Rev. Wright won’t go away

If we had much in the way of sense, our society wouldn’t care in the least about anything that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright had to say this week, or much any time in the future.

As he has said many times about his relationship these days with President Barack Obama, he is a pastor while the president is a politician.

SO JUST AS I wouldn’t care much to hear Obama give us a theological discussion, why should I be expected to care about Wright’s thought on politics?

The only people who are taking any of this seriously are the ones who are desperate for an excuse to despise the Obama presidency, and who are disgusted that the nation as a whole didn’t share their disgust for Wright and one-time Weatherman Bill Ayers.

But those few are going to try to make much of Wright’s latest rant, which was made during an appearance he did in Virginia at a minister’s conference.

The Chicago Tribune tried to make much of this story (which really wasn’t theirs. A Newport News Daily Press reporter-type got the interview, and the Tribune is trying to make it appear as though the fact they are owned by the same company makes the story their property too).

THE PART THAT is getting people worked up was Wright’s wisecrack that, “them Jews ain’t going to let him talk to me.”

All I get from this line is that White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel would engage in a seriously obscene diatribe if he ever thought that Obama was considering having significant contact with his one-time pastor at the Trinity United Church of Christ – which the president quit attending about a year ago.

Does this mean it is very unlikely Wright would wish Emanuel a “Happy Holidays?” Probably.

He might send him a Christmas card, if he were in a particularly sarcastic mood. But I’d like to think that a man who has devoted his life to preaching the ideals of Christianity would be able to rise above having such thoughts.

WHAT WE’RE GOING to hear is a political spin that Obama associates with people who are not within a so-called mainstream view of U.S. society. We’ll probably hear many comparisons to Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam – who throughout the years has managed to spew rhetoric that has been perceived by some as anti-Jewish, if not outright anti-white.

This appearance in Virginia is going to result in some people trying to accuse an Obama presidency of being “reverse racists.” After all, he already has given us a Supreme Court nominee who thinks there are cases where a Latina can make a more reasoned legal decision than an Anglo man.

Actually, all that Sonia Sotomayor has ever said is that she does not view being Latina as some sort of drawback (the way that real racists would like to think her ethnic background ought to be a negative).

Perhaps it is because I have seen the Nation of Islam types in Chicago, preaching their view of black empowerment and claiming that Christian churches will never permit them to advance in society (while downplaying the fact that many Muslims don’t consider the Nation of Islam to be legitimate members of their religion).

I DON’T GET worked up over such a view, because I haven’t really seen much indication that it is spreading to the mainstream.

I can think of just as many African-American people living in the Second City who look at Farrakhan with bewilderment when he speaks, and will likely take to Wright’s latest rant as being just the latest over-the-top talk of a preacher-man.

Besides, the bottom line of this incident is that even if you are the type who seriously believes the Rev. Wright to be a threat to our society (I think you need to take your medication if you truly believe that), you should not be worked up.

For the fact is that Wright is admitting he has little to no influence over Obama these days, and is not likely to appear at a White House gathering anytime soon.

“I TOLD MY baby daughter that he’ll talk to me in five years when he’s a lame duck, or in eight years when he’s out of office,” the Tribune/Daily Press story quotes Wright as saying. “They will not let him talk to someone who calls a spade what it is.”

So why should people seriously be trying to taint an Obama administration with this attempt by a pastor at political rhetoric. All he is showing is that he is out of his league when he’s talking about politics, and the president seems to realize that.

So when I read that Wright is throwing out a line about “ethnic cleansing” taking place in Gaza, I think of it as little more than some cheap talk – a part of our overall society that makes it interesting as a whole.

Would we really want a society where everybody thinks alike? I doubt it.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Is it a crime that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright was among the national majority (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-wright_11jun11,0,5532879.story) that voted for Barack Obama in last year’s presidential election?

Not everybody is so quick to believe that Wright’s rhetoric offers any real proof of some (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/nov05election/detail?entry_id=41571) Jewish conspiracy.

Will Roland, Roland, Roland have to crack into own wallet to jolt campaign?

How badly does Roland Burris want to be elected to his own term in the U.S. Senate?

I’m starting to think he’s going to have to become one of those self-funded candidates – the occasional rich white guy whose professional life has become so boring they think it would be fun to be a politician.

THAT WAS THE case with one-time Cook County Board President Richard Phelan, and some would argue that former state and U.S. senator Peter Fitzgerald also belongs in that category.

If the electorate had been more sympathetic, Al Hofeld and Blair Hull also would be in that league – except that voters preferred the thought of Carol Moseley-Braun and Barack Obama for those respective elections.

Now obviously, Burris is not a rich white guy. But after learning of his financial disclosure report, he obviously is not starving. And he must have become incredibly bored in retirement.

That’s about the only reason I can think of that explains seriously why he would subject himself to the abuse from people who want to take out their hostility toward Rod Blagojevich.

WHY SERIOUSLY TALK about running for U.S. Senate (the seat that Jan Schakowsky estimated earlier this week would cost $26 million to campaign for) when you’re already on record as being The $845 Man.

Lee Majors he ain’t.

Seriously, though. This man isn’t independently wealthy, although he’s doing rather well compared to those retirees who have to survive on a Social Security check each and every month (my mother will be joining those ranks beginning in July).

The Chicago Tribune reported about Burris’ early filing of his disclosure report (required because of the way in which he gained his Senate seat by appointment, rather than election).

THE REPORT INDICATES that Burris has assets somewhere between $900,000 and $1.8 million. Publicly traded stocks, mutual funds and life insurance account for that value, along with his part ownership of a trust that owns land in south suburban Lynwood.

Will Burris be selling off some stocks to raise cash to at least start a campaign operation?

He may have to, since his inability to raise much campaign cash thus far has turned him into a political cocktail party joke, and those stories are going to discourage many people from wanting to get involved with him financially.

It wouldn’t shock me if many of the lobbyists whose political action committees typically give donations to every single member of a specific political party somehow manage to overlook Burris when they send out checks to incumbent Democratic senators for the 2010 campaign.

AT THE VERY least, Burris might have to come up with some cash to start off a campaign operation – even though I fully expect him to run a ’10 campaign on the cheap and focus the bulk of his attention on the African-American neighborhoods of the South and West sides (along with a symbolic “return home” visit to Centralia in Southern Illinois).

That jolt of early cash from himself could be what gives a Burris campaign a bit of momentum that could result in some donations from outside people and interests.

So call it a loan to himself. He could, and likely would make a priority of, paying himself back.

Actually, the part of Burris’ disclosure that caught my attention wasn’t really the stocks and overall worth. I’m sure that’s a theoretical value of himself on paper, and that he would have trouble coming up with that much cash if suddenly confronted with the need.

BUT BURRIS DEFINITELY was not struggling financially in retirement.

The $118,000 annual pension he gets for his 16 years of service as Illinois comptroller and state Attorney General wasn’t even the major part of his 2008 income.

He is a part of a law firm and also had his own consulting business (basically meaning he’ll do some special project type of work for anyone who will pay him) that provided him with another $155,000.

In all, the income level he reported to the Internal Revenue Service for 2008 was just over $337,000. That’s significantly higher than any income I have ever reported to the IRS – and I would guess that statement is true for 99 percent of the Illinois population.

SINCE AT AGE 71 he doesn’t need the salary of a U.S. senator (just over $169,000 per year).

He could easily kick back in retirement in Mahalia Jackson’s old house in the Chatham neighborhood and enjoy himself, following a lengthy career as an Illinois elected official.

Instead, he wants to subject his ego to the ridicule he will endure by going through the electoral process all over again. I would have thought his wife, Burlean, would be able to talk a little bit of sense to him.

Then again, there are still nearly nine months before the Democratic primary. Perhaps she can still become the most influential person in Illinois by being the voice of reason that urges Burris to finish out his two years in the Senate – then retire.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Could the sale of land in south suburban Lynwood (valued at between $50,000 and $100,000) provide a jumpstart (http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2009/06/roland-burris-payments-business-pension.html) to the Roland Burris for Senate campaign? Just asking.

Somehow, I doubt Burris cared much (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/07/AR2009060702018.html) when he learned that the Washington Post editorialized this week in favor of his immediate resignation from the Senate.

Only the Big Shots make money

I don’t know what to make of the business situations of the two Chicago major metro newspapers these days, other than to figure out that someone is determined to bleed them dry of every last cent before letting them wither away.

It has been this week that two stories have managed to creep their way out of halls in which both newspapers are in Bankruptcy Court.

WE LEARNED THAT Sam Zell, the real estate developer who took on more than he could chew by buying the Tribune Co., could wind up being dumped from his prime spot in the restructuring of the company.

Meanwhile, it became known that over at the Sun-Times, there is a list of 20 executives who think they’re entitled to $1.8 million in executive payouts – regardless of what happens to the newspaper itself.

First, we’ll take the latter.

The owner of the Sun-Times and all those suburban newspapers they purchased during the past two decades asked for permission to pay the bonuses in the event the company is sold.

NATURALLY, THEY FOLLOWED the typical sense of business ethics – they asked for the terms of the deal to be kept under seal. So we don’t know who the 20 executives are, or how much of the $1.8 million each of them would receive.

But from the little we do know (largely because of Crain’s Chicago Business), it would be 40 percent of the executives’ base salary.

The reason this came out is the fact that the Sun-Times has been in Bankruptcy Court since March. This deal will need a judge’s approval in order to occur.

For once, we should all be grateful for the Internal Revenue Service, which already has issued an objection to the idea of these executives getting a bonus at all and that the specific amounts of the bonuses should be secret.

THIS IS ONE of those times when a newspaper company winds up looking hypocritical.

For if any other business (particularly one that has engaged in so much staff cutting in recent decades) were to try to pull a move like this, the papers would be doing everything they could to get at the information kept under wraps, then would be engaging in editorial rants meant to get the public stirred up.

They definitely wouldn’t care much about the argument that Sun-Times lawyers are likely to make when the case comes up again in Bankruptcy Court for a hearing on Wednesday – public knowledge of these bonuses would harm the company’s ability to find a buyer.

Only if a would-be buyer would be offended that part of his purchase price was going to ensure that all the people whose professional performance were unable to raise the newspaper from its problems would it be considered a hindrance.

PERSONALLY, I DON’T know what to think of what will become of the Sun-Times, although it has become fashionable among some people (including one-time Sun-Times owner Rupert Murdoch a couple of weeks ago) to predict that the Sun-Times is finally going to die off – putting it in the ranks of the Daily News, the American and the dozen or so other newspapers that have existed in Chicago throughout the years.

I’d like to think it could survive in some form because I still find its news product interesting to read and worthwhile to have.

Of course, to many of the people who are in the newspaper business these days, the “product” is about the last thing they care about.

That is the perception many have gained about Zell, who likely bought his way into the Tribune Co. thinking he could prolong its life with a few cuts, bleed a few dollars out of it, then close it off someday.

YET THE ECONOMIC events of the past year have hit newspaper advertisers so hard that he wasn’t able to bleed those bucks out of it that would have made the whole venture worth his time.

Which is what makes (to my mind) the recent reports about Tribune Co. (in bankruptcy court since December) so intriguing.

Control of Tribune Co. could be shifted from Zell and his group to a group of banks and investors. It appears that Zell would be out, unless these financiers see a specific reason to keep him on.

It’s not like he knows anything specifically about the news business, so some think he will be gone. Personally, I noticed a slight sense of glee in the reports that ran this weekend in the Chicago Tribune itself.

IS IT “DING, dong, the wicked witch is dead” at Tribune Tower these days? Or will Zell turn out to be some sort of fighter who will want to stay on to try to prove he’s not some sort of newspaper nincompoop?

Why do I believe that, for the right amount of money, Zell’s ego could be massaged just enough to leave. Could it be that the amounts of money the Sun-Times executives may receive will set a standard, so to speak, for how much Zell should get to go away from the one-time World’s Greatest Newspaper.

And if it really happened that way (it’s just my guess, at this point), could it be that only the guys on top make money, while the rest of us Chicagoans wind up a little bit information-less about the Second City.

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Where have you gone, Paul Simon? Illinois turns its lonely eyes to you

One could almost hear echoes of Paul Simon in the decision by Jan Schakowsky not to run for a seat from Illinois in the U.S. Senate.

Simon, of course, is the late senator from Illinois who used to complain about the expense involved in running legitimate campaigns for elective office and the amount of time he had to devote every day of his stint in Washington to trying to raise money to ensure he could remain there.

IN TELLING PEOPLE that she does not plan to try to move up to the Senate, Schakowsky, currently a member of Congress from Evanston, said the expense of such a race awed her – even though she thinks her connections could have helped her come up with sufficient cash.

As Schakowsky put it, “I would have had to become a telemarketer five or six hours a day.”

The Pioneer Press newspaper group that publishes weekly papers in and around Schakowsky’s North Shore hometown quoted her as saying the cost of running for U.S. Senate from Illinois in 2010 would be $10 million for the primary election, and another $16 million for the general election.

That’s a lot of money. For that much, the White Sox could get a shortstop and center fielder who aren’t as incredibly frustrating as the batch of ballplayers who have tried (and failed) to grab hold of those jobs on the South Side.

SCHAKOWSKY’S DECISION TO back away from the Senate and remain in the House of Representatives intrigues me because I always thought she was one of the legitimate contenders to replace Barack Obama (legitimate as in qualified for the job, which is most likely why Rod Blagojevich never gave her serious consideration).

It also helped her political prospects that she gave up a seat on the Springfield scene to move to the District of Columbia. Without having to change her style much, she went from being a shrill voice to being one of reason.

Could it be that the Capitol Hill types are a little more deep thinkers than those who populate our Statehouse Scene?

Why do I say she hasn’t changed much? I got my kicks out of learning how she made her decision public not to be a Senate candidate any longer.

SHE MADE A video of herself and put it on YouTube, then also made an appearance before a fifth grade class at Devonshire School in Skokie, where she happened to bring the subject up.

Which is why the Pioneer Press types got themselves something resembling an “exclusive.” Who else would think to cover such an appearance?

It’s too bad that some smart aleck fifth grader couldn’t toss out a good quip. Because it was the smart alecks who were going to try their best to trash a Schakowsky candidacy.

Just about anyone who was a reporter-type in the early 1990s in Chicago remembers Bob Creamer, an activist for many liberal causes whose group wound up getting caught up in enough irregularities that Creamer himself now has a criminal conviction for the way he tried to handle the group’s financial problems.

I REMEMBER ENOUGH people who chuckled at Creamer’s plight, thinking him a bit too self-righteous. But I can’t believe that anyone else would have cared much – even though we would have heard enough “she has a corrupt husband!” allegations to last a lifetime.

There is one aspect of her decision that catches my attention. It could very well turn out that this year was Schakowsky’s one shot to move up on Capitol Hill.

She may have to settle for an elective office career in the U.S. House – having to get herself re-elected every other year (instead of having the luxury of a senator who only runs every six years).

Not that that is such a bad goal in and of itself. The bottom line is that the field of candidates remains cluttered.

EVERYBODY IS TROTTING out the list of Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan (maybe), Illinois Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias (most likely) and Chris Kennedy as the biggest beneficiaries of Schakowsky’s decision not to run.

The only thing I will say is that it is most likely that there will be a serious contender whose name does not get talked about much these days – and that person will bear a grudge for the fact that no one is paying attention to them.

The truth is that nobody who’s being honest has the slightest idea who will be the Democratic Party’s nominee for Senate next year. There are just too many unknown factors and so much time.

And with a likely total tab of $26 million – how does incumbent Sen. Roland “The $845 Man” Burris, D-Ill., expect to be competitive?

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EDITOR’S NOTE: She’s staying in the House (http://www.house.gov/schakowsky/) for now, rather than trying to win herself an electoral promotion.

Blagojevich style history revisionism

I must admit that I have yet to see an episode of “I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here.” So I didn’t actually hear for myself when one-time Illinois first lady Patti Blagojevich referred to former state Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka as a “kooky old aunt.”

As I understand it, Blagojevich was trying to give an example of how her husband was noble and tolerated a “crazy” old lady who would do and say outrageous things. In theory, that is how her cast-mates on the reality television program should cope with one of their less-agreeable show mates.

IN REALITY, BLAGOJEVICH was the kooky one during that 2006 gubernatorial campaign who came up with those outrageous campaign spots that permanently put the image of Topinka dancing with 16627-424 (a.k.a., former Gov. George Ryan) into many of our minds.

Judy was the blunt-spoken one who was a little more down-to-earth than most political people. That’s not kooky, even if she is likely the only government official who would include jokes about flatulence in her Inauguration Day speech the way she did in 1995?

But a large part of what made Topinka different back when she was an elected official was that she wasn’t a typical run-of-the-mill Republican from the suburbs – even though she is a long-time resident of west suburban Riverside.

She didn’t fit the stereotype. That is what made her “kooky” in the minds of some political people, although to others.

WHEN I REMEMBER the Topinka I encountered during my years as a state government reporter-type, what comes to my mind was a person who actually showed some interest in her job.

She was a long-time state senator from Riverside who then went on to serve 12 years as Illinois treasurer. For the last four of those years, she was the lone GOP official to hold a statewide government post.

Most people who run for the low posts on the Illinois constitutional officers roll (state comptroller and treasurer) do so out of a sense that they are gaining experience for the day when they run for a higher-ranking office.

Current Illinois Comptroller Dan Hynes fits that mold perfectly, as does current state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias. I don’t doubt that they can handle some administrative duties to oversee the offices that pay state government bills and oversee state financial investments.

BUT TOPINKA (ALONG with one-time state Comptroller Dawn Clark Netsch) were among a type who actually went out of their way to understand government finances. In fact, there were times they could bore you to death with their knowledge of financial minutia.

Even in responding to Patti Blagojevich’s televised cheap shot, Topinka couldn’t help but point out to reporter-types that she “returned $230 million in unclaimed assets and made a profit.”

Another thing I remember about Topinka was that she was a woman who believed in bipartisanship, to a degree. I can recall the shock at one of her election victory parties when Cook County Board President John Stroger showed up. She invited him – even though he was a Democrat.

Like many Chicago Democratic political people, Topinka always had a strong sense of her ethnic background (from the Czech Republic). She never had the idea that ethnicity was something that needed to be erased in order to be a “real American.”

HER KOOKY IMPRESSION may have been tied to the notion that she would dig out the accordion and play along with polka bands on occasion. Of course, she never (to my knowledge) went on national television like then-presidential candidate Bill Clinton did with his saxophone on the Arsenio Hall Show.

Although I remember one time she appeared on a WFLD-TV morning show, and helped to review a film. But instead of giving it stars, she gave it accordions.

But Topinka had her loyalties to the Republican Party.

There was never a doubt of her being a GOP supporter. This is, after all, a woman who seriously believed that Phil Gramm was qualified to be president of the United States (back in 1996, although she was the only Illinois Republican of significance who thought so).

SO WHAT SHOULD we think of Patti Blagojevich’s attempt to inject some Chicago political tidbits into a reality television program?

I realize most people who bother to watch this show (I can’t bring myself to do so) won’t have a clue who Judy Baar Topinka is, and won’t care to find out.

But for those of us who do have a clue, I can’t help but think we will find it ridiculous, if not outright absurd, that Patti Blagojevich is calling anyone else “kooky.”

After all, she’s the wacky one who ate the tarantula on television.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: When characters on a reality television program perform prayers asking that “the truth will be revealed” about Rod Blagojevich, you know that something has seriously (http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=298836&src=143) gone awry.

Will it be as soon as next year that Judy Baar Topinka has to revise the front page of her website (http://www.judybarrtopinka.com/), particularly the line about how she is, “the last Republican to be elected to a statewide office in Illinois.”

Can’t afford the death penalty? We’re keeping it, says the state’s attorney

Put the Cook County Public Defender’s office in the category of people who gave something a nice effort, but never had a chance at being taken seriously.

Their “something” was the death penalty. The office that defends criminal defendants who can’t afford an attorney (they are entitled to legal representation, that’s the American Way) argued against capital punishment in Illinois by claiming they don’t have enough money to handle all the cases of indigent county jail inmates who are facing a possible death sentence.

THEY WOULD HAVE liked an abolition of the capital crimes statute in Illinois. But they were willing, they said earlier this week, to settle for having prosecutors in Cook County say they would not seek a death sentence against anyone.

At least not until the county budget situation gets squared away.

To that notion, the state’s attorney basically laughed. They argued in response that no one gets to tell the prosecutors what charges they seek against a defendant, and that a lack of money is not a good enough reason.

There are, they say, ways of juggling a government budget that would shortchange other services and cases handled by the public defender’s office – all to ensure that Illinois keeps up the appearance of having a viable death penalty.

IF IT SEEMS to you like I think the prosecutors for Cook County seem a little too determined to keep a capital crimes statute, you’d be reading me correctly.

The reality of the situation is that we don’t have a death penalty in Illinois. Executions are not being carried out, and not just because all of the condemned inmates in Illinois prisons are years away from having their mandatory criminal appeals run out and having a “death date” scheduled for their execution by lethal injection.

We still have the moratorium imposed by former Gov. George Ryan (be honest, that is a big part of why some people detest him as much as they do – regardless of how much they talk about “dead kids”), maintained by Rod Blagojevich and kept in place by Pat Quinn.

Even if someone were to have their legal appeals run their course (we’re likely about a decade from having that happen in Illinois), there still would be no execution scheduled.

THE REALITY OF our daily situation with the Illinois criminal justice system is that we have abolished the death penalty. It is not a daily reality. The sooner our General Assembly comes to its senses and changes law to reflect reality, the better off we’d be.

One reason we’d be better off is that death penalty cases do cost more money, both to the court system and to the Illinois Corrections Department. Condemned inmates have to be kept under higher security, and their appeals are all required.

The courts must hear them at every step. It’s all part of the safety mechanism we have to try to keep innocent people from actually being put to death.

Even at the trial stage, there are so many mandatory legal issues that must be heard (it’s not just a simple case of, “Did he do it?”) that the trials wind up costing more to conduct. The defense for such inmates is more expensive, unless a defense attorney tries to do a shoddy job (in which case, the inmate would win on appeal on grounds he had incompetent legal counsel at his trial).

THAT IS WHAT the public defender’s office tried arguing this week, only to have their concerns ignored. They can’t afford to properly defend the people whom they are being asked to represent at their death penalty trials.

To take the attitude that lack of money is not a good enough reason is so callous.

It almost comes across as someone who doesn’t particularly care if a criminal defendant gets a shoddy trial. Perhaps they think they have a “tough on crime” mentality by taking the side of the prosecution against the defense.

But I’d argue they’re setting the stage for a whole batch of defendants having their death sentences (if not their convictions outright) overturned.

THAT WOULD MEAN we’d have to re-do a whole batch of this year’s death penalty cases at some future date. That adds to the overall expense.

Out of fear of trivializing the issue, it kind of reminds me of what some people say when it comes to professional baseball and the constant struggle of low-budget teams competing against rich teams.

Back when players and teams in the 1970s set up the system of arbitration by which contract disputes were settled by a third party, one thing low-budget teams learned was that their “alleged” inability to pay big salaries was NOT considered a legitimate reason to hold back a talented ballplayer’s salary.

It sounds like the argument being offered up this week by officials of the state’s attorney’s office to reporter-types

THE END RESULT for baseball became a system where some teams perpetually stink because they have to get rid of any quality athletes they find because they can’t afford to keep them for the long-term.

While I realize the parallel isn’t perfect, I have to wonder if Cook County is destined to become the equivalent of the Kansas City Royals – a once-great team that can’t maintain anything for the long-term because they don’t have the money.

Not paying attention to finances causes some teams long-term problems. I’d hate to think the county criminal justice system will face similar situations because some people are determined to have the appearance of a death penalty.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Does new Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Ill., have the right idea (http://www.chicagopublicradio.org/Content.aspx?audioID=34632) when it comes to the death penalty in Illinois?

Taylor a throwback to old Chicago

I saw blues singer Koko Taylor perform several times during my life, but the occasion I recall most vividly occurred in a place far removed from the South Side atmosphere that her rough, rugged voice brought to mind.

It was at Illinois State University, the Normal-based college that was within walking distance of my own alma mater – Illinois Wesleyan. Back in what was most likely 1984, Taylor and her Blues Machine band was earning a living performing the blues, and they gave a concert on the college campus.

WHAT MAKES THAT event stick so strongly in my mind is the fact that I literally got a front row center seat. I was probably about 10 feet away from her in what was a packed (several hundred, maybe up to 1,000 people) hall of people whose idea of a study break was to spend a Saturday night listening to Koko giving us her take on “Wang Dang Doodle” and other blues songs.

Now I don’t listen to the blues as much as I used to back in college. I still have all my old LPs of Taylor’s music, but the most recent recordings on CD are ones I haven’t gotten around to buying yet.

But back in the days when I did manage to blow much of my spare cash on music and recordings, I remember that a Koko Taylor record was always more valued than some of the other stuff that passes for blues these days.

I still own some of my old vintage recordings of music by artists such as Muddy Waters, Magic Sam and B.B. King (who once gave us a recorded concert performed from our very own Cook County Jail).

BUT THERE WAS always a difference between listening to something like “I Just Wanna Make Love to You” by Muddy Waters, and anything recorded by someone like “Lil Ed and the Blues Imperials.”

Whether it was in the writing of the songs or just the fact that so much of life and our society has changed that no one could possibly come up with a song like “Hoochie Coochie Man” these days, the modern-day “bluesmen” all too often sound like a parody of the real thing.

Too much worried about getting the right “sound” to their guitar solo, rather than trying to catch the earthy feeling that is what makes the blues legitimate.

That is what always, to my ear, made Koko Taylor unique.

THE LADY FROM Tennessee who followed the migration of black people from the South to the South Side and who once was the cleaning woman for rich white people (who probably had no clue of her “night” job and its cultural significance) was one of the few blues singers I ever heard who had a sense of the real earthy feel that used to be heard in clubs all throughout Bronzeville some 70 years ago.

None of the guitar-oriented nonsense that can overwhelm a true blues singer, which at its best should be some of the simplest music played.

And definitely none of that bleached out sound that too often comes from listening to white rock ‘n’ roll types trying to play the blues because they like the guitar sound.

I’d rather hear Muddy Waters any day than any of the cover versions recorded back in the 1970s by Led Zeppelin or Eric Clapton – even though I know of people who feel just the opposite (they view the newer versions of the songs as “polished and improved” versions – I say they’re nuts).

THE WORST PEOPLE, in this regard, are the ones who think that “the Blues Brothers” film had anything to do with blues music. My reason for getting into that film is seeing the grittiness of a now-gone Chicago on film. The music itself is too pop oriented at times.

No one would ever call Koko Taylor’s music polished or pop. And that was its beauty.

What made her special is that she was still with us even into the 21st Century, giving us a taste of what used to echo from clubs along East 43rd Street (the old Checkerboard Lounge) back in the first third of the 20th.

Plus, she was still in her prime physically until recent years. So we got to hear the earthiness of the blues at its best.

THAT WAS PARTICULARLY rare. I can claim to have seen both Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker perform live. But by the time I saw them in the 1980s, they were old men who didn’t sound anything close to what they were in their prime.

Seeing Hooker, in particular, was like listening to one of those oldies revival tours, with bands such as the Buckinghams trying to pretend they can turn the calendar back some 40 years. In Hooker’s case, he was trying to go back about 60 years, and it wasn’t convincing.

It made me wish I could have seen him in his prime. But in the case of Koko, I got to see and hear her in her prime.

Those occasions will be among the moments I recall of an older Chicago likely for the rest of my life.

NOW EXCUSE ME while I walk over to my turntable (I still own a functioning one) and put on my copy of “Queen of the Blues.” (And I don’t want to hear arguments about how I ought to own the CD instead).

At this particular moment (which is about one day after I first learned Taylor died following complications from surgery performed a couple weeks ago), I think I need a jolt of “Queen Bee” to brighten my day.

-30-

EDITOR’S NOTE: Listen and learn for yourself about the musical career of the late (http://www.kokotaylor.com/index.html) Koko Taylor.