A Christian takeover of the Loop?

I remember being a pre-teenaged kid back in the early days of WLUP-FM when it was at its late ‘70s peak – when Steve Dahl was a young smartass rather than his cranky aged self and before he tried turning Comiskey Park into a funeral pyre for bad music.

Back in the days when Lorelei’s lips gave many a 12-year-old boy a wet dream.

AND BACK WHEN “the Loop’s” listenership would have been people inclined to listen to “the Devil’s music” of hard rock ‘n’ roll!

So what should we think of the fact that the radio station formally brought its programming to an end this week, and on Saturday will officially be taken over by a company that desires to turn the 97.9 FM radio frequency into one that broadcasts Christian-themed programming.

Is this The Lord himself trying to purify a radio frequency that the hard-core ideologue fanatics would say for four decades has given Chicago various forms of Satan’s tunes?

Is it truly some sort of bad irony that the station would become Christian? With Dahl himself publicly suggesting that the final tune he thinks should be played on the station before it becomes religious in them is “Highway to Hell.”

AS THOUGH WE really need another playing of AC/DC before the new owners turn it into a sister station of Arlington Heights-based WCLR (The Educational Media Foundation now owns both, along with 342 others across the country)!

Should one of these t-shirts go on exhibit at the Chicago History Museum?

Personally, I think too much is made of this theme. The reality is that the radio business is ever evolving and changing. The fact that the WLUP format and image survived from 1978 to the present means it had a long run.

One much longer than many other radio stations can even dream of having.

For all the crackpots who are eager to say WLUP ultimately failed, I’d say its successes put it at a level that make it an image permanently a part of Chicago. Although I think that now-unemployed broadcaster Mancow Muller overstates his significance when he says he can now go off to broadcast retirement like past Chicago iconic figures like Ray Rayner and Bozo the Clown.

One-time WLUP competitor also now has religious image

ACTUALLY, WHAT THE WLUP situation makes me recall is another hard-rock radio station of my Junior High school years – the old WMET-FM. I can remember being a 13-year-old listening to my fellow students quarrel over which station was better.

WMET ceased to exist in Chicago decades ago. The call letters are now used by a Washington, D.C.-area radio station that is part of the Guadalupe Radio Network.

As in it offers up programming meant to appeal specifically to Catholics. The two rockin’ images of the late ‘70s on the radio are now in the hands of people determined to serve God.

I still remember when I did a stint in college in Washington in the mid-1980s and being shocked to hear the “MET” call letters in the use of the Lord. Even though none of my non-Chicago counterparts in D.C. could appreciate the irony.

From the Beatles to Rush (as in Limbaugh)

I MUST CONFESS to not having actually listened to “The Loop” in years. I don’t doubt the people writing broadcast eulogies who say the station reached its peak in the late ‘70s and failed to adapt to the changing times.

But the idea of “the Loop” going religious isn’t the biggest abomination that could have occurred.

That, in my opinion, occurred many years ago when the one-time “Music Radio” WLS-AM that gave us Top 40 rock ‘n’ roll with its “Silver Dollar Surveys” of the top records decided to become a serious talk radio station.

The concept of Rush (as in Limbaugh, not Geddy Lee) filling the Chicago airwaves’ same frequency that once gave us Larry Lujack (and sidekick ‘Lil’ Tommy Edwards)? That’s more abhorrent than any programming change taking place now at “98 FM.”

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No more rock ‘n’ roll McDonalds? I think Chicago will overcome the loss

Chicago is going to lose something come year’s end that some people seem to regard as a semi-serious tourist attraction. Yet I can’t help but regard the news with nothing more than a yawn.

Soon to be history. But is it really a loss?

I’m referring to the rock ‘n’ roll McDonalds. As in the McDonalds franchise at Clark and Ontario Streets in the River North section of Chicago just north of the Chicago River.

I’M TALKING ABOUT a McDonalds that serves Big Macs and the rest of the junk food menu that one can find at any other McDonalds across the country, or in many parts of the world.

But what made this one different, and is the reason there are people who thought it important to stop off at the place while visiting Chicago, is the wide assortment of rock music memorabilia that was on display – along with other elements of our pop culture such as “pet rocks” (remember that fad), early cellular telephones the size of a brick and 8-track tape players.

Which I’m sure kids who think the world’s content is meant to be downloaded look upon as an aberration, and evidence that their grandparents consumed some seriously-strong illicit substances when they were young.

That particular McDonalds is going to be closed to the public as of Dec. 30 to undergo a significant remodeling as McDonalds turns the place into what they see as their restaurant of the future.

No more Beatles figures under glass

MORE LUXURIOUS SEATING. Kiosks that will allow people to place their own orders rather than talk to some senior citizen who’s supplementing their retirement income with the kind of job they thought they had left behind some five decades ago in life.

But no more of the rock ‘n’ roll décor. For now, the owner of the items plans to put the whole collection in storage. Which I suppose is a step up from the notion that it all belongs in a garbage dumpster somewhere.

In short, this McDonalds will become just a McDonalds – a place to stop off for a fast-food burger or McNuggets (or one of their salads, if you want to fool yourself into thinking fast food can be a nutritious meal). Nothing more to make it an “experience” more thrilling than any that Jimi Hendrix and his band ever gave to their fans.

More pseudo-nostalgia from Chicago's past

Yes, I realize some people who visited Chicago felt compelled to stop there. Perhaps they think there was something about a Quarter Pounder eaten there (other than the higher-than-typical prices charged there, which McDonalds justified on the grounds that it was expensive to maintain such a décor.

BUT I’LL BE honest. I never got the concept.

The rock ‘n’ roll McDonalds was remodeled in 2005, and I honestly have to admit I have yet to see it. I’ve never been there. Since I don’t anticipate the need to go to that particular McDonalds site before the end of December, it appears I’ll never see it.

There has been a rock ‘n’ roll McDonalds since 1983 (the year I graduated high school and was likely foolish enough to think something like this could be "cool"), and I think I once went to it. Seriously, all the displays just struck me as being tacky, and the Quarter Pounder I likely had there wasn’t any different from a McDonalds burger I’ve ever had anywhere.

Was city's namesake band Chicago's best, ...

For those individuals who think they saw something unique, I’d wonder if they also felt compelled to visit the Hard Rock café that used to be a few blocks away. Or the Ed Debevic’s restaurant that gave us a pseudo-50’s era diner experience.

ALMOST AS THOUGH actor Henry Winkler’s “Fonzie” character would come riding up on his motorcycle and tell you to “Sit on it” if you happened to annoy him that day.

Perhaps I’m overly cynical. I ultimately don’t think a McDonalds experience is unique. It’s the ultimate generic experience of Planet Earth. I’m not convinced the new futuristic McDonalds is going to be much better than the experience I’d get if I went to the McDonalds located about a mile from my current humble abode.

... or were Buckinghams better?

Now if you really wanted a dining experience that also fed off pop music, you should have went to the one-time Demon Dogs stand located by the DePaul University campus underneath the Fullerton Avenue “el” train platform. It was run by the one-time managers of the old rock band Chicago, and I always thought the location was appropo considering the band that gave us "25, or 6 to 4" was originally named for the Chicago Transit Authority..

Album covers, music awards and other memorabilia used to adorn the walls and could be enjoyed while munching on a ketchup-less hot dog. It’s certainly more intriguing than all the Elvis stuff that a true fan would rather travel to Graceland to see.

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Honest Abe turns a sprightly 208; 78 years since Anderson pays tribute

It has been more than two centuries since Illinois' most significant resident was born. Even though, to be honest, Abraham Lincoln was born in the backwoods of Kentucky and lived his youthful years in Indiana (our state's biggest name was a Hoosier?) before finally arriving in Illinois in his early 20s.

And choosing to remain here until he left for Washington, D.C., and the presidency in 1861, never to return (in what was an ironic bit of self-prophecy).

From 19th Century playing cards ...

LINCOLN WAS SIGNIFICANT in holding this nation together as one when many of the same tensions we still feel in 2017 reached such epic levels that people actually tried to engage in secession. Making him worthy of all the praise his backers laud on him.

So as a little Lincoln birthday tribute, here’s a video snippet of Marian Anderson, one of the greatest singers our nation has ever produced – except that certain people used the same hang-ups that exist today to try to denigrate her.

Here’s her famed performance from 1939, done appropriately enough on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. I’d like to think he’d have been proud to be the backdrop for this glorious musical moment.

,,, to 21st Century baseball cards, Abe's image appears everywhere

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Lucas’ museum: Too little, too late?

Reading the news accounts Friday of how we may very well wind up with filmmaker George Lucas’ vision for a pop culture museum after all make me a tad skeptical.

 

Is it possible for this George Lucas vision to ever come close to reality in Chicago?

For while I don’t doubt that Lucas, a San Francisco-area resident, gave some thought to locating his pet project in our beloved Chicago, I wonder if there has just been too much negativity for him to want to bother with us any longer.

WE MAY HAVE had a shot at gaining this museum for our city’s collection of public attractions. But I wonder if Lucas is too turned off on Chicago to bother to put his Museum of Narrative Art here.

I also wonder if perhaps we’re now better off if this project winds up going somewhere else. Perhaps Los Angeles? Who’s to say!

Much has been made of the political fight that has arisen in Chicago, as it seems Lucas was determined to get a location in the Second City along the Lake Michigan lakefront. One near downtown so that you’d get clear views of the city’s iconic skyline.

It can’t be a real Chicago museum unless the soon-to-be-former Willis Tower looms over it!

OF COURSE, THE fight was coming from Friends of the Parks, the environmentalist group that would love to see the whole lakefront be one long sandy beach and thinks there already has been enough development in Chicago.

They’re the ones who filed the lawsuit that has tangled up the project in court so thoroughly that Lucas has become frustrated and started seeking out other cities as a potential location – namely the aforementioned City of the Angels.

But now, the news reports inspired largely by a Sneedscoop in the Chicago Sun-Times say Friends of the Parks may well drop their lawsuit. Although later reports by the Chicago Tribune followed in the journalistic tradition of knocking down someone else's exclusive -- they claimed Friends of the Parks had no intention of backing off its lawsuit. Which would, or would not, eliminate the primary obstacle and allow the City Council to behave in their usual manner and merely give rubber-stamp approval to anything that Rahm Emanuel tells them to.

It would allow for the museum to be built on part of the property now used by the McCormick Place convention center (a place most Chicagoans visit solely to see the Chicago Auto Show every February – where they dream of being able to buy the latest cars and date the models who present them, before they get back into their “beaters” and return to reality).

SUPPOSEDLY, THE CITY would find ways to create more public parkland along the lakefront, in exchange for this use of lakefront for the museum. Although the real reason may well be the reports saying the Friends of the Parks were advised by attorneys that their lawsuit in the long-run would be a loser.

A judge could very well find that their concerns about lakefront land use for private development were invalid, and that the museum should have been permitted to be built.

But by then, the facility could be up and running elsewhere. Friends of the Parks could wind up looking incredibly stupid. Thereby causing the desire to settle this whole affair out of court while there’s still a chance Lucas could be appeased into wanting to come to Chicago after all.

Who knows what the chances are of that happening.

FOR THE FACT is that a project like this is about egos being stroked. Having someone go to court to challenge this dream is just the kind of thing that would kill it off in Chicago.

Personally, if I were a part of the group trying to locate the museum, I’d be inclined to think the hassle isn’t worth it – particularly if locating in Chicago would mean having to cope with Midwestern winter weather.

They may find a more mild climate to be a place to put a museum meant to appeal to our pop culture fantasies. It certainly wouldn’t be something along the line of our Field Museum that tries to educate us about our natural history.

Which means that getting this project back after Lucas has started to let himself be seduced by Hollywood and L.A. glamour could wind up with such a high price for our fair city that it may turn out to not be worth it.

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Gary? Waukegan? No idea too crazy for that Lucas museum in search of a home

I couldn’t help but chuckle Wednesday night while in Gary, Ind., where I was covering a vicious, meandering and often confusing debate related to federal immigration policy and corrections when a member of the city’s Common Council suggested the Hoosier city as the perfect place for that museum filmmaker George Lucas is so desperate to build.

Maybe I just have to be different, ...

Seriously, Councilwoman LaVetta Sparks-Wade said that seeking projects such as the Lucas museum (which is supposed to feature pop culture and media arts) is what her home city ought to be trying to attract, rather than seeking a detention center project that already has been rejected by Joliet and so many other south suburban communities.

NOW I DON’T seriously expect anybody from Gary will try to get into the Lucas mix, now that it appears Chicago blew its chance (as did San Francisco previously) to be the location for the museum that would have potential to attract so many visitors ONCE.

Although if you think about it, Gary also is on Lake Michigan and could offer up a lakefront site. Which supposedly was the reason Lucas was eager to come to Chicago to begin with.

It actually is the same line of logic being used by people in Waukegan – where municipal officials seriously are trying to urge Lucas and his wife, a Chicago native, to locate to that lakefront city to the north.

The one-time home of comedian Jack Benny would, in their eyes, also become the home of Darth Vader. Would the Sith lord suddenly start telling gags about being perpetually 39 years old?

NOW I DON’T expect the Lucas museum to come to either of those communities on the fringes of metro Chicago; places whose best days are in the past.

But it does make me wonder about what kind of community would feel compelled to get into the Lucas mix, now that his museum is once again a free-agent in search of a home.

How desperate does one have to be in order to want to make a bid for the project by now? Let’s consider that Lucas has already managed to spurn both Chicago and San Francisco.

 

... but i always preferred these Lucas films

You’d think he’d be developing a reputation as some sort of character; a crackpot of sorts who is difficult to deal with.

PARTICULARLY SINCE IN Chicago, it seems Lucas had his heart set on a lakefront site. People who suggested that perhaps it would be best for the city to locate such a museum in a different part of the city so as to boost attention there were viewed as malcontents.

As for Mayor Rahm Emanuel, he still seems with his rhetoric like he wants us to believe he’s holding out hope. Almost as though he’s in a foxhole with the enemy (Imperial stormtroopers, perhaps?) rapidly charging his way – and he’s down to a single round of ammunition with which to fight them off.

The “Blame Emanuel” people likely will never forgive him for this loss. Even those people who, deep down, didn’t want the museum here. They just like being able to say that everything is Rahm’s fault!

I suspect this project will wind up in some third-rate town willing to kow-tow to the cinematic set, where it will eventually be lost in a sea of mediocrity.

PERSONALLY, I HAVE always been skeptical of this particular project – the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art. It sounds like such a high-handed concept, whereas I think the kind of people who would want to visit are definitely low-brow.

Show them a real-life piece of Norman Rockwell’s art, and they’ll be complaining, “Where’s the Wookie costume?” Viewing scene sets and props from the Star Wars films, many will expect – as they think in Yoda-speak.

It reminds me of a museum exhibit that passed through Chicago a few years ago devoted to the sinking of the H.M.S. Titanic back in 1912. All those artifacts that divers brought up from the ship’s wreckage – and the item that caught the public fancy was the movie set of a staircase where Leonardo DiCaprio romanced Kate Winslet in that 1997 film.

 

Does anyone envision the Lucas museum in the city of  "The Music Man?"

Somehow, I think we will wind up dodging a bullet (or perhaps a shot from a stormtrooper’s blaster) if this project winds up elsewhere.

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Do we really need ‘Anchorman 2?’

Could somebody explain the phenomenon of “Ron Burgundy” to me? Really!


Will it be worth excessive hype?

Burgundy, of course, was the character played by actor Will Ferrell in the now-decade-old film “Anchorman.”

WHERE HE WAS the tacky, no-class, pompous news anchor beloved by all of San Diego (until he told them to commit a certain sexual act with themselves) back in the 1970s. The 2004 film was a comedy (what else could Ferrell do?) and it took its shots at the cheesiness of ‘70’s pop culture.

All in all, it was a good laugh back then. Whenever I happen to be flipping through television channels and happen to stumble across it, I usually stop and watch a few minutes.

Particularly if it’s at the point of the news anchor gang fight!

I’m not sure what is more ludicrous – actor Steve Carrell’s character killing a man by suddenly throwing a trident or the other news person’s weapon of choice; lighting himself on fire.

OR PERHAPS IT is the sight (and sound) of actor Ben Stiller playing the anchor for Spanish-language news.

But it definitely is a piece, in and of itself. It’s not something that begs out for a sequel – because one could easily take the humor from the original film (best consumed in small doses) and blow it out into something bordering on the grotesque.

That is what seems to be happening now. After nearly a decade, we’re going to get “Anchorman 2” come Dec. 20. Maybe Hollywood producers envision us all going out to the theater on Christmas Day after we’ve opened our gifts and eaten our holiday feasts so we can get a chuckle at the self-absorbed, not-too-bright jazz flute-playing Burgundy.

Who will be Anchorman 2's 'Harry Doyle?'

They certainly seem to be anxious to feed us the concept already.

JOCKEY IS PRODUCING special underwear meant to tie in to the film, while Ben & Jerry’s ice cream has come up with a butterscotch-flavored product meant to mock the Burgundy character’s love of scotch – as in the alcoholic drink.

Ferrell is even appearing in television spots for Dodge Durango – where my own gut reaction is that he looks too old (Ferrell himself is 46 these days) to be playing the part of a news anchorman.

Somebody seems determined to market this film – which makes me fear it will be such a clunker. Will these products be living down the shame of being associated with a film sequel that will stinks?

Somebody is probably hoping for the next “Godfather II,” although I wonder if we’re destined to get “Major League II” – which beyond baseball broadcaster Bob Uecker as over-the-top broadcaster “Harry Doyle” isn’t worth watching at all. It may well be the most-pointless sequel ever.

THERE EVEN ARE people who ought to know better trying to tie themselves into the film. A special exhibit at the D.C.-area “Newseum” about the film? Emerson College naming its school of communication for Burgundy?

Even if just for one day, it still sounds odd for an entity supposedly dedicated to reporting something close to resembling the truth to be named for a fictional character!

The over-the-top promotional ties to the film actually have me skeptical. I doubt I’m buying any Jockey underwear in the near future, nor do I feel the need to get the new ice cream flavor (in part because I’m not fond of butterscotch).

And even though I am actually in the market for an automobile, I may avoid Dodge like the plague just because of its association with the film.

WHAT IS SAD is that the subject matter has potential for parody and humor – the sequel takes us to the 1980s when the Burgundy character is allegedly a cable news anchor. CNN in its early days was good for laughs!

Botching this subject would be truly sad.

Preserving them on celluloid?

Although I was intrigued to learn that Bill Kurtis will be involved with the sequel as well – reprising his role as the film’s narrator (while also giving us “the voice” of television so as to give the film some credibility).

It’s just too bad they couldn’t find a way to give us dual narrators – just envision Walter Jacobson alongside Kurtis as they tried to tell us the follow-up to the ludicrous life of Burgundy. That would be worth watching.

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The death of a Monkee brings to my memory the life of a grandparent

Everywhere I look on the Internet these past couple of days, it seems that everybody wants to have their say-so about the death of Davy Jones – the British actor-turned-pop musician whose name remains known these days on account of the fact his hit television show from the mid-1960s can still be seen in reruns.

Yes, I’m talking about The Monkees (as in, “Hey, Hey, we’re the …”), of whom the made-for-TV band’s pretty boy singer and tambourine player passed on this week.

SOME PEOPLE ARE getting all dreamy, while others feel the need to take pot shots. There also are those who feel compelled to bring up Marcia Brady and Jones’ appearance on The Brady Bunch (who remembers that her other celebrity "crush" was in the band Dino, Desi & Billy?).

Yet I can’t help but think of a moment involving my paternal grandfather – which may not sound like a logical connection. Yet in my mind, it is what I think of whenever The Monkees are mentioned.

That particular grandfather died while I was still young. My most vivid memory of him, to be honest, is attending his funeral. Second most vivid was being in Texas with my parents, where we traveled to so we could be with my grandfather in those weeks before he died.

Yet I do recall one time when I visited my grandparents’ house on Chicago’s South Side (they were living in the Calumet Heights neighborhood by that time, after having lived for many years in South Chicago. I don’t exactly recall why my grandfather was in Texas at the time of his death, but he was officially pronounced in Waco).

WHAT STICKS IN my mind is that at one point, my grandfather gave me his full attention. It was just the two of us sitting on the living room couch – conversing in the manner that one does with a young child.

It is the lone memory I have of the two of us specifically being together.

And what I also remember is that the television was turned on and I could hear it in the background. I wasn’t really paying attention to it, so I have no idea which episode I was ignoring. But I do specifically recall the sound of the theme music from The Monkees.

Which in many ways makes me a lot like other people, who hear some pop song that happens to be playing while something of significant is happening to them and it sticks.

TO MOVE AHEAD a decade, to me the song “I ran” by that one-hit wonder 1980s band A Flock of Seagulls will always associate with college, because I happened to be visiting the University of Illinois campus in Urbana and wandered off by myself to check out the sorority houses.

The song happened to be playing at that moment, and I literally heard it coming from the windows of every single sorority house I passed.

But for now, all of this Monkee-mania is causing me to recall my grandfather, and also make me regret that I don’t have any better first-hand memories of the man (my other three grandparents lived long enough that I have solid recollections of them).

So excuse me if the death of Davy Jones isn’t exactly a cause for fond memories of childhood – although I’m too young to really get into it. When the show was on in prime time, I was barely cognizant of television. By the time it was on while I was with my grandfather, it was a staple of Saturday morning broadcasts along with a whole batch of other cartoons.

SEEING THE MONKEES mixed in with the Banana Splits goes a long way toward explaining why I can’t take the band too seriously as a band – even if in their latter years they did make strides to play their own music.

Although I must also confess to wishing I could play the introductory guitar solo to “Valleri.” Every time I try, it comes out sloppy and disgusting-sounding. As for the rest of the song, Monkee Mike Nesmith’s original assessment of it as the “worst record ever” may well be correct.

Not that I don’t have a nostalgic side for some of the television of my youth. I must admit to tuning in whenever possible to the re-runs of that old ‘70’s sitcom “Sanford and Son.” I still find Redd Foxx amusing (the line, “I could stick your face in some dough and make gorilla cookies” will never leave my mind), and perhaps I will get as weepy-eyed when the day comes that Demond Wilson departs this Earth as some people are getting now over Davy Jones.

And as far as I’m concerned, Quincy Jones’ theme song “The Streetbeater” is more memorable than any Monkees’ song in existence.

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