Rolling Stones; older than I am, yet still rockin’ away after all these years

Perhaps this is a tacky joke, but I have to wonder what the fine print says for anybody buying tickets to the Rolling Stones’ upcoming U.S. tour – the one that has them traveling the country come spring and summer, with a Soldier Field stop on June 21.

In fact, Chicago will actually be the final stop on the tour – which creates the potential of a band operating on pure adrenaline. They’re going to have to be outright exhausted by that point in time.

CONSIDERING THAT THE key members of the band that has operated for more than a half-century are aged – rock stars Mick Jagger and Keith Richards both are now 75 years old.

Yet carrying on as though they think they’re still in their early 20s, playing music for the masses and carrying on the image of the late, great bluesman Muddy Waters – whose hit song “Rolling Stone” gave the band their very name.

Now I’ll be the first to admit that at age 53, I’m not capable of the kind of stamina one would need to do such a tour. It kind of astounds me that Richards, of all people, would be capable.

But then again, if someone were willing to pay me the kind of money the Rolling Stones will be getting for these shows, I’d figure a way to get myself up and running so as to do it.

A favorite, particularly the cover

BUT THEN AGAIN, the Rolling Stones seem to be a unique institution, performing those concerts that still draw the kinds of crowds to pack stadiums such as Soldier Field.

Whereas most other rock ‘n’ roll bands of the 1960s who still insist on performing live are reduced to events such as the Ribfest held every summer in suburban Naperville.

Or, like the Buckinghams – the one-time Chicago native band named for the fountain – playing venues such as the Paramount Theater of Asbury Park, N.J. (they really played there back on June 21 of this year).

Although the same purpose was served – allowing aging fans to be able to close their eyes and pretend they’re still youthful. And that with the opening guitar riff of “I Can’t Get No (Satisfaction),” they can pretend it’s still 1964 and that by listening to “the Stones,” they’re making a statement about how much “the Beatles suck!”

TO BE HONEST, though, watching those old video snippets of when the Beatles came to White Sox Park for a pair of concerts back in August of 1965 (just a few days before I was born) makes me think that event was far more significant than any of the Stones’ concerts – since my own quickie research finds they have played here so many times throughout the decades.

The only way the 2019 concert becomes memorable is if, by chance, there is a fatality in the band and the event becomes an informal memorial tribute. A morbid thought that I'm sure no one is rooting for.

But I’m sure the kind of people paying hundreds of dollars to sit in the outer reaches of the Soldier Field seating bowl aren’t going to let anyone deprive them of a musical experience.

And they’re not about to let some snot-nosed 19-year-old punk make rude comments about the Rolling Stones being a batch of geezers. They’re going to enjoy their money.

NOT THAT I have any intention of showing up – mostly because I think it’s impossible to truly capture the essence of what made the Rolling Stones so incredibly unique in musical annals. Time passes us all by, and what we have left are lasting memories.

So that may be the real essence – listening to those Rolling Stones records I have amongst my collection (yes, I did buy the “Blue & Lonesome” compact disc of a couple of years ago). My memories get triggered every time I play a record or disc.

And as far as I’m concerned, I have a personal favorite recording – although not one that would come to many fans’ minds. It’s “2120 S. Michigan Ave.,” the instrumental number on one of their first records meant to be a tribute to the old Chess Records label (which was located at that address).

Which is meant to remind us of the great blues music that once came from that address. Now if Muddy Waters, or any of the great old bluesmen, were to be capable of giving us a concert, THAT might be the concert event worthy of much of the hype the Rolling Stones will try to arouse in coming months.

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Campaign tactics meant to gain whatever edge candidates can get

We’re at that stage of the mayoral election cycle in which candidates are desperately trying to game the process in ways they desperately hope will give them an edge on Election Day.

The four mayoral hopefuls …

Even though many of the things they’re now going are really trivial and superficial and not likely to make one bit of difference in terms of turning out votes.

THIS IS THE election cycle in which there are no incumbents seeking a return as mayor, meaning every political dreamer with delusions of grandeur is putting themselves in the running.

Monday was the first day in which candidates could file nominating petitions, and it should be noted that aides to four people showed up at City Hall to make their claim to a ballot spot.

Jerry Joyce (a long-time Daley family friend, is he really running against William?), Toni Preckwinkle, Paul Vallas and Willie Wilson were those people, and they’re now likely to go about making claims they’re the only candidates who deserve to be taken seriously. After all, they’re dedicated enough to file early – which may give them the chance of having their names listed at the top of the list of candidates on the Feb. 26 ballot.

With the political theory being that some people are clueless and confused enough that when they cast their ballots, they vote for whoever’s name is atop the list.

… with dreams of getting … 

PRECKWINKLE, THE FORMER alderman from Hyde Park turned Cook County Board president, herself claims getting that top spot on the ballot could account for a percent or two of the vote – which in this year’s electoral mess could be enough to prevail.

Kind of scary, if you think about it.

The municipal election cycle’s most prominent post being resolved by the ballots cast by people who didn’t put any thought into WHO they were voting for – but merely cast a vote for a ballot slot!

You may have noticed that many more names have tossed themselves out for mayoral contemplation beyond the four individuals who filed early Monday morning.

… the number one mayoral spot … 

OF COURSE, THERE’S the fact that the deadline for filing is the end of business next Monday. And yes, there will be those people eager to have their names listed last on the ballot.

Because names are put on the ballot in the order that candidates file their petitions, there are bound to be a few candidates who will want to show up just before 5 p.m. so they can be absolutely last. A Dec. 5 lottery will break any ties that develop.

With the line of logic being that having one’s name at the end of a lengthy list of political dreamers is better than being stuck in the middle of the pack. Just think being seventh on a list of 13 or so candidates for mayor?

Geez, you might as well wear a millstone around your neck. Because you’re actually going to have to campaign completely on the issues and the merits of what kind of candidate you would make. And yes, that line is meant to reek heavily of sarcasm.

THERE ALWAYS IS the chance someone will show up late Thursday, only to have someone else manage to slip in just behind them. Or the risk of having someone show up at City Hall at 5:02 p.m., just a moment or so too late to file the nominating petitions you struggled to put together.

… on the Feb. 26 Election Day ballot

Which brings your political aspirations for Election ’19 coming to a crashing halt not because you were defeated at the polling place, but because your campaign dreams became irrelevant to the process.

All of which makes the activity of Monday morning running trough next Monday night an intriguing part of the process for politically geeky observers.

Because a lot of people are engaging in actions now that will seem downright trivial and irrelevant come May when one of these people takes the oath of office promising not to totally embarrass themselves as mayor – and everybody else will have their heads filled with fantasies about how much better qualified they would have been IF ONLY the voters had come to their senses.

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Chicago mayoral pack to whittle its way down to more manageable pack

The days of having 30 to 40 people claiming they’re candidates for the post of Mayor of the city of Chicago are soon to be through.

Chicago's next mayor will be, … who knows?

Next Monday is the deadline for candidates for the Feb. 26 municipal elections to file their nominating petitions to even get on the ballot, and we’re going to learn how many of those people were politically incompetent enough that they couldn’t get the 12,500 signatures of support needed to qualify.

WE’RE GOING TO see how many of the so-called candidates of earlier this year will not even be a factor in the final discussion over who should replace Rahm Emanuel in the mayor’s office.

If anything, I gained some respect earlier this week when I learned that Troy LaRaviere, head of the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association, was giving up his campaign before it even began.

He was honest enough to admit he couldn’t get a sufficient number of signatures of support, thereby making any effort to run for mayor an exercise in futility.

Of course, he’ll probably be remembered in this election cycle as the guy whose farewell to the campaign season was to take a pot shot at entertainer Kanye West – who apparently reached out early on to the LaRaviere camp with thoughts of publicly supporting him.

LaRAVIERE: First to see jolt of reality

WEST, OF COURSE, is one of several entertainers who are now backing the mayoral dreams of Amara Enyia, an experienced public policy professional who has never actually run for office herself.

LaRaviere let it be known he couldn’t accept West’s support because the man’s too friendly with President Donald Trump (remember that goofy Oval Office meeting between the two of a few weeks ago?).

The trick of anticipating the upcoming week is to figure out how many of the mayoral dreamers will come to their senses before the Nov. 26 deadline. Of course, people with political aspirations usually are delusional enough to think so highly of themselves they can’t see their own flaws.

So we may get a lot of them fighting for a ballot space, just so they can take 1 percent or so of the vote come the end of February.

FIORETTI: Latest with mayoral dreams

TAKE ROBERT FIORETTI – the one-time outspoken alderman who has since run for mayor and Cook County Board president. He let it be known this week he’s getting into the mayoral mix again.

I understand that having a political post is more interesting for a legal-minded person than having a mere law practice. Yet Fioretti comes across these days as somebody who runs for office because he needs a job! Not necessarily because he has ideas beneficial to our society at-large.

So Fioretti is working these days, as are other candidates, in gathering the necessary petition signatures to qualify. By Fioretti’s admission, he’s trying to gain some 30,000 signatures, because he knows the political powers-that-be are capable of having their people come up with ways to disqualify signatures so as to void them out.

Time for a new 'Mayor' Daley, … 

It may even turn out that some of those who do file their petitions next week will be unable to actually appear on the ballot.

PERSONALLY, I’M GOING to find it interesting how many of the candidates who have been talking up the mayor’s race for months on end will be amongst those who qualify. Will Rahm Emanuel turn out to be correct when he said upon his own announcement he would not seek re-election that Chicago’s next mayor wasn’t even in the race yet?

Implying that people like former Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy and former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas were kidding themselves, and that the rest of the dozens of mayoral dreamers were truly delusional.

… or is Chicago ready for Mendoza's youth

Will this really become a campaign dominated by the big-time political names of Daley (as in William), Chico (as in Gery) and Preckwinkle (as in Toni)? With the real question becoming whether the kid (as in 46-year-old Susana Mendoza) can do enough to get herself taken seriously. Or whether Willie Wilson attracts any political support outside of a few select political precincts on the South and West sides?

There’s a lot of uncertainty be settled between now and April 2 – the date of the run-off election likely to be needed. I wonder if the only certainty now is the appropriateness of the election so close to April Fool’s Day. We may wind up feeling like the election results are a practical joke on all of us.

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Cop-related killings become common? As are the accompanying racial rants!

We have yet to learn what kind of prison sentence will be imposed against the Chicago police officer who fired those 16 shots into a teenaged boy who may have been acting erratically enough to make the officer fear for his life.

The incident in suburban Robbins occurred … 

There also is the upcoming trials of three more police officers whom prosecutors say tried to spin the initial investigation so as to make it a clear-cut case of self-defense by law enforcement.

AND NOW, WE have the incident in suburban Robbins where a police officer responding to a call of shots fired at a tavern wound up killing the security guard who was on duty and was trying to subdue the man who had provoked the whole incident.

It’s becoming far too common that we’re having to question the motivations of our law enforcement officers – who theoretically are there to protect the public, but are behaving in ways that arouse racially-motivated suspicions.

As though the only “crime” that was committed in Robbins was that a tavern willing to stay open until 4 a.m. serving intoxicating beverages would have so little sense as to hire an African-American male to provide security.

Some activist types anxious to turn the “ROBBINS, Ill.” dateline into a focal point for their efforts are openly saying that white cop from nearby suburban Midlothian who was assisting would have been more understanding of the situation if it had been a white security guard trying to break up the incident.

THE SAD THING is that there may well be some truth to that line of logic. Although I also don’t doubt there will be other people who won’t want to have to listen to such arguments.

Heck, when the Washington Post earlier this week got into covering the incident that took place Sunday at Manny’s Blue Room lounge and led their story with the fact that a “white” cop killed a “black” security guard, there were ample examples of people who responded by accusing the post of irresponsibly bringing up race.

In this “Age of Trump” in which we now live, there may well be some people who don’t want to hear these types of stories. While others are going to demand they be told!

… on the heels of a trial over a police shooting in Chicago

Now in the interest of disclosure, I should point out I do some work for Tribune Publishing, and in fact was a reporter-type person on call Sunday morning when the incident broke out.

I WAS AT the tavern and at the police station in Robbins, and the conclusion I quickly came to was that the local police weren’t really sure what happened. There was confusion about who shot whom, or how many were shot or what provoked the incident in the first place. It took time before Cook County sheriff’s police (for the incident itself) and Illinois State Police (for the cop shooting a security guard portion) brought out details that made apparent just how absurd this incident was – and I have read follow-up news accounts written by others with great interest.

Even now, there are conflicting stories about how clearly the security guard was identified, and could it be possible for a police officer to seriously confuse him for just another guy with a gun at a scene that had seriously lapsed out of control.

There also are people who want to think the Illinois State Police are rushing their investigation so as to try to absolve the cop of criminal liability.

Which may be an after-effect over the officers who soon will be on trial for allegedly trying to reduce the chance that Jason Van Dyke would ever have to see the inside of a courtroom for the 2014 shooting death of a teenager.

ARE WE GOING to get the same kind of “conspiracy” suspicions against the state police? Is that attitude going to impede the ability of police to seriously get to the bottom of what happened?

Which municipality will find its police tainted next?

That would actually be the casualty for society as a whole if our investigators can’t be trusted to figure out what happened, and if the ideological suspicions of individuals were somehow allowed to predominate in determining how our judicial system will respond.

I’m sure on the date that Van Dyke is sentenced for his second-degree murder conviction, along with all those criminal accounts for each shot fired, we’re going to hear people screeching and screaming on all sides for how unfair the verdict will be.

Just as I’m sure there also are people who will be demanding that the as-of-yet unidentified Midlothian cop should someday become Van Dyke’s cellmate, and others who will be grossly offended if such a moment ever comes close to becoming reality.

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A sultan, a king and a judge who once played for the Chicago Bears

President Donald J. Trump will be trying to buy our love on Friday, what with his presentation of Presidential Medals of Freedom to seven individuals, including some long deceased whose celebrity status is too great to be ridiculed.

Superimpose Trump's face over that of Nixon?

Seriously, who’s going to bad mouth Babe Ruth or Elvis Presley. The cultural celebrities of baseball and rock ‘n’ roll whose levels reached so high that they remain exalted even though they’ve both been deceased for decades.

AT THE VERY least, there’s no chance that either man will show up at the White House and express sarcastic thoughts at the White House. Seriously, if “the Babe” were still alive, I think he still was having a better year than the president.

And maybe Trump thinks he can have those old photographs of Presley at the White House with then-President Richard Nixon digitally altered, with his own face (and always-tacky hairdo) superimposed over that of Nixon so that Trump is now shaking hands with “the king of rock ‘n’ roll.”

Whether Chuck Berry is the one who really deserves that label because he went to jail for his musical art (as comedian Tommy Chong once suggested in one of his films with Richard “Cheech” Marin) is a topic of discussion for a future commentary.

But seriously, Trump thinks we need to have his official recognition granted to Ruth and Presley for them to have any cultural significance. Which is more about the pomposity of the Trump ego than anything else.

Had better years than just about all presidents

BESIDES, TRUMP IS more than willing to use these ancient celebrities to try to give himself a good day in the news cycle.

Not that it’s unheard of for this honor, which has been given out since the days of John F. Kennedy as president, to be awarded to athletes. In recent years, Barack Obama gave it to basketball stars Michael Jordan and Kareem-Abdul Jabbar.

And as far as baseball players are concerned, former President George W. Bush (a former owner of the Texas Rangers ball club) gave the medal posthumously to Roberto Clemente, the Pittsburgh Pirates star who was killed in a plane crash on New Year’s Eve 1972 while trying to deliver medical supplies and other relief to victims of an earthquake in Nicaragua.

George W. Bush honored Clemente's greatness

So it may be technically accurate to say the award has been given out posthumously. Although one has to admit, Trump honoring Ruth (who I suspect would have viewed as Trump as some little pygmy trying to bloat his own ego off of Ruth’s aura) feels different than when Obama in 2014 gave the medals to James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner – Civil Rights activists who in 1964 were murdered in Mississippi because of the local sentiment that they were “damn Yankees” meddling into something that locals thought was none of their business – as in challenging the Southern “way of life” that thought segregation was acceptable.

FOR ALL I know, Trump probably wishes he could rescind those medals because they would offend the sensibilities of many of those who wear the ridiculous red caps that publicly identify themselves as backers of this “Age of Trump” we’re now in.

Page a Chicago-tied medal recipient

Of course, there will be other medal recipients on Friday, including Alan Page.

Remember him? He’s the former pro football player who actually finished up his career with the Chicago Bears, and also played his college football at Notre Dame. He went on to a legal career, and in fact wound up being elected a judge to the Minnesota Supreme Court.

But considering how much Trump likes to dis anything connected to Chicago, it wouldn’t shock me that his stint at Soldier Field will be amongst the last things mentioned when Page accepts his medal.

IT SHOULD BE remembered that this medal is meant to give presidents a chance to share in some celebrity glamour. Trump would hardly be the first president to try to score political points with people for non-political actions.

SCALIA: Bigger than 'the Babe' or Elvis?

Heck, when Obama gave the medal to Jordan in 2016, he made a point of mentioning how he was now in the presence of a star of the movie “Space Jam.” Even though anybody who actually remembers the film knows that Bugs Bunny was the real star of that partially-animated flick.

Or there’s another posthumous recipient whom Trump will honor – former Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia, whose long-time stint on the high court may be worthy of historic recognition.

Although I’m sure that Trump thinks Scalia’s significance is that his death, along with the partisan political battle that ensued, enabled Trump to have a Supreme Court vacancy to fill on Day One of his presidency!

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Any worthwhile reporter doesn’t want to be friendly w/ Trump and his toadies

There are times when I think one of my professional strengths is that personally, I’m an anti-social sort of individual.

TRUMP: He wants to be worshipped

I can be rude and pushy when need be, and I certainly don’t get offended when a person whom I deal with in my work as a reporter-type person decides they didn’t like something I wrote.

IT’S AN OCCUPATIONAL hazard that there are going to be people who are going to take offense to the notion that you’d bother to report something they’d just as soon downplay. Personally, I’ve lost count of the number of government-type geeks who have told me they’d never speak to me again!

For what it’s worth, most of them got over whatever caused them to have a tantrum in the first place. And for the ones who really did cut me off, I found they were usually the ones so interested in feeding me nothing but political “spin” that I was better off not hearing from them anymore.

They really didn’t have anything worth saying in the first place. Which some might argue applies just as much to President Donald Trump.

These thoughts have been running through my mind in recent days, as some people seem determined to make an issue out of the post-election hissy fit that Trump had in dealing with a CNN broadcaster.

THE REALITY IS that I suspect Trump was eager to want to dump all over someone that day. Election 2018 results weren’t a total loss for Trump, but they also revealed that a certain segment of our society continues to think of “the Donald” as an insipid buffoon.

And there’s nothing more that Trump thinks he has a right to demand of the American people than our eternal respect. As in we all should kneel before him – just like in that “Superman” movie where “General Zod” forces the U.S. president in the Oval Office to pledge loyalty to him.

I suspect Trump watched that film all those years ago, thought it a cool bit, and then figured Zod would kneel before he and all his money!

So should the reporter take Trump’s rant the least bit seriously? It was so staged by him that I think it shows all the more how unfit for political office he truly is.

WHEN I HEAR people try to make an issue of it, and whether or not a reporter was disrespectful toward our national “commander in chief,” I can’t help but snicker.

it is all pure theater meant to play to those ideologues who are the outspoken minority who cheer on his every idiotic comment on just about every issue.

I couldn’t help but snicker when I received in my daily e-mail load the latest poll being taken by the Trumpsters – asking us if we approve of the presidential behavior in all this issue. But going so far as to tell us outright that, “President Trump will NOT put up with the media’s liberal bias and utter disrespect for this Administration.”

This quickie poll by Trump will be as ludicrous as all the previous ones he has taken where he asks people if they merely approve of his job performance, or if they absolutely admire him.

THAT LINE ABOUT Trump not liking bias and utter disrespect truly shows the man has no clue about what is going on. Here’s the blunt truth – a reporter-type is going to refuse to be submissive toward anyone in a position of power; which us what Trump thinks he's entitled to. Anybody who thinks that’s the way it ought to be is being downright ridiculous, if not un-American.

I don’t know of any government official at any level or of any political party who thinks the reporter-types they encounter are “friends.” I don’t know of any serious reporter-type who’d want to be too friendly with government officials.

If anything, Trump needs to learn that questions about his policies aren’t personal. It’s informational, and the impression he gives off with his behavior (and making an issue of revoking access to the White House, even though I know many reporter-types who think White House access is oh so overrated) is of a sniveling, whiny child.

Butch and Woim -- Trump's idea of a great America?

With the people who want to support him coming across as toadies overly-anxious to be aligned with the schoolyard bully. Think of the old “Little Rascals” film shorts, with Trump as bully “Butch” and his supporters being the equivalent of “Woim.” Is that really the image we want for our society?

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New governor to live in Springfield, while family remains in Chicago

Excuse me for thinking it a non-issue in terms of recent reports that Gov.-elect J.B. Pritzker says he intends to live in the Illinois capital city while serving in office.

PRITZKER: Moving to Springfield

The state does, after all, provide an official residence for the governor – the Executive Mansion, located one block away from the Capitol building in Springfield.

IN FACT, THE state in recent years performed significant renovations on the governor’s mansion, with some people going so far as to point out rather sarcastically that soon-to-be former Gov. Bruce Rauner kicked in some of his own money for the project, just to improve a house for his successor.

As though that makes the current governor the ultimate sucker!

But Pritzker says he’ll move to Springfield, although he admits his wife and two sons will remain in Chicago – they’re still in school and he doesn’t want to disrupt their lives, he says. Besides, the mansion is actually a series of formal ballrooms, with a private quarters on the top floor. Basically, it’s an over-glorified apartment.

Which is a fact I’m sure will manage to offend many of the people whom Pritzker was probably hoping to pacify with his residential announcement. Because there are people who are going to think anything short of the entire Pritzker family loading up the moving van to haul their belongings to Springfield is nothing more than a snub of the Illinois capital.

A Lincoln Park resident while governor

IT IS ONE of the laughable issues I recall from my days as a Springfield-based correspondent – downstate people convinced that everything had to be based downstate, and who resented those state agencies that maintained significant Chicago presences.

These are the people who were bothered by former Govs. James Thompson living with his wife and kid in a Lincoln Park neighborhood mansion, Rod Blagojevich eventually trying to run the entire state from a private office he maintained in his Ravenswood Manor neighborhood home, and Pat Quinn only occasionally staying in the mansion when not at home in the Austin neighborhood.

He rarely left Ravenswood Manor

Of course, even Jim Edgar wound up having a home in the Springfield suburbs (the “log house,” a home done up in a log cabin motif), while also maintaining an apartment in downtown Chicago for those days when his work brought him to the city.

If anything, George Ryan may have been the recent governor who made the best effort to get around the state – living in a Chicago apartment, the mansion in Springfield and spending weekends at his family home in Kankakee.

A West Sider (Austin neighborhood)

MEANING HE’D MAKE a complete circle around Illinois every single week!

As for Pritzker, he’ll use the mansion as a job-related residence, although we probably should expect he’ll be making many back-and-forth trips between Chicago and Springfield.

Which will bother those who want to think Illinois centers around Springfield – even though I’d argue the realities of the modern world mean we probably should have governors who are mobile and traveling about the state. The idea that he’s supposed to sit behind a desk inside the Capitol and never leave Springfield would be evidence of a governor not doing his job.

RAUNER: Helped renovate the mansion

Just as it can be argued that having a governor like Blagojevich who would have preferred never to have left his house was evidence alone that the job was not being done properly back in his gubernatorial era.

WHAT AMAZES ME is that some people will be willing to make an issue of all this – either that the governor never spends time in Springfield, or else is there far too often and neglecting the rest of the state’s needs.

RYAN: Actually lived around Ill.

You’d think with all the issues, financial and social, that confront Illinois government these days, there’d be far more important things for people to concern them about.

But then again, some people will want to find something to gripe about – no matter what.

Just as they’ll want to move along to the other statewide constitutional officers, who are required by law to maintain a residence in Springfield – even though the state makes no provision for their own housing. Just think how they’d moan if the state budget also included provisions for, say, an Illinois attorney general mansion?

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