Ramis – the eternal ‘straight man’ who made Bill Murray funny – dies

It was a bit of a blow to learn Monday that actor, comedy writer and film maker Harold Ramis – who started out at Chicago’s Second City comedy troupe – is dead.

Because he’s the guy we didn’t notice as prominently as people like Dan Aykroyd or Bill Murray, but whose sense of how to play the “straight” role made the characters those other two played seem all the more off-the-wall, funny and entertaining.

RAMIS, WHO DIED early Monday at age 69 from a condition that caused his blood vessels to swell, was one of the Ghostbusters, along with Aykroyd and Murray.

He also was the friend of Murray’s “John Winger” character who got conned into enlisting in the U.S. Army along with him, thereby giving him somebody to watch his back – and join him when the two have to go into then-Communist-controlled Czechoslovakia to retake their army unit.

Who, by the way, were only captured because they were searching for the Murray and Ramis characters – who had taken the Army’s experimental prototype of a combat-ready recreational vehicle out for a spin to pick up some girls.

It literally is a line from Stripes (along with Murray’s quip about how Tito Puente was unappreciated in life) that still gets quoted by my brother.

WITH MURRAY’S CHARACTER telling Ramis’ role: “Come on, it’s Czechoslovakia. We zip in, we pick them up, and we zip right out again. We’re not going to Moscow. It’s Czechoslovakia, it’s like going to Wisconsin.”

To which Ramis’ “Russell Zitsky” character responds, “Well, I got the shit kicked out of me in Wisconsin once. Forget it!”

Much of the humor was in the timing. It’s funnier on film than it is on the written page. Although I’m not about to reduce Ramis’ working life to a single quip about the cheeseheads to the north of us.

It was just this past weekend that I happened to be stumbling my way through television channels when I came across “Meatballs,” a Bill Murray comedy from back in that period right before I began high school.

WHICH MEANS ITS overly-horny prepubescent characters and trivial nonsense were at about my age level (I drooled back then over the blonde who, looking at her now, makes me feel like a dirty old man). With Murray as the out-of-control camp counselor who befriends a particularly vulnerable summer camper.

Ramis co-wrote that script.

While I don’t doubt that Murray can improvise with the best of them (the film was basically Bill Murray saying and doing outrageous things), it was Ramis who put the thoughts and images onto the page of a script so they could be turned into something resembling reality on the movie theater screens (and now our television screens every time we watch it).

Although I thought that the repeated running gag about the head camp counselor repeatedly finding his bed moved in the middle of the night (with him still in it) to various locations (up in a tree, alongside a lake, at the entrance to the camp) was a bit overdone.

THEN AGAIN, THIS is the man who also wrote the script for Ghostbusters who envisioned the idea that all of mankind could be threatened by a gigantic Stay-Puft Marshmallow man.

Which brings to mind Murray’s celluloid response of a quip, “Now that’s something you don’t see every day.”

Although it’s not just these moments that Ramis gave us. He also was the director of “Analyze This” (and the sequel, “Analyze That”), which purported to give us the concept of an organized crime boss (played by Robert DeNiro) having to see a psychiatrist (portrayed by Billy Crystal).

Which is very “The Sopranos” sounding. Although we should remember the Sopranos scene where the late actor James Gandolfini appears like he wants to smack upside the head the psychiatrist who tells his “Tony Soprano” character that he understands “the mob” because he saw “Analyze This.”

THESE ARE JUST a few of the career moments that have given us humor. It is why we’re better off that a one-time Rogers Park resident who actually once wrote freelance stories for the old Chicago Daily News decided there were better things to do with his life than try to report the news.

He’s given us moments to brighten our day, for so long as all those DVDs of his films continue to function properly.

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It’s going to get ugly – as in the ’14 campaign cycle for Illinois governor!

RAUNER: Can he take a punch?

I’m sure that Bruce Rauner, the venture capitalist-turned-political rookie, is feeling pretty cocky these days.

With just one week to go before people can start casting their ballots (through Early Voting measures), the polls show him with a solid lead.

NONE OF HIS challengers has the kind of financing to close the gap. And probably the only way that Rauner blows the Republican primary is if EVERY SINGLE UNDECIDED VOTER were to unite behind one challenger AND if another candidate were to drop out.

It’s an unlikely combination.

There’s just one thing that ought to keep Rauner backers (who really are just those who have become so malcontent with the past decade of Democratic Party influence over state government that they’ll vote for anyone with an “R” after his name) from getting too giddy these days.

The reality of the Republican primary is that it consists of Rauner’s personal cash allowing him to buy public attention against two past gubernatorial losers AND a guy whose statewide profile was so low that he can be taken down with all the cheap talk going about these days about “sexual” harassment.

RAUNER ISN’T EXACTLY beating a top quality field of candidates in his primary. They might be more reputable than Gov. Pat Quinn’s lone challenger in the Democratic Party primary, but not by much!

If anybody thinks that the Rauner campaign can coast on the momentum it seems to be building now, they’re misguided.

It’s not that I think Pat Quinn is some overly-tough persona. He can be as mealy-mouthed as any other political person, particularly when he tries to lay on the populist rhetoric that claims he’s a man of the people and everybody else is the political "hack."

QUINN: Lacing up the gloves

But I got my share of amusement from learning Saturday that Quinn has hired for his campaign Bill Hyers, a political operative whose most recent accomplishment was getting Bill DiBlasio elected as mayor of New York.

ALONG WITH PAST victories that helped get Barack Obama elected as president – particularly running the Pennsylvania for Obama effort of 2012 that ensured the president had enough of the Electoral College votes to actually win. And yes, he's an Illinois native -- albeit not one of Chicago.

Quinn is putting his political future in the hands of people who know what a competitive campaign is and how to win them. There won’t be any talk about “fighting the good fight” in a noble defeat.

It’s fortunate for him that Rauner has a significant personal financial wealth, because he’s probably going to have to go through a lot of his own money just to keep up with the attacks he’s now going to get.

In fact, I wonder if Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis summarized the theme last week when she criticized Rauner as “egotistical and rich.”

SO AS TO differentiate him from herself. It could be the line whose essence gets repeated over and over until by November we’re so sick of hearing about the pompous boob that we vote against him just to be rid of him.

It doesn’t help that Rauner seems overly touchy to criticism; such as the instance involving campaign ads by the Illinois Freedom PAC. Rauner’s is the campaign that sent intimidating-reading “cease and desist” letters to area television stations carrying the commercials.

Personally, I think WLS-TV should be commented for immediately having their attorneys send Rauner’s campaign a letter refusing to give in to his request.

It makes me wonder how intensely Rauner will blow up once the Quinn people start smacking him about in ways that his Republican challengers never had the kind of campaign cash to dream of doing themselves.

COMBINED WITH THE fact that for many of the people backing the other three candidates in the GOP primary, Rauner is the absolute last guy they want to see get their political party’s nomination.

Even if he is the one who has the kind of finances on his own to deliver political blows – which will come across as the usual partisan tripe – to the incumbent governor.

He is perceived as being way-too Chicago oriented (a friend of Rahm Emanuel, and he willingly had his daughter attend a school in Chicago). Much of the desire to dump Democrat Quinn of Chicago’s West Side comes from those whose focus is on rural Illinois.

The fight for Illinois governor in the Nov. 4 general election could easily be perceived as the Chicago battle – which Quinn wins easily because Rauner won’t take enough votes from the governor in the city, and all those downstate GOPers just won’t be able to get excited about to cast enough ballots for him to win!

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Are we going to achieve equality over somebody’s “dead body?”

Heston more humorous here

I realize there is an opposition in our society to all the various states that are trying to make conditions more equitable for those individuals who are gay, and that there are some people who even take a perverse sense of pride in being opposed.

I’m just waiting for someone to make some arrogant statement the equivalent of the late actor Charlton Heston waiving about a musket and saying, “From my cold, dead hands.”

BECAUSE THAT’S THE direction we seem to be headed.

At a time when Illinois is among the 17 states and District of Columbia (about one third of the nation) that have approved measures to let gay couples marry, other places just seem to want to be hostile.

Indiana’s Legislature recently gave its approval to a measure that could, in 2016, let the voters decide the issue of a ban on gay marriage into their state Constitution. It knocked out a few lines that would have made the referendum more hostile – which is supposedly the concession to society as a whole.

Although its intent remains the same – they want to mark themselves as being apart from the direction of the 21^st Century. As though State Line Road wasn’t enough of a barricade – how long until the Hoosiers decide they want a “Berlin-like” wall erected?

I DON’T MEAN to pick on Indiana. Because they’re far from alone. In Arizona this week, both chambers of the state Legislature approved a measure saying that people can refuse their business services to gay people if they really believe that providing such services violates their religious beliefs.

Gov, Jan Brewer – who a few years ago was more than willing to back a flawed measure giving her local cops the authority to meddle in matters of immigration law – now has this issue in her hands.

What side would Indiana take today?

Her political allies are screeching that they’re looking out for the religious beliefs of people. Even though in this instance, what it really comes down to is that some people think their religious beliefs give them a right to single out other individuals for abuse.

Nobody forces anybody else into a gay marriage. How someone else’s marriage interferes with one’s own life is just absurd!

CONSIDERING THAT STATES ultimately are supposed to acknowledge marriages performed elsewhere in the nation, this idea of a split status within the United States just can’t work (unless we’re prepared to have the Second Civil War, which I suppose would amount to the ideologues contending it’s a matter of “state’s rights” to decide who can marry, against the cause of equality for all).

Now some might argue that somebody in Illinois with an interest in this issue ought not to get all worked up. After all, our state’s Legislature and Gov. Pat Quinn already acted – and even got the Catholic bishop of Springfield, Ill., to perform an exorcism, of sorts, in response.

But I couldn’t help but notice that poll commissioned by the Chicago Tribune – the one that says that in rural parts of the state, some 74 percent of those polled want the law repealed. Just like those who are continuing with increasingly absurd efforts to repeal health care reform in Congress.

The newspaper’s poll was of likely Republican voters – who weren’t exactly among the backers of the bill when it came before the Legislature last year. So this isn’t a shock.

IT ALSO ISN’T surprising that once you get into the Chicago-area, only 49 percent of Republican would-be voters want the matter repealed. Which is why there won't be much backlash to the Friday ruling in U.S. District Circuit Court to affect Cook County only that that says gay couples can marry immediately -- even though the state law says the change does not take effect until June 1.

Hasn't Arizona had enough?

It’s just more evidence of the depth of the urban-rural split that our society has devolved into – one that, at times, I don’t know how we can truly overcome.

This likely will turn out like much of the legal action taken a half-century ago as a result of the Civil Rights movement – the proper actions were put into law, but they also created a strong resentment amongst a segment of our society that has yet to completely wither away.

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EXTRA: He’s coming back home! But do we really want Mel to return?

It would seem that one-time Congressman Mel Reynolds is NOT some form of international pornographer.

He’s just a guy who overstayed his visa, and is about to get kicked out of the country. Zimbabwe, that is.

FOR IT SEEMS that the one-time representative from the Far South Side and surrounding suburbs who got caught using the camera on his personal phone to take pictures of women in compromising pictures is not going to face a criminal charge on that, after all.

A judge in Harare dismissed that charge of pornography possession – which is a felony in Zimbabwe.

But Reynolds did plead guilty to a charge that he was in Zimbabwe on an expired visa (he’d been there since November, theoretically so that he could make contacts to benefit U.S. corporate interests that want to do business in Africa).

So for that, a judge ordered Reynolds to be deported.

THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE reported Friday that attorneys for Reynolds say they expect him to return to the United States next week, although they’re not sure if he will wind up back in Chicago proper (he had been living in the Bronzeville neighborhood in recent years).

Although the part that most intrigued me was the claim by the hotel manager to the Tribune newspaper that they had nothing to do with Reynolds’ arrest. He had something like a $24,000 hotel bill he had run up. Who knows if they’ll ever get the money?

I still wonder if this was more about Reynolds offending some local persona, and then falling into a trap of his own making by having all those girls up to his hotel room so he could try making himself a personal film.

All of which makes this week’s Reynolds saga -- which was already so overloaded with tacky incidents -- a self-inflicted wound!

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A DAY IN THE LIFE (of Chicago): Spouse says ‘no’ on mayoral bid

It usually becomes the gag of a campaign season when someone says he’s not going to run for electoral office because his spouse said “no.”

The influence of political spouses

It creates speculation about what it was the would-be candidate wound up having to do to get the spouse to go along with the thought of a campaign.

IN FACT, ONE of the few campaigns I can think of where a candidate actually listened to his wife was back in 1998 when Jim Edgar was contemplating a third term as Illinois governor, or perhaps running for the U.S. Senate.

Then-first lady Brenda Edgar made it known she didn’t want to be part of the Washington scene, and was somewhat tired of Springfield as well. Edgar (as in Jim) wound up running for nothing, and hasn’t held a government post since.

So it was interesting to learn that Chicago Teachers Union boss Karen Lewis made it clear this week that there’s no legitimacy to the speculation that she herself would take on Rahm Emanuel when he seeks re-election as mayor in next year’s election cycle.

Lewis let it be known that her husband, John, “has said ‘no’.”

WHICH MAY BE the part that gets taken more seriously than the Chicago Sun-Times reporting that Lewis said of herself, “I clearly am not a politician.”

Although I don’t doubt that Lewis will use her influence as head of the Chicago Teachers Union to try to affect the outcome of Emanuel’s campaign next year, or that of Emanuel’s friend, Republican gubernatorial hopeful Bruce Rauner, in this year’s election cycle.

Whom Lewis couldn’t help but take a wisecrack at during her own denial of running for office, saying that comparing her to Rauner is wrong because, “I’m not egotistical or rich.”

What else is notable these days as we recover from months of sub-zero, Arctic-like temperatures that have literally caused 81 percent of Lake Michigan to freeze over?

OUT WITH THE OLD; IN WITH THE NEW?:  Former Cook County Board member Joseph Moreno, who got caught up in the same federal prosecution that turned one-time Alderman Ambrosio Medrano into a repeat political corruption offender, got whacked with an 11-year prison term, just slightly more than the 10 ½ years that Medrano got.

He got the lengthy sentence from U.S. District Judge Gary Feinerman even though he pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to commit extortion. He’ll be back in public circulation some time about the year 2023.

Meanwhile, aspiring county board member Richard Boykin is being challenged as to whether he’s even eligible for the post he’s running for. Critics say he and his wife actually live in Bolingbrook (in Will County).

Boykin backers say he has lived in Oak Park since 2005, and that he and his wife are estranged, although there has been no legal effort headed toward divorce. Boykin is among those who wants to replace long-time politico Earlean Collins, who is not seeking re-election this year.

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE OLD DAYS OF A PHONE NUMBER SCRAWLED ON THE MEN’S ROOM WALL?:  The state Legislature gets to consider the concept of “revenge porn” this spring.

A state Senate committee gave its support to a bill that would make it a felony to put compromising pictures of someone else on a web site without their consent. It would also make it a crime for the website owners to demand a fee to have such pictures removed.

That support came despite the fact that the American Civil Liberties Union said they regard such conduct, even if it is caddish, as amounting to freedom of expression – which is covered by that first amendment to the Constitution.

Which makes sense if you consider that our freedoms include the right to be stupid and ignorant at times. Somehow, I don’t expect the Illinois Legislature will feel the same way this year.

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How sleazy is Bruce Rauner? Really!!!

During my time as a reporter-type person, I have done my share of stories that hinted on inappropriate conduct toward the residents of nursing homes or other facilities for the elderly.

RAUNER: Corporate exec? Or sleaze?

I am more than capable of coming up with disgusting anecdotes about mistreatment of people. Although I’m also aware there are facilities that operate properly and give respectable care to their residents.

BUT THE OPPOSITION to gubernatorial hopeful Bruce Rauner is counting on people to have the image of the sleazy, crooked nursing home in their heads.

And they’re hoping we’re more than willing to buy into the idea that the venture capitalist (it means he puts his money into anything he thinks he can make a buck off of) is somehow connected.

The Illinois Freedom political action committee is taking credit for a new campaign spot; one that says Rauner’s company “was accused of draining money” from nursing homes, with residents “suffer(ing) from malnutrition and dehydration” as a result of Rauner being more interested in having his investment make a respectable financial return.

Rather than let some of that money be put back into the facility to maintain proper care.

OR AT LEAST that’s the line of reasoning we’re supposed to come to about Rayner.

How else to explain a campaign ad that ends with the line; “His companies’ nursing homes made over a billion dollars while seniors paid the ultimate price.”

Yes, death!

The Illinois Freedom PAC, in a prepared statement, cites lawsuits in which juries found that a company founded by Rauner’s investment firm (called Trans Healthcare) bought nursing homes, boosted their profitability by cutting staff and other treatment, and also piled on debt and did other financial maneuvers to try to get around legal liability from any lawsuits that might result.

IT’S JUST THE kind of legal action that puts enough distance (in a technical sense) between Rauner himself and the activities at the nursing homes. Which is why I’m sure it is truthful that Rauner himself never did anything inappropriate.

Which also is why Rauner, the candidate, responded with a statement that lambasts Gov. Pat Quinn for putting out the ad and calling it “desperate” and “disgusting.”

Of course, it can be argued that the Illinois Freedom PAC is not the Quinn re-election campaign. In exactly the same way it can be argued that Rauner himself did nothing inappropriate with those nursing homes.

I learned a long time ago that campaign ads are not to be taken literally. Which is the mistake most people make.

SO DO I think Quinn is “desperate” and “disgusting?” Not really. Just as I don’t think Rauner literally is responsible for killing elderly people by having them live in substandard housing – just so he can make a buck! Although it should be noted that there always is an element of truth from all the sides involved in any campaign spot.

Are the people who would like to see Quinn re-elected to another term as governor willing to play hardball by trying to turn Rauner (the only GOP campaign thus far that has gained any traction amongst the public) into some sort of sleaze that they’re hoping the Republicans will regret nominating come November?

And are the business exec types like Rauner (who when you ask them “What do you do for a living?” come up with an answer that sounds like gobbledygook to 99 percent of the populace) so focused on the financial bottom line that bad things can often happen because they’re not focused on the actual output of their business interests?

It’s sad to say that the answer to both is most likely “Yes!”

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Reynolds, the one-time “lotto” winner, faces sex-related charge in Africa

No, one-time member of Congress Mel Reynolds never actually won the Illinois lottery, or any other game of chance.

REYNOLDS: Won't go away!

It’s a reference to Reynolds’ alleged response (which came out during his criminal trial on charges that he had sexual relations with an underage girl) to the idea of getting involved with a Catholic school girl.

WHICH CREATES THE image in all of our minds of an adult male who can’t keep his hands off the young girls. An image that Reynolds seems to have reinforced this week with his arrest in Zimbabwe.

It seems that Reynolds, who represented the Far South Side and surrounding suburbs in Congress from 1993-95, got himself arrested in Harare. Local newspapers reported that Reynolds brought models and other women to his hotel room, where he used his camera to take pictures and video of them.

Technically, he has run up a hotel bill totaling the equivalent of $24,000 since arriving in Zimbabwe back in November. And his visa wasn’t authorized for such a lengthy visit.

But the charge that will draw the international attention will be the pornography possession charge – which is particularly harsh in Zimbabwe because the laws prohibit any kind of material that could be construed as sexually explicit.

FOR ALL I know, this very weblog has published things that could be construed as pornographic – under the standard that is being used in this particular case. Where it is questionable as to how consistently it is enforced by local officials.

A part of me wonders if local officials think Reynolds is trying to get out of paying his hotel bill, and they turned him in to ensure that he coughs up some cash.

A part of me also expects that he’ll spend a couple of days in a jail cell in Zimbabwe, before ultimately being deported from the country.

So much for the idea that he’s some sort of U.S. business executive who is advising other officials in this country about how to make money in Zimbabwe. He’s now going to be the U.S. sex offender who used an African sojourn as an excuse to take dirty pictures.

THE SAD PART of all this is that Reynolds seems to walk right into these incidents. You’d think he’d realize he’s in a life situation where his every miscue is going to get international attention.

We may not really care much about what happens to the one-tie Oxford-educated man who rose to a brief stint in Congress before his downfall in Chicago. But we are the type of people who will gladly use his gaffes to give ourselves a cheap giggle.

Which is what this latest story is about.

Personally, I think the story in and of itself is cheap, and that Reynolds wasn’t a significant enough figure (barely one term in Congress, would we care as much if it were Michael P. Flanagan who got arrested for something?) to deserve to last in our memory so long.

EXCEPT THAT IT allows us to recall his trial in Cook County Circuit Court, where the most interesting aspect was that the girl in question tried to refuse to answer questions about her involvement with Reynolds – which led the state’s attorney’s office to play legal hardball and have her put in jail for a few days for contempt of court; before she finally admitted what the Congressman did to her when she was younger.

There also are those of us of a certain generation who will always get a giggle from the phrase “Peach panties.”

All of which is why it becomes impossible for Reynolds’ memory to wither away into nothingness – which is what we really wish were possible.

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