By: Jacob Christner
I’m imagining what a segment of Heaven looks like right now.
Picture it: A bar, a small TV in the corner that no one is paying attention to whatsoever. At the bar is Studs Terkel, Harry Caray, Jack Brickhouse, Roger Ebert, Ron Santo, and a couple empty seats waiting for Mike Ditka and Steve McMichael…especially Mongo. Everyone agrees he shouldn’t be finishing his life out that way.
In the middle of the room, Mike Royko holds court with every name we all grew up with. I mean, after all, it gets boring telling stories to the same faces for twenty five straight years. There is Lewis Grizzard and Furman Bisher from Atlanta, Rick Hummel from St. Louis(he’s a new one), Jerry Green from Detroit(new also), Grantland Rice from anywhere he wants to be, and Frank Reynolds walks in and decides to stay because he heard some brilliant conversation going on.
Royko’s spinning a yarn about the legendary Strikers softball team that was number one in the country, Green’s bringing up his favorite Super Bowls, Bisher probably bringing up his favorite players in the 40s at the Masters. No doubt there would be a debate between Royko and Grizzard about Old South Atlanta vs Old School Chicago.
Finally, after listening for an inordinate amount of time, Frank Reynolds pipes up.
“Hey Mike, remember 1968”?
It’s eternity, so this story continues.
This is purely out of my imagination. Something tells me Mike would rather hang with Studs, Harry, Weigel, and the rest, but I could also see him holding court with the legends and hearing the stories of their cities, and their histories.
Mike Royko was, unapologetically, the bare knuckle brawler of journalism. The son of a saloon owner, he understood the Everyman like no other. The steelworker, the construction worker, the garbage man…all union men. He was a liberal, but he went after everyone. He knew City Hall was one big grift, and it was high comedy when the next election promised to be for the working man. His war on the first Mayor Daley was legendary. He was a champion of legitimate civil rights, and called out legitimate racism for decades.
I say the word LEGITIMATE for a reason.
He saw through grifters like no one else. He’d see right through race grifters that hurt legitimate race relations…a grift that needs hate and chaos to stay profitable. Try telling him a medical grift says men can have babies, and they call mutilating kids “gender affirming care”.
There would be the disconcertion, but zero shock, that union representation is eleven percent now. It was already fourteen percent when he died, down from a quarter in 1977, and a third when he was in his twenties.
Mind you, I don’t agree with everything he said. Royko was Liberal, I’m Right of Center Republican. We are, and were, pro worker, but he believed in unions and I like the idea more than the execution. To me, unions got as greedy as the CEOs they are fighting, and they don’t have the best interest of the worker…ESPECIALLY teachers unions. That said, I can’t totally rail on unions. If acting ever becomes a big part of my career, I’ll have no choice but to join one. Can’t get big roles without SAG.
There’s a few more disagreements, but that’s not the point. It’s the conversation.
Go to YouTube and type in Mike Royko Billy Goat Tavern. It’s ten minutes of friends, beer, and Royko telling stories of local legends in Softball. It’s ten players from the Sun-Times Softball team, still in their jerseys, listening to Royko tell stories about the world famous Strikers, which is where I got my original story in the first place. I’ve probably seen it twenty five times now, and I wish it was two hours. I know there would be stories of those crooks at City Hall, how bad the Cubs were, and a few other things.
And in 2023, we need this. Social media has made people so tribal. We must agree with EVERYTHING now. A podcaster I listen to freely admits he’s ended thirty year friendships because they wanted to like Donald Trump. Conversations aren’t allowed to have, contrarian opinions are a crime. This happens in a social media society because COVID put us in solitude and judgment. Debate contests admit you will lose if you have a specific idea they don’t want to hear. That’s not how debate works. Elon Musk bought Twitter because higher ups and programmers were blocking philosophies they didn’t agree with. Three congressional hearings didn’t stop the practice, so Capitalism had to run interference. I love it because Twitter is either going to be the greatest platform ever, or it will cave in and die, and I’m for either. The single minded politics they were playing wasn’t feasible. There is anger over offering Tucker Carlson a contract with Twitter after his firing from FOX. Elon offered it to the liberal tribal chiefs like he did the conservative tribal chief, but it’s not about fairness, it’s about power. The purchase of Twitter exposed that. All of this is revenge for the McCarthy hearings, Reefer Madness, and other craziness of a bygone era. The revenge has created lunacy, common sense ending up a murder victim, and the issue with living off revenge is that there is plenty of power on both sides, and you are a Mike Pence leadership role away from congressional hearings on if bikinis should be banned.
You think I’m kidding? I’m not kidding. This happens when you have video evidence of drag strip shows in front of toddlers.
Royko would be 91 now. Odds are he wouldn’t want to write a column a day anymore, but the short form of Twitter would be amazing for him. City Hall is still insane. The constant fights over the budget would bring out his acerbic wit. Lori Lightfoot’s hypocrisy during COVID, and the riots of 2020 would have brought back memories of 1968, and Brandon Johnson’s delusions would have been good for a laugh.
And we shouldn’t forget President Donald Trump. He would have had a field day with that one.
That was the charm of Royko. He laid everyone to waste. He was a more cynical Will Rogers who trusted nothing and verified everything a politician said. That was accepted then. Now? How long would Twitter try getting him banned for “racism” for blasting on Lightfoot or Johnson? Tribalism does this.
Oh well, there’s still the Cubs. 2016 would have been a dream.
