She’s not just a Beyonce clone

In some ways, Etta James was my favorite singer who came out of the old Chess Records scene on the South Side.

But that doesn’t mean I had “At Last” running through my brain on Friday, upon learning that James died in the morning hours in a hospital in California.

IF ANYTHING, MY favorite song of hers was “Don’t Cry Baby.” Although what I also liked about James was that she was capable of so many styles of song. One never knew exactly what to expect when she would sing.

Just listen to her cover of the raunchy old blues number, “I Just Want to Make Love to You,” and you learn that she wasn’t just about sweet, sickly, saccharine ballads. Then again, James’ life was filled with raunch, pain and suffering – some self-imposed by narcotics abuse.

Which is why I think it kind of sad that James’ career at the end got defined because of “At Last,” which was the song that got played up in that film Cadillac Records, a semi-fictional take on Chess Records where actress Beyonce Knowles portrayed James.

Remember how offended she got when Knowles was invited to perform at one of the 2009 presidential inauguration balls to sing “At Last” instead of her?

TOO MANY PEOPLE preferred the fictional take of that song, rather than the real thing (which in my mind is even more depressing than some two decades ago when some people took to Los Lobos’ cover of the song “La Bamba” over that version by Ritchie Valens – the one that was actually a late-1950s pop music hit).

Which is why I chuckled all those years ago when James threatened to “whip” Beyonce’s booty for singing what she considered to be HER song, and couldn’t help but remember that moment on Friday.

James was joking, sort of, even though I’m sure she wouldn’t have objected to being a part of The Scene that swore in Barack Obama to be president.

In all, it has me wondering how many people are thinking of the news of James’ death merely in terms of the woman that Beyonce portrayed in a movie. Or worse yet, maybe they think somehow it is Beyonce who has passed on.

UNLESS THEY MERELY think of James as the “Opening Act” for the Rolling Stones back in the 1980s – which strikes me as the still-worthwhile performer opening for the over-the-hill has-beens (I’m one of those people who thinks the “Stones” ceased being interesting after, about 1969, and who also thinks the Beatles were more interesting – a debate for another date).

Then again, too many performers from the Chess Records scene had careers that were overshadowed by white imitators.

In my mind, any woman whose performing career lasted for more than a half-century and was a significant part of the scene that emanated from 2120 S. Michigan Ave. deserves to be thought of with more respect than being confused with a performer who (in 50 years) may not even be remembered.

Which is why I have spent some time in recent weeks wondering what I should write when the moment came that Etta James departed this existence. For she was hospitalized right around Christmas and doctors made it clear that she was not expected to recover from her conditions – which primarily consisted of Leukemia but also included dementia.

THAT IS A sad and depressing way for anyone to go. But those musical fans who realize that there is material worth listening to that was recorded prior to, say, September had their chance to brace themselves for her demise.

Etta James, who even at 73 years of life, somehow seems like she died too soon. Rest In Peace.

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Political chaos! That’s GOP these days

What a mess the Republican primaries for president seem to have become.

ROMNEY: Blowing 'front runner' status

I woke up Thursday to news reports that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney didn’t really win the Iowa caucuses (although the confusion and technicalities that are involved may really be evidence that the caucus concept itself is flawed).

BUT I CAN’T say that former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania should think that highly of his new win. Because Romney got the benefits of being the “winner” for a couple of weeks and the momentum that goes with it.

I couldn’t help but note the tone of condescension in the statement Romney issued that congratulated Santorum on his “victory.”

This confusion from Iowa came at the same point that Texas Gov. Rick Perry accepted reality and dropped out. He didn’t even wait to get his clock cleaned in the South Carolina primary coming up Saturday before deciding it was time to return home.

That has many of the political observers convinced that former Sen. Newt Gingrich of Georgia (who now lives in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C.) is going to become the recipient of the ABM vote.

ALL THOSE PEOPLE who want Anybody But Mitt as the Republican presidential nominee (because they think he’s not enough of an ideologue for their taste) could whomp on Romney if they do solidify themselves behind one lone candidate.

PERRY: Accepting reality?



Yet before Gingrich gets all excited about his chances, he’s having to defend himself from what he anticipated would be an attack by one of his ex-wives – who gave an interview to ABC News.

Supposedly, the man who would like to think he stands for Christian morals told wife number two that he wanted either a divorce – or permission to cheat (a.k.a., an “open marriage”).

Honestly, I can’t figure who is suffering the most. It’s like these candidates are determined to see who can batter themselves up more than anyone else. It’s like the Republican electorate is determined to put forth the most bloodied-and-battered nominee to take on Barack Obama – who gets to spend the next few months raising the millions of dollars that could enable him to bury the GOP nominee come the Nov. 6 elections.

IF I DIDN’T know better, I’d think it was some sort of conspiracy by the Obama camp to ensure that he gets “four more years!” of residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W.

Or maybe this is Ron Paul at work. Because as much as I personally don’t think he has the temperament to be president, I have to confess that he is starting to look like the most rational excuse of a human being in the running for the Republican nomination for U.S. president.

In fact, it has me wondering if he will be the “big” winner of all this chaos taking place. Just the fact that his name isn’t being associated with something bizarre could make him the person that people who pick a Republican ballot cast their vote for.

“Vote for Paul. The boring guy!”

THAT IS WHAT this election cycle has devolved down to, and we’re not even past voters in two of the 50 states (along with the District of Columbia and various territories) having their say.

PAUL: The 'sane' candidate



This certainly won’t be an election cycle remembered for “hope” and “change” (which are noble goals, even though nitwits like Chris Christie and Sarah Palin try mocking them) and people inspired to vote for “A Better America.”

The Nov. 6 general election was always destined to become the election cycle in which people cast their vote for the candidate they despise the least.

Now, it seems that the primaries (including our own on March 20) will take on the same tone. Which doesn’t do a thing for making me want to vote.

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St. Xavier football gives local politicos only chance to brandish a trophy

Cook County officials were in their glory on Wednesday as they got to engage in a bit of fluff before delving into such serious issues as immigration “detainers” and how messed up are Stroger Hospital finances?

It was football time.

What fun is football without cheerleaders?



AND SINCE THE Chicago Bears had their season in 2011 delve into a level of complete dreck, it turned to the St. Xavier Cougars from the Southwest Side to provide the occasion.

St. Xavier last month beat Carroll College (in the Milwaukee suburbs) for the NAIA national championship title for last year. Which makes them the first college football team from Chicago proper to be able to make such a claim in 99 years.

It seems the University of Chicago (back in the days when they were Big Ten) can make a claim of sharing a title with Harvard University for 1913. That was the last, until the athletes from St. Xavier gave us something to cheer for – had we been paying attention this autumn.

Which is why team and university officials were at the Cook County Board meeting, bringing their huge trophy to show off, while Commissioner John Daley boasted that his father (the late Mayor Richard J.) helped to develop the neighborhood around 103^rd Street just west of Central Park Avenue.

AND COMMISSIONER JERRY “the Iceman” Butler mocked the student-athletes by asking them, “I’m wondering why it took you 99 years” to win.

Of course, it doesn’t say much that St. Xavier is the first Chicago college football team to win a championship in so long. It’s not like the Chicago White Sox going 88 years between World Series victories or the Chicago Cubs still waiting for a World Series victory after 104 seasons of coming up short (some years, way short).



Chicago's latest athletic champion. Photographs provided by St. Xavier University



For to the best of my knowledge, there are few Chicago-based colleges that have football programs – St. Xavier, the aforementioned University of Chicago and North Park University up around Foster and Kedzie avenues.

And North Park’s moment of athletic glory came back in the late 1970s-early 1980s when their basketball program won four consecutive national titles.

IN SHORT, MOST of our urban universities have scaled back athletic programs (compared to the major conference state universities) that tend to focus on basketball as their main endeavor. In short, Chicago hasn’t had a championship college football team in 99 years because there simply aren’t many teams.

For those of you who want to cite the Northwestern Wildcats football program, keep in mind that they technically are an Evanston-based entity. They belong to the suburbs and don’t really count in this particular achievement.

I wonder how much locals really care about college athletics – unless they went to a particular school. I know in my own case, most of my attention goes to my alma mater – which I recall had basketball teams in the mid-1980s that used to play extremely well, UNTIL North Park would come to town and whomp on our butts.

It is the reason why that Northwest Side college is one part of Chicago that I just can’t get into. The old IWU Titan fan in me holds me back. Even if North Park ever put together a football program that would manage to do the city proud by accomplishing what St. Xavier managed to do.

IT WILL BE interesting to see if St. Xavier is able to follow up in future seasons on their achievements of 2011. At the very least, it must be a highlight for the athletes on that team who by-and-large are Chicago-area kids from places like Mount Carmel High School, Thornton High in Harvey or Joliet Central.

They got to say they played college football, and have some memories of a championship – even though most of us weren’t watching closely as they ratcheted up their record of 14-1 (their only loss was a 27-9 game on Nov. 5 against Indiana-based Marian University).

Let’s just hope we don’t have to wait another 99 years before some local institution of higher learning gives our city another championship of a sort.

Because if we have to wait for the Cubs to do something right – I don’t think any of us can live that long!

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Booting Obama from the ballot?

It’s more about trying to make a political statement against Barack Obama than engaging in any concrete action. But there are those people who are trying to get the incumbent president removed from the ballot that Illinois voters will see in the March 20 primary election.

OBAMA: Booted from ballot?



The people supporting Rick Santorum’s presidential fantasies (which got a jolt from those misguided folks in Iowa) are engaging in their own efforts to kick all the other Republican presidential candidates off the Illinois ballot to try to clear a path for him.

BUT THE ACTIVIST types who are singling out Obama, while they may think they’re engaging in some serious effort, are really just into making a silly statement that shows just how out-of-touch they are with the political mainstream.

For the record, Obama is unopposed for the Democratic nomination for president on the Illinois ballot. So if, by some miracle, Obama’s name were to be removed, people picking a Democratic ballot would have no one to vote for when it comes to U.S. president.

But to the best of my knowledge, no one is trying to boot the slates of delegates to the Democratic National Convention who also will appear on the ballot. Which means Illinois would still send people to the convention to make official Obama’s bid for a second term as president.

I actually got a statement in my e-mail from one of the groups that filed a challenge to Obama. I’m not quoting any of it, or even identifying the group (I deleted it from my own e-mail box fairly quickly), because the tone of it was so irrational.

IT ACTUALLY DELVED into the electoral history of Obama and how he managed to win his first election to an Illinois state Senate seat unopposed. By booting then-state Sen. Alice Palmer off the ballot, they say Obama brought bad karma on himself – which now will be repaid by booting him off the ballot in his own home state.

PALMER: Famous for failure?

I can’t tell if this is a group of conservative ideologues engaging in their usual anti-Obama rhetoric, or black activists who still hold a grudge on behalf of Palmer (who herself was a Hillary Clinton backer for president in 2008 and also supported Danny Davis for mayor last year over Obama ally Rahm Emanuel).

It actually astounds me how many people do not really comprehend what happened to Palmer back in 1996. She thought about running for Congress, but soon came to the realization that she would suffer the same fate challenging Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., that Obama himself suffered in 2002.

So she put together a last-minute petition drive to seek re-election to her South Side state legislative post that Obama had already decided he wanted to run for because Palmer allegedly was vacating the post.

BECAUSE SHE HAD to do a rush job to get those petitions ready, they were sloppy. Sloppy enough that Obama was able to challenge her and get her kicked off the ballot. Except that Palmer backers seem to think there is a "gentlemen's agreement" to politics to leave her unchallenged, in that situation.

It resulted in her becoming the woman whose career as a legislator and an educator has become obscured by her political demise. Being booted from the ballot may wind up being the only reason anyone remembers her name – and even then only because of its association to Obama.

But when people start talking about bad karma and “payback,” I have to wonder how much they’re over-exaggerating the situation.

In short, I consider these challenges to the Obama ballot spot to be silly, if not outright vacuous, even though they claim the Obama nominating petitions were done so sloppily that they do not comply with state elections law.

I DON’T KNOW first-hand. I haven’t seen the nominating petitions for myself. And the Illinois State Board of Elections (which ultimately will have to rule on the challenges to Obama and the bulk of the GOP challengers) has yet to schedule hearings to resolve the matter.

Not that I honestly believe the state Elections Board will do much of anything about it. I expect they will find a way to dismiss the Obama challenge – which most likely will result in the same activists releasing another verbose statement about “hypocrisy” and political people sticking up for each other over the interests of everyday people.

Which, of course, is nonsense, because these people have their own ideological agenda to peddle. They are as far removed from everyday people as anyone can get.

So I’m not about to get all worked up and worry about whether Obama will somehow have his presidency undermined at this stage of the game.

BECAUSE THIS IS really going to show why political operatives dismiss this stage of the process as the “beauty contest,” and pay more attention to the delegate selection.

Barack Obama is going to be the Democratic Party’s nominee for U.S. president who will have to face a serious challenge from whichever ideologue the Republicans manage to nominate.

And all that will really be accomplished by these challenges is that the people who are making them will wind up making themselves look foolish in the process.

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Does Halvorson really think Obama, Emanuel endorsements would help her?

Debbie Halvorson, the suburban Crete woman whose aspirations to return to Congress involve having to knock Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., D-Ill., out of her way, is truly in a tough spot when it comes to getting voter support.

JACKSON: Acting like a front-runner



I’ll be the first to concede there are people living in Illinois’ Second Congressional district (stretching from 53^rd Street and the lakefront in Chicago to the Kankakee/Iroquois County border) who will vote for just about anybody other than the son of the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

YET MANY OF those people are of an ideological bent that Halvorson (a former south suburban state legislator who served one two-year term in Congress) may well be the one person they wouldn’t cast a vote for.

On the campaign trail, she basically tries to establish herself as within the mainstream of the Democratic Party and one who would go to Washington to support the desires of President Barack Obama.

But Jackson can make the same claims, which means many people aren’t going to distinguish between the two – no matter how much she tries to make such minute distinctions seem like chasms.

Anyway, Jackson is now going around claiming to have the endorsements of the big names of Chicago politics – Obama, Gov. Pat Quinn and Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

WBBM-AM RADIO REPORTED Monday that Obama and Emanuel haven’t done anything official to say they want Jackson re-elected. But the newsradio station says that Jackson says both of those men told him they would support him.

Whatever!  I can’t say it would be a surprise to learn that those two would choose to support an incumbent from Chicago proper over a challenger from the suburbs just over the Cook/Will county line.

HALVORSON: Does really really want Obama?



Just as it really wasn’t surprising that the AFL-CIO last week gave its support to Jackson over Halvorson in the March 20 primary elections. They always pick the incumbent to endorse – unless the incumbent has such a scandal that they become unelectable.

Apparently, nobody seems to think that Jackson’s possible involvement in efforts to get then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich to appoint him to the U.S. Senate back in 2008 is big enough – nor his involvement with a blonde Brazilian woman.

THE ONLY PEOPLE who are going to take these issues up, at this point, are the ideologues whose real objection may well be his pigmentation and his last name.

Those are the same people who dumped Halvorson, for differing reasons, in 2010 when she was the incumbent representative being challenged by now-Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill.

What strikes me as odd is that Halvorson is challenging the idea that Jackson can count on the support of Obama and Emanuel. She seems to think she can get their support – or at the very least, the backing of Obama.

Yet I’m telling you if either of those men were to publicly come out in support of her, it would probably hurt her more than help.

FOR THE SAME people at the southern end of the congressional district who are complaining that Chicago is overtaking their rural way of life would merely see the support of Emanuel and/or Obama as evidence that Halvorson is NOT, “one of them.”

Whereas having those two men come out in support of Jackson just sounds like business as usual – something that would be quickly forgotten by most voters.

If anything, Halvorson may well be the one who is prolonging this and turning it into an issue to be used against her.

Because if, by chance, she were to win the Democratic primary in March, I could easily see her Republican challenger then turning around and using this against her. “Debbie Halvorson is a Chicago political machine hack!” – that’s how the campaign ads will read.

AND THE PEOPLE whose level of interest in this congressional campaign is such that they’re following the virtually uncovered campaign between James Taylor, Sr., of Bradley, Ill., and Brian Woodworth of Bourbonnais (the Kankakee County town that provides the Chicago Bears with its training camp site each summer) will be the ones who will eagerly believe this line of rhetoric – which anyone with sense knows is absolutely ridiculous.

But “absolutely ridiculous” may well be where this particular campaign is going, particularly by the time the Nov. 6 general election cycle comes about.

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EXTRA: What goes through peoples’ minds about King Day these days?

There are times I wonder just how much have we managed to trivialize the memory of Martin Luther King, Jr. – all in an attempt to make him more acceptable for society as a whole.

KING: Have we lost the 'real' man?

As we participate in ceremonies all across the country on Monday to pay homage to King’s memory – just what “memory” are we remembering?

BECAUSE MUCH OF what we hear these days – some 44 years after the man’s death – makes him sound like an African-American version of a “peacenik” or “hippie;” images which themselves have been tampered with by the conservative ideologues to try to trivialize their significance.

I can’t help but wonder just how many people of an older generation are gnashing their teeth and silently seething at the very thought of an official holiday (and now, even an official memorial on the Mall in Washington, D.C.) to pay tribute to the man whom they once lambasted as an “agitator” and a “Communist” – to use a couple of the nicer epithets that used to get tossed out with regards to King.

I’d like to think the fact that the only people who still use those terms to describe King are Ku Klux Klan members (and even then, only when they’re looking to provoke a brawl) would be evidence of our society having changed to the point where we now realize how thoroughly stupid we ever were for thinking such a thing.

But I can’t be that naïve. Younger generations won’t ever fully appreciate the contempt level once felt for King – which is both good AND bad.

GOOD THAT THEY don’t get the hate first-hand, but bad that they might not appreciate the degree to which King and his followers had to overcome. Because what they sought is really so obvious that only the biggest of nitwits were opposed to him.

Unfortunately, too many of the rest of us who don’t want to be called on our trash-talk of the past were more than willing to sit back and let the ideologues rant and defer to them so as to avoid a confrontation.

It strikes me as so similar to the debate taking place these days whenever immigration reform and the growing Latino population comes up that it makes me think we really haven’t learned much of anything.

What made this thought boil over in my brain was a King Day celebration I attended Monday in south suburban South Holland, where the Rev. Reginald Williams, Jr., of First Baptist Church in University Park (all the way down at the southernmost edge of the Chicago area) gave his own assessment of King’s image – which he calls, “a man taken sorely out of context.”

BECAUSE TOO MANY people reduce King to a few lines of “peace” rhetoric without placing it in the context of just how opposed some segments of our society were to such “peace.”

As Williams put it, “they made him a wimp who held a utopian dream.”

He cited, as an example, the famed “I Have a Dream” speech made from Washington, D.C., where everybody remembers the line about, “My four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

But we then ignore the line in the same speech in which King said that “Negroes” were in the nation’s capital that day to “cash a check” for freedom and unalienable rights, except that, “America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked ‘insufficient funds’.”

REMEMBERING THE REAL King and his struggles might very well stir up the old resentments. Yet trying to ignore the resentments as though they never existed merely trivializes the whole matter – which is something we should never want to do.

Because then, King’s memory becomes just another holiday – perhaps a black version of President’s Day. One in which some people get some time off without really understanding why, and some businesses concoct special sales to try to get those people to use their days off to shop some more.

It may bolster the economy a bit, yet I can’t help but think that Williams was on to something on Monday when he said, “Corporate America has created an image to use King to sell anything from bedsheets to chicken wings.”

Somehow, I doubt that King – when he wrote his ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’—had in mind trying to bolster the bottom line for Shark’s Fish & Chicken!

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Romney treats shots off the foul pole as tape-measure home run blasts!!!!!

Time magazine caught my attention – what with a cover showing a close-up of presidential hopeful Mitt Romney’s face and the headline, “So you like me now?”

Which struck me as downright absurd. There may be those political pundits who are trying to claim that the former Massachusetts governor is running away with the political battles that will get him the Republican presidential nomination for the Nov. 6 elections.

BUT REAL PEOPLE are more inclined to see what is happening and realize that no one is “pull(ing) ahead of the pack” – which is how Time chose to characterize Romney’s campaign performances in a subhead to the same magazine cover.

Maybe it’s because I see a candidate who took 25 percent support of the caucuses in Iowa and 39 percent of the voter support in the New Hampshire primary – and see a few states coming up where the conservative ideologues of the world typically do well in elections.

What I see is a candidate who had overwhelming majorities of voters wanting somebody else, ANYBODY ELSE, except for Mitt. That sentiment is running strong. If anything, IT is the dominant theme of Campaign ’12.

We have the ideologues who have had their hang-ups ever since Election Day 2008 who have been biding their time for the day when someone can come in and erase the memory of Barack Obama as president.

THOSE ARE NOT a compromising batch of people. The last thing they’re ever going to do is get excited about the thought of Mitt Romney.

That is why it did not shock me to learn that on Saturday in Texas, a group of ideologically-motivated political people came out in support of Rick Santorum. The one-time Pennsylvania senator who has a record of being more than willing to spew against people who aren’t just like himself may well be the kind of candidate they want.

In short, they’re trying to pressure all the other candidates who remain in the various elections to drop out. Because then, the ABM vote will combine into an overwhelming majority – instead of all those “Anybody But Mitt” votes being split among so many candidates that Romney’s quarter-of-the Republican electorate is large enough to “win” on the primary election days.

Of course, I don’t expect to see those other candidates drop out. They’re a stubborn batch who probably are convinced of their own moral superiority – even though when I look at them, I see a batch of blowhards (and no, I have never succumbed to the appeal of Ron Paul).

SO ROMNEY MAY well “win” these primaries and wind up getting the nomination to run against Obama. Although I’m not convinced of the line of rhetoric that claims he’s a political “moderate” who is the only GOPer who can possibly win the general election.

I just can’t help but see a candidate who creates a sense of apathy among the Republican faithful that will be more intense than what occurred in ’08 with John McCain.

And if, somehow, the GOP voters were to somehow nominate one of their ideologues as some sort of hard-line approach by which they take over and the rest of us have to shut up and like it, all I can say to that theory is that those ideologues must be using some pretty hard-core drugs in order to believe such nonsense.

I couldn’t help but notice a pair of reports from the Gallup Organization – which on Sunday had Barack Obama with a 46 percent “favorable” rating, compared to 48 percent “unfavorable.”

BUT A STUDY released late last week said that 46 percent of people surveyed want a federal government with Barack Obama to have more influence over its direction, compared to only 42 percent that would want a Republican Congress to set the tone of public policy.

The man holding the presidency is not as unpopular as the ideologues want to believe, and most people who are distrustful of Obama these days are distrustful of all political people in general – even the Republicans.

So I can’t help but laugh at the people who are trying to portray Mitt Romney as some sort of GOP steamroller and political force. It just isn’t so!

I can’t help but think we’re going to be getting a laugh out of that Time magazine cover come autumn, and Romney may wind up making the McCain campaign, in retrospect, look competitive by comparison.

IF ANYTHING, IT has me wondering if somewhere up in the cosmos, there is some force looking out for Obama.

For this is the guy who got elected to the Illinois state Senate by successfully knocking an incumbent opponent off the ballot, then went up to the U.S. Senate by seeing both his primary and general election opponents implode.

Seeing the possibility that history will record that Obama ran for president against two GOP nominees despised by their own party faithful just seems too ironic. For it has me wondering about those ideologues – some of whom go about thinking they’re spreading “God’s will” with their activism.

Maybe they are – if you believe that whatever Supreme being exists doesn’t object to “Four more years!!!” of Barack Obama and is using the ideologues to “take down” his challengers.

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