My Lunch with Jeanne Ives

Yesterday, I took the Rock Island Metra from 103rd to La Salle Street station for an 11:30 luncheon of the Finance Committtee of Ives for Illinois.  I was flattered to be invited, because I do not have two-nickels to rub together.

I helped Chicago Renaissance Man Mike Houlihan form  the Irish for Ives which will host a fundraiser at Reilly's Daughter on Monday, March 5th between 5-7PM.  That will be a great event, where traditional Democrats like me can ask Jeanne Ives about their public service pensions, Bosco Rauner's lie, that Representative Ives shovels Mike Madigan's snow covered sidewalks over on Kedvale & 64th and how she plans to get Illinois back on its feet.I passed out some fliers to my fellow passengers who either accepted them, or politely declined.  Most took them.  One woman chatted me up and said that she will probably go to the event.

Jeanne Ives has nowhere near the money to respond to Governor "Bosco" Rauner's calumnies.  This same place-holding creep, tried to hijack the funeral of Commander Paul Bauer and equated drinking chocolate milk to solving race relations.   As such many 19th Ward residents are buying the ads from Governor Bosco, like they were words coming from a burning bush:

                      She's a Madigan crony!
                      She is hateful, bigoted and wants my pension

All without any examples given other than repetitions of Eric Zorn, or Sun Times talking points.

The worst comes from a shirt-tail cousin of mine with a swell County job, who will be working to re-elect Toni Preckwinkle shortly.

If you see the "Irish for Ives" posters up on the South Side, let the businesses know you won't support them. I saw one on 111th in Mt Greenwood today and they immediately agreed to take it down. There's supposed to be a fundraiser for her at Reilly's Daughter Oak Lawn. Let them know too.

He attached a smear piece from Daily Kos 2013 about Ives the Union Buster though the same Union Buster has been supported by IUEO 150.  Jeanne Ives must be scaring the hell out of people who want to keep things going the way they are.  They know if Ives knocks Rauner out in the primary, JB Pritzker will not have the planned can of tomatoes in the 15 round bout in November.  Nor, do they want Jeanne Ives to face Chris Kennedy, let alone Progressive Boy Toy Biss.   So union leaders who were all-in for Rahm want Rauner to lay down in November for them all.

The rank and file union membership are stuck with the property taxes, the water bills, the lousy schools and are told who not to vote for.

Union voters must declare in a primary polling place and people have big ears, adapted to the slightest volume thanks to street cash and Rauner has plenty.  I takes a very special kind integrity to take an unsanctioned ballot in Chicago.

Tearing down posters and threatening business boycotts?   These same union loyalists shop at WalMart and regularly cross picket lines to snag an Italian beef.   Hey, it's a free country. . .still.

I arrived at the Union League Club and was asked to man the greeter's table for a few minutes, which I did and introduced myself while I handed out name tags.

A gentleman by the name of Mike Schultz was carrying a huge briefcase and asked me, " I suppose Ives is a Democrat, this being Illinois.  I am coming from Wisconsin and satyed here over night."

I explained that Jeanne Ives was running against Gov. Bruce Rauner in the March Primary as a Republican and he asked me about her.  I explained that Ives is the only Pro-Life candidate for the office of Governor by either Party,  was a comon sense fiscal conservative who wants to halt the run-away pension crisis while easing the pain of the victims of former Governor Jim Edgar's IOU briberies, a West Point grad and Army officer, mother of five children two of whom serve in the armed forses and honest,tough and good humored, happy person.

Jeanne Ives came up the stairs and we met for the first time, " Pat Hickey, it's nice to see a Facebook person in person."

I introduced the Guv to Mr. Schultz.

Mr. Schultz is a dreamer, of German, Irish and Japanese blood, who grew up in Bridgeport.  His grandmother lived two doors down from the real Mayor - Richard J. Daley.   Schultz went on to explain that he was selling a product that he helped developed - a pain relieving lotion made from hemp oil.  He is searching States for the expansion of his business and is skipping Illinois as toxic to innovation and industry.

Mike Schultz gave me a bottle of the lotion for my retired carpenter brother who is crippled up with artheritis in his knees, hands, shoulders and ankle.  He is no fan of Trump, Rauner, or Ives.  I am a huge fan of Jeanne Ives.

Mr. Schultz bid farewell and said, " I am very impressed with you, Mrs. Ives.  Best of luck!"

We were called into lunch/

I knew Dan Proft and was astonished to see him  with whiskers.  I was introduced to Jeanne's husband Rich, who is an engineer and a West Point man.  He had been with Kenny Construction, when the great flood washed through the Loop.  Rich is like  . . .every guy I know in this neighborhood, funny, embarassed to be there, serious about his wife and his family.   Rich Ives would be at ease at Kens, Barney Callaghan's or Hinky Dinks.  Alas,Mr. Ives gave up beer and smokes for Lent.

There at my table sat Mike Houlihan with two gentleman donors, as well as Dan Patlak, the only Republican in Cook County government, and Representative Tom Morrison.  We later joined by Mr. Spencer from Christ the King Parish.  Jim Tobin and John Powers sat with the Ives' and Chair of Finance Committee Mr. Vince Kolber, an elegant Polish gent from Seneca, NY who adopted Illinois as his home state, built a mechanical service corporation RESIDCO, funds The Little Sisters of the Poor and The Big Shoulders Fund.   Real robber-baron type.

We began with the Pledge of Allegiance and Mr. Kobler explained his notion of fund-raising which matched that of the great Bob Foster of Leo High School - make everyone an investor.

Most people believe that fundraising is whale-hunting. Everyone seems to believe the notion of nailing down a million dollar give, as the pinnacle of success. No.  Leo High School defied the know-it-alls for decades, including my own two, but counting on committed people.  Leo's Alumni are like 17th Century Jesuit Black Robes - they drag in new converts and turn those converts into missionaries.

Jeanne Ives has the support of this Democrat because she is honest, happy and heroic.  One older gentleman in  Mount Greenwood told me " She's gonna win!  The little girl has alot of hard bark on her." That, she do.

Vince Kobler is accepting checks for Ives for Illinois and he wrote another huge one yesterday. Vince Kobler had writtne big checks for Governor Bruce "Bosco" Rauner, until he proved himself to be the fraud that he happens to be.  Jeanne Ives was handed a check in the amount of $ 300,000.

Mike Houlihan and I felt the change in our pockets.

Jeanne Ives thanked Mr. Kobler, who himself had run for Congress in the 5th District in 2016, for leading her 'rag-tag band of insurgents'  who depend upon people power to get her message out.

Ives noted that all Rauner has is money, lots and lots and lots and lots of money.   Fund-raising is the art of friend making.

Jeanne Ives praised Mike Houlihan and me for our work on the upcoming Reilly's Daughter event.  In a room full of well-to-do women and men, it was uncommonly nice of Jeanne to recognize two broke boys.

Like I said, fund-raising is friend making and Jeanne Ives was on way to Peoria.  She had just comeback from Decatur, Belleville, and Watseka, Illinois, where union members learned the truth about Ives for Illinois from Jeanne Ives herself.

I wish my shirt-tail cousin and a few of louder partisans were as fair-minded.


I met Jeanne Ives and I don't have two-nickels together.


Wonder if Rauner, or JB Pritzker would give me two hoots in hell?


It's your vote.

Hey leave up the signs.  Don't go to the event.  Even better, don't vote.

Telling Yarns - The Germ of Art and Producer Ciara Nic Chormaic

 

Narrator: Europeans who had flocked to 19th Century Chicago for jobs crouched together for survival. They created ethnic enclaves little Germanys, Italy's, Warsaws, and Pragues, glowering at each other with suspicion
Douglas Bukowski, Writer: I think the best way to look at late 19th century Chicago is to think of it as a great boxing ring by the lake. People just didn't get along here. Nobody who was Polish wanted to have an Irish priest. Nobody who was Irish wanted to go to a German church. This whole notion of tolerance for other groups was foreign to people who didn't know any other groups in the old country. from PBS American Experience Series: Chicago in the 19th Century

I had the great pleasure to attend the opening night of Mike Houlihan's Irish American Film Festival at the Gene Siskel Center in heart of the Loop.

I explained the etymology of the Loop to film maker Dave McLaughlin and his wife Mary Beth as we walked from the Siskel Center to The Emerald Loop for the post viewing party.

I pointed above us to the roaring CTA elevated trains  above Lake and State.   The Loop is elevated track fencing much of the Dan Burnham and Louis Sullivan 19th century architecture that once housed capitalists, so detested by PBS and their 501(c) 3 foundation beneficiaries that funding was provided to re-write history.  That is not how stories, yarns, legends and history work . . .except on Public Television, Radio and at Media Matters.

People have been telling yarns and even paint cave walls when words failed them.

The Irish American Film Festival presented Deach An Dorais ( What;s Your Poison?) a documentary based on the Bronx legend of Mike Malloy, the Rasputin of the Bronx, a 1933 alcoholic who just would not die.  Mike Malloy survived more than twenty attempts by four creeps who wanted to cash-in on insurance policies take out in the homeless derelict with no known relatives or friend.  All Mike had going for him was an unquenchable thirst for alcohol and an iron constitution.  He survived poisonings, methonal guzzlings, glass, nail and contaminated sardine and oysters swallowings, freezings in sub-zero temperatures, while soaked with booze and buckets of ice cold water and even a speeding automobile driven over his body.

The story was told by Bronx residents and made it's way into plays, 1950's radio stories like Johnny Dollar -Insurance Investigator and,  most recently, picked up and printed by Smithsonian Magazine and made its way east over the Atlantic on the BBC.

Stories are rooted in human interactions.

Lions, chimps and whales don't tell stories, no matter what PBS tells us.

Story-telling is the germ of art.

When we arrived at The Emerald Loop the stories weaved up a storm.  Irish American News columnists and television producer Mike Morley told of Martin Hogan The Fenian Hero who escaped an Australian Penal Colony on the The Catalpa only to be buried without ceremony at Chicago's Mount Olivet Cemetery, James Sheahan told of Constable James Quinn, the first Chicago cop to be killed in the line of duty and author Rick Barrett's long work to set the record straight.

I had asked a the producer of  DEOCH AN DORAIS, Ms. Ciara Nic Chomaic if she had gathered information from New York's greatest story teller, T.J. English, author of Paddy Whacked.  Ciara had reached out to Mr. English, but he was unavailable.
Producer Ciara Nic Chormaic (center)
You see, Ms. Nic Chormaic build the stories around any given story.  She had attached the undertakers, the academics, the genealogists, the artists, a NYPD detective, GAA Hard Man Anthony Molloy ( the film's narrator) and the wildly entertaining and brilliant criminal pathologist who really stole the film for me.

The director Paddy Hayes and Ms. Nic Chromaic created art from a story.

However it was Ciara Nic Chromaic who vetted the story tellers made the narrative handled by Mr. Hayes possible.

History is a fabric of yarns, sagas. songs and stories - Art.

PBS, Ken Burns, Oliver Stone do propaganda.

I like Art.

Chicago's Club of the UnClubbable

  

Above - Mycroft Holmes - Below Mike Houlihan in manly Pre-Labor Day Panama tan suit gives a stern temperance lecture to an obviously clubbable and reed thin chap at a charitable event. Absent from this charitable event were members of Chicago's Union League Club.


Mycroft and Sherlock Holmes, the talented and cerebral sons of Bob and Tess Holmes, coal carters from Yorkshire, remind me of Mike Houlihan: Like Mycroft, Mike Houlihan is cerebral, philosophical and poetic:Mike Houlihan - Author, Actor, Playwright, Film Director, Columnist, Patriot, Wit, Gadabout, Free-Spender, Arch-Goodguy, Pugilist, Censor.

Like Mycroft given to deep thought to the point of ennui:

...he has no ambition and no energy. He will not even go out of his way to verify his own solutions, and would rather be considered wrong than take the trouble to prove himself right. Again and again I have taken a problem to him, and have received an explanation which has afterwards proved to be the correct one. And yet he was absolutely incapable of working out the practical points...

– Sherlock Holmes, speaking of his brother in "The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter"

From our friends at Wikpedia

And yet like Sherlock (- Ratiocinator extraordinaire, dope fiend, tobacconist, actor par excellence, musician, grifter, and wower of hot chicks) a man of the world, .

Houli is a complex man of universal tastes and inclinations - at once private and thoughtful and concurrently a Rabelaisian Rounder of the First Order.

Mike Houlihan,an 18th Century man of Johnsonian ( Samuel Johnson ) exertions and talents trapped in a faux-Edwardian world of stuffed shirts and phonies.

Houli got clubbed by the membership committee of the Union League Club - a dusty and pretentious convention center for low-brows with American Express Gold Cards. He was deemed 'unclubbale' - to use Dr. Johnson's 18th Century coinage. His heartache cried up to dry our eyes from the pulpy pages of Cliff Carlson's Irish American Magazine and made them moist with brotherly understanding - Page 28 - click my post title for the link:

Here is a poignant passage:

Of course I’m happy now that I
couldn’t join their club. Who wants
to go where they’re not wanted? But
these schmucks wouldn’t even put it in
writing, no letter, just the word passed
on to me, “Sorry you’re not our kind
darling.”
It’s all for the best. I couldn’t afford
it now anyway. However I would suggest
they remove the word “Chicago”
from their moniker at the Union League
Club. As Eddie Vrdolyak once said, “In
Chicago, we don’t stab you in the back,
we stab you in the front!” Well not
these guys.
So I will take pride in their snub and
remember my mother’s words “the bitter
lesson is best taught”. It’s what I got for
sticking my nose into a wasps nest.
Of course I forgive them and even
though I may announce to the world that
the Union League Club can kiss my fat
Irish ass, I’m actually, in my own way,
just turning the other cheek

Christian Gentleman to the backbone!

Houli, My Dear Fellow, a man of your expanded worth should not be confined, much less defined by a membership. You do more in a day than most of the Union League Club's overpaid ambulance chasers in two-tone broadcloth $400 shirts do a lifetime.

Who was it that said 'Study everything; join nothing?'

Mike Houlihan's Giant's eyes take in the cant and hypocrisy of our world right here in Chicago. This man is not Clubbable? Pish Posh!

Houli, enact a Club without Walls; found an Association without a Membership Committee. Make it an open membership to whomever you have the grace with whom you deign to congress.

To the phonies, snobs, louts, boors, tightwads - you might be unclubbable.

Chicago Police My Favorite Variety of Human Beings

This past Sunday was  the South Side Irish Parade.  I attend Mass at a cousin's house in Beverly before the step-off as has been the Hickey Family custom from earliest days of parade's history. Mass is always followed by a magnificent Irish Breakfast and a tribal jaw-fest.  This year I had an appointment in suburban Oak Park and pulled " a Murphy" at Communion.   I had parked my car strategically at 99th & Oakley for an easy egress to the Dan Ryan.  As is my custom, I gabbed with the people working to make the parade a success.  I met two young CPD Heroes on east side of Western Avenue. They said it was their first South Side Irish detail and wanted to know a good place to eat. I ponted out Fox's Beverly Pub and assured them of a fine feed and a most attentive staff of Friends of The Blue.

Down the street across from Tom Gibbons' Town Liquors. I had the pleasure of these three sons of Chicago's Northside One a Luther North Alum, another a St. Pat's graduate and third young guy the tallest of the three a CPS scion of Sullivan High School.  I toldthis trio of heroes that I get a store of great yarns and jokes from the Homicide Detectives who live near me and wanted to return the favor. 

Mike Houlihan, a guy named Brian and Pulitzer Prize winning Chicago Tribune writer Bill Crawford

I told them a yarn picked up from Chicago's Rennaissance Man - Film Maker, radio host, author and with Michael Houlihan

" A very troubled man went to his doctor and told him ' Doc, I think I am losing my mind.  My boss told me to get help.

The man with the caduceus gave him a look of genuine concern and asked, 'What's the problem, Sport?'

' Doc, for no good reason I blurt out WHAT"S NEW PUSSYCAT?'  I was in a meeting of mortgage brokers last week and while I reported on quartley home sales in Indiana . . .I  bluted out again WHAT"S NEW PUSSYCAT? My boss said I'm Losing my mind. Tell me, Doc, what is going on with me.'

The Son of Hermes, Mr. MD, smilked knowingly and replied 'You have what we in the medical profession call Tom Jones Syndrome.'

The worried man seemed assured somehow, ' Is that pretty common.'

The doctor shouted ' IT"S NOT UNUSUAL!'

The cops loved it.  I love cops.

Ask Yourself, "Do I Really Swallow This Nonsense?"

Onthe day of the great 2015 Blizzard. Mike Houlihan and Jesus Garcia began attracting Chuy-lligans at Cork and Kerry.

Question: Who said the following?  Was it Barack Obama, Elizabeth Warren, Dick Durbin, former Governor Pat Quinn, Rahm, or some old dude with beard and BO? More importantly, do you swallow this stuff?

“Constant revolution in production, uninterrupted disturbances of all social conditions, ever-lasting uncertainty and agitation, distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen prejudices, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions are swept away, all new formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.”

Hey, Kid!  have a shiney new Saccagewea Gold Coin for the first kiddie who can tell me who uttered the idiocy above posted - it was not Muriel Abbott.

If you do not, you know that

• Rahm Emanuel is Toast on April 7th
• Barack Obama is sad disappointment to most folks, but can't stop working his gums.
• The South Side Irish Parade will be packed with Chuy-lligans
• Elizabeth Warren is a daft grifter
• The News Media is only loud
• Most Academics Can't Spell Academics
• Schools Are Empty of Scholars
• Your Neighbor Knows More than Eric Zorn, Carol Marin and WTTW Under Torture
• Cars are better than Bikes
• Bike Lanes on the south side are hilarious ( do travel Vincennes south of 63rd) and empty
• Parking should cost no more than $0.25 per half hour
• City Transit should allow all forms of American currency 
• Forrest Claypool (CTA Boss) should find his own means of employment
• Rahm's two brothers will provide him with Golden Parachutes - we are now off the hook
• Bruce Rauner will wish that he was Pat Quinn
• Dick Durbin is a walking euphemism  
• Your voice, your vocation and your vote matter to all of us

April 7th 2015?

The Real Skinny - Jim Sheahan a Marathon of a Man.

Skinny and his consigliere William Tang ( two-guys center) at a recent Bocce Ball Tournament.  

We have giants among us, but we never really notice them because we are too busy viewing all the pygmies grabbing the attention - celebrities, bust-out millionaires, lawyers with cowboy hats, thugs and elected officials..

Those of us lucky enough to live in a neighbor meet giants every day.  People who actually devote their time, talent and treasure to other people.

James "Skinny" Sheahan is a giant.

This video says it all.

God graced us with great people.

Actress Tamberla Perry - Mike Houlihan Protege Stars in the Goodman Theatre's -Meet Vera Stark

Meet Tamberla Perry!

I have a thing about Playbills, the glossy and ad thick handout featuring the current production of any performance art production.  I find the nearest receptacle and pitch the booklet.

This quirk of mine goes back to the days of my youth when I worked as a janitor ( Local 25) at Theodore Thomas Orchestra Hall (1904-2013), now known as Symphony Center.

After each CSO, Harry Zelzer production ( Gordon Lightfoot, the Clancy Bros. & Tommy Makem, Cleo Laine, Richard Tucker, Danny Kaye, or Peter Max & the Young Rascals) not to mention CPS high school graduations, my comrades and I were required to sweep the hall from stage through the gallery by lifting the seats, picking up the napkins, Junior mints, orange juice boxes and tons upon tons of Playbills and depositing them into the 55 gallon plastic garbage cans.  It was a job.

Thus, from that time forty plus years ago, I hold onto a proffered Playbill no longer than CTA President Forrest Claypool holds a political sinecure.  Gone, in a nano second.

Playbills make wonderful keepsakes.  Keepsakes pile up.  I never know what to do with the book that I can not read, while at the performance, and care not to read after the show.  I 86 it.

I wish I had not done so with the Playbill I tossed at the Goodman Theatre yesterday, prior to witnessing some great theatre.

An elegant and stunning female woman and I attended the matinee performance of By the Way, Meet Vera Stark. The play by Lynne Nottage is running until June 2, 2013 at the Goodman.
Kara Zediker and Tamberla Perry in Vera Stark


One of the principles, rather the co-star of the production was an Honors Studnet of mine at Bishop McNamara High School - Kara Zediker (BMHS 1987).  Her Mom, Carole " Cookie" Zediker was a colleague and her Dad Phil Zediker  uttered, "Interesting," every time  I opened my yap.

Phil is a prominent psychiatrist.

 Kara is a supremely talented actress, singer and dancer who has made scores of films hundreds of TV appearances and trod the boards with the likes of John Malkovich while with  Steppenwolf Theatre in the 1990's. Kara plays Gloria Mitchell in Vera Stark, a fictional America'n film's Sweetie-pie of the 1930's. Kara plays up-from nothing gran dame with spot on vocal inflections, poignant facial deliveries and a silky sense of the stage. I was not surprised, because this beautiful little thespian has delighted me every since her grammar school baby-steps with the Paula Aubrey School of Dance, wowing the crowds at BMHS with her Ensign Nellie Frobish in South Pacific and favorite Zediker role extant - Mammy Yokam in L'il Abner.

Kara went onto Chicago's Columbia College, where her talents were plucked by the late John Hughes who put Kara in Uncle Buck. Kara was  member of Steppenwold and the old Goodman on Monroe, over by the Art Institute - to wax urban provincial.  From there, Kara went onto movies and TV



After the packed matinee crowd bolted down the hall to grab all of the tables at Petterino's, my sexy and chic theatre companion and I waited at the Security desk to catch-up with Kara.  We did the Hollywood smooches and then the two talented and toothsome women gabbed like Mother McAuley Alumnae, while I played with the change in my pockets. Then,. . .then we were joined by Vera Stark and her arch rival Anna

Mae, played with intelligent gusAmelia Workman.Ms. Workman and the cast, aside from Tamberla and Kara played dual, or triple roles - here she is as a lesbian feminist cinema critic.

to by the stunning

Four gorgeous talented women within an arms reach of this 79th Street Mick troll.  God is Great!

Tamberla Perry was stunning on stage, but in person she could make Chris Matthews shut up.   I gushed out my praise on all three young ladies and asked them about their Chicago roots. Kara mentioned that I work fro Leo High School and the already luminescent Ms. Perry lit up with proud recognition - " The Pride of 79th Street!'  Yes, Mam.

Again the ladies chatted up the arts and the young actresses were called to a cast meeting.  Ms. Sullivan tucked her Playbill into her purse.  We parted from the cast with sweet sorrow . . .on my part.

Petterino's was booked.  We opted for Atwood's in the Burnham Hotel - she the duck breast; me the halibut.

Hours later the thoughtful and beautiful Ms. Sullivan gave me a call.  " Had you not tossed away your Playbill, Mr. Hickey, as is your habit, you would know something that I know," she coquetted.

" Honor bright?"

"Yes, of course, I am not the perpetual eight year old in this relationship. . . ," no pique, just fact.

" Spill it, Sister."

" Did you know that Tamberla Perry, Vera Stark, was in the cast of Tapioca, by Friend Houli? . . .this from the Playbill you so scorn ,  "On film, Mrs. Perry has appeared in Tapioca, Puzzled Love and Chasing Robert, and her television appearances include Boss, Chicago Fire and as the Illinois Lottery hostess on WGN-TV. Ms. Perry is a company member of MPAACT."

" Well, I'll be dipped and rolled. . ."

" Yes, and you should be . . .'

"Friend Houli?  What's he turned Quaker?"

" That will be enough for today, I think. Get a good night's sleep, my dear."

I was yet gobsmacked by the information.

This exquisite looking and talented girl worked her chops for Houli?  Playbill said so.

Yarns from Cleek Club of Chicago: Ebert's Thumbs Up for Our Irish Cousins: I'm Mike Houlihan and I Make Movies and Drive a Ford!

Careful readers* of these hoary postings will recall that sometime during the waning days of President GW Bush's second term, Chicago auteur, venture-capitalist, swordsman and wit Mike Houlihan was blackguarded by the scions of mighty thin-bloodlines when he applied for membership to Chicago's Union League Club. Ganged together, the off-spring confederation of the Yankee manques who formed that club during the National Rebellion, could now meet in an antique phone booth, but its clout yet cudgels those whom they fear. Chicago's John Huston, Mr. Houlihan, was denied membership.

Oh WASP'S sting yet smarts; though its strike reaches not the heart and soul of good.

Houli turned to a somewhat younger, but equally unclubable worthy and formed Cleek of Chicago.

As its junior member my duties and obligations are solely fiduciary and financial and the rewards are Olympian - I get to hang with Houli.

I took refuge from a broken heart and the ague among Cleek's Doric columns and the walls of gilt Shiraz and Morocco bound volumes ancienne et moderne de la philosophie, de l'histoire et de la littérature.  My foolish heart was broken due to a faux pas that embarrased the woman I love and caused her to shudder in public when I ordered salade avant le plat principal à la manière américaine at Taylor Street's Chez Joel Bistro Francais.  Somethings are just not to be done and I allowed appetite to sweep away fond trust.

 " How could you?" the delicate and chic woman protested.

" Hey, I like salad afore the meat and spuds, Sweetie and guess what?  I'm ladling French Dressing all over the greens and onions . . .in a French restaurant!"

" Oh! Qu'est-ce une bête, vous pouvez être à des moments!"  she sniffed.

" Hey, Garson!  How's about a little more of this bubbly water?"

Here, at this last graceles utterance, fawn-like tears glowed and glistened in the candle-lit quiet and her alabaster skin went crimson, "Je ne te connais même pas!"

"Hey, It's Taylor Street, Sweets and not some Russian novel with the Cossacks playing at Talleyrand."

It took me days to have the import of those thoughtless and unmeasured remarks dent my heart to a full realization of my dastardry.  Anyway. I caught a bad case of coughs and shakes to boot.

In the Cleek, among the books and brandied Toddies I could regroup, what was left of body and soul.

Having devoured Pope's Epistles II, I decanted a needleful of E & J and on this passage:

Say, what can cause such impotence of mind?
A Spark too fickle, or a Spouse too kind.
Wise wretch! with pleasures too refin’d to please;	95
With too much spirit to be e’er at ease;
With too much quickness ever to be taught;
With too much thinking to have common thought:
You purchase Pain with all that Joy can give,
And die of nothing but a rage to live.	100
Turn then from Wits, and look on Simo’s mate,
No ass so meek, no ass so obstinate:
Or her that owns her faults but never mends,
Because she ’s honest, and the best of friends:
Or her whose life the church and scandal share,	105
For ever in a Passion or a Prayer:

Swine!  Hickey make things right.  Thus, the path to my arching heart and the cordial my ague.  Now, I might attend to the affairs of my fellow man!

I read the Sun Times and howled with approval Roger Ebert's review of Mike Houlihan's documentary epic Our Irish Cousins at the Gene Siskal Film Center.  I fairly jigged with delight that Chicago's Maecenas  of Film had coaxed up two chubby thumbs in favor of Houli's film - and Three out of Four Stars!!!!!!!!

Voila!
 As anyone familiar with Houlihan's work can attest, the man is a born storyteller — the kind of guy who can make a statement along the lines of "You know what's funny? Here's a good story. My brother died ..." and then actually pull it off. He gets a lot of laughs throughout the film, whether from well-polished anecdotes or spontaneous interactions with the people he meets. What is even more impressive, though, is the way that he manages to quietly layer in more serious-minded concerns amidst the laughter so that when he visits the church where his grandfather was baptized more than a century earlier, the scene winds up packing a surprisingly hefty emotional punch. 

Into the Cleek strode my friend! "My dear man!  Oh, Good Show, Houli! This from Ebert?

"Been at the E & J, again." he observed with a director's glass lanyard-ed around his neck.

" One or three to fight the ague and a . . ."

" My name is Mike Houlihan and I make movies."

"Yes, and so much more, like your work riding shotgun on the Salvation Army mobile food wagon in Uptown. . .and . . ."

"I love making pictures but I don't like talking about them.Anybody can direct a picture once they know the fundamentals. Directing is not a mystery, it's not an art. The main thing about directing is: photograph the people's eyes.   It is easier to get an actor to be a cowboy than to get a cowboy to be an actor. It's no use talking to me about art, I make pictures to pay the rent. I didn't show up at the ceremony to collect any of my first three Oscars. Once I went fishing, another time there was a war on, and on another occasion, I remember, I was suddenly taken drunk. For a director there are commercial rules that it is necessary to obey. In our profession, an artistic failure is nothing; a commercial failure is a sentence. The secret is to make films that please the public and also allow the director to reveal his personality.As a beauty, Dolores del Rio is in a class with [Greta Garbo]. Then she opens her mouth and becomes Minnie Minoso . . ."

I was taken a back, somehow my friend had become . . .John Ford!

* the blackuarding of Mike Houlihan by the snobs of the Union League Club - in response Mike founded the Cleek of Chicago - the Driver of the City: Mashies, Rakes and Niblicks are for smaller souls. The Cleek of Chicago is Big, Big Club!

Mike Houlihan: One of Our Own - In Praise of Paul Ryan

 

Written by Mike Houlihan
Special to The Irish American News

Most Irish Americans are skeptical of President Obama’s supposed discovery of his Irish roots. That pint of Guinness he was seen hoisting in Ireland last year was no doubt his first. The real reason he made the trip to the tiny village of Moneygall was a craven attempt to cozy up to the Irish American vote.
We’re also not buying Vice-President Joe Biden’s claims to be “Irish Catholic”. This chuckling buffoon is no more Catholic than Ian Paisley, but he still clings to the oxymoronic label of “pro-choice Catholic” like his pals Nancy Pelosi, Dick Durbin, and the late Teddy Kennedy. Actual Irish Catholics find an absurdity in the very idea of pro-choice Catholics. They may call themselves that, but the actual species does not exist. Ask the Pope.
The liberal media has done its best lately to malign the Irish Catholic credentials of Vice-Presidential candidate Paul Ryan. But according to Rick Barrett, retired DEA Agent and Chicago history detective, Ryan is the most Irish of the four candidates running, and his heritage and religion make him “the real deal”- an Irishman.
Barrett’s previous investigative research projects are celebrated in the Irish American community. His work is notable because of his discovery of Irish immigrants as historic figures and then championing these individuals as pioneers in law enforcement, including The Chicago Police Department’s Constable Jeremiah Sullivan, the first Irishman to become a policeman in America; Marie Connelly Owens, the first policewoman in the USA; and Constable James Quinn, the first Chicago Police Officer killed in the line of duty.
The son of legendary Chicago police Lieutenant "Junior" Barrett, of 48th & Wabash-Southside of Chicago fame, Rick Barrett has a history himself of conducting criminal investigations and evidentiary historical research that bloodhounds would envy.
Among Barrett’s discoveries is the heritage of VP Candidate Paul Ryan:
Ryan is fourth-generation Irish, with a paternal line going back to Ullard in County Kilkenny.
Ryan’s people were farmers. His great-great grandparents came from a small townland registered as Clohasty in the 1820's, but now referred to as Cloghasty North. The townland itself was less than 110 acres.
James Ryan and Catherine Shea, Paul Ryan’s great-great grandparents, were married in the local Catholic parish of Graigeunamanagh.
Their first daughter, Ryan’s great-grand aunt, was born and baptized in the same parish in 1849, two years before the family emigrated.
So why is any of this important to the upcoming election? Because Irish Catholics tend to vote for their own. The best example of that is the late Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley getting the vote out for a young man named Jack Kennedy in 1960 and winning him the election.
Ryan’s Irish roots could help determine how the battleground state of Ohio votes in the upcoming election.
Barrett says, “There are many Irish Catholics residing in the state of Ohio. In fact, there are so many Irish Catholics living there that, years ago, the University of Notre Dame, home of the ‘Fighting Irish', made an agreement with the Ohio State University to never schedule a regular season football game between the two universities. Why would that be? Because neither Notre Dame nor OSU wanted to divide the state’s Irish Catholics—a game between these two universities would divide Ohio with some cheering for the Irish Catholic ND, thereby dividing Ohioans. Two of Paul Ryan’s brothers, Stan and Tobin, graduated from Notre Dame while Paul chose to attend Miami University in Ohio.”
Paul Ryan’s Irish Catholic bona fides, as a Pro-Life candidate and with ancestors going back to Graiguenamanagh in County Kilkenny, could potentially sway Irish Catholic voters in Ohio to “stick with their own”, and very well swing the election to give the Republicans the victory on November 6th.
And that night in Boston might be when Paul Ryan stands before the cheering crowds of Irish Catholics and tells them, “There are only two kinds of people in this world ‘Irish and I-Wish”!

This Cat Drifts With Passion - Chet Coppock: A Conundrum Wrapped in Bacon

Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon which your reason and your judgment wage war against your passion and your appetite. Kahil Gibran

"Watch the run, watch the screen, watch everything!" - Abe Gibron

 On AM radio in Chicago, one is more than likely to hear an ad delivered by Sports Journalist, wit, boulevardier, gourmand and authority Chet Coppock.

Chet Coppock and the words 'succulent' are synonymous is this our palatable swine and kine town, when the man is pointing hungry bellies in the direction of a fine dining establishment; however, I recently needed to pull the old Malibu onto the shoulder of the Dan Ryan in order to control my giggles upon hearing Chet shill for a plastic surgeon.




I nearly went east and west*on the Ryan when I heard this one! Mr. Coppock's salutation " This cat drifts (or is it drips?) with passion" caused me no end of giggles.

The DNA of language is safe in the hands of Chet Coppock!

* an homage to Mike Houlihan

On My Way to Peggy Kinnane's! Houli's There Wednesday Night, So I Gotta Beat Feet!

I'm as short on carfare as I am on the Cardinal Virtues; therefore, I had better beat feet, take it on Arthur Duffy, hit the bricks, start walking, motor this voter, make movin' behoovin', set sail these barques of mine, toe it north and ease west, hike to Houli* at Peggy Kinane's!

Okay, get snacks and water. Wake the mules and check my directions -

1. Head north on S Rockwell St toward W 107th St
0.1 mi
2. Turn right onto W 107th St
0.2 mi
3. Turn left onto S Western Ave
1.6 mi
4. Slight right to stay on S Western Ave
13.4 mi
5. Turn left onto N Milwaukee Ave
5.7 mi
6. Turn left onto N Northwest Hwy
7.0 mi
7. Continue onto Rand Rd
1.7 mi
8. Turn left onto Seegers Rd
0.7 mi
9. Turn left onto N Broadway St/Seegers Rd
66 ft
10. Turn right onto US-14 W
4.3 mi
11. Turn left onto N Evergreen Ave
354 ft
12. Turn right onto E Campbell St
Destination will be on the right

I'm OFF!




The fun begins at 7PM and Houlihan will tell some preposterous stories from his celebrated book and hold court at this legendary Irish pub till 9PM. Mike is offering all Peggy Kinnane's patrons a 60% discount on the price of his book that night!

Stop into Peggy Kinnane's for some Hooliganism and kick off your St. Patrick's Day shenanigans early. Peggy Kinnane's is located at 8 N. Vail Avenue in Arlington Heights. For more information. Call 847-577-7733.

Stop in and yuck it up with Renaissance Man Mike Houlihan - the man is busier than a retarded kitten trying bury cat poop on a marble floor.

*Mike Houlihan is an award winning writer, actor, producer, director, filmmaker, radio host, and journalist. He began his professional career in 1973 with The American Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, CT and has appeared on Broadway, Off-Broadway, on television, major motion pictures, our nations largest newspapers, periodicals, and bathroom walls. For more info please go to his websites, TapiocaTheMovie.com, ouririshcousins.com and skinnyhouli.com.

Irish Coffin Rests in County Kerry

'Take a good grip on it,now, so. You've a long scamper up that cnoc beag beyond the Church and she's a Fat Heiffer at that, so. You rest it down half a mile on the cónra cloiche (Coffin Stone)above that mile.'

We Chicago Irish carry the coffin for about eighteen inches from the back of Bob Sheehy's Hearse to the coffin gurney - sometimes if the occupant were a career lard ass that heft is more than enough. However, our Irish Cousins ( invest in Mike Houlihan's New Documentary) continue to employ the full force of six men and true all the way to the Church and the Parish graveyard.

Here is an interesting oddity, learned in the pages of The Kerryman Newspaper.

"I also came across the fascinating phenomenon of coffin rests while interviewing people in Bonane outside Kenmare. If, say, a woman married into a neighbouring parish it was the custom that she would be buried with her own people when the time came. So the coffins were carried back on foot and the cortege made use of specific rocks as coffin rests," he explained." The Kerryman




"Thank God, she was a thin one. 'Tis a long hike up hill, so"

Mike Houlihan's Our Irish Cousinshttp://documentaries.org/cid-films/our-irish-cousins/

Our Irish Cousins - A Film by Houli and Your Chance to be Maecenas

Gaudeamus igitur
Iuvenes dum sumus.
Post iucundam iuventutem
Post molestam senectutem
Nos habebit humus . . .

Vivat nostra civitas,
Maecenatum caritas
Quae nos hic protegit.

Ah, those golden days of student life - Das Korps Burschenschaft; arguing Maughman's proclivities toward the randy rump and his prose portraits of attractive harridans - Somerset's rivals for Cupid's dart after all; Expressionism, Neue, Sachlichkeit, Agitprop; stern walks with Herr Professor Doktor Boethius Reifsneider on Untersuchungen über die Deutlichkeit der Grundsätze der natürlichen Theologie und der Moral - I held in favor of Old Kant, while Mein Her Doktor took a Hegelian turn; gallons of Rhenish and kegs of bierr in Heidleberg Englebrau earthen vessals -sans covers, naturliche! Sweaty combat in the courts of Mensur, being an adept mit der Korbschläger! The Marburgers, Damn Their Eyes! Ah, the schmiss and post sanguinary the kiss of the Miss with the Cherry Lips! Merry Magdelena and busty Bertilda! After a good festering heal, to swagger about the Strasse and catch the look of envy of mein "Korpsbruder" Meister Hickey,Such a Scar! Aus gezeichnet!




This reverie betokens my thanks to the patrons of my ease, delights, romances, combats and dissolute roisterings! My patrons! Those who paid my way!

Uncle Dan's Clout!
Local 25,Building, Theatres and Amusements Janitors Union!
Gateway Trucking!
Mr. Lee's Clothing!

I left the university debt free! My Maecenas Universal!

The Point, Hickey?

Ah, Yes! Here I am slashing about with the Korbschläger of memory when I should be thrusting with the Stoßmensur of rigid reason.

Be a Patron of the Arts! I am. Having invested my widower's mites to two fine films produced by Michael Houlihan (Her Majesty Da Queen and Our Irish Cousins, please, allow me to explain the benefits of being a film producer.

You put some jack into Houli's movies and he puts your name in the credits for all the world to see - not that that is important; but, having one's vanity stroked is nice. You can go to your grave knowing that you have boosted the Beaux-Arts!

For as little as $25.00, cash money, you become a modern Maecenas. The full throated roaring of Gaudeamus Igitur by your humble servent as an undergradute ended with words of praise to Ocatvian's Parton of the Arts and the State - Gaius Maecenas.
It is a noble and patriotic thing to be a patron - invest in Houli's latest film!

Here's How!

Become one of the producers
of our new film, Our Irish Cousins.

IT'S TAX-DEDUCTIBLE!, just like church!

Kick in as little as 25 bucks and your name could appear in the final credits of the film with other significant donors like
those on our honor roll listed here.
Send us $100 and we'll send you a DVD of "Her Majesty, 'da Queen", the prologue to Our Irish Cousins, which recently aired on WTTW, Chicago Public Television, and a copy of the book that started it all, Hooliganism Stories.

Click my post title for the direct link. Gaudeamus igitur
Iuvenes dum sumus. . . .

Mike Houlihan Celebrates 35 Years of Boz O'Brien's Reilly's Daughter Pub -Oak Lawn and Midway Airport

The Great Boz O'Brien and son Brendan

I was not a fast bartender' nor, was I a slow bartender; Boz O'Brien said that I was a "Half Fast Bartender." At least that was how I recall James "Boz" O'Brien's assessment. I was part of the early crews ( 1975-77) pouring, uncapping and mixing wholesome beverages to fine folks at Reilly's Daughter Pub.

Irish American News presents Chicago Renaissance Man and Brasseuse on the Loose, Mike Houlihan's penning of a poignant paen to one of the great Captains of the Counter - Boz O'Brien on the 35th Anniversary of the Birth of Reilly's Daughter

Here's a shot -

It was June 16, Bloomsday, 1976 when Boz O’Brien opened his saloon, Reilly’s Daughter, in Oak Lawn at 111th and Pulaski. A shopping mall seems a strange place for a tavern but it had plenty of parking and it became the most popular watering hole in Chicagoland for anybody coming of age in the final three decades of the last century.

If ever there was a place where everybody knew your name, this was the place.

Boz tells me the secret of his success has always been the people who work at Reilly’s, but his talents as the PT Barnum of bar owners never hurt.

Boz once booked a pair of CTA cars for a 3 hour pre-St. Paddy’s train ride all over Chicago on the EL It was 1977 and on Feb. 7th of that year four cars had derailed and fallen off the track at Lake and Wabash. Somebody at the CTA figured that having these Irish kids party on the EL only a month after the crash might show Chicago that there was nothing to fear. It was a public relations stroke of genius and Reilly’s Daughter sold out all 200 tickets for the ride.

Click my title for a full swallow!

The Great Rick Kogan's Hand is Flush With Green Queens

Rick Kogan* has a voice like a Gothic cathedral's pipe organ. My God, the man has pipes! His Sidewalks feature on WGN amasses a loyal following of listeners not only for the pitch and timbre of Kogan's majestic voice, but also the high quality of the narrative. As a journalist and word sketcher, Rick Kogan is the equal of Dan McGrath, a sportswriter/editor of national renown and the leader of Leo High School's institutional advancement efforts.

Today, Kogan treats us all with wonderful portrait of Chicago's ethnic royalty - the St. Patrick's Day Queens. Interestingly, in Kogan's print basso susurrations for the Sunday Tribune links us with another voice Catherine O'Connell**.

Cathy O'Connell is the 1976 St. Patrick's Day Queen Emerita and one the most gifted singers in this town. Cathy sang at Leo High School for the November Veterans Observances in tribute to all who serve America.

It is a great kind of a sorority," said O'Connell. "I feel like a den mother. We have so much fun together."

Gorecki said, "I probably didn't realize it until the luncheon, but this honor and these women who came before me are part of me forever."

The 21-year-old Gorecki — "Polish on my dad's side and Irish on my mom's side," she said — is a freshman at DePaul University majoring in international studies, having taken a break after high school to explore a musical career on the West Coast. But she is determined that music stay a part of her life.

If she needs a role model, there is not far to look. O'Connell has made a fine career as a singer, first in taverns and cabarets before quitting to start a family. For the last decade or so she has been drawn to more intimate and less raucous spaces, such as churches, cathedrals and theaters.

O'Connell will be performing with longtime pals Kathleen Keane and Jimmy Moore on April 16 at the Skokie Theatre.

She used to characterize her career by saying, "I marry 'em, and I bury 'em" but since expanding her realm to include performing at baptisms, she said playfully, "I'm hatchin', matchin' and dispatchin'." She has also made five wonderful CDs, survived a horrific car crash, raised three fine young boys and still proudly wears, but once a year, the yellow sash she received long ago when she was a queen.

The Queen of St. Paddy's Day is the subject of Mount Carmel's Pride and Chicago Renaissance Man Mike Houlihan's*** charming film Her Majesty, 'da Queen, which Rich Kogan mentions with unparalleled prose bass-baritone.

Chicago has many people to treasure.

Time to get ready for Mass!

*

Rick Kogan:Born and raised and still living in Chicago, Rick Kogan (left) has worked for the Chicago Daily News, Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune, where he is currently a senior writer and columnist. Named Chicago's Best Reporter in 1999 and inducted into the Chicago Journalism Hall of Fame in 2003, he is the creator and host of WGN radio's "Sunday Papers with Rick Kogan" and the author of a dozen books, including "Everybody Pays: Two Men, One Murder and the Price of Truth" (with Maurice Possley), "America's Mom: The Life, Lesson and Legacy of Ann Landers," "A Chicago Tavern," the history of the Billy Goat, and "Sidewalks I" and "Sidewalks II," collections of his columns embellished by the work of photographer Charles Osgood

**

Singer Catherine O'Connell grew up in Chicago and in love with Chicago. Her affection for performing was nurtured by her parents, James and Mary, who shared with her their passions for music and theater. Her father, a talented amateur singer, gave her this early advice: "Tell the story and sing the song with a tear in your voice. Her mother, an accomplished actress, offered this: "Enunciate or no one will understand you."
Catherine, who was the St. Patrick Day Parade Queen in 1976, later developed her distinctive style and dramatic stage presence by performing in dozens of pubs, saloons and cabarets in Chicago, New York and the Caribbean.
Leaving the club scene to raise three boys, she switched direction in her career to focus on more intimate spaces in the city and suburbs, where the emotional impact of her singing has gathered her a large and devoted following. Bill Fraher, director of music at Old St. Patrick’s Church, calls her "the best communicator" he has ever worked with and one friend said "I never thought I could live through my mother’s funeral and you made me sing."
The Chicago Tribune's and WGN's Rick Kogan says, "Catherine is an original, as gifted a singer and as sensitive a performer as I have ever heard and seen. She might easily have become a star in the New York scene but, God love her, she's tied to our town."
March 2002 Catherine released her CD entitled 'I Arise Today' and December 2003 released 'Songs From My Father' available at Irish shops around the city and catherineoconnell.com.
From saloons to Symphony Center, chapels to cathedrals, funeral homes to festival halls, Catherine has touched the hearts and lifted the spirits of thousands of Chicagoans. She is currently working on a Christmas CD.

***Mike Houlihan

Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs and peep about
To find ourselves dishonourable graves.

Oscar's Wilde! Houli's 'da Queen on WTTW - That is Mike Houlihan's Film; not T'other Way Around.

Oscar's Fabulously Wilde about Mike Houlihan's Her Majesty 'da Queen - the Docu-epic about Chicago's St. Paddy's Queen pageant.

Houli's film features of WTTW - of all places!

WTTW-11, Chicago's premier public television station, will debut

Mike Houlihan's engaging new documentary Her Majesty, 'da Queen on Sunday,



February 27 at 4:00 pm.

The 60-minute film is a sneak peek backstage at the annual St. Patrick's Day Parade Queen Contest and captures all the humor, heartbreak, and excitement shared by over 100 young women each year as they vie for the crown. Many of Chicago's most endearing Irish-American personalities are also featured in the film in intimate interviews during the pageant.

Her Majesty, 'da Queen was edited from video shot at both the 2009 and 2010 queen contests. This one-hour program is a prologue to Mike Houlihan's epic documentary Our Irish Cousins, which is currently in post-production. Our Irish Cousins was shot all over the U.S. and in Ireland, and reveals the Irish American experience in all its glory, humor, and spirit.

Pull them Rabbit ears aright and call the kids!

Tell Santa to Make You A Movie Producer -Invest in Houli's Film!

Skip the snuggies, the Chia Pets, the fruitcakes and the cork screws. For Two bits -( $25.00 US in This Our Economy) you can make Your Mom, Your Brothers and Sisters, Your Bride, Your Kids, Your Kids' Teachers,, Your Boss, Your Mailman, Your Precinct Captain, and Your Buddies a Move Producer. Clcik my post title for the deal of a lifetime.

No Time My Dear. Houli's 'Her Majesty Da Queen' Opens Tonight! We Must Get to the Irish American Heritage Center. Now, Do Be a Good Girl . . .

The IAHC will host the world premiere of Mike Houlihan’s new documentary Her Majesty, ‘da Queen on Saturday night, November 13th at 7:30pm. Tickets are $10.
The film is a sneak peek backstage at the annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade Queen Contest and captures the humor, heartbreak and excitement shared by more than 100 young women each year as they vie for the crown. Many of Chicago’s most endearing Irish-American personalities are featured in the film in intimate interviews during the pageant.
The film was edited from video shot at both the 2009 and 2010 queen contests.
The screening of Her Majesty, ‘da Queen will begin at 7:30pm with introductory remarks by filmmaker Mike Houlihan and wrap up with a Q&A with the audience and a post-screening party in the Fifth Province Pub. Tickets are $10.

Mike Houlihan's Latest Film -Her Majesty 'Da Queen World Premiere November 13th at IAHC

If there are any flies on Mike Houlihan, they must be pretty active wee lads! Mike Houlihan hustles like a 70's Disco King. The man is a prodigy. His lastest film "Her Majesty 'da Queen" World Premiere is coming to Chicago's Irish American Heritage Center.

Mike Houlihan's Newest Film to Première at IAHC

The Irish American Heritage Center will host the world premiere of Mike Houlihan's new documentary "Her Majesty, 'da Queen" on Saturday night, November 13th at 7:30PM.

The film is a sneak peek backstage at the annual St. Patrick's Day Parade Queen Contest and captures all the humor, heartbreak, and excitement shared by over 100 young women each year as they vie for the crown. Many of Chicago's most endearing Irish-American personalities are also featured in the film in intimate interviews during the pageant.

"Her Majesty, 'da Queen" was edited from video shot at both the 2009 and 2010 queen contests. This one-hour program is a prologue to Mike Houlihan's epic documentary "Our Irish Cousins", which is currently in post-production. "Cousins" was shot all over the US and in Ireland and reveals the Irish American experience in all it's glory, humor, and sprit.

The screening of "Her Majesty, 'da Queen" will begin at 7:30PM with introductory remarks by filmmaker Mike Houlihan and finish up with a Q&A with the audience and a post-screening party in the Fifth Province. Pub.

The Irish American Heritage Center is located in Chicago at 4626 North Knox with free parking available. For more information call 773-282-7035.

Houlie moves like a Kenyan at a Marathon.

Why John O’Sullivan Backed Forrest Claypool

My State Representative and the Worth Township Democratic Committeeman, John O’Sullivan is backing Forrest Claypool for Cook County Assessor. He is doing so out of loyalty to the working people of our Legislative District – the hard working tax paying citizens of our community. John O’Sullivan honors commitments. Real politics is based upon the obligation of the man elected to the people who voted for him. To some people in and on the fringes of politics it is a parlor game.



Some people want to make everything a Race issue. It seems to me that the upcoming race for Cook County Assessor is more about property taxes than anything else and that, unless tax attorneys could be conceived to be a Race, this race is anything but racial –it is election of a person who will best serve the interests of Cook County home owners and tax payers. I am no demographer, but I must wonder - are there really a powerful number of black and Hispanic tax attorneys in Cook County? If not, then, perhaps, this election should only be about electing the person who would make the fairest Cook County Assessor. John O’Sullivan believes that Forrest Claypool would be that person.



John O'Sullivan is what he is -a 25 year union laborer from a family of union men and women. A Pro-Life Democrat, husband of an elementary school teacher and the father of 3 boys receiving Catholic educations at catholic schools, John has served as a volunteer youth wrestling, football and little league coach at his alma mater, parish and Park District respectively. John also serves as the Worth Township Democratic Committeeman and Illinois Representative from the 35th Legislative District - for both of these positions, O'Sullivan accepts no compensation. John is also a man who is not afraid to take stands, which made the subject of a recent Carol Marin article in the Sun Times



John O'Sullivan is backing Democrat tuned independent Forrest Claypool over Democratic Party Chairman Joe Berrios for Cook County Assessor much to the chagrin of party bosses.



I ran into John O’Sullivan and asked him about his endorsement of Forrest Claypool for Cook County Assessor. Johnny O’s answer was very much the same as the one that he gave to Carol Marin and it struck the same notes that Mike Houlihan wrote about in the October issue of Irish American News. Mike Houlihan writes, “The old Democratic Party was hijacked over the last thirty years by eugenics, philosophers, and advocates of what Clarence Thomas called ‘social engineering.’” Instead, Johnny O’Sullivan concerned not with engineering society, but in backing the candidate best suited to make decisions that will help Cook County home-owners and tax-payers.

I asked O'Sullivan, who is also a staunch Governor Pat Quinn supporter, about his endorsement of Forrest Claypool and he stated, “I’m not taking aim at any machine. My responsibility is to the taxpayers. My loyalty is to my community. I'll be damned if I'm going to be intimidated by threats of retribution by those who seek to inject race into politics. I faced the same threats four years ago when I backed Forrest Claypool over John Stroger for Cook County Board President and, still, I was elected this year with a 75% majority for Worth Township Democratic Committeeman. The office of Cook County Assessor is an economic office and who we elect should not be based on racial or party politics. Joe Berrios is not a bad person but I am supporting Forrest Claypool because he has a strong record of standing up for the taxpayer. I also know many working and middle class Hispanics and African Americans who are also supporting Forrest Claypool for the same reason."



This is politics at its best. John O’Sullivan is meeting his obligation to the voters and to man he believes will best serve the home owners and tax payers of Cook County.



That is a solid answer from a very solid man.