Jay Pritzker Pavilion and Great Lawn).

MEANING BELUSHI (the native of suburban Wheaton) AND Ackroyd will live on, as will the music of the late Brown and Cab Calloway (“Minnie the Moocher” will never die because of this film).

And even that moment when we learn that Bob’s Country Bunker features both kinds of music – country AND western. Where we’re also subjected to a ludicrous Belushi/Ackroyd take on the Tammy Wynette classic “Stand By Your Man.”

The combination of elements of current Chicago and bits that are long past are something that always amuse me and make the film (along with “Medium Cool” from 1969).

The latter film showed us the Grant Park of the past that became the site of anti-war protests back in the Vietnam era, the Uptown neighborhood of old, and the lengthy shot early in the film of a man on motorcycle rushing videotape from an auto accident scene back to the TV studios downtown (riding along the length of Lake Shore Drive into the Loop) is one that captivates me because of the number of times I’ve made a similar drive during my life.

THERE'S ALSO THE Chicago of "Call Northside 777," but much of it is before my time, and was long ago subjected to the bulldozer. What a shame.

Yet those don't compare to the compare to the bit in The Blues Brothers when Illinois Nazis (yes, we all “hate” Illinois Nazis) wishing to kill the musical duo drive off the end of an incomplete bridge, and wind up soaring thousands of feet into the air before crashing down into a car-sized Chicago street pothole.

Which the Blues Brothers conveniently happen to drive right over in their one-time Mount Prospect police squad car. Silly? Ridiculous? Totally absurd? Of course.

But didn’t I warn you the film was nonsensical!?!

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EXTRA: Couldn’t Harold Baines have accepted the honor for Queen of Soul?

Alright, I get the fact that Aretha Franklin was a Detroit resident back in the 1960s and Willie Horton was a star slugger of that Tigers team that won a World Series amidst the societal unrest of 1968.

But couldn’t a Chicago-oriented ballplayer have been used to accept the Beacon Award that Major League Baseball wanted to present to the Queen of Soul? The ceremony was held, after all, at U.S. Cellular Field!

I’M NOT REALLY being facetious when I suggest that Harold Baines – the White Sox coach who was a star of the 1980s and kept playing through 2000 – could have done the duties just as well.

It’s not like anyone who spoke during the pre-game ceremonies prior to the White Sox taking on the Texas Rangers said anything all that eloquent. I’m sure that if Franklin had showed up herself (health caused her to cancel, and we had to settle for a video presentation about her musical life), she would have been more interesting.

Not that I’m knocking the ceremonies, which I caught off Comcast Sports Net (I wasn’t at the ballpark). Surprisingly enough, the cable sports channel actually showed the ceremonies – rather than just summarizing them with a few seconds of video sometime around the third inning.

I even got a kick out of seeing Minnie Miñoso, identified to the fans as the “first professional athlete of color in Chicago.” He once was just simply called the first black ballplayer with the White Sox, but we now acknowledge him as a Cuban-American who happens to be dark-skinned – and one-time catcher Sam Hairston gets to be the first African-American White Sox ballplayer for his one season back in 1951.

AS FOR THE first black ballplayer in Jackie Robinson and the first black American League ballplayer in Larry Doby, we got to see a pair of their siblings -- with promises that none other than announcer Ken Harrelson himself would get to interview Sharon Robinson. You can make your own insulting comment about such an event!

And we also got to see the seventh tribute by Major League Baseball to the Civil Rights movement. This was the Lucky 7, so to speak, Civil Rights Game – of which the White Sox have participated in three of them.

It might not have been the biggest deal in terms of tributes, although I was amused to learn that even Gov. Pat Quinn showed up Saturday for afternoon ceremonies at the Marriott Hotel on Michigan Avenue and at the ballpark itself in the evening hours.

The closest Aretha Franklin came to the South Side was on the stadium video board out beyond center field. Photograph by Gregory Tejeda

 

It was better than doing nothing, although I realize it pales in comparison to those people in Washington, D.C., who, on Saturday, marched to the Martin Luther King, Jr., memorial to mark the half-century anniversary of the day that the civil rights leader told us of his “dream” – which we still have some ways to go before it is achieved.

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Sox hit high point when it’s too late

About the only way the Chicago White Sox were going to get any R-E-S-P-E-C-T this season was because of singer Aretha Franklin’s involvement on Saturday in the Civil Rights Game being staged at U.S. Cellular Field.

Only now, in what is probably a typical happening for the White Sox in 2013, “Lady Soul” herself won’t be able to attend.

SHE WAS SUPPOSED TO RECEIVE Major League Baseball’s Beacon Award – which is supposed to honor people who encouraged positive change toward civil rights. She’s citing health reasons for being unable to be in Chicago on Saturday.

Which is kind of a shame. Since Franklin’s appearance at the ballpark prior to the White Sox’ game against the Texas Rangers could have been one of the most interesting happenings to occur at U.S. Cellular Field this season.

Saturday is still the Civil Rights Game, and a luncheon at the Marriott Hotel located near Tribune Tower. Only we’re going to have to settle for honoree Bo Jackson, and memories about how the Negro leagues of old used to play their annual East-West all-star game nearly every season at the old Comiskey Park.

Somehow, the whole “Bo Knows” movement seems a bit old – even if Jackson’s story of refusing to give in to an injury that should have been career-ending is inspiring.

BUT IT WILL be interesting to see how the White Sox manage to stage the event that in the past has been played by major league teams in southern cities as a way of paying tribute to the role that professional baseball played in desegregating the nation.

Although there are times I wonder if baseball fans pay more attention to the annual April tribute to Jackie Robinson (the one where all 750 major league ballplayers wear uniform number “42” – not just Mariano Rivera of the Yankees) than they will to what happens Saturday on the Sout’ Side.

Which would be typical of this season for the White Sox – one in which the ball club went into Friday’s game needing to only lose seven of their 35 remaining games to ensure a losing record for the season.

The fact that the White Sox played outstanding ball this week – in fact, winning eight of their past nine games, and sweeping the Detroit Tigers and Kansas City Royals in three-game series played against each – may give hope to some fans that the team can overcome the Minnesota Twins.

THE WHITE SOX are only four games behind Minnesota. Although when a team looks at fourth place as a goal to be achieved (rather than fifth place), you know things aren’t good.

Only Sox past in '13

Which is what made Thursday’s freaky victory against the Royals all that more bizarre.

Conor Gillaspie broke up a 12^th inning, 3-3 tie with what turned out to be a freaky inside-the-park home run. Gillaspie chugged his way around the bases while the Royals’ players did nothing to chase down the ball and try to throw him out.

Yahoo! Sports’ “Big League Stew” tried to make this interesting by writing about the “Hilarious Hawk Harrelson home run call.” They claimed his broadcast of the moment was truly ridiculous.

ACTUALLY, IT MERELY reflected the confusion on the field, as it appears the Royals’ outfielder, Jason Maxwell, thought that Gillaspie’s fly ball to deep right field went into the stands for a Home Run! It really bounced off the top of the wall and wound up on the field – meaning it was still in play!

Which means that Maxwell is the one at fault for not picking up a ball and trying to throw it in and get Gillaspie out on the base paths. Although it seems that none of the other Royals players had a clue either.

Let’s be honest. When you first heard the White Sox were involved in a fielding misplay that resulted in a home run, didn’t you figure that it was the White Sox defense that screwed up?

It may not rank up there with a ball bouncing off the head of Jose Canseco into the stands for a home run (as did occur in Cleveland many years ago), but it was close.

A FLUKY PLAY working to the advantage of the White Sox? When combined with those six victories in a row this week?

This may well be the baseball highlight of 2013 in Chicago.

Unless you want to take into account that series the White Sox swept from the New York Yankees a few weeks ago – when many fans seemed more intrigued by the idea that long-time (and soon-to-be retired) relief pitcher Mariano Rivera would never pitch again in Chicago.

Even that fits into the late season theory; which is that this White Sox team is only capable of playing up to its talent level when the pressure is off and it no longer matters – just like the Cubs!

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