Welcome to Foxx's Rooster Coop, Where the Roosters Spit Hockers

Minor Offenses.

Taking the last cold beer in the icebox, or that slice of pizza?

Nah. Those transgressions might get a raised eye brow, or a verbal rebuke, but here are some things one might do in order to find oneself before Cook County Judge Peggy Chiampas.

• Retail Theft
• Minor Drug Offences
• Mental health-related charges
• Simple Assault
• Indecent Exposure
• Prostitution
• Drug Possession
• Drug Sale
• Criminal Damage to Property

Minor things. 

Poor folks no longer worry about getting up the cash to bond out before court date, because Cook County Government President Toni Preckwinkle, Sheriff Tom Dart and States Attorney Kim Foxx are all about Prison/Jail/Detention/Correction Reform.

Good news!!! You can now expedite the bonding process by emailing ccso.bonds@cookcountyil.gov before you come to the CCDOC. When we receive the email, we will begin getting the release paperwork together, which could cut down on your wait time. Your email must include the following:

That means, not holding people charged with Minor Offences in Cook County Jail.  People like gentle giant and Lynnwood resident Christian Brown, 23.

Brown, 23, of south suburban Lynwood, was up for a minor offense in the Leighton Criminal Courts Building on Saturday afternoon before Judge Peggy Chiampas when she handed down an I-bond, or signature bond, by which the defendant isn’t required to post cash for release, according to several people present during the hearing.
 Witnesses said Brown then spat at the veteran judge, striking one of her arms and her black robe. Some of those present for the incident wondered whether Brown knew that he would have been released without posting bond.
Before Brown was hustled out of the courtroom by deputies, Chiampas held him in direct contempt of court and ordered him held in Cook County Jail for 30 days. She initially ordered him held for 30 months but said she misspoke and corrected her previous order. Chiampas *did note that she could have had Brown jailed for six months but opted not to.

Mr. Brown spit at the Judge, when he was asked if he understood that the Cook County I-Bond insured that he would waltz out of the Leighton Criminal Courts Building and onto the pavement on California Avenue - guilty as hell and free as a bird.  

Well, not quite. And there's pizza!

Guilty as hell, free as a bird.

That is a paraphrase from Old Bill Ayers and his Old Lady, one of the master switches in turning our Justice System into the one where Minor Offenders like Christian Brown can spit on a Judge doing him a solid.

The above referenced news article from the Chicago Tribune does not explain exactly what 'Minor Offence' had been the cause of Mr. Brown's visit to the Leighton Criminal Courts Building.  However, Mr. Brown's new status as a guest of Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart is for Criminal Contempt. 

Kim Foxx is all about criminal contempt or Justice.

Minor Offence

One wonders how much saliva will be needed to splatter to keep Cook County Offenders from spilling even more blood into our streets.  As Fats Waller said, "One never knows, do one?"

Judge Chiampas is a hero of the American judiciary.

Boy, That Trump ? Huh? The Cheerleaders Are in a Snit.

Heidi Stevens is in a snit. That Mr. Trump has really gone and done it.  Once again, the Orange Man has insulted the Banana Republic on Lake Michigan, its Mayor, its County Government, Ja'mal Green, Pastor Pfleger, Eric Zorn, Cardinal Cupich, Neil Steinberg, WTTW, the afflicted, the non-Heterosexual, the non-Caucasian, the un-legal Dreamers, the non-Biking Divvy mockers, Weiners Circle Hotdogs and Brendan Reilly.

Do not get the cheerleaders upset, Dude!

Trump had the audacity to Hope to say,      "What the hell is going on in Chicago?"

No, he didn't! He did. He went there. Now, he got this right back in his face!

Trump has asked the same question before, and he's not alone in wondering. I get the same question from friends and family who don't live here. (And a few who do.)

What's happening in Chicago is this:

• The Grant Park Music Festival just got underway, which marks another year of free, world-class music under a Frank Gehry-designed open air pavilion where friends share a bottle of wine, couples enjoy a picnic and kids twirl around on the grass, shoulder-to-shoulder, like we do things in the city.

• New artwork is popping up along our stunning lakefront bike trail. (Our mayor named 2017 the year of public art.)

• Chicago Public Schools just let out, so some of its almost 400,000 students are flooding our enviable parks and playgrounds*.

• The Cubs are losing again. Chicago Pride Fest is this weekend.

Now, take that, Mr. Orange-hair, size 38 and up pants wearing Mr. Guy!

Heidi Stevens grew up in Chicago's suburbs,  like Chicago's Mayor and most of Chicago's columnists and TV anchors, so she knows this city on-the-take like one of Nels Algren's poker pals - warts and all, she knows this city.  Sure, we have grade school kids gunned down at end of school parties, but we have tender-hearted and caring Chicago values folks who know that thousands of the people of color are being tortured at this very minute in Homan Square and are not terribly concerned that Ja'mal Green and Forrest Claypool feed off of Chicago's dying husk.

And we have a devastating level of gun violence, which is what Trump and others are really asking about. It's a scourge on our city.

• New artwork is popping up along our stunning lakefront bike trail. (Our mayor named 2017 the year of public art.)
• Chicago Public Schools just let out, so some of its almost 400,000 students are flooding our enviable parks and playgrounds.
• The Cubs are losing again. Chicago Pride Fest is this weekend.

And we have a devastating level of gun violence, which is what Trump and others are really asking about. It's a scourge on our city.

So what? Other cities are worse, says Heidi.

• Chicago isn't even close to the deadliest city in the United States. On a per-capita basis, according to The Trace, Chicago isn't even in the top 10. New Orleans, Cleveland, Atlanta, St. Louis, Oakland, Cincinnati, Miami, Philadelphia — they've all got us beat.

• That makes the deaths here no more palatable and no less urgent. But Chicago is America writ small.

• Our gun violence, our racial tensions, our education funding, our income disparity, our aging infrastructure, our efforts, however clumsy, to coexist with people who don't look like us, worship like us, speak like us, live like us — none of it is unique to Chicago.

• We're grappling with it all in 237 square miles. America's grappling with it in 3 million or so. Not in every city and town, but in plenty.
• It benefits no one to divide and polarize us. We're all Americans.

• If you want to know what the hell's going on here, swing by for a visit. On any given day, it's a beautiful, messy, breathtaking display of humanity's best and worst.

• Just like America.

 So, there.

Here's what's happening in Chicago, Mr. Tangerine Mean CNN Andy Cooper Pooper President:

• Rahm Closes Ohio Street Underpass and Ignores Questions ( Because of Hi-Jinks on the Beach)
• Rahm and Rauner Fail
• Pop Taxed
• Chicago Black Flight
• Tiger Woods Gets Land - In Your Face George Lucas-Hobson!
• Obama Library Will Close LSD

Speaking of the Arts!

•       Small Theaters Ban Theater Critics
•      Corey Feldman is Back!
•     Where to watch Ru Paul's Drag Race

So, we have that going for Chicago and the LGBTQ Community appropriated the letters  I.A, P & K ( and more!) *in celebration of Pride Week, which appropriated Pride and dropped the Gay, for some reason.

Chicago is a Banana Republic and Heidi Stevens, the Chicago Tribune, former President Barack Obama, the Resistance, Valerie Jarrett, Chicago City Council, Cook County Government and Hollywood are still upset because America is still not a Banana Republic. 

Here is the Butcher's Bill that helps pay for this secular, global urban Banana Republic: 

 June to Date

Shot & Killed: 55

Shot & Wounded: 223

Total Shot: 278

Total Homicides: 61

Week in Progress (6/18 – 6/24)

Shot & Killed: 10

Shot & Wounded: 47

Total Shot: 57

Total Homicides: 14

Year to Date

Shot & Killed: 292

Shot & Wounded: 1360

Total Shot: 1652

Total Homicides: 313

Tell Him, Heidi Stevens!

Take that President 1% Size 38" and Up pants, Iowa Rally Slap Chicago Guy!

*LGGBTQQIAAPPK? The categories of human sex and gender expression and identities they could represent is likely infinite. If that acronym looks a bit absurd, it speaks to the absurdity of thinking there are a few isolated “sexual minorities” while the rest of the human race is “normal” and fairly similar. The truth is the level of diversity in our sexual lives as human beings means we are all sexual minorities. As accepted and culturally understood identity categories continue to arise, this will become more and more apparent. Perhaps the “queer” community is, in fact, becoming more accurately described as the community of people who acknowledge the diversity of human sexual and gender expression and seek to be open to exploring that diversity within themselves and the culture at large.
Lyla Cicero has a doctorate in clinical psychology, and focuses on relationships, sexual minorities, and sex therapy. Lyla is a feminist, LGBTQIAPK-affirmative, sex-positive blogger at UnderCoverintheSuburbs.com, where she writes about expanding cultural notions of identity, especially those surrounding gender, sexual orientation, motherhood, and sexuality. Follow her on Twitter @UndrCvrNSuburbs.

The Feast of St. John Fisher - The Meaning of Faith and Courage

 

Where are now the kings and princes that once reigned over all the world, whose
glory and triumph were lifted up above the earth? Where are now the innumerable
company and power of Xerxes and Caesar? Where are the great victories of
Alexander and Pompey? Where are now the great riches of Croesus and Crassus? But
what shall we say of those who once were kings and governors of this realm?
Where are they now whom we have known and seen in our days in such great wealth
and glory that it was thought by many they would never have died, never have
been forgotten? They had all their pleasures at the full, both of delicious and
good fare, of hawking, hunting, also of excellent horses and stallions,
greyhounds and hounds for their entertainment, their palaces well and richly
furnished, strongholds and towns without number. They had a great plenty of gold
and silver, many servants, fine apparel for themselves and their lodgings. They
had the power of the law to proscribe, to punish, to exalt and set forward their
friends and loved ones, to put down and make low their enemies, and also to
punish by temporal death rebels and traitors. Every man held with them, all were
at their command. Every man was obedient to them, feared them, also honored and
praised them, everywhere now? Are they not gone and wasted like smoke? Of them
it is written in another place, mox ut honorificati fuerint et exaltati, dificientes quemadmodum fumus 
deficient (when they were in their utmost prosperity and fame, they soon
failed and came to nothing, even as smoke does) (Ps. 36:2). St. James compares
the vanity of this life to a vapor, and he says it shall perish and wither away
as a flower in the hay season. (James 4:15). St. John Fisher  Bishop of Rochester, and martyr; born at Beverley, Yorkshire, England, 1459 (?1469); died 22 June, 1535.

St. Thomas More and Cardinal/Bishop John Fisher were both executed by lusty King Henry VIII of England. They were called traitors to the Crown, because they refused to go along with the King and agree that his divorce of Catherine and marriage to Anne Boleyn was justified and morally correct.

Henry was in love with Anne and the heart wants what the heart wants and being King allows the heart of the King to have his heart's desire, lust and inclination.  Henry VIII was first monarch of Europe to get on the right side of history.  The Paul Simon Institute would have presented polling figures to show that King Hal was right and that his divorce just could not wait - he had evolved.

Had there been a Chick-fil-Ay in Yorkshire the owners heads would be on a spike.  Anyone who refused to bake the newly legislated Royal Couple a cake would never worry about losing his hat - ever again.

Bishop John Fisher and Thomas More stood for traditional marriage and were on the wrong side of history - even their brother clerics went along. They were Catholics for Choice in marriage.

St. John Fisher went to the chopping block before Thomas More and set the great Humanist a tough example to follow.  The Man for All Seasons gets better press and media coverage than St. John Fisher, because Thomas More had secular friends and Europe loved his satirical treatise Utopia.

However, it seems to me that the Bishop of Rochester who alone made public his support for the cast-off Queen Catherine of Aragon and argued her case before all of the Bishops of England, took the much more perilous path to scaffold.  More kept silent.

Today, we feast a hero.  The core truth meant something and St. John Fisher, like Cardinal George in our times, was willing to stick to truth and accept the ridicule, mistreatment and derision of the public.

That is courage.

Happy Feast Day to my neighbors of St. John Fisher Parish!

Hey, Reilly! You Want Cops? Tell Rahm to Start Sowing Dragon's Teeth.

 Q.Why would a grown man pose like this?    &   A. He's a member of the Chicago City Council!

“I recently met with Mayor Emanuel and his staff to make an urgent request for a significant increase in police visibility and beat patrols on this block, the Lakefront Trail, Riverwalk and greater Streeterville between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m., especially on weekends,” Brendan Reilly, Alderman and Tribesman

Lord, lord! It's a struggle being the alderman of Chicago's Gold Card Zip Code.  Just last week, two little girls were shot at an end-of -the- school year party in Pill Hill ( 4th CPD District:in what was once the African American Kennilworth) and that community will get no more cops than Rahm can squeeze out of a desk, or loot from a neighborhood where neighbors watch out for one another. The 4th is spread very thin over a vast landscape with only twelve officers per square mile.

Brendan Reilly alders the Gold Coast, Streeterville, the Near North, The Mag Mile and other touristy real estates and is protected by the men and women of 18th District with a dense and highly transient population of affluent, well-educated and opinionated voices.  I can hear them all the way down here in Morgan Park ( 22nd District).  Brendan has the 18th (Near North) 360 CPD professionals, or 76.8 officers per square mile, or 325 for every 32 citizens.

In my neck of the City in the Woods, we have 22nd  CPD heroes (Morgan Park) with total of 271 officers of all ranks, or 20.1 Centurions per square mile, or theoretically one officer for  376 Bev Rats, MOPO minions, and Mount Greenwoodsmen.

Let's go back to Calumet Heights, or Pill Hill.  Two little girls were badly wounded. Not only that, Pill Hill is crossed by the Skyway where two stiffs were found this morning and Stony Island Avenue, home to world class idiot drag-racers and single digit I.Q.s mounted upon  Ducati 999, Suzuki GSXR1000 and Yamaha YZF-R1 crotch rokets. Add to this Section 8 Housing homesteaders created by Valerie Jarrett and political indifference and you have a dangerous landscape.

The people served by the 18th District have this demographic:   327 Total CPD officers, 12 officers per square mile and ONE policeman for every 378 citizens.

Are you feeling the diminutive Irishman's pain?

Brendan Reilly is a member of this Banana Republic's junta.  He's a Rahm guy!  Like the Chicago Pipe and Water Trades used to be, until polling numbers signaled the beginning of Ethnic Cleansing at the City of Chicago Water Department.

Brendan Reilly is one of the Tribe. He worked for Madigan right out of college, was assigned to help keep Paul Vallas out of the Governor's Mansion, was rewarded by ATT and given Burt Natarus's seat in City Council, when Old Burt started wearing Roman Armor in public.

Tourists and Riverwalk, Gold Coast and Streetville revellers are going to be victims of thugs as long as the Tribe, the Junta, the Oligarchs run this Banana Republic.  I am sorry for your troubles.

Chicago is a Rube Class Global City because the Police Department is wildly understaffed.

Maybe, like the Greek myth of Cadmus from Hesiod's Theogony, or the Argonautica by Apollonius of Rhodes, Rahm might imitate Jason in his quest for the Golden Fleece.  Rahm might sow dragon's teeth and CPD Spartoi might spring up from the ground.

Yeah, that could work.

Maybe.

Maybe, the Rubes of Chicago might start thinking for themselves and vote out the Tribe.

Maybe.

The Gospel and The Gospel of the Blood Feud - 'He's Gonna Get Got!'

 

Jesus said to his disciples:"You have heard that it was said,An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil.When someone strikes you on your right cheek,turn the other one to him as well.If anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic,hand him your cloak as well.Should anyone press you into service for one mile,go with him for two miles.Give to the one who asks of you,and do not turn your back on one who wants to borrow." Matthew 5:38-42

 “It’s retaliation, retaliation, retaliation. It isn’t ‘you sold me some bad dope.” -Jesús Salazar, CeaseFire Outreach Supervisor. 

It's Guns. It's Drugs.  It's Systemic Racism. It's Lack of Programs.  - The Panacea of a Really Gutless Culture

The Civil War was the greatest blood feud in our history and scab-yankers can not wait to get things going again. The Stars and Bars offends NPR sensibilities as much as statues of John Bell Hood and Marse Robert. However, from 1865 to the Election of Jimmy Carter all things considered- Confederate did not spark on-going hostility universal.

The sight of the Union Jack does not make me want to seek my safe space, even though it represents the policies that killed my relatives and drove my blood line here. In fact, thank you perfidious Albion!

I love this country, not matter what Howard Zinn, Bill Maher, Bill Ayers, or Pastor Pfleger hold dear.

My family took shots at Brits.  I would not. I love Brits. No Brit ever did me a bad turn.  Likewise, I have yet to meet a Muslim that was not as witty, as pious, as fun or as a good neighbor as my black, white and brown Christian neighbors.  Mexicans are mirror images of the Irish, as are the Koreans.  African Americans are as hard working, generous and thoughtful as any bog-savage cousin of mine.  We share humanity.

 Yesterday, a non-Muslim loser drove a van over worshipers at a London Mosque.  This idiotic display of blood-honor for the van and knife massacre of tourists and Londoners days ago, as well as the imbecilic shooting of GOP Congressmen by a member of the so-called Trump Resistance are equally beyond acceptance.  Understanding? It's easy.  People will do what they want to do, because 'their truth' is worshiped universally in our Charlie Hebdo/Rainbow?Teddy Bear blood-lust culture.

This is a culture built on the sands of ethical, moral, historical and rhetorical equivalencies.

There is no core humanity - rather a global village of Balkanized snipers.

Two little girls were shot at Warren Elementary last week by two teenaged Warren Elementary Alums shooting at Warren Elementary Alums.
Chicago police Supt. Eddie Johnson said former students attempted to join the school’s end of the year picnic around 1:30 p.m., but security officers who recognized them refused to let them in.
The former students then went to the corner of E. 92nd St. and S. Chappel Ave. where they “loitered,” Johnson said.
Around 1:40 p.m., a black vehicle pulled up and someone inside opened fire, according to police.

Got that?  The answer: ( NBC 5 has it!) Esay as One Two Three!

1. Print up t-shirts, 
2. Go to St. Sabina, 
3. Get Pastor Pfleger more face-time and march.

Blonde Jesus, Save Us!

No, he is very far from any answer to safe streets, better schools, or happy people.

The real answer must be waltzed around, ridiculed, ignored and then violently stomped upon, until the answer no longer wiggles, or the oligarchs linking arms with Phleger on 79th Street will not have a seat at the Progressive secular all-you-can eat-table.

Chicago is all about a smaller, more affluent, better educated, more transient, less 'botheration' intrusive, and accepting of group thought.  In order to  achieve this goal the neighbors must go.
The black, Mexican, Polish, Italian, Lithuanian, Chinese, Korean and Russian neighbors can bugger off to Melrose Park, Elmwood, Lansing, Schiller Park, or Indiana for all oligarchs care.

We do not accept the concept of core humanity - Dead White Men and a few Uncle Toms, Aunt Conzeulas and cousin Moishes who know that Shakepeare, Alcuin,  Milton, Ovid, Sappho, Themistocles, Dryden. Wildem Chaucer, Conrad,  O'Casey and Dante open minds far better than Maya Anglou, Billy Corgan.

Every human being's DNA can be traced back to a feud: Cossak and Jew, Turk and Assyrian, Filipino and Yank, Japanese and everyone else in Asia, the Continent of Africa and of course the Arab, Persian and Malaysian worlds.

The Campbells and McDonalds of Scotland were not the only bring lads blood-hate to Appalachia.  The French taught Indians to scalp. The Irish fought on every continent, because they loved it.  Hindus and Moslems love lighting up little girls. Piss off a Jew. Get between an Ibo and Yoruba from the Niger River.

Even Inuits of the Great Frozen North do not seem to be NPR subscribers:

It should be noted, however, that since there was no political structure overseeing these various relations, parties involved in conflicts had no superordinate body to whom they could turn in seeking resolution of the particular issue. The only real security lay with one's kin; and secondarily, the hope that an adversary's kin would also act to keep the situation from getting out of hand - a gamble at best. In larger coastal settlements especially, conflicts often festered, leading eventually to blood feuds between families. Under these circumstances, one family member would be unlikely to stray into the other family's neighborhood for fear of being physically attacked; or if the feud was sufficiently serious, killed. While the circumstances of Arctic living in a given locality may well have encouraged cooperation among differing kin groups, strong ties with one's own kin comprised the essence of Inupiat social relations.

Until we come to grips with our common humanity, we will continue to exercise sniper practice in New City and Back of the Yards and Pfleger will print more t-shirts.

Our students are not educated, they indoctrinated. They do not know about the Battle of Cullden, the Thirty Years War, Joshua at Jerico, the Rape of Nanking, or Paschendale.

They could not tell you who Fats Waller is, nor do they care.  They have no cultural, societal, or theological frames of reference.

Why not shoot up a corner or drive a van over people going to a Mosque.

Ignorance helps gentrify a smaller, smarter and cleaner Chicago.  Worship at the secular Temple of Happy-Horseshit helps greatly.

A Greek American Made Chicago the Marshmallow Capital and I made a Mess of Campfire Marshmallows at Cracker Jack

I was reading DNAinfo Chicago's article about the openning of the "first" Chicago Marshmallow Cafe!!!!!!  XO Marshmallow, set to open in Rogers Park July 1st, sound too cute by half, "For marshmallow-lovers, it's an edible playground.The store features a mixture of ready-to-eat treats, customizable topping bars, hot and cold drinks and other items for sale, as well as offer a small seating area. "

Okay.

Kind of a BFD story; marshmallows and Chicago are old news.

I made marshmallows, when I got burned and broke three toes working the line at Cracker Jack in 1968.  It was a godsend.

The college kid with whom I was paired passed out from the heat and dropped his end of hot huge kettle of molten cracker jacker, which whammed down on my brogans and broke the Big toe and two of his cousins and burned the hell out of my shins.

Crack Jack Factory on Cicero Ave. was a Fritz Laing of a place in 1968.



My Cousin Mike and I got hired even though we were under age - He was 17 and me just shy of it. We were assigned as General Indirect - we could be sent anywhere and told to do anything: sew up bags of re-cycled corn starch, load freight, or work as a machinist's gofer in the plant.  We worked production every day 3-9 P.M.  We followed F.W. Rueckheim's recipe made famous at the Chicago Exhibition.

Popcorn and peanuts coated in caramel stick together in a huge gooey mass. Rueckheim's little brother came up with the idea of blowing air into the mixture and giving it a long tumble in a cement mixer type of drum and VOILA! Separate but equally delicious.

In 1968, Cracker Jack went 24/7 and Production was on the top floor. It was 115 degrees on average.  We began each day with crisp white uniform and came out eight hours later brownish yellow.

The operation went like this.

• At the sound of bell one man would take the 65 gallon steel drum full of hot popcorn from an assembly line to his dual work station (one man left and one right), pour a cup of corn oil into the popcorn and mix until a bell rang
• At this bell, each man would kick his kettle up on the station fitted with a huge screw, an Air blowing duct, and valve release for the boiling hot carmel - pull lever, wait for the bell.  
• Shut valve
• Place long steel rod into the mixture and stir until bell
• Open Air jet - wait for bell
• Close Air jet - wait of bell Lower screw and mix - for bell
• Raise screw - wait for bell
• Horse kettle off and drag to conveyor with your partner swing kettle onto conveyor
• Conveyor goes to the dump shute and Cracker Jack goes down one floor where peanuts are added. 

All shift, you sweat like a whore in church.

The lower floor where coated peanuts are added is . . .air conditioned.  It is on this floor that the peanuts and the prizes are added.  Women make up the work force here, with the exception of the machinist. Cousin Mike was assigned to the machinist and was stuck with a Joe college newbie. 

I would soon go to the cold!

The day Mike was reassigned, my partner passed out and I went to the Clearing Health Clinic and told, " You got busted toes kid," had salves applied to the burns, take two days off.

I went back to work three days later. I was told to make marshmallows.

On this air conditioned paradise Campfire Marshmallows are made according the recipe of Greek American hero Alex Doumakes - Americanized to Doumak. 

The Marshmallow is a flower with tasty health benefits.  In the mid 1800's the French mixed the flower's juices with eggs and sugar, as a lozenge for swells.  In the 19th Century, Chicago became the hog-butcher of the world and world cent for gelatin.

Gelatin, boys and girls, " is a translucent, colorless, brittle (when dry), flavorless food derived from collagen obtained from various animal body parts. It is commonly used as a gelling agent in food, pharmaceutical drugs, vitamin capsules, photography, and cosmetic manufacturing." 

Bones, hair, fats, snouts, hooves, ears and tails of piggies, lambs and cows makes Jello!

Gelatin became all the rage. Aspics were no longer limited to the swells, but available to Stosh and Gert.

Jello Gelatin became synonymous with Cherry, Lemon, Orange and Lime and not hogs, beeves and sheep parts. 

Chicago is a waste not, want not town, or it was. 

By 1921, a Greek in California came up with a recipe for Marshmallows in their current form.  Gelatin allowed the confection to be produced cheaply and widely. Soon Alex Doumak's recipe was side-by-side with Herr Rueckheim's Cracker Jack right here in Chicago. 

My task was to monitor the serpentine flow of sweet white gelatinous oozings of to the corn starch covering. This goo clogged up a storm and set-f alarms bells until the machinist showed up to cloear it.  I was stuck - stuck -stuck with ropes of marshmallow all over me.   Like the Laocoon I was covered in snakes of marshmallow. 

After eight hours of fighting boas of marshmallow and stepping onto the spillage, I had added an additional three inches to the majesty of my height. This repeated itself for next two days, until production boss Tony Grippo had had enough of the machinist pissing in his ear about 'That gap-toothed moron fucked up the marshmallow conductor again' and was sent back to the 115 degree heat of Cracker Jack Production.  

Damn glad I was of it too.  They found out that me and Mike were under-age and gave us the heave-ho.  Damn glad we were of it too.  

It's a Chicago thing, this yarn. 

Marshmallows are plants that soothed sore throats when mixed sugar and eggs - for the well-off.  Gelatin is a by-product of animal parts.  Chicago was ground zero for animal parts.  A German mixed caramel coated popcorn and peanuts and became a portmanteau word and baseball icon. A Greek made marshmallows available top working stiffs.  The German stated making and marketing the Greek's confection from his Chicago plants. I made both.  Now there is a Marshmallow Cafe. 

Damn glad I was of it too.

Marshmallow Cafe? Pass. 

I've-A Weddin' - Stuff to Consider

                         "Kiss the Bride, Hickey.  She's Drunk enough"

Don't You Love Weddings?  I do - in theory, philosophically and all.

Want to go to a wedding?  Sure. Family and all.  Why not?  Great Food. Great Music, though I preferred the wedding orchestra of yore to the DJ of our times. Music By the The Jagatones!!!!!!

No kidding that was the name of a real wedding band that played nearly ever nuptial in Kankakee County back in  the1970's-1990's.  The band was J. Agatone ( a music teacher) and his orchestra.

The drum kit sported the JAGATONES on the bass.

Open Bar?  On the south side that is de rigueur.   I have been invited to many joyful unions beyond the Pale and almost all were cash bar events. No big deal.

Wedding food can range from the bohemian to the traditional at La Villa St-Jacques Mason de Cadillac Coupe de Ville Banquets to Country Club chic 

The eats will be great anyway.

Prior to the wedding, I must make sure that my clothing fits.  Try squeezing into that swell Haspel olive khaki suit that you bought for the baby's christening in 1995 and expect comments like,

• "Hickey, nice suit; didn't have one in your size?"
• "Why do all fur suits look so ******* bad? "
• "If you have the money, time and resources to make/buy something like that... why would you waste it on making it look like a muck savage
• "Where's the jock-strap and snow shoes this event?  The didgnity of aging no doubt.

Dress not to impress.  Dress to go unnoticed.  Shine your shoes.  For God's sake wear a belt.

Hair -Get a hair cut at a real barber and not Clipper Gals Hot-Pants Trim Trimmers ( regular $15).  Spend a buck Go to Cuttrone's on 111th and avoid remarks like 

• " You got them Russian gang Tats to go with the Fade, Hickey?"
• " You look just like Thomas Merton!"
• " Going back for Act 2?"
• " Got rid of the lice, Big Boy?
• " Went to that $4 German barber - a buck a side?"

Weddings are crowded.  Blend, blend and blend again.  Smile up a storm.  Feign deafness.  Skip the soup - especially if it is creamed anything. Do the Hokey Pokey and Turn Yourself Around.  Do an Irish Farewell*. 

That's what it's all about!

* Also, known as 'Pulling a Murphy**'  Leaving quietly out the side door of a party or bar without saying goodbye to anyone. 

** Beating it from Mass after the Gospel.