Sunday, September 24, 2017

N.o F.un L.eague ? - Watch High School Sport

Image result for Providence Catholic football Brother Rice Football

The Autumn wind is a pirate
Blustering in from sea
With a rollicking song he sweeps along
Swaggering boisterously.
His face is weatherbeaten
He wears a hooded sash
With a silver hat about his head
And a bristling black mustache
He growls as he storms the country
A villain big and bold
And the trees all shake and quiver and quake
As he robs them of their gold.
The Autumn wind is a Raider
Pillaging just for fun
He'll knock you 'round and upside down
And laugh when he's conquered and won.  Autumn Wind - Oakland Raiders Hymn by John Facenda


John Facenda was the narrator for the wonderful NFL promotional videos decades ago.  Many of us still cling to the mythopoeic phrasing offered by the poetic Mr. Facenda as reason to continue watching, following and tolerating the National Football League and the overpaid myrmidons sporting its logo on all over-priced products, posters and on the field.

John Facenda was the poet of the National Football League



The NFL is now a robot on FOX Sports - fitting and proper.Image result for fox nfl robot

Knots of players have consulted with their agents and PR flaks and decided to sit during the National Anthem, a s means of insulting police, denouncing racism, genocide, sexism. date-rape, drug abuse, sugary beverages and Donald Trump.

I'm fine with that.

I'm tired of the hypocrisy.

Yesterday, and the day before, I had the pleasure of watching sport live at Providence Catholic High School for the freshman football squads and the sophomore/varsity battles on the grid-iron at Brother Rice High School.

All three games were exciting, inspiring and satisfying.  I can not say the same about my Bears, my Packers, my Colts, my Falcons, my Redskins, or my Cowboys - live or on television.

Yesterday morning , in New Lennox, home of Providence Catholic Celtics (btw - no soft C in the Keltic language), the temperature was 94 degrees at 9:30 A.M.  and combat between the respective 40 and 20 yard lines was even more intense.

Celtic quarter Ryan O'Neill # 16 was sensational.  I have never witnessed a QB with such speed, accuracy and poise and I have witnessed Bishop Mac's Kelly O'Connor and Leo High School Amir Holmes.

Brother Rice Crusader quarterback Ben Somers has wowed me for the past five weeks, but this kid
is amazing!  All of the freshmen play with heart and are well coached and highly disciplined.  The Celtics had Ryan O'Neill *and put an end to dreams of an undefeated season. 4-1 is something to be proud of gents!

The defensive squads on both teams were as tight and courageous as any infantry square facing Murat's dragoons and lancers at Waterloo - an homage to Facenda.

Were he still with us, the late John Facenda would fix his eyes on the genuine athletes and avert his gaze from the preeningly artificial thugs dominating professional sport.

Nothing heroic going on in the NFL, NBA, MLB.  Just pirates.




* Ryan O'Neill: Providence Catholic High School - New Lennox, Illinois
Jersey #: 16
Positions: QB, SS
Height & Weight: 5'9" 151lbs
Class of: 2021

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Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Saloon Dominos in the 19th Ward

Image result for closed saloon
Ubi Sunt?  

The old watering holes of yore are going the way the way of the buffalo, two-tone wing tips, wing tips and 8-tracks.  Every time I read the news another hoary saloon with deep roots in my neighborthood's history is either closed, closing, or up for sale.  

A micro-brewery opened and Jack Kelly's cardioversion of the fabled Dubliner Pub are oddities among the closings and sales of saloons, pubs and taverns in the 19th Ward.  

The passing of the other joints into history's mist is sad, but not mysterious.  The bar business is tough in the best of times, but in an age that scorns the morning cocktail and salon as deplorable uses of time and money it is not surprising.

Working men and retirees often would gather in the mornings and early afternoons for a cold one and to catch up on community chatter.  This phenomenon has died out, due in no small part to the dangers of driving to a watering and hole and making one's way home.  Also, the stigma of meeting up for a pint before the sun's shadow went past yard arm brands a tippler as pathological boozer.  As such, bars open later and close earlier than did in days gone bye.  Tough to build a decent night deposit on that. 

Anyway, saloons are closing all over the Ward.

Maybe that is a good thing.    Maybe not.

* editorial ht/to Jack Kelly!





Thursday, September 14, 2017

A$$holes are as American as Baseball and Witch Burning, Denouncing People and Whining!

The banner is displayed at Fenway Park during the MLB game between the Boston Red Sox and Oakland A’s.

Activists, a synonym for a$$holes, unfurl a banner at a recent Boston Red Sox Game. Why did these White Supremacists not allow even one person of color into their fine  moment?

Dogmatic Dicky Durbin Does Doctrine Duty - Abortion Doctrine

Image result for Dick  Durbin - Dogmatic Demagogue


  • Dogma - “a doctrine or body of doctrines concerning faith or morals formally stated and authoritatively proclaimed by a church.” 
  • U.S. Constitution - “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Officer or public Trust under the United States.” Article VI
  • Dick Durbin - “Do you consider yourself an orthodox Catholic?”
  • Cecile Richards - Planned Parenthood Harpy - “In times like these, you can’t underestimate the importance of leadership.  Planned Parenthood thanks Senator Durbin for fighting for a woman’s access to essential health care no matter where she lives,”
Senator Dick Durbin is nothing if not a clown; an oafish clown at that.

Even the Chicago Tribune Editorial Board of Bruce Dold has been forced to offer a very grudging and tepid criticism of Senator Dick Durbin's oafish treatment of a candidate for the Federal Bench.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., told Barrett that “the dogma lives loudly within you” and worried that it might take priority over the impartial administration of justice. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois asked, “Do you consider yourself an orthodox Catholic?”

It may seem out of bounds for senators to raise the matter of how a judge’s Catholic faith would affect her decisions. But the senators didn’t raise it; Barrett did, in a 1998 law review article examining the obligations of Catholic judges in death penalty cases. It concluded that judges faithful to church teachings “are morally precluded from enforcing the death penalty.. . . Given that Barrett said judges shouldn’t let religious faith dictate their decisions, the exact content of her Catholicism, which Durbin wondered about, is irrelevant. He and Feinstein also erred by putting the issue in terms that could easily be interpreted to mean they distrust devout Catholics. That gave Barrett’s supporters room to accuse them of indulging bigotry and imposing a religious test for office.
It’s an implausible charge on its face. Both voted to confirm John Roberts and Sonia Sotomayor, who are Catholics. So, by the way, is Durbin, and Feinstein graduated from a Catholic high school.”

Without offering the slightest suggestion of Progressive Secularist Orthodoxy within the twin Senators' Inquisition, the Chicago Tribune  failed to call-out real bigotry. Feinstein and Durbin 'tested's.Barrett's faith in order to block her appointment to the Federal Bench.
Image result for Duick Dogma Durbin
The official religion of the Democratic Party and a very husky hunk of the GOP is Progressive Secularism and worship at the altars of Diversity, Mother Earth, Abortion, Globalism and Oligarchy is all but legislated.

Chicago Tribune columnist and political Latitudinarian John Kass, honestly reported and commented on the oafish and obvious dogmatism of politicians in the pay of Planned Parenthood. This writing savaged the bumptious Durbin.

Bruce Dold seemed compelled to toss out some dish water prose to wash away the blood on Durbin's face.

Durbin went all witch-hunt on Ms. Barrett, in order to show fealty to Planned Parenthood's blood money.

Arthur Miller would have shivered the timbers of the Commonwealth were he alive to pen a new Crucible.

You see, Durbin, is a renegade.  He took the coin of the industry most out of orbit of the Roman Catholic Church - the Abortion Industry.  He not only took the coin but used the office of United States Senator to further its power and influence.

The Catholic Ordinary of the Diocese of Springfield, Bishop Thomas Paprocki noted this in 2014 -

“Senator Durbin was informed several years ago by his pastor at Blessed Sacrament Parish here in Springfield that he was not permitted to receive Holy Communion per canon 915 of the Code of Canon Law,” Bishop Paprocki reportedly wrote in response to a pro-life activist's query, the Illinois Review reported. “My predecessor upheld that decision and it remains in effect. It is my understanding that the senator is complying with that decision here in the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois.”
Canon 915 states that those who have been "obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to holy communion."
No taking of the Eucharist for Durbin in his home diocese, but I am certain he will be admitted to the rail at Holy Name Cathedral, where Pastor Pfleger-approved Cardinal Cupich welcomes political powerhouses.  Take that like  doctrine, brothers and sisters, because Cardinal Blase Cupich will offer no criticism of Durbin, Emmanuel, Preckwinkle, Pfleger or Duckworth.  He will offer no reminders to his media friends, Michael Sneed, Carol Marin, Mary Schmich, or Rex Hupke that the media must afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.

Cardinal Cupich wants to be loved, by the powerful and their stooges - he is. He banned guns from Catholic Churches.  This Sunday I will leave my 9mm on the kitchen counter where it belongs, Priase Jesus!
The Rev. Michael Pfleger, pastor of St. Sabina Catholic Church and a prominent activist against gun rights, said after surveying clergy, the late Cardinal Francis George chose to leave it up to priests to ban firearms from individual parishes. On Tuesday, Pfleger praised Cupich's decree.
"There has been this kind of madness, in my mind, a growing obsession that guns are needed to be safe," he said, adding, "With that reality growing day by day, it is a tremendous statement for the cardinal to say for the church, we are not buying into this madness. In our buildings and our properties, we are not going to allow guns."  
Guns kill people, like pencils flunk tests.

Cupich sought and received the imprimatur of Pastor Pfleger and wears it like his pallium.

Even Mary Schmich, aswell as The Seeker Manya Brachear,  says nice things about Cardinal Blase.

Cardinal George afflicted the powerful and comforted the powerless.  Cardinal George acted more than he proclaimed.

Cardinal George did that and the stooge media detested the man.

Durbin is living Progressive Secularist Dogma.

He only turns to the faith of his fathers when he needs a photo op with some Knights of Columbus.Image result

Dogma Dicky Durbin does doctrine.  He is clown, but a very dangerous and powerful clown

Saturday, September 02, 2017

Chance the Rapper Cleaned My Gutters and Made Me Breakfast This Morning!!!!

Image result for Chance the Rapper on the roof


I have been really cynical.  That's harsh.

I read most papers and most Chicago papers offer at least one account of Chance the Rapper

  • Hands out money for arts programs at 20 CPS schools
  • Raises $ 2m for CPS
  • Grand Marshalls the Bud Billiken Parade
  • Grills Chicken at Nando's for charity
  • Explains 'becoming upper-management' to CNBC
  • Announces free concerts ( hourly)
  • Lectures Rahm Emanuel at La Lapalooza
  • Gets Props from Obama as needed
  • Changes the trajectory of North Korean missiles away from Guam, Japan and the Philippines.
  • Swims the English channel
  • Cuts every tree in the Sahara Forest
  • Eats Kyptonite with soy milk
He does these mighty deeds and produces many dope tunes and videos



The guy is prodigious and what do a I do with my life?

Teach.  Go to Mariano's and Brother Rice Freshman football games.

I thought that Chance the Rapper was merely the figment of a public relations man's genius.

Was I wrong. 

This morning I woke to the sound of footsteps on my roof.  No it was not Santa!  It was better.

Chancery Bennett, better known as Chance the Rapper was atop my home in the Morgan Park neighborhood of Chicago, armed with 55 gallon plastic garbage bags and cleaning my gutters of branches, Maple tree whirlybirds, bottle rockets from 4th of July and other air-born gutter chokers.

The young man worked my roof like the crowds at the Apollo in Manchester, UK on November 26, 2016.

I called up to him, " What are you doing up there, young fella?"Image result for Chance the Rapper on the roof

He smiled, " I think it's so dope that I'm here in Chicago and contributing to the music scene that's thriving. People are so happy Chicago's shining that everyone is willing to say 'I represent Chicago.' That wasn't always the case."

" No, I meant specifically, Kid.  Why are you doing my gutters?"  I replied. 

The Rapper shrugged, "Music can kind of make you one-dimensional. People see what's on the surface and what you rap about, and they make their decision on who you are from there." He finished the job, emptied the plastic bags into environmentally friendly brown yard waste bags, placed the black plastic bags in a haversack for re-use, carefully took down the extension ladder and attached it to the frames of his Escalade and asked to use my bathroom.

When Chance the Rapper had given his hands a good scrubbing with Lava - the hand soap - He immediately went to my ice-box and prepared to make me a slap-up breakfast of 

  • Monkey-Bread Danish. Danish meets monkey bread. ...
  • Red Velvet Pancakes. Sexiest breakfast ever. ...
  • Onion & Arugula Frittata. ...
  • Sweet Crepes with Caramelized Pears. ...
  • Candied Bacon. ...
  • Homemade Toaster Pastries. ...
  • Yogurt Biscuits with Honey Butter. ...
  • Green Smoothie with Avocado and Apple.
I asked Chance the Rapper to join me and tuck-into the great feed that he had prepared.

With his thumb he pushed up the flat over-sized brim of his # 3 White Sox cap and with a quizzical smile said, "The whole point of 'Acid Rap' was just to ask people a question: does the music business side of this dictate what type of project this is? If it's all original music and it's got this much emotion around it and it connects this way with this many people, is it a mixtape? What's an 'album' these days, anyways?"

What, indeed?

With that, he vanished between chews.Image result for Chance the Rapper on the roof

Am I cynical?