The Royko Thread

[tyler durden 71351]

"Boss" is an amazing book. Royko was one of a kind...hell, people don't even want to be like him anymore. Too many reporters would rather be on TV making dumb comments about dumb things or acting as a lapdog to people in power.

 

[Dave Kindred]

Again, from "Sez Who?"....for PDB, here's the Sinatra column...can't link it, but can cut and paste....


    A short man with a thick neck just walked in and handed me an envelope and said: "Dis is fum Mr. Sinatra."
         Sure enough, it was--a letter from Ol' Blue Eyes himself, telling me off good for my column about how he has a 24-hour police guard outside his hotel suite while he's in Chicago.
         Here's what he says:
         Let me start this note by saying, I don't know you and you don't know me. I believe if you knew me:
         First, you would find immediately that I do not have an army of flunkies.
         Secondly, neither myself, nor my secretary, nor my security man put in the request for police protection. It is something that's far from necessary.
         It's quite obvious that your source of information stinks, but that never surprises me about people who write in newspapers for a living. They rarely get their facts straight. If the police decided that they wanted to be generous with me, I appreciate it. If you have any beefs with the Chicago Police Force, why not take it out on them instead of me, or is that too big a
job for you?
         And thirdly, who in the hell gives you the right to decide how disliked I am if you know nothing about me?
         The only honest thing I read in your piece is the fact that you admitted you are disliked, and by the way you write I can understand it. Quite frankly, I don't understand why people don't spit in your eye three or four
times a day.
         Regarding my "tough reputation," you and no one else can prove that allegation. You and millions of other gullible Americans read that kind of crap written by the same female gossip columnists that you are so gallantly
trying to protect: the garbage dealers I call hookers, and there's no doubt that is exactly what they are, which makes you a pimp,  because you are using people to make money, just as they are.
         Lastly, certainly not the least, if you are a gambling man:
         (a) You prove, without a doubt, that I have ever punched an elderly drunk or elderly anybody, you can pick up $100,000.
         (b) I will allow you to pull my "hairpiece." If it moves, I will give you another $100,000; if it does not, I punch you in the mouth.
         How about it?
         (signed) Sinatra.
         cc: The Honorable Richard J. Daley
         Police Supt. James Rochford
         Mr. Marshall Field, Publisher
         Mr. Charles Fegert, Vice President
         This material has been copyrighted and may not be reproduced unless used in its entirety and sets forth the following copyright notice: (copyright) Frank Sinatra, 1976.

(Oops, more to come...)


         

 

[Dave Kindred]

(Here's the rest...)


Before I respond, I have to admit that receiving a signed, hand-delivered, copyrighted letter from Frank Sinatra was a thrill. Even if he did call me a pimp.
Way back, when we were both young, Sinatra was one of my heroes because (a) he was real skinny (b) he had a big Adam's apple (c) he had greasy hair, and (d) all the girls loved him. Me too, except for (d).
For thirty years I considered him the master of pop singers. Why, in 1953, I played his great record of "Birth of the Blues" so often that a Korean houseboy learned every word. And he probably taught that song to his
children. So if Sinatra has a fan club in the Korean village of Yong Dong Po, it's because of me.
I mention this only to show how deeply it pained me to be critical of him. The pain may have been brought on by the french fries at lunch, but I prefer to think it was sentiment.
Anyway, here is my point-by-point response to his point-by-point response to my column:
-- If you say you have no flunkies, I take your word and apologize. I even apologize to the flunky who delivered the letter.
-- You say you didn't ask for the police guard. I'll buy that. But I didn't say you asked. I quoted the police public relations man who said you did. I now suspect that what actually happened is that some politician sent the cop over to impress you. This point could have been easily cleared up before I wrote the column, but every time we called your suite, your secretary
got snippy and hung up. I thought you didn't like smart-aleck broads.
-- I didn't say you were disliked; the police PR man said it to justify the guard. I like you, Frank, honest. When you wore big bow ties, I wore big bow ties. When you wore big lapels and baggy pants, I wore big lapels and baggy pants. When you dated Ava Gardner, I dated Agnes Grobnik. We're a lot alike.
-- The reason people don't spit in my eye three or four times a day is that I duck fast.
-- After rereading your massive file of news clippings, I agree that you never punched any "elderly drunks." Most of the drunks you punched were younger.
-- If you can prove, without a doubt, that I have ever been a pimp, I will give you $11.69. In cash. You're not the only high roller in town.
-- I don't want to pull your hair. People would think we're a couple of weirdos. However, for the sake of a sporting proposition, I'll do it. But only if I can make new terms for the bet.
If your hair doesn't move, you can give me a punch in the mouth. (I figure that fans who can't get tickets for your show will pay 50 cents to touch my swollen lip.)
But if it does move, never mind the 100 G's--you give me one of your old bow ties and an original recording of "Birth of the Blues." I still say it was your best song.

 

[21]

[One of the great regrets of my career was having a beer at the Billy Goat, as a very young puppy, near where Royko was huddled over a beer, and not going over to him to shake his hand or buy him a beer or grab his butt or something.  One of the few times in my life I was just too intimidated.....wish I had that moment back.

I loved drinking in that place, but never ran into Royko in my visits there. It was still great, though.

Honestly, that place was completely gross...if you could even tolerate the stink of the urine from Lower Wacker....and the rats that circled around the endless sewer grates.  And then the tourists wrecked the place after Belushi made it way too famous...cheeborger cheeborger, no pepsi, coke.

But if you really thought about who had been there, what they had known and seen and written....no way you didn't get chills and feel as if you'd been to some secret paradise.

 

[Rambler]

Well, 21, from what I saw in my very limited exposure to him (three times, I think) he wasn't a very approachable guy. Although I suspect you would have had more success than I when approaching him.

And, SF, the Billy Goat is alive and well. Okay, it's not really too alive and not too well, but it's still around and Nick the bartender still makes it a habit to buy beers for thirsty scribes.

But tourists? GOTTA love the way he treats them.

"Tell me about the billy goat curse."
"Ahhh, the ****ing curse."

 

[Fenian_Bastard]

Had a beer down the bar from him at the Goat. Bought him whatever it was he was drinking -- Scotch, I think. Outside of buying one for Tom Waits one night in Cambridge, and a beer for Levon Helm in Nashville once, my favorite buying moment of all time.

p.s. -- The "$11.69" line makes that column a classic.

 

[Ben_Hecht]

Taking ink-stained wretches who have never been there down to the BG is a great Chicago pleasure.

 

[buckweaver]

I own One More Time: The Best of Mike Royko and it is easily one of my favorite books. A lot of his columns hold up really well. I wish I could find online somewhere the column Royko wrote when Sinatra sent a flunky to deliver MR a letter basically telling him to stop lying about him. Royko wrote a hiliarious column, where he used a finely-sharpened scalpel to give Sinatra death by a thousand stilletto cuts.

Here is a column of Royko's about Jackie Robinson's debut that I found online (it's the second column). Enjoy -- it is a masterpiece.

http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/730719.html

The Robinson column is positively brilliant. Uplifting. Insightful.

The one I enjoyed more, however, was the one underneath that: on Rodney King. What an intelligent response to such an emotional issue, especially seeing as when he wrote it. That was beautiful.

 

[21]

I truly hope someone sends a copy of that Sinatra column to Jay, so he can see what cool looks like.

(I was actually going to write  Jay's response had he received that letter from Sinatra, but I think it would give me a migraine.)

 

[Ace]

I truly hope someone sends a copy of that Sinatra column to Jay, so he can see what cool looks like.

(I was actually going to write Jay's response had he received that letter from Sinatra, but I think it would give me a migraine.)

Try writing Telander's response to Mariotti's response.

I thought the same thing, 21. How would Jay handle this?

 

[PopeDirkBenedict]

Dave,

First off, Sound and Fury was excellent.

Two, you are moving up my hero list on a rocketship. Thank you so much for reposting a classic Royko column.

PDB

Boys and girls,

THAT is what Mariotti should have done. Cut Guillen to ribbons and make him look the fool. Hang him with his own words. Notice what Royko did not do: "DDAAAAAAAAAD! THE BIG KIDS ARE PICKING ON ME!"

 

[Blitz]

Slats Grobnik always knew what was up.
Always.

 

[DyePack]

Taking ink-stained wretches who have never been there down to the BG is a great Chicago pleasure.

As overrated as Royko.

 

[Dave Kindred]

On Royko and Grizzard....

I turned down the columnist's job with the Sun-Times when Grizzard was the sports editor....he seemed like the unhappiest man I'd ever met....he moved back to Atlanta 6 months later....the irony here is, Grizzard counted Royko as his model -- he went to Atlanta doing a cityside column, a la Royko and Breslin....then, one day, he told me, "I wrote about my dog and got a hundred letters, so I kept writing about my dog instead of politics".....he became "Lewis Grizzard"....though "beloved" by many "readers," he was Willie Miranda alongside Roy Blount's Babe Ruth.

Best two city columnists ever: Royko and Murray Kempton....Breslin piped it....Royko and Kempton were different in every way except the most important way: you could believe 'em.

 

[jason_whitlock]

i literally have tears in my eyes thinking about royko and his columns and the fact that people can still remember him and them. he was simply the greatest of all time.

i wrote him when he was alive. always got a form letter back.

but i talked through e-mail with one of his sons and his widow after his death. every time i mention him in a column, someone in his family will send me a note.

royko and ralph wiley still can make me cry.

 

[Ben_Hecht]

The fan club the son of a saloonkeeper maintains, speaks volumes.

 

[shotglass]

Getting to shake his hand as a kid after a speaking engagement ... the memory still gives me shivers.

His kind is no longer created.

 

[Cousin Jeffrey]

My eighth grade history teacher read us his column every week. I read Boss for a book report that year because he got me interested in him. I remember drawing a cover page of a giant "machine" chasing scared Chicagoans. I just bought the book again at a book fair.

 

[Ace]

I love Mike Royko.
Royko was syndicated in my local paper (located many moons away from Chicago) and I read him whenever I could.

I feel the same way about Royko.

It was a treat any day the op-ed pages would carry a Royko column.

He was a great journalists. Evokes images. Boils things down. I read him when I was a kid an enjoyed him. I sure wasn't reading William F. Buckley or David Broder.

 

[Ben_Hecht]

. . . and even though he didn't write screenplays, trust this . . . Royko was MUCH, MUCH better than me.