The Name of the Day...

...belongs to Jessica Rosenworcel, a member of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission.

Pretty sure someone should have shortened that to just "Rosen" somewhere along the line.

I'll be in Los Angeles...

...for the next week or so visiting my son and his wife. Blogging will be non-existent, but you can still follow my adventures on Twitter @BoringOldWhtGuy.

Tom Rapp, "who...

...founded Pearls Before Swine, an eclectic band much loved by aficionados of underground music in the 1960s and ’70s," died at age 70.

I had never heard of Mr. Rapp nor his band, but I'm always on the lookout for obscure groups from the '60s (such as this one). From his obit:

Among Mr. Rapp’s claims to fame is “Rocket Man,” a song from Pearls Before Swine’s 1970 album, “The Use of Ashes.” It is said to have been among the inspirations for the Elton John hit of the same name.

Who knew?

Singer Vic Damone...

...is dead at age 89.

I initially read Mr. Damone's obit in the Times to see if I recognized any of his hit songs. I didn't.

(I wondered, in particular, if he had recorded "Volare," but it seems he's the only Italian-American singer who didn't. The version I had in mind was by Bobby Rydell, born Robert Louis Ridarelli.)

I also didn't know that Damone turned down the role of Johnny Fontaine in The Godfather. Why? Apparently he thought the movie was "not in the best interests of Italian-Americans." Was he overly cautious? Maybe. But maybe not:

Mr. Damone’s autobiography, “Singing Was the Easy Part,” written with David Chanoff, appeared in 2009. In it, he recalled a night when a mobster, angry that he had broken off an engagement to the thug’s daughter, dangled him out of a New York hotel window. The Luciano boss Frank Costello got him off the hook, he said.

“We didn’t think about it back then,” he said, “but the mob owned the nightclubs and theaters.”

Another noteworthy tidbit is that Damone was married five times and three of his wives preceded him in death, two by suicide. That is not a good record.

The Name of the Day...

...belongs to Skiffington Holderness, the current husband of Rob Porter's first ex-wife, Colbie Holderness.

The absolutely best sentence...

...I read last week was from Michael Lewis's piece in Bloomberg, "Has Anyone Seen the President?" (My emphasis.)

Bannon has a favorite line: If I had to choose who will run the country, 100 Goldman Sachs partners or the first 100 people who walk into a Trump rally, I’d choose the people at the Trump rally. I have my own version of this line: If I had to choose a president, Donald Trump or anyone else I’ve ever known, I’d choose anyone else I’ve ever known. 

John Perry Barlow, who wrote...

...lyrics for "some 30 Grateful Dead songs in all" including "Hell in a Bucket," died at age 70.

I had never heard of Mr. Barlow, but from reading his obit in the Times he must have been a veritable Zelig (my emphasis):

As a student at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, Mr. Barlow took LSD trips with the Harvard psychologist Timothy Leary in Millbrook, N.Y., where Dr. Leary and others were living in a grand Georgian house.

In 1972, after his father died, he returned to Wyoming to manage the family’s debt-ridden ranch, the Bar Cross Land & Livestock Company. (Jaqueline Onassis sent John F. Kennedy Jr. to work as a wrangler there in 1978.) 

In Wyoming, he was chairman of the Sublette County Republican Party for a time and a coordinator for the 1978 congressional campaign of Dick Cheney, whose conservative politics Mr. Barlow later disavowed.

His preoccupation with the internet dated from the mid-1980s, when he began using a computer to manage the ranch’s finances. In 1986 he became a director of the WELL (the initials stand for Whole Earth ’Lectronic Link), an online community that drew members from the worlds of music, publishing and technology.

Mr. Barlow, an emeritus fellow of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, was also a founder of the Freedom of the Press Foundation in San Francisco, which promotes adversarial reporting and internet advocacy. The foundation’s president is Edward Snowden, the former government intelligence analyst who leaked secret documents to journalists in 2013.

Dennis Edwards, lead singer...

...of the Temptations, died at age 74.

It was sixteen degrees...

...last night when we got off the bus at Halsted and Diversey, making it our coldest Hike yet. (I think.)

We resumed our project of tracing the Chicago Marathon course by picking it up again at Diversey and Clark, but walking south this time. It was our fifth leg of the trip, and (some of us) made it all the way down to around Mile Eleven and a half, to the Brown Line stop at Chicago and Franklin. We're almost halfway to the finish!

The Hike started off much like last week's in that it was a stroll of sorts down Memory Lane for me. From 1982 until 1985 I lived in a studio apartment just off the corner of Fullerton and Clark. I was young, still new to the city and in the process of "finding" myself. In hindsight, it was probably the most consequential period in my life. Oh, and I met my future wife, Julie, (of 31 years!) during that time.

We turned right (south) on Clark at Diversey and right away I began reminiscing about all of my old haunts from the '80s. If you're familiar with the area, and were around back then, you might remember Hanig's Slipper Box on the corner where there is now a Starbucks. The store, which had a blue awning, opened in 1944 and closed after 70 years in 2014. (I bought more than one pair of shoes there.) This article says "the decision to close was based on the rent, which the shoe store could not afford to support." That's not hard to believe, as Lincoln Park has gentrified probably more than any other neighborhood in the city.

A couple of doors down is a LensCrafters location, on the site of the old Parkway Theater. I can't remember when it closed -- it's been a while now -- but it was a "revival house" that showed classic (as opposed to first run) films. Although I had already seen Annie Hall and Manhattan by the time I arrived in Chicago, I think I really developed an appreciation for Woody Allen movies at the Parkway, where I recall sitting alone through double and even triple-features. It's probably where I first saw such classics as On the Waterfront and Casablanca, too.

Walking farther down Clark, past newer stores such as Banana Republic and Target (when did that go in there?), but also more familiar landmarks like the beautiful art deco post office and McDonald's across the street, I began to realize that the area has probably always been in a state of constant flux. Hard as it is to believe, time didn't begin when I showed up almost forty years ago. Or, in other words: the more things change, the more they stay the same.

But one thing that hasn't changed is the Wiener's Circle, just before the road bends at Wrightwood. Open until four a.m., Googlemaps describes it as "Late-night hot dogs with a side of sass." For some reason, the prospect of getting insulted while ordering dinner was a bit of a draw for some of the seven guys who joined me (it couldn't have been the weather!), but they must have been a little disappointed as the guy who waited on us seemed more bored than anything. (It was a slow night -- go figure.) Strangely, I don't recall ever being treated rudely (unlike Ed Debevic's) in the handful of times I've eaten at the Wiener's Circle; perhaps they recognize an individual not to be messed with when they see one.

We opted to eat inside, and, with the exception of one other couple, were the only ones there. The burgers, hot dogs and fries were good, as usual, but all I could think of was how there used to be a Vienna hot dog stand on practically every street corner in the city when I first got here. Now, you have to seek them out. Oh, well.

By the way, ya gotta love whoever's responsible for that sign:

Past Wrightwood is Dave's Records, which has been there forever, and Frances' Deli (since 1938), which used to be across the street and known as -- I think -- Frances' Food Shop. It had a "steam table" back in the day, and was a great place for a bachelor to get home-cooked entrees like baked chicken with "two sides." In short, it was awesome.

At Deming I pointed out the building where Julie lived when we were married in 1986, and the Cycle Smithy at the corner of Roslyn. But gone is that cozy little pizza place (with a fireplace) on the east side of Clark, as is the old Parkway Restaurant at Fullerton and Clark. It originally had an Arabic-themed name, like Aladdin -- although that wasn't it -- where I probably ate more than anywhere else in those days. The Parkway (?) Pharmacy (was everything called "Parkway" back then?) was kitty-corner where Five Guys is now, and the Golden Cup restaurant was down just a few doors on the east side of the street. The Big Apple grocery store is still there, somehow, but I didn't see any sign of Neo -- an old punk rock bar where I think I went once -- in the alley across the street. Also long gone is the Belden Deli at -- where else? -- Belden, where I developed a taste for their lima bean soup (which Julie, for some reason, could never understand).

After Francis Parker School we turned right (west) on Webster for only a half a block and then left (south) on Sedgwick. It was quite a change from Clark, which is almost all commercial. Sedgwick, on the other hand, is a beautiful (some might even say "leafy") street which may be one of the best examples of Lincoln Park Living. Last week I mentioned that my ideal dwelling would be a vintage high-rise apartment on Sheridan Road, but the "low-rise" landscape on a street like Sedgwick (or, say, Dayton or Fremont farther west) would be awfully hard to beat.

When we got to Armitage I had a bit of a start as I saw a bank on the corner (what?) where I thought the old Carnival Foods used to be. (Oh, no, not the Carnival too!) I was relieved, however, to find out I was mistaken: the Carnival is still very much in operation at Lincoln and Dickens, just up the street. Phew! We continued on, past Marge's Still on Menomonee (full disclosure: never been there; can you believe it?), St. Michael's Church in the distance, and Twin Anchors (best ribs in the city?) at Eugenie, to North Avenue and the Sedgwick Brown Line stop. It was getting cold (getting?) by this point, so two of the guys peeled off to catch the el for home. That left just my son John and me (the other four had bailed on us at Fullerton), and we decided to walk "the distance" to the Brown Line stop at Chicago. (My son is a beast!)

We walked east on North, past the Old Town Ale House (founded in 1958, the year of my birth) and the UP Comedy Club, to Wells where we turned right (south) into the heart of Old Town. Zanies Comedy Club is still there, in case you were wondering, as is the Old Town Aquarium, the Fireplace Inn, Burton Place on -- duh -- Burton Place, and the House of Glunz just before Division.

When you cross Division you're officially out of Old Town and into an amorphous stretch of the Near North Side community area. My son asked me where exactly we were and all I could think of was the old Cabrini-Green housing projects that are no longer there. He also asked me, coincidentally, which neighborhood had changed the most in my time in Chicago and I had to tell him we were in it right now. There was no way -- no way! -- we could have walked down this street in the 1980s. That's how much Chicago has changed -- for the better -- no matter what they say about us on Fox News.

At Chicago Avenue -- about Mile Eleven and a half -- we turned right (west) and caught the Brown Line for home. Next week we'll resume our journey here and try to walk back to 1212 W. Flournoy.

Happy birthday Joe!

28? Impossible!

John Mahoney, whom you probably...

...know best from his role as Martin Crane, Frasier's father on the sitcom of the same name, died at age 77.

But the longtime resident of Oak Park (did you know that?) who was born and raised in England (he deliberately shed his British accent in the U. S. army -- who knew?) also played a troubled CEO on the HBO show, In Treatment. I didn't think Mahoney was particularly believable in that role -- I thought he was a little too old to play a CEO; shouldn't that character have been in his forties or fifties? But the series itself, which ran from 2008 to 2010, just might be the best show you've never heard of.

Nicholas von Hoffman, "a provocative...

...author, broadcast commentator and syndicated columnist who examined American politics and culture for five decades from a left-wing perspective," according to his obit in the Times, died at age 88. (My emphasis.) In other words, what my dad would have called a "troublemaker."

I guess even Mr. von Hoffman would call himself that (again, my emphasis):

Mr. von Hoffman, who never attended college, styled himself a “creative troublemaker” after his mentor, the social activist Saul Alinsky, for whom he worked as a community organizer in Chicago before starting his journalism career at The Chicago Sun-Times in 1963.

(That's  Messrs. Alinsky and von Hoffman in the picture above.)

But, to read his obit (and I remember reading him in The New Republic back in the 1970s), Mr. von Hoffman had a distinguished career in the world of letters. So distinguished, in fact, that his obit made the New York Times. So where am I going with this? The key is in this paragraph:

Nicholas von Hoffman was born in New York City on Oct. 16, 1929, to Carl von Hoffman and the former Anna Bruenn. His father was an immigrant Russian cavalry officer. After graduating from Fordham Preparatory School in the Bronx in 1948, Nicholas went to Chicago, intending to enroll at Loyola University. Instead, he took a research job at the University of Chicago, and in 1954 joined Mr. Alinsky as a field organizer in black and Hispanic communities on the South Side.

And, right away, I thought to myself, if Fordham Prep, a Catholic school, is anything like the Catholic schools I attended, I'll bet his name isn't even listed among the school's alumni on its Wikipedia page. And, yep, sure enough, I was right.

I remember noticing this when one of my journalistic idols, David Carr, died a few years back. He and I graduated from the same high school in Minnesota and I immediately tweeted the news to them. Whoever answered me obviously had no idea who he was, though, as they responded something anodyne like, "Our thoughts and prayers are with him." And, although his name appears on their Wikipedia page now, it didn't for a long time; and when it first did it linked to the quarterback of the same name! (I even wrote a post about it; click here to read it.)

And the bottom line here is that Catholic schools have gotten so conservative nowadays that they're loath to even acknowledge alums who the Soviets would have called "antisocial elements." It's one of the many things I hate about Catholic schools. As I wrote in that post about Mr. Carr:

Benilde has gotten a lot more conservative -- and "fancy" -- since I graduated way back in 1976. The place that almost closed its doors in the early '70s now seems to be one of the more "prestigious" schools in the area. (Go figure!) And, since BSM is a private school, of course, they have to always be "selling" themselves. After all, if Benilde isn't "better" than your local public school, then why on earth would you spend thousands of dollars to send your kid there? And the last thing a Benilde parent wants is for their little dears to turn out to be drug addicts like Carr! (No one else at Benilde has ever tried alcohol or drugs besides Carr.) No, BSM parents expect their precious offspring to remain squeaky clean and go on to a suitable Catholic university like Notre Dame. (And don't even think about following in Carr's footsteps to be a "writer." It's strictly business, law or medicine for my Johnny or Janie!) 

You know what would really impress me? If Benilde-St. Margaret's were secure enough to say that, yeah, David Carr struggled after graduation but turned out to be a famous, gifted writer. We don't care what he said about Benilde -- we're proud of him just the same!

Good God, Fordham Prep! Can't you at least put Mr. von Hoffman's name in the list of alums on your Wikipedia page?

Last night we hiked the fourth leg...

...of the Chicago Marathon course -- the northernmost tip through Lakeview -- and made it to about Mile Eight and a half. (If it sounds like we're going slow it's because we can't take up exactly where we left off each week. We could if we had a helicopter, but one of our constraints is that we always use the CTA.)

If you'll remember, last week we got as far as the Goethe Monument in Lincoln Park. We then walked west on Diversey and caught the Number 8 bus on Halsted, so we resumed our Hike last night where the bus dropped us off at the same spot. With me so far?

I found a restaurant, Nando's Peri-Peri Chicken, which serves Afro-Portuguese flame-grilled chicken in a spicy chili sauce. It's a chain, but it met our budget requirement: dinners for around ten dollars. I had the chicken breast sandwich -- medium spicy -- which was "served on a toasted Portuguese roll with arugula, tomato, pickled red onions and PERi-PERi mayo," fries and a glass of water. With tax it came to $11.09 and was quite good.

The restaurant was just beyond the Half Shell, on the corner of Orchard and Diversey. None of the guys had been to this iconic North Side eatery, and since it's a little pricey for our group I told my son I'd bring him back sometime with his mother and/or his brother.

On our way to Sheridan and Diversey, where we finished last week, we passed the Brewster Apartments on Pine Grove where Charlie Chaplin lived when he was filming silent movies with Essanay Studios in 1915.

We turned left (north) on Sheridan into Lakeview -- or do you spell it Lake View? -- one of the 77 officially recognized community areas of Chicago. (Boystown and Wrigleyville, on the other hand, are actually "neighborhoods" within Lakeview.) I know, it's all very confusing.

This particular street (which turns into Lake Shore Drive at Belmont and Marine Drive after Irving Park) is one of my favorites in all of Chicago. It's lined with luxury high-rise condos and apartments from the 1920s (and probably before) to Mid-Century modern and beyond. I've often thought that my ideal residence would be a massive vintage high-rise apartment along this stretch of road. (A guy can dream, can't he?)

The lighting wasn't very good, of course, but I did manage to take a picture of this sculpture outside one of the many Mid-Century modern buildings.

Before we reached Addison, where we turned left (west), we passed one of my favorite structures in the area, Temple Sholom, between Stratford and Cornelia. (Is it just a coincidence, by the way, that one of the few -- only? -- Tudor high-rises in the area is on a street called Stratford?)

The temple, founded in 1867, it is one of the oldest synagogues in Chicago.

The current building, a mix of Byzantine and Moorish Revival styles completed in 1928, was the result of an assignment given in 1921 to three students at the School of Architecture at the Armour Institute (now the Illinois Institute of Technology). While I'd always admired the synagogue from the outside, my son and I had an opportunity to see the interior last fall as part of Open House Chicago. In short, it's every bit as spectacular on the inside as it is on the outside. (None of these pictures really do it justice.)

We were only on Addison for a short time, not long enough to see Wrigley Field at Clark, but we did pass my very first apartment on Pine Grove, just north of Addison. I moved there in 1981 when I was 22 years old and fresh out of college. I was a runner at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange at the time, and the $200 a month studio -- utilities included, pay phone in the hall -- fit my budget nicely. That and a $40 monthly CTA pass were my only two fixed expenses. The rest of my princely $7600 a year salary was for food and generic beer, which I bought just around the corner at the Jewel on Broadway. And, yes, as a Chicago native I say "the Jewel," rather than just "Jewel" like my wife and kids. Looking back, I was poor but happy as a clam. (I also, in fairness, had my parents to fall back on.)

One quick aside from those days. When I first moved to the city in the early 1980s, Lakeview was just beginning to gentrify. (Lincoln Park was only a few years ahead of it.) A product of the suburbs, I decided I would have to abandon my habit of taking walks after dinner. (It was the big, bad city, remember?) One night, however, I remember coming home from work late and walking up Broadway toward Addison. I heard footsteps behind me and immediately thought, this is it. I turned around quickly and saw that it was just an old lady pulling her groceries in one of those collapsible wheeled carts. I figured if she wasn't worried then I shouldn't be either. And, with one minor exception, I've never had a problem in all my years in the city. It's really much safer than people think. Honest.

Broadway, which is nearly all commercial, provides quite a contrast with Sheridan, which is almost all residential. While there are many new businesses, of course, there are still a number of spots from the Old Days that are still in operation. If you're familiar with the street, you'll be happy to know that Lake View Presbyterian Church and Joe's on Broadway are still kitty-corner from each other at Addison and Broadway. Also, for those of you who were around "back in the day," the Treasure Island (albeit with a recent face lift) and that funky hotel between Cornelia and Hawthorne are still there. Ann Sather -- not the original on Belmont (I was a regular there; Tom Tunney used to say hello to me at the counter) -- is still between Hawthorne and Roscoe. And the Broadway United Methodist Church (the new version, not the wooden one that burned down in the '80s) is still across the street from the Closet on Buckingham. (I remember wondering as a naive young man, Is that a gay bar?) The Unabridged Bookstore is still between Aldine and Melrose, but the Melrose Restaurant itself -- I'm sorry to say -- is closed and the site is available for rent. My son asked me why they didn't take down the signs and I sighed that you don't want to remove something so sublime as that until you absolutely have to. Kids today!

The Chicken Hut is still on the corner of Belmont and Broadway. (That intersection, by the way, was code for "gay neighborhood" when I first moved here. Boystown on Halsted was still a few years off, I think.) But before you get to Friar Tuck and Barry-Regent Cleaners at Wellington, there's an enormous Mariano's at Barry that replaced a smaller neighborhood grocery. When on earth did this get here? I thought. It was so huge and intimidating that I was initially put off by it. It doesn't fit in with the character of the neighborhood! I thought. But, then, everything keeps changing and Chicago, I'd say, has done a good job of maintaining a healthy mix of old and new.

All in all, Broadway was much quieter than I remember it. But then my son pointed out that it might be a little busier on a Saturday afternoon in the middle of summer than on a Wednesday evening in January.

We were almost to the end of our nightly trek, where Broadway meets Clark at Diversey, after the road curves at Surf Street and across the street from a newer place called Sushi Burrito. Doesn't sound very appetizing to me, but my son opined that what the city really needs is more good fusion restaurants. Okay.

The final landmark on our stroll was a four plus one on Oakdale where my wife and I lived back in 1986-87 when we were first married. A "four plus one," in case you don't know, is a five-story apartment building unique to Chicago where the first floor consists of the lobby and a parking lot. My son asked me, Why don't they just call it a "five"? I tell ya, everyone's a comedian on these Hikes.

Next week we'll pick up again at Clark and Diversey and walk south to -- who knows? -- maybe as far as Mile 12 at Hubbard.