Have a drink for Studs

I wrote this six years ago, after getting the chance to hang out for an evening with Studs after he talked at Northern Illinois University. He was a force of life.


DeKALB -- Cigar in hand, Studs[0] Terkel[0] ambles his way through Twins, a bar
filled with the usual Wednesday night crowd -- softball players,
construction workers, college kids, all strangers he has yet to meet.

On his way to the bathroom, after a hamburger and a martini, he stops to
talk at a table or two, including an older couple who had seen him speak
at Northern Illinois University earlier that night.

On Terkel's way back to his table, a pony-tailed, middle-aged man is
laughing, sharing a joke, as he helps the 90-year-old author maneuver
through the crowded tavern.

Terkel's friend, publicist Bill Young of Oak Park, has seen it all before,
how his buddy works a room with an avuncular charm and grace. And though
curiosity may have killed a stupid cat or two, seeing Terkel in action
shows the trait might be key to living a long, vital life.

Watching him also serves as a good lesson for all reporters, writers, even
neighbors in what it really takes to be good at any of those roles.

For Terkel has an enthusiasm and interest in meeting and talking with
people that brightens a place. He seems to treat all people as
interesting, the stories of their lives, their work, dreams, hopes,
disappointments and aspirations well worth hearing.

Terkel was in DeKalb to talk in the Carl Sandburg Auditorium with an
audience of over 700 people. Immediately afterward, he tirelessly signed
over 300 copies of his works, including Working, Hard Times, the Pulitzer
Prize-winning "The Good War" and his most recent, Will the Circle Be
Unbroken? Reflections on Death, Rebirth and a Hunger For Faith.

The books are collections of oral histories, tales told to Terkel, mostly
by "ordinary people," a term he dislikes. After all, quoting a poem by
Bertolt Brecht, Terkel told the crowd it was such people who built the
pyramids, who carried out the deeds credited to the rulers of the day.

Mouth of a preacher

Self-effacing throughout his talk -- and wearing his trademark red socks
and checkered red-and- white shirt -- Terkel began by saying he felt like
a preacher about to offer a sermon from the pulpit.

Then he went into a story of how legendary gospel singer Mahalia Jackson
once told him, "Studs, you got such a big mouth, you should have been a
preacher."

Though that never was his career path, Terkel has been a broadcaster, jazz
columnist, disc jockey, radio interviewer, author and even actor. (Later
that night, friend Young said Terkel was cast as a cabbie in a Jane Fonda
flick, The Dollmaker, despite the fact Terkel never learned to drive.)
He's also become a symbol for how Chicago likes to see itself --
hard-working, witty and down-to- earth.

As for his own beliefs, despite a healthy respect for those with religious
convictions, Terkel described himself as an agnostic.

"And you know what an agnostic is? A cowardly atheist," he said.

Yet, despite what he sees as a country suffering from "national
Alzheimer's disease," his words revealed an underlying optimism and faith
in humanity: a liberalism rooted in open-mindedness, the traditional
meaning of the term; a romantic populism harkening back to FDR,
encouraging of unionism; and a wariness of disciples of Ronald Reagan or
writer Ayn Rand, whose name he finds an amusing near- rhyme for Enron.

His sentiment comes through in stories he recalled from his books -- like
the one about C.P. Ellis, who went from Klansman to union organizer for a
group of janitors that was made up mostly of black women.

Of Matta Kelly, an immigrant bride who turned to a life of drug addiction,
then became a counselor for persons with AIDS. Kelly wound up helping a
transsexual named Norma Saunders die with a degree of dignity.

And in an interview with a single mother of three in a housing project who
asked Terkel to play back what she had told him, then said, "I never knew
I felt that way."

The lost interviews

Though such moments have earned him the title "poet of the tape recorder,"
Terkel laughed at the description.

He admitted to being so technologically inept he lost interviews with
choreographer Martha Graham and actor Michael Redgrave, and almost botched
one of his most famous pieces, a conversation with philosopher Bertrand
Russell.

As for the popularity of his work, Terkel recalled that a librarian wrote
him with an anecdote about how a certain reverend in her town named Jerry
Falwell complained about a title the library was stocking -- Working
Studs, by some guy named Terkel.

"That's when I knew I had a best seller," said Terkel, with a twinkle in
his eyes.

Now, in his 10th decade, Terkel is working on a "crazy, goofy book about
hope."

Energized by the unexpectedly large crowd at NIU he said, "I can't help
but feeling that deep down their is a new silent majority." Unlike
Nixon's conservative one, Terkel feels "a stirring of knowledge brewing
underneath" today.

Terkel, who is hard of hearing, took questions from the audience, too.NIU
professor Keith Gandal adroitly helped by reiterating the inquiries, which
came from quite a cross section of middle America.

As if from the pages on one of Terkel's tomes appeared an elderly women
concerned about what "the little people can do"; a middle-aged black man
wondering why other blacks don't often come to such lectures; an angry
college-aged young defender of Ayn Rand, wearing a "Vote Libertarian"
T-shirt; a writer or two looking for pointers; even a 12-year-old girl
asking about how Terkel stays focused.

Her bright smile and laughter led Terkel to say, "that's why I am
hopeful." In fact, Terkel was so taken with the night, on the way to the
bar he told Young the atmosphere reminded him of Berkeley, Calif.

Later, back at the tavern, a waitress and Notre Dame co-ed named Katie
asks for an autograph. For Terkel it brought back memories of earlier in
the evening when another young woman asked him to sign a book and made him
feel "like Walter Huston in Treasure of the Sierra Madre."

The end of the night

The bill settled -- Terkel paying from a stack of credit cards held
together with a rubber band -- it was time for the writer to trek back to
Chicago.

Longtime buddy Young pulled his car around -- seeming a bit like sturdy,
modern day Sancho Panza to Terkel's windmill-tilting Don Quixote.

On the ride to the city, Terkel would probably tilt his seat all the way
back and sleep, Young said. Once home he would work on his new book a
bit, then get up in time to make an interview about another chronicler of
his times.

Fittingly, Terkel would be on public radio reminiscing about the recently
departed Alan Lomax, who made field recordings of indigenous music the
world over.

Happy Halloween: A scary place (and a scary face)

I present to you the scariest place at my office - and that's saying something that should shiver your spine if not your timbers.

None of the urinals in the entire building work. One has a sign across it from 1999, the year it broke. And there is this eerie hum in the bathroom, a smell like sauerkraut going band and almost always water on the floor.

The fluorescent lights are dingy at best, the carpeting at least 25 years old, and the HVAC system works when it feels like it. The back room is a huge, empty shell where they used to sort papers and before that actually print.

That's where the scare is located. I discovered it by happenstance over summer when hauling crap from my desk to my car via an ancient freight elevator that itself would give the Marquis de Sade a boner. The cart I used had a flat tire and when I attempted to roll it out of the elevator, it bumped the spilled, with some items careening down a gap.

What the hell, I thought. Then I looked around and found that the iron, manhole-like cover I'd been walking past for more than 10 years was not for a storm sewer (which is what this dumb ass thought) but led to the underbelly of the elevator,

It's bare light bulbs, ladder and dampness seemed like it would hold the GImp from Pulp Fiction or some sort of man-monster from a Silence of the Lambs sequel.

So, if you're ever mad at someone - really, really, really pissed - let me know. Have I got a suggestion for you...send him/her my way! hahahahahahahahahahahah

Dog days: On why I have stopped blogging (for now)

I could say I've stopped blogging because I saw Edward II at Chicago Shakespeare a few weekends ago and was left speechless. That's the classic where the king gets in the end, literally: his assassin kills him by shoving a hot poker up his ass.

But the only thing that bothered me about it was somebody brought a 10 year old.

Or I could say it was because I caught a cold. Or that I am still bummed the White Sox floundered in the playoffs.

Or blame it on my laptop, which broke down - but I got it fixed in a day and that was over summer. Or I could say the dog I was watching for a weekend ate my computer, which would be a big lige.

Or I could blame my Dad. I was all set to write about how he - a product of the South Side Irish of Chicago from back in the day when ethnic groups kept to themselves and all didn't like black people - was set to vote for Barack Obama. And Obama got his start community organizing at two of the Catholic churches where my parents had connections.

But dear old Dad never registered to vote when he moved out West. He doesn't want to get called for jury duty.

But nay, the real reason I have taken a break is all this blathering.

There are simply too many words being put into the world right now. Once the election is over, maybe I will start up again. But now it's Babylon, baby, and I'd rather just be quiet.

Painting concrete and piper lore: What I learned over the weekend.

Two weekends ago I was at a party in Indiana, drinking Jameson right out of the bottle. Hey, there was less than a quarter of it left. It was the right thing to do. Plus, at that point the White Sox were handing the division to the Twins, only to take it back, only to look tattered again against the Rays in the playoffs. It's tough to lose to a team that changed its name because marketing research showed people in Florida were offended by the original name, the Devil Rays.

But at least I am not a Cubs fan.

This past weekend, I took pity on one of those poor souls and helped him paint his b asement while his sig other was out of town - and painting concrete is an apt task for anyone who roots for the Baby Bruins. I am not a Home Depot kind of guy, but painting is one task I am semi-adequate at, and this was my first experience with such a surface.

If you are going to have a basement, kick it old school. Just get a freaking ping-pong or air hockey table, a fridge, an old TV and stereo, some posters from the 70s and let it be what it is. People will understand. They will gladly enjoy a place where their true slob can come out and play.

But if you must turn it into an "entertainment space," what I learned was, that if decide you want to do this, pick a color that blends in with gray.

Orange would not be that color. Actually, they don't call colors anything that simple anymore. This was something super fabulous like "outrageous orange" or "orgasmic orange," but actually it looked like baby shit or pumpkin pie. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

First their was block fill to apply, thick as the crap you hear on Fox and MSNBC, which a salesman convinced my friends would magically fill all the dimples and pock marks you find in concrete. And the fill was tinted with the orange, but it came out looking the color of a Push-Up or Dreamsicle. All of which accented the small gray holes and knots on the wall.

Mind you, we were doing this after watching the Sox lose to the Rays (Ray what? Sting? Manta? Sun? Ray-Ban? Ray Charles?), from 9 until midnight. And I did a good chunk of this myself because my buddy had to go back out for supplies. And we had to move all their crap to the middle of the room. And another lonely-on-a-Friday-night pal of my friend showed up to critique and lend his meticulous touch - and by meticulous I mean fucking slow like it was the Sistine Chapel and not a basement. And a dog and a cat kept getting in the way. And I was barefoot and eventually splattered from the rollers.

I didn't care. I was in a zone, slathering this shake mix onto the wall until I was silly tired and ready to head home.

That was just my first lesson for the weekend. Saturday night I deejayed with another friend at a wedding reception for a mutual buddy's kid. We used to do this sort of side work, but got tired of hearing the Macarena. What I learned was that at white people weddings, that's still the stuff you have to play. And, oddly, songs that are considered gay anthems are big at receptions: "Believe," by Cher, YMCA, any Madonna. Odder still is when a 14 year old dressed like a Mormon on a door-to-door mission wants you to play Led Zeppelin, which would be a song his grandpa would have liked.

Yet, it was fun and was nice to catch up with people I had not seen in at least a year. Life is like that, and who knows why? You say you're gonna call someone, you don't, they don't call you, and next thing you know another year is gone. Or you call and email and don't hear back and wind up feeling neurotic about it, but you still occasionally try, then worry they might think you are a stalker, but then feel stupid about that, so you keep trying, knowing people aren't all single knuckle-heads like you are. And by you, I mean me.

So I slept that off Sunday, then headed to paint some more. The pumpkin was going up, but my friend's little buddy was doing the edge work - not the easy way like I would, with tape on the floor, but with an edging tool. I stared at him from a distance like a confused dog for a bit, but took to putting on the paint.

The Sox were winning, progress was being made, and I headed to hang out with my Irish friends, who took me to a uillean pipe recital. Actually, it turned out to be a lecture with music, and with but one Guinness in me and no air circulating in the small room holding 90 people, I fought off sleep. I was afraid there was going to be a quiz which I would fail.

But a Diet Coke at intermission revived me. I was still confused about pipe lore - for instance, who the hell thought up the bagpipe in the first place, and how and why did the Irish convert it from something you blow and squeeze and finger to something you just squeeze and finger? And why does that sound so sexy?

But I did learn that there were an awful lot of blind pipers; that one of them killed some kid who was mocking him, which would make him a rapper piper; and I picked up a handful of fun phrases I can sprinkle into my writing and conversations.

Those would include, "as lazy as a piper's pinkie" (which is because of the way the pipes are designed you don't use that finger to play); "a piper's invitation" (which can mean you show up uninvited OR you're invited only because the host felt obligated, much like they would feel toward musicians for the party); and "a poverty of pipers" (which is what you call a group of them, apparently because they don't get paid much).

One day you're painting concrete, then next you feel like a piper. You learn something everyday.