Blagojevich in the buff? Ugh!

A part of me is reluctant to write this commentary out of fear that I’m going to be giving more publicity to the Old Town neighborhood tavern that is displaying what it’s owner mockingly refers to as its “nude governor series.”

But I really don’t get the appeal of an amateur-quality painting depicting Rod Blagojevich in prison, about to be strip-searched by a guard.

IS THIS REALLY meant to draw the business of the segment of Illinois’ population that won’t be satisfied until they learn that Blagojevich is in a prison infirmary being treated for injuries sustained after being gang-raped in his cell?

Or are there really people other than the former Patricia Mell who have a desire to see Rod in the buff?

Either way, I don’t get it.

At stake is the Old Town Ale House, which received a dose of national attention earlier this year when its owners hung a painting that purported to be Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin in the nude, except for the assault rifle she was carrying.

ACTUALLY, IT WAS a painting of the tavern owner’s daughter, with Palin’s eyes, glasses and exaggerated beehive hairdo put on her body. But the painting’s existence drew many locals and tourists, many of whom insisted on using the cameras in their cellphones to shoot pictures of the nudie picture.

I don’t feel the need to show the Palin picture, but people can find many of those crude cellphone photographs on various sites around the Internet, if you are so inclined to search.

There’s no word thus far on who actually posed for the painting of Blagojevich.

Not that I particularly want to know, since about the only physical attribute of Illinois’ governor that has ever been notable has been his hair – which gives away completely the fact that Blagojevich is an “Elvis man.”

BUT TO ME, the reports about the Blagojevich painting that have been turning up in various newspapers all depict the aspect of this issue that offends me. And no, it’s not the thought of Blagojevich naked.

It’s the idea that a prison guard is included in the painting, putting on rubber gloves and having a look meaning serious business on his face.

As I perceive this so-called work of art, the point is to make us envision in our minds the moments following this scene – the one where Gov. Milorod is probed to ensure he’s not trying to smuggle contraband into whatever federal facility critics envision Blagojevich spending time at in coming years.

Personally, I can do without that scene, considering that we’re not even at the point where the Illinois House of Representatives can tell us exactly what it is that Blagojevich has done that makes him worthy of impeachment and removal from public office.

WE’RE DEFINITELY NOT anywhere near the point of a criminal trial, or sentencing, or the day when we might someday see our governor carted off to a minimum-security federal prison (perhaps the same facility in Oxford, Wis., that former Gov. George Ryan would have preferred to serve his time at).

Yet despite the idea of how premature such an image is, we are at the point where some people want us to speculate about “Blagojevich Behind Bars!” Perhaps some even have the notion of a companion painting of first lady Patti being searched at the federal facility for women near Pekin, Ill.

Now I know that the people who are out for Blagojevich’s scalp (with that mane of Elvis-like hair attached) aren’t going to want to hear this.

But if there are people in our population who are already concocting such images in their heads, I’m wondering if it is possible for Blagojevich someday to get a fair trial. Could we already have a potential jury pool of people with such set views on the incumbent governor that they’re not going to want to hear any of the rhetoric that Blagojevich’s attorneys are starting to espouse (that Rod’s chatter caught on federal wiretaps is not criminal activity in and of itself, but is just political trash talk).

NOW I KNOW that some people feared the same thing when it came to picking a jury for the federal court trial of Ryan and they managed to get through a trial and arrive at a conviction.

But let’s not forget the mess that became of that jury, and the perception among some (including some appeals court judges) that the jury did become tainted against Ryan. I’d hate to think we’re going to have to relive a version of that saga with the Blagojevich trial.

Paintings like the portrait at the Ale House (which officially carries the title, “The Cavity Search”) are trivial in, and of, themselves. But when put together with a lot of other trivial slights, they create the image that could prevent true justice (which involves getting at the truth, not punishment) from ever being achieved.

And the idea of something as stupid and trivial as this painting having a serious negative after-effect scares me.

THERE’S ONE OTHER reason I’m critical of this painting. At least insofar as the image that was published of the painting recently in the Chicago Tribune, it’s terrible as a work of art and as an accurate image.

It doesn’t look like Blagojevich, not even the ridiculous hair.

-30-

EDITOR’S NOTES: I fear the image that will be created should the Old Town Ale House (http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/arts/chi-talk-ale-artdec19,0,5136319.story) decide to display a portrait of California’s governor.

Sarah Palin seems to have started something in Chicago at a tavern in the same neighborhood (http://chicagoargus.blogspot.com/2008/10/sarahs-nude-whats-point.html) as the Second City comedy troupe that originally produced Tina Fey.

Sarah's nude! What's the point?

I still remember the reaction of a gang of black aldermen in Chicago when they learned that an art exhibit contained a painting of the then-recently deceased Mayor Harold Washington.

The painting itself was a horrible likeness and would have been regarded as a third-rate attempt to portray the first African-American mayor of Chicago, except that it depicted him wearing a woman’s brassiere and panties – and as excessively overweight.

THAT “DISRESPECTFUL” NATURE of the painting is what caused the aldermen to force their way into the School of the Art Institute on a day in May 1988 and try to rip the painting from the wall. As it was, they did cause some damage to the painting, and the “artist” eventually tried to claim financial damages for what the political geeks of the City Council did to his “work.”

Now I remember the people from back two decades ago who used to like to spread stories that Washington was homosexual. The painting was playing off that image – perhaps trying to show it in an absurd manner. Or perhaps the painting (officially entitled “Mirth & Girth”) was just going for a cheap giggle.

What I remember was an image that I never would have guessed was supposed to be Washington, except that everybody kept telling me it was. So it must have been.

My reason for recalling this is that we, the good people of the Second City, are enduring yet another politically-tied artistic crisis within our boundaries.

THE OLD TOWN Ale House is run by a man who recently painted a portrait of Republican vice presidential hopeful Sarah Palin. Aside from her now-trademark eyeglasses and an assault rifle, the painting depicts her wearing no clothing – and posed in such a manner that I have to wonder if Hugh Hefner is considering a lawsuit.

After all, the man whose magazine gave us the “Playmate of the Month” might think he owns such poses of women.

Naturally, pictures of the painting are turning up on the Internet, being found by all those geeky people who couldn’t resist the chance to type the words “Sarah Palin” and “naked” into a search engine.

Business at the Old Town Ale House is on the rise, as people are coming with their cameras to take pictures of the painting, while also having a drink or two.

SO FAR, THE Palin supporters have been muted. A couple have talked of how “sexist” it is to depict the Alaska governor as a sex object (even though she did the same to herself when she competed two decades ago in the Miss Alaska competition).

Will we get the sight of some Bible-thumpin’ types making the drive into Chicago (because we all know decent, God-fearin’ folks don’t live in big cities) so they can rip Palin’s image from the wall, before trying to trash it?

Or is this more likely to be a gimmick that attracts a bit more business to the tavern in the Old Town neighborhood, and will eventually wither away when interest in the sight of naked pictures of Palin disappears.

Let’s be clear on one point. It’s not a real naked picture of Palin.

THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE reported this week that the bartender/artist took the smile and eye-glasses from recently-published photographs of Palin, then had his daughter serve as a model for the rest of the body.

Insofar as what the bartender’s wife thinks?

She actually owns the bar and approved the image, along with a lot of other racy paintings that hang on the walls – thereby providing the décor for the tavern that sits down the block from the Second City comedy club whose troupes have developed many of the leading entertainers of recent years.

Personally, I don’t know what to think. I do not believe the face on the painting really looks like Palin, and I have never really found her attractive enough to have any urge to see naked pictures of the would-be vice president.

THERE HAVE BEEN so many images in recent weeks (such as magazine covers of Vanity Fair and the Nation, to name a couple) that have depicted Palin as packing a rifle and stepping on a polar bear rug the way this painting does that not even that portion of the image is original.

In short, I can’t help but think of this piece of “art” the same way I thought when I first saw Harold Washington standing in his “ladies undies.”

I hope the Right has enough sense to behave more sensibly than the African-American aldermen of Chicago did back in the late 1980s. (That is not an automatic assumption, as people tend to do stupid things when motivated by prudishness).

Because the last thing any of us need to have happen is for this particular painting of Palin to become some sort of cause celebre. Better for it to wither away after Election Day, and for people to someday look at the thing and ask “who’s that?”

-30-

EDITOR’S NOTES: Anybody who seriously feels the need to see pictures of the painting for themselves (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-talk-naked-sarahsep30,0,4944201.story) can settle for the indirect look published with this story, or can go search the Internet for themselves.

Politically inspired “art” in Chicago has a knack for making national headlines (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE1DC143AF936A25756C0A96E948260). It would be nice if the Palin painting did not reach the level of absurdity that (http://www.cd.sc.ehu.es/FileRoom/documents/Cases/330nelson.html) Harold Washington did.