A DAY IN THE LIFE (of Chicago): Ice Cube needs to make up his mind which Chicago ball club he backs in public

Ice Cube, the rapper and actor, now has a place for himself in local musical lore – but not one he’d want to have.
 

Cubs fans offended by singing, or wearing this jersey

He managed to blow it big-time Saturday at Wrigley Field when he took on the niche of filling in for Harry Caray (who has been gone from this mortal realm of existence for some two decades now) in singing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” during a Chicago Cubs game.

CARAY HIMSELF WAS pretty awful at singing in public, so it’s not a requirement for someone to have any talent in performing the little ditty (which actually just requires one to sing the chorus – since nobody knows all the actual lyrics about “Katie Casey” being “baseball mad” and all that other jazz.

But Ice Cube was so out-of-tune and off-key that his performance in mid-seventh inning is being considered the worst take ever. Worse than the time former Chicago Bears Coach Mike Ditka showed up. Or the time that heavy metal rocker Ozzy Osbourne was present in the ballpark. The Chicago Sun-Times says he “completely destroyed” the song.

The only real question may be whether Ice Cube’s performance was more obnoxious than the time actor Roseanne tried singing the National Anthem prior to a San Diego Padres game and gave such an obnoxiously-screechy performance that she was booed and heckled by the crowd.

Causing her to grab her crotch and storm off the field in response.

AS FAR AS I can tell, the Cubs crowd on Saturday wasn’t quite so rude. They seemed more amused by how bad Ice Cube was. Laughter, of a slightly derisive tone, seemed to be the mood of the afternoon.

Actually, I suspect that the Wrigley scene was probably more offended by the idea that Ice Cube, when he appeared in those “Barbershop” films, was clearly a Sout’ Sider who even, on occasion, wore Chicago White Sox jerseys and back in his early days of rapping would wear the Old English style cap of the White Sox.

While Sox fans will wonder what Ice Cube was doing hanging around that “ivy-covered burial ground” (remember Steve Goodman) in the first place. They might consider it gaudy along the lines of the late actor Bernie Mac, who always claimed to be a White Sox fan but attended the playoff games of the Cubs in 2003 and said he switched allegiance because of disappointment with the Sox.

What else was noteworthy as we felt the “hot time, summer in the city” on the shores of Lake Michigan? And how many remember it was the Lovin’ Spoonful who came up with that lyric?

Trading political epithets

WHO SINKS LOWER ON THE POLITICAL SCALE FOR VENALITY?: We’re now waiting until Friday to see if a Cook County judge will allow for the penny per ounce tax on sweetened beverages to take effect.

A lawsuit is pending that challenges the legitimacy of the tax, and the courts have issued assorted injunctions against the tax’ implementation – which was supposed to be back on July 1.

... across Illinois

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle has said the county needs the money from the tax to avoid having to lay off some 1,100 county employees – and some 300 layoffs already have been announced. Actions that some consider to be particularly venal on Preckwinkle’s part.

Although Preckwinkle herself told the Chicago Sun-Ties recently how she considers Gov. Bruce Rauner to be “profoundly inept,” “mean-spirited” and “evil” for the way he imposed cuts in state programs for people with autism on what was National Autism Day. Much of that funding has since been restored.

THE CHI-TOWN WEEKEND BODY COUNT: Some 24 people were shot between Saturday morning and early Sunday, with three of them being killed.

The Chicago Tribune indicates the fatalities occurred in the neighborhoods of Humboldt Park and Marquette Park – the latter of which is a place known to a generation of Chicagoans for the racial hostilities that occurred there.

In fact, all of the fatalities and even those merely wounded by gunfire were in neighborhoods that often get ignored by those people who are more than comfortable dismissing the city’s level of violence because it merely happens to “other kinds” of people.

Then again, the Chicago Sun-Times came up with its own report about how police once tried paying extra attention to a police beat north of Roosevelt Road on the city’s West Side because it had the highest rate of violent crimes. The extra attention did cause the rate to drop – but the high crime rate wound up shifting across the street to south of Roosevelt Road.

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