Derrick Rose the face of Chicago pizza?

It amused me to learn Thursday that Chicago Bulls star player Derrick Rose has become a significant owner, and will now be the face of, Giordano’s pizza.

For me, it is just too much of a stretch to have to associate his name with those deep dish or stuffed pies. While I know this statement will make me sound like an antique, I can’t help but think that I was eating Giordano’s pizzas long before there ever was a Derrick Rose.

I MEAN THAT literally. The Bulls star who is trying to resuscitate his athletic career from torn ligaments wasn’t even born yet back when I first had a Giordano’s brand pizza.

The idea that a company that has been around Chicago for as long as Giordano’s (some four-plus decades) is turning to a ballplayer to promote its image (athletic careers are so unstable and can come crashing down at a moment’s notice) just strikes me as bizarre.

It’s not a slam against Rose – who is the local-boy favorite who made it out of Englewood to stardom until his injury. But what happens when Rose’s career is over?

Is Giordano’s now the company whose billboards have a blank space (insert face of fly-by-night athlete here) for their self-promotion?

ALTHOUGH I HAVE to confess, it must be nice to have the kind of money to buy one-self a brand-name product to associate with their own image. Crain’s Chicago Business reported that Rose paid an undisclosed amount for his share of the company, which he’d like to see become more of a national player on the restaurant scene.

Which just might be possible, on account of the fact that whenever I travel outside of Chicago, I have no problems finding restaurants that offer “Chicago-style pizza” – only to find out that those pizzas bear no resemblance to anything that any self-respecting Chicago consumer would ever consider consuming.

No matter how hungry they might be.

A chain of Giordano’s, done right, could well spread the concept of real deep dish or stuffed pizzas to other parts of the nation.

IT COULD ALSO make Rose so wealthy, if done right, that he doesn’t have to worry about ever playing ball again – except to assuage his ego.

Now for all of you who are on the verge of sending me e-mail messages telling me something along the lines of “Giordano’s sucks!!!,” I don’t need to hear it.

I never proclaimed it to be the best pizza.

But back when I was a kid, pizza largely was a thin-crust offering. The quality deep-dish came from Uno’s or Due’s – which meant a trip downtown. That’s not always convenient when one decides to indulge in the slices that are a meal in-and-of themselves.

GIORDANO’S WAS THE place that had so many locations that you could get a passable pizza pie without having to make a long trip.

I still remember the location of the Giordano’s I first ate at – and my mouth still waters whenever I go near it, even though now it is a long-vacant storefront. Giordano’s left there a while back.

Now, I have moved up, and consider myself fortunate to live near a Lou Malnati’s restaurant that will deliver.

I do find it a little humorous that Rose won’t be able to do any kind of business tie-in between himself, Giordano’s and the Chicago Bulls. The NBA team, after all, has a business deal with DiGiorno’s – those frozen pizzas that like to think they’re some sort of gourmet delicacy.

FROZEN PIZZA IS frozen pizza – regardless of the details. Let’s just hope that Giordano’s doesn’t decline to the level of the last Chicago athlete who tried to make extra money from pizzas sold in his image.

Because the concept of Ron Santo’s Pizza was foul enough that, perhaps, the one-time Chicago Cubs third baseman deserved a lengthy delay getting into the Baseball Hall of Fame for that reason alone.

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EXTRA: An off-the-wall question, but a predictable outcome, for Peterson case

PETERSON: Verdict pleased, but was it proper?

We should have known something was up when, in mid-day Wednesday, jurors in a Will County courtroom asked Judge Edward Burmila to clarify exactly what “unanimous” means.

As in all 12 jurors have to agree on the same verdict in order for it to mean anything.

WAS THERE SOME sort of hard-headed juror who was being stubborn, and his colleagues wanted to know what they could do to overcome him (or her)? Was there really some confusion about whether majority was enough to reach a verdict?

Or was this truly a vacuous jury?

All I know is that when I learned of the question, it seemed that Barack Obama’s worst nightmare was about to come true. The big story today and into the Friday ayem newspaper cycle would be that of the verdict against one-time Bolingbrook cop Drew Peterson.

Who was going to give a squat what Obama would say on Thursday night in accepting the nomination of his political party to run for a second term as president?

AN ATTITUDE I find despicable and irritating. But one that I realistically have to acknowledge is felt by many. Cheap thrills and petty crime does have a knack of snatching attention away from serious matters.

And if it means an arrogant buffoon such as Drew Peterson officially crossed the line into becoming a corrupt cop (one who would kill his wife in order to allow himself to marry another, much younger, woman), I’m sure many people will rejoice in the “Guilty” verdict that was handed down Thursday afternoon.

Even though a part of me can’t help but think of that old Doonesbury strip from nearly four decades ago where the Mark Slackmeyer character used his radio show to do a Watergate-era program on then-Attorney General John Mitchell, whom he pronounced with a wild-eyed look to be, “Guilty! Guilty, guilty, guilty!”

Somehow, I sense the mood in Joliet on Thursday was just as crazed.

THE  REPORTS COMING from that city tell of the honking of horns and sirens, the singing of songs parodying Peterson’s plight, and even a mob that persisted in taunting defense attorneys while trying to leave the downtown Joliet courthouse – located within walking distance of the casinos.

It’s a wonder somebody didn’t get hurt.

It also doesn’t surprise me to learn that the jurors themselves sought to sneak out of the building as undetected as possible.

They would have been subjected to questioning about whether they found any substance to the hearsay testimony and lack of physical evidence that would have shown Peterson was present when Wife Number Three died.

IT IS THAT very weak evidence that had some people believing Peterson could actually be acquitted of the criminal charges – no matter how much the public mood against him is hostile.

It’s also not like the jury gave any evidence of what it thought. Usually, a juror or two is willing to discuss how a verdict was reached.

But in this case, the jury prepared a written statement that is a masterpiece of saying absolutely nothing. Unless you can interpret some significance to the one-liner of, “After much deliberation, we have reached a decision we believe is just.”

If it reads like I’m skeptical of the legitimacy of this verdict, I sort of am. But I can’t say it surprises me. I always expected the mood against Peterson to be so intense that it would sway the jury into a “guilty” verdict.

I FULLY SUSPECT that the same people who got all worked up on Thursday would have been outraged if a mistrial had been granted on any of the multiple instances during testimony that prosecutors overstepped their bounds.

But I also believe that this is a case where the appellate court decision is going to turn out to be more significant than the court verdict.

Which means the Peterson circus now gets to pack up its tent and leave Joliet for a 37-mile trip west on Interstate 80 to Ottawa – the location of the appellate court, which hasn’t seen such nonsense since the day more than a century-and-a-half ago when it hosted one of the Lincoln/Douglas debates.

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Isaac moved convention rhetoric indoors. Is that really a political loss?

We have a new campaign “issue” – one just as trivial as 99 percent of the issues that usually come up during election cycles.

OBAMA: Won't be all wet

Some 50,000-plus people are going to be denied the chance to say “I was there!” when President Barack Obama gives his acceptance speech Thursday meant to officially kick off his active campaigning for a second term in the Oval Office.

THAT IS BECAUSE the heavy rainfall expected to hit Charlotte, N.C., (what is left of the storm that was once Hurricane Isaac and actually caused the first day of the Republican National Convention to be cancelled outright) caused the Obama for America people to decide that the president will give his speech indoors.

Meaning he won’t be speaking to a capacity crowd at the Bank of America stadium (and the 73,778 seats before which the NFL’s Carolina Panthers play). Instead, he’ll be speaking to a capacity crowd at the Time Warner Cable Arena – which is where the NBA’s Charlotte Bobcats play.

All 20,200 seats – that is. There are ways of cramming some more people into the arena. Seats can be set up on the floor where the basketball court usually exists.

But what it basically comes down to is about 50,000 fewer seats, which means that fewer people will be able to say they were in the building when Obama spoke.

NOT THAT I think it’s all that big of a deal.

Personally, had Obama persisted in giving his speech in the football bowl, probably 7/8ths of the people there would have seats either so far from the stage or at such crummy angles that they wouldn’t have been able to see anything anyway.

They’d be relying on multiple video screens that likely would have been erected. Which means they’d be watching the event on television. They might as well stay home and watch their pick of the many broadcast stations that are carrying convention coverage.

If anything, they’d probably learn more from those broadcasts than  they would by sitting in the stadium and watching the Obama-approved version of the event (all telegenic, but with little substance – just like all convention events, regardless of political party).

NOT THAT THE views will be any better at the Time Warner Cable Arena!

If anything, the experience of attending a presidential nominating convention is in partaking of the events surrounding the roster of speakers. The speeches themselves are little more than cheap talk.

So cheap at times that Mitt Romney last week got overshadowed by a Clint Eastwood appearance that still has people wondering, “What was he thinking?”

But back to Obama, who on Thursday will still give the same speech that the Republican operatives already are writing their venomous responses to – even before they’ve heard a word from the president. As far as I’m concerned, they were “all wet” even before the heavy rainfall.

THEIR TRASH TALK really doesn’t depend on what Obama says. Just his existence is what offends them to the point that they’re trying to get the rest of the nation worked up into the same sense of hatred they feel whenever the president is mentioned.

It’s just too bad (for them, at least) that the real mood of the nation is one of apathy. Obama’s biggest benefit that gives him a chance of winning re-election despite the economic mess that is our society these days is that most of us don’t hate the man.

Although it wouldn’t surprise me if we hear trash talk from the ideologues claiming that Obama is depriving some 50,000 people the chance to attend an event they were sort of promised a chance to see.

What with the way that the Obama camp has offered up chances to be at the Democratic convention to “ordinary” people who make the requisite financial contribution.

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EDITOR'S NOTE: I recall the 1996 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, held at the United Center, where officials made a big deal of restricting access to the Chicago Bulls locker room and Michael Jordan's locker. Since Jordan is now part-owner of the Charlotte NBA franchise, will similar restrictions be put on the owner's box from where he occasionally watches games?

Five more days to go ‘til picket lines?

What should we think of the standoff currently taking place between the Chicago Public Schools and the teachers it would employ to educate all those students it has?

We got the sight on Monday of Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis at a downtown rally, using the Daley Plaza and the shadow of the Picasso statue to make sure teachers realize they are the ones who have been snubbed – and they are the ones who need to stick together.

IT LOOKED ALL the more like Monday will be THE DAY that the teacher pickets become the real thing, instead of just informational acts.

Yet on Tuesday, we got the sight of Public Schools head Jean-Claude Brizard trying to reassure teachers that there is a chance the two sides can reach a contractual agreement by the end of the week.

The Chicago Tribune reported that Brizard said “steady progress” is being made, while adding that the stress of a strike would be “tremendous” on the families of Chicago Teachers Union members.

Which is true enough. It also is encouraging to hear that the hostile rhetoric is being toned-down by the school administration and city officials.

BECAUSE IT IS the reason why I have been able to sympathize with the Chicago Teachers Union members who are being asked to do significantly more work for minimal boosts in compensation.

It wouldn’t shock me to learn that city officials wish they could get their teachers to agree to a pay cut, and regard any increase as extravagant. They have been more than willing to play to the people whose ideological hang-ups make them want to think that everybody ought to feel grateful for employment.

Of course, they just think that way about other people – they think their own employment status is special.

I’d just like to see any of these people try to do the work of an educator – because I suspect they’d fail spectacularly. Perhaps because I realize I don’t have the patience required to teach. I couldn’t do it, and I doubt I’m alone.

SO AS FOR the idea that Chicago Public Schools officials are now trying to publicly put a conciliatory tone to their talks? It’s only a shame that it didn’t happen a few weeks sooner.

Perhaps we really would have reason to think that “steady progress” is being made, and that there is a good chance that the next few days will see a contractual agreement that would keep the teachers gainfully employed for the upcoming year, next few years, or however long a time period the two sides are able to agree to.

I’m not about to predict what’s going to happen with regards to the teachers’ contract. Because I’d have to admit that any guess I would make would be mere dumb luck if it turned out that I guessed correctly.

This thing could go either way, although I won’t be shocked and appalled if we wind up seeing picket lines at schools across Chicago and outside of City Hall in coming weeks – something we haven’t had since the days of Harold Washington as mayor.

THEN AGAIN, MAYBE this is all just a plot to make us reminisce fondly for the days of Richard M. Daley as mayor.

The city’s public school system did manage to go without labor disputes for his entire two decade-plus stint on City Hall’s fifth floor.

Although I doubt that the real key to success is a return to the past. People who want to return to “old ways” of doing things oftentimes are the real problem – which is why I can’t say I find the public schools officials to be 100 percent wrong.

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Michael Clarke Duncan left impression

Michael Clarke Duncan is an actor who doesn’t have the lengthiest list of film credits on his resume.

In fact, I’d say that most people remember him as the big guy from the Tom Hanks film “The Green Mile,” no matter which film he turned up in.

YET LET’S BE honest. Duncan’s portrayal of the character “John Coffey” (remember, “Just like the drink, only spelled different”) was one of those roles that will put the actor into our collective memory for decades to come.

It definitely will outlive the actor himself, since he died Monday at age 54. It wasn’t a long life. But it was good to see that he rose above what were the gang-infested streets of the Kenwood neighborhood (the presence of Hyde Park nearby has helped reduce some of those problems in recent years).

In fact, his story is similar to that of Kirby Puckett, the one-time resident of those public housing towers that used to oversee the Dan Ryan Expressway on the South Side who managed to rise to stardom with the Minnesota Twins, and later the Baseball Hall of Fame.

It is an encouraging tale to see people come out of those parts of Chicago where the depressing overtone is enough to drag anyone down – regardless of whatever innate talents they may possess.

ALTHOUGH IT’S GOOD to see Duncan have a baseball tie more closely related to Chicago – he was one of the few “celebs” who would identify himself as a Chicago White Sox fan.

In fact, in the official Major League Baseball documentary video that records the tale of the 2005 baseball season leading up to the World Series that year, it is Duncan’s bass-toned voice that narrates the tale of how Ozzie Guillen and his crew brought a World Series victory to Chicago for the first time in 88 years.

Probably the next time I pop my copy of the DVD of that documentary into my disc player, I’ll be doing it more to hear Duncan than any tale of the White Sox victory that year (although being reminded of how Orlando Hernandez came into that playoff game against the Boston Red Sox and shut down what was probably meant to be a Red Sox-taking-the-lead away from Chicago is a story that never gets old).

But back to the movie theater – which is where Duncan made his strongest impression on us.

PERSONALLY, I HAVE to confess something. “The Green Mile” is a film I saw once at the movie theater, and have been unable to ever watch again. Not on DVD. Not during times when it appears on various cable television channels.

Whenever I happen to stumble across it, I flip the channel – particularly if it seems like the film is approaching its climactic point where the Coffey character is being put to death by electrocution.

I acknowledge the power of the film (which was based on a Stephen King horror novel). If anything, it gets so intense that it gives me the quivers and the creeps!

It may be too real – even if the idea of a 100-year-old-plus prison guard with no end in sight to his life is fantasy AND the actual execution of the Coffey character is handled in ways that were totally unrealistic to the ways that death by electrocution is carried out.

BUT IT WILL be the way I think of the man whose Hollywood celebrity came following stints as a student at Kankakee Community College and working a laborer’s job for Peoples Gas.

Who knows what people got their gas back because Duncan himself came in to do the work? Kind of like those North Shore suburban families that once employed a housekeeper named Cora – not realizing that at night, she became the legendary blues singer Koko Taylor!

All the more reason why those North Side-oriented individuals don’t know what they’re missing on the Sout’ Side.

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Distractions, distractions!

Maybe it’s a sign from “God” that the presidential nominating conventions being held these days are ignorable.

More interesting than Mitt?

But it strikes me as ironic that the news cycles are offering us alternate stories that take away from the attention that the political parties would like us to be paying to their conventions that are meant to get the public all stirred up with excitement about the prospects of voting for either President Barack Obama or Republican challenger Mitt Romney.

FOR ROMNEY, HE had to compete with the coverage given to Hurricane Isaac – which might not have been as intense as the Hurricane Katrina that whacked New Orleans seven years ago.

But it did enough damage in New Orleans and Mississippi that the focus of the nation rightfully so wasn’t on the activity in Tampa, Fla.

Even if Clint Eastwood did his oddball rambling on behalf of the Romney campaign, real people were more interested in the way that people in the south were coping with the rains – which actually managed to work its way up to the Midwestern U.S. this past weekend to give us possibly the heaviest rainfall we’ve seen all summer.

It got so bad that Romney had to arrange his post-convention schedule to include an appearance in New Orleans on Friday, making it appear as though he was concerned about the damage and rehearsing for the day when he is president and has to prepare to issue a federal disaster declaration.

NOT THAT DEMOCRATIC Party partisans should be gloating at the loss of attention the Republicans suffered. Because they’re going to get hit with their own “hurricane” in the form of Drew Peterson.

Peterson, of course, is the suburban Chicago cop whose trial for murder of his third wife (wife four is still missing, as well) likely will wrap up this week.

PETERSON: Beats out Barack?



Peterson’s attorneys put on their defense last week, following just over two weeks of evidence (including all the hearsay testimony about what the dead and/or missing women would have said if they could be here with us) from the prosecution.

There won’t be any activity at the Will County courthouse on Monday. But Tuesday will be the day for closing arguments (State’s Attorney James Glasgow plans to make the final statement himself).

THEN, IT’S UP to the jury – the one that seems to like to dress alike. Perhaps that is a sign of unity.

I’d like to think that this case is straight-forward enough that deliberations could be over by Wednesday. Which would put it at the heart of the Democratic National Convention’s activity.

But why do I suspect that this jury will take a couple of full days? If that happens, we could very well have a verdict on Thursday – the day that Obama himself is supposed to speak at the convention, accept nomination for a second term as president, and deliver an “inspirational” speech that will make we, the American people, eager to vote for him again.

Unless, of course, the jury returns the verdict the same day.

IN WHICH CASE, dateline “JOLIET, Ill.” will supplant that of “CHARLOTTE, N.C.” as the top story of the news.

Barack Obama will get bumped off the front pages of newspapers, and the top spot of the websites affiliated with those publications, by a tawdry tale of a middle-aged cop with a thing for young girls.

Be honest! A Peterson verdict, whether “guilty” or “not guilty,” is going to draw more interest among many people than an Obama speech – no matter how eloquent it turns out to be.

Would Obama literally have to deviate his schedule to make an appearance in Joliet at the courthouse to offer his thoughts in order to force his face back into the public eye?

THAT MIGHT SAY more about we, the public, and our interests (or lack thereof).

Perhaps if it were a real “Act of God,” the almighty would give us enough of an intelligence jolt so we’d have a broader attention span.

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Isaac hits Chicago! And we’re happy. What a difference a couple of days make

Isaac is the one-time hurricane turned tropical depression that is going to hit the Midwest and the Chicago area this weekend in the form of heavy rain.

We’re going to get soggy weather both Saturday and Sunday – if the weather forecasts are correct. Of course, considering that the days of 100-degree-plus heat we had this summer has burned its memory into our brains, the idea of some cooling rainfall may well be a relief.

IN FACT, MOST Midwestern-oriented officials are praising the fact that we’ll get a bit of wet weather. We’re in drought conditions all across Illinois – with the southernmost tip of the state getting hit the worst.

Everybody thinks we could use the remnants of a hurricane that swept through New Orleans and the states of Louisiana and Mississippi seven years to the days after Hurricane Katrina left its historic devastation.

This time around, the harm isn’t quite so intense. Many businesses already are reopening, and people who had to flee just a few days ago are returning to their homes.

Although this weather story is just like many other weather stories – its significance depends on how it personally affected you.

I CAN SIT back and write this commentary from a detached perspective because all I’m getting hit with is some rainfall this weekend that may well wash some of the grime that has accumulated on my car.

I’m sure there are some people who got wiped out by Katrina who got whacked equally hard by Isaac. They’re going to forevermore equate the two storms equally – even though all the reports coming from the south indicate otherwise.

I do know a few people who live in (or near) New Orleans who have some personal stories to tell of Katrina, and I’m sure Isaac will give them some more tales to tell.

Perhaps I’ll be able to get something from them that I can share with readers of this web log in the near future. They are stories we, personally, should take into account. Unless we really want to be gullible enough to think that what we’re going to experience this weekend is the extent of Isaac.

BUT UNTIL THEN, my experience with Isaac will have to deal with this weekend, which may well center around the fact that I’ll have to dig the raincoat out of the closet for the first time in several weeks.

We’re coming up on Labor Day, we’ll soon have the sight of college football dominating the television on weekends, and the presidential campaign season is about to kick into high gear.

Summer is coming to an end. We really are coming up on autumn. So perhaps a heavy, but cooling, rainfall is ever so appropriate.

I did find it reassuring to learn that officials at the southern end of the Chicago area (Will County and the part of metro Chicago that stretches into Indiana) are convinced they’re ready to handle the rain that they say could increase the Kankakee River watershed with 5 inches of rain – compared to 1 inch that would be expected from a rainfall.

BECAUSE THE LAST thing anybody wants is some flooding. Even though it wouldn’t compare to the flooding that has hit greater New Orleans, it still becomes an inconvenience – particularly for the few individuals who get devastated by the water worse than the norm.

Although I can think of one benefit to having such rainfall this weekend.

A part of me feels like the rhetoric from the Republican National Convention dirtied us all up a bit. We can use the cleansing effect of a natural shower – otherwise that and the combination of next week’s Democratic nominating convention would just be too much trash talk crusted onto our souls for anyone to take.

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