Peter V. Bella Posts

The wagons were sometimes called meat wagons. Besides transporting prisoners, they hauled dead bodies, in police parlance, meat.

One hot, muggy summer day, a call came over the radio for the wagon about a complainant of a strong odor. Strong odor only meant one thing, a stinker, a decomposed dead body. The wagon men located the cause of the odor. The stench was strongest at an old gray stone two-flat. The stench emanated over a half-block in both directions.

The wagon men tried to get in the front and back doors. They could not kick in or use sledgehammers on the doors. The doors were hinged to open outwards. The wagon guys went to break windows. Whoever lived there installed glass block windows on the inside of the building. They never took out the old windows, so no one knew.

Somehow, the wagon men figured out a way to get inside. Within minutes they ran out of the building, retching, vomiting, then dry heaving. They needed a plan. They called for a sergeant.

Sergeant Smurf* showed up. He called for the other two wagons. The wagon men would go in and out in two-man relays. Two guys ran in, went up to the second floor, did what they could, and ran out, retching and vomiting. The following two did the same. Then the next two. Over and over.

One of the first wagon guys told everyone that maggots were all over and covered the floor. For the uninitiated, maggots look like fat grains of rice. They snap, crackle, and pop when you step on them. So, the dead guy became the Rice Man.

No air could get in to alleviate some of the odor. The heat and humidity made it worse. The relays kept going in and running out, retching.

The sergeant tossed me a twenty. He told me to go to the nearest liquor store to get some booze to revive the retching cops.

There was heat over minor misconduct from downtown, and Inspectors were wandering all over the area. It would not look good to get caught going into a liquor store while working. I went to the fruit stand at the corner of Roosevelt and Kedzie. We knew the owner and would stop by from time to time to chat. The owner sent his nephew to a liquor store down the street. He came back with a quart of cheap brandy and change. The stand owner had some of that pink Bismol stuff. Who knew where or how he got it? Who cared? I grabbed a few bottles.

As each relay came out and vomited or dry heaved, the sergeant gave them a swig of booze and some pink stuff. I don’t know what it did for their stomachs, but it helped them go back in, again and again. Maybe that is why they call booze “liquid courage.”

It took a while to get the Rice Man out of the building and into a wagon. They did not want to move him off the bed onto a stretcher as badly decomposed bodies tend to explode. You get splashed with gore. They lifted the mattress and carried it with him on it—relay after relay.

While the wagon men were working, retching, vomiting, and getting loaded, we started asking some questions.

The Rice Man was one of the very few White people who refused to move during the White flight out of Lawndale in the 1950s and early 1960s. He lived there alone, minding his own business. No one bothered him. He bothered no one. Some remembered a wife. Others were not sure.

The Rice Man retired some years past. He rarely was seen out of his home. However, neighbors remembered a person driving him to and from the grocery store now and then. He was not friendly or unfriendly. He just was. He was burglarized a few times. That would explain the camouflaged glass block windows and doors hung backward.

No one had much to say about the Rice Man. He lived alone in that second-floor apartment. The first floor was vacant.

After the wagon took him to the morgue, we got what little information we could and went back to business as usual. It became another tale to tell in the tavern after work. Years later, we would reminisce, “Remember the Rice Man”?

The Rice Man’s home was his castle fortress. All it needed was a moat and alligators in the moat. Maybe he thought about that but got too old, sick, crippled, or addled to do it.

No one knows if the Rice Man was a racist, afraid, or just stubborn. No one knows why he had no one to take care of him in his old age. No one knows why he died alone, in bed, sealed up in a fortress of his making. He lay there in rot, decomposition, and putrefaction. Maggots covered him and his bedroom. They snapped, crackled, and popped when you stepped on them.

That is the sad thing in the City of Big Shoulders. People die alone. No one hears their cries of pain or calls for help. No one knows if they are sick or otherwise incapacitated. Sometimes, like the Rice Man, they barely exist. It is only the telltale stench that gives their death away.

*Smurf was the sergeant’s nickname due to his stature.

Chicago is legendary for the work ethic of its artists. They are known for their prolific output.

Robert Hardy  (1903-1976) was a Chicago legend. Andrews was born in Kansas. His mother died when he was young. His father was a traveling physician for Native American reservations. Hardy’s early life was itinerant, following his father through the Midwest. From time to time, he was raised by his grandmother.

When he was barely out of his teens, he landed a job as a reporter in Minneapolis. Due to a fabricated obituary he wrote, Henry Justin Smith, the editor of the Chicago Daily News, offered him a job. Bob Andrews, as he was later known, came to Chicago and helped make history.

Andrews, barely 21 years old, became the editor of Midweek, the Wednesday magazine supplement of the Daily News. He shared an office and became a friend of poet Carl Sandburg, a reporter at the time. While putting out the magazine, the muse struck. Andrews started to write. He contributed short stories to Midweek under a nom de plume.

On a bet, he wrote, typed, and finished a novel in seven days, “Three Girls Lost.” He did this alongside his responsibilities on Midweek and other duties at the Daily News. He typed over 100,000 words in seven days, not counting the rewritten or wasted pages. The book was serialized in the Daily News before it was published. Andrews sold the movie rights for $7500 ($141,900 today) in 1930. Loretta Young and John Wayne starred in the movie.

In 1922, the Daily News owned a large share of what would soon become the WMAQ radio station. WMAQ eventually moved from its original location, the LaSalle Hotel, to the new Daily News Building at 400 W. Madison (2 N. Riverside Plaza). Eventually, WMAQ was bought by NBC and moved to The Merchandise Mart.

Andrews was approached by Anne Ashenhurst (Future wife of Frank Hummert) of Blackett, Sample & Hummert Advertising. Ashenhurst and Hummert were early pioneers in getting companies to sponsor radio shows, especially what would eventually become soap operas. Mrs. Hummert convinced Andrews to write radio scripts for fifteen-minute-long daytime shows.

It is claimed Ms. Ashenhurst invented the successful template for the radio soap opera. She made them famous and a financial success using formulaic stories. Anne Hummert was a pioneer and an advocate of advertising to appeal to women more than men. Robert Hardy Andrews became legendary through this partnership, though his name is long forgotten.

He wrote scripts for “Just Plain Bill” (originally “Bill the Barber”), “Judy and Jane,” “Ma Perkins,” “Skippy,” “The Stolen Husband,” and “Terry and Mary.” His contract required he keep twenty shows ahead at all times. Andrews did all this while holding down his desk at the Daily News and being a man about town.

Andrews settled in the Tower Town neighborhood. Tower Town stretched from the Water Tower, for which it was named, south to the Chicago River, along Michigan Avenue, and west to Wells St. It was a haven for people living a Bohemian lifestyle. Artists, writers, and entertainers of all kinds lived in Tower Town.

When he started making real money from radio, Andrews moved into the Malabry Court, on the rooftop of 669 N. Michigan (Cole Hahn today). The Malabry Court consisted of six small two-story townhouses surrounding a courtyard with a fountain and garden.

Though he did not create the character, Roberts wrote the storylines and scripts for “Jack Armstrong, the All American Boy.” The character was created by a General Mills executive. The shows were used to promote and sell Wheaties cereal. The series ran from 1933 to 1951.

Roberts wrote more books while working at the Daily News and writing radio scripts. “Windfall” would become the radio and television show “The Millionaire.” Roberts was involved in the production of both. “One Girl Found” was a sequel to “Three Girls Lost.”

Roberts wrote on average 100,000 words per week. When there had to be rewrites, edits, or last-minute additions of new characters or storylines, he could produce 20 to 30 thousand words in one day. It was said Roberts had fingers of steel and a posterior of iron.

Andrews eventually left Chicago and went to Hollywood. He wrote screenplays, produced television shows and movies, and became involved in other aspects of the international movie business.

In 1963, Robert Hardy Andrews wrote “A Corner of Chicago,” a biographical sketch of his time in Chicago. The book is a fascinating look at Chicago during the 1920s and 30s and the inner workings of a major newspaper. Robert Andrews idolized Henry Justin Smith and was honored to be a member of the Daily News, “The paper that went home.”

The book describes the characters Andrews came in contact with at the newspaper, on the street, and during his evening carousing in various speakeasies, hotel dining rooms, restaurants, and other places. There are colorful gamblers, saloon owners, pets, and stories about Chicago places long gone, like Tower Town. There are down in the heel actors, raconteurs, rags to riches and riches to rags stories, gangsters, stories of murder and mayhem, and some of the famous and infamous who passed through Chicago lore.

Robert Hardy Andrews died in 1976 in Santa Monica, California.

“A Corner of Chicago” is no longer in publication, though copies can be found on Amazon and eBay.

“If I cant be mean what the heck good am I.” (Mike Royko)

Columnist Mike Royko died 25 years ago today. Royko was a chronicler of Chicago; its people, especially the proverbial little guy/gal/it/them/whoever- we must be inclusive today. With all the problems in Chicago and the total silliness in Washington, one could wonder, What Would Royko Do?

Mike Royko would turn his satirical poison pen, dripping with sarcasm, on them all. Unfortunately, Mike Royko would not last in today’s environment. There would be calls for his firing or resignation. Advertisers would be threatened with boycotts, along with accusations of racism, hate speech, antisemitism, and whatever ism or phobia people could make up out of thin air. Most of the allegations would come from his colleagues and peers in the news media. They love to be the story and get their names out front.

Humor and satire are dying in America. Everyone is offended, and they demand action. The offense police are a lynch mob. Mike Royko would not survive in this toxic environment. No humorist or satirist would.

In the Chicago news media, humor, satire, and pointed criticism are dead. Editorials are oh so veddy polite, nice, and sanitary. Poison pens were swapped with delicate bone china teacups. Pinky fingers are properly stuck out in the proper positions.

Since Royko met the Great Comedian, news entities and the public searched for a successor, the new Royko. There will never be a new Royko. There will never be another Art Buchwald, William Safire, Pete Hamil, Studs Terkel, or any other notable columnist or author.

They are one-offs. They made their mark on the world, left a treasure trove of material, then passed on. They could not pass a torch because their individuality made them unique.

Royko was a son of Chicago. Many thought he was a son-of-a-something- else. He was a neighborhood guy, a street guy, and, as we say, an “etnic” guy. He was one of us. Mike Royko was an astute observer of Chicago, from the ethnic and racial neighborhoods to the shenanigans in City Hall, the County Building, and beyond.

If Royko came back today, he would be appalled at what Chicago’s news media turned into. Chicago used to have courageous and fearless reporters and columnists. Now, the snowflakes, cowards, weenies, and wussies “report,” write columns, and run the newsrooms. They spy on each other like Soviet children used to spy on their families. If they even perceive a whiff of “offense,” off to the gulag you go.

Reporters are no longer objective, courageous, and fearless. There is no objectivity. They are social justice warriors. The reportage is slanted. They would turn on their own if they detected perceived offense- whatever offense means these days.

The news media are the spokes weasels for City Hall, the County Building, and Springfield. In essence, they are part and parcel of the corrupt Chicago Way. They sold their souls and shed their courage and fearlessness, in exchange for access.

Reporters used to be trusted by the public. No longer. The news media do not care about the people. They are no longer guardians or watchdogs. They are cute, panting, pink-tongued lap dogs waiting for a treat from their masters.

Humor and satire are considered offensive and risky by corporate media. The executives fear any backlash, especially from their own newsrooms. It is easier to silence voices than ignore the lynch mob.

The grievance industry and their fellow travelers must be heard and satisfied. That is why there will never be another Royko in Chicago. The weasels, cowards, activists, and powers that be would never allow it. There will never be another Pete Hamill, Art Buchwald, Jimmy Breslin, Charles Krauthammer, or others. They would be publicly tarred, feathered, and fired.

Humor, satire, and poking the powers that be are dead in Chicago. John Stewart recently demanded to make humor funny again. That will be a near impossibility in this fragile, humorless society. People break, shatter and fall to pieces if you use the “wrong” pronoun, let alone criticize some cherished person.

No one is safe from the offense lynch mobs and their fairy tale grievances, no matter their political persuasion. We are turning into a society of brittle souls looking for anything to be offended by. There is a need to destroy people.

No one speaks for the neighborhoods, the little guy/gal/them, or points out the follies in local government. No one pokes fun at the inanity and absurdities in this city. Soon, even laughter will be verboten. Joy and laughter are quickly being sucked out of the news media and public discourse. Even the comic strips are longer comical.

Hell, columns will soon resemble Valentine’s Day cards with XXXs and OOOs, SWAK.

https://youtu.be/nuZhZw-T0gQ

People, politicians, and journalists have their tighty whities in a bunch over Elon Musk buying Twitter. There are calls for “positive” or “responsible” free speech- whatever those mean. Twitter, from its inception, has been the bathroom wall of the Internet.

Twitter is where lazy journalists find stories or use the platform as their assignment editor. They seem to believe Twitter trends are newsworthy. Politicians and celebrities use Twitter to inflate their already air-headed egos. It is their preferred “place” to meet and greet. Except, Twitter is not a real place.

Twitter may be “social media,” but it has no social relevance or socially redeeming value. It also has no social responsibility, contrary to what the social responsibility police claim. Twitter is not the “de facto public square.” It is the de facto public toilet.

Columnists are throwing the word toxic around and engendering fear Twitter will become more “toxic.” Yawn, stretch, scratch. Who cares? Twitter is not a community. It is a site where people throw dung at the wall to see what will stick. By the way, toxic is the new phrase to replace offensive since it sounds worse, and poisonous is too hard to spell.

Meanwhile, prominent Twitter figures are now saying they’ll leave the platform protesting its new owner. Among them is English actress Jameela Jamil, who tweeted her fears Monday that Musk “is going to help this hell platform reach its final form of totally lawless hate, bigotry, and misogyny.” (New York Times)

Is getting your genitals in a twist over Twitter worth all the manufactured angst, anger, aggravation, and grief? Twitter is nothing more than a 24/7/365 popularity contest, especially for celebrities and politicians hoping their tweets go viral. Then they can become famous or infamous. To them, it makes no difference. Twitter is the massage parlor for celebs and politicians to get ego gratification.

“Twitter is the closest thing we have to a global consciousness.” (Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey/AP)

Twitter is not the closest thing we have to a global consciousness or any other consciousness. Twitter is not that influential. It is a tenth of the size of Facebook, with roughly 200 million active users daily versus Facebook’s billions of daily users. Twitter makes money through advertising. Advertisers are cautious about advertising on platforms that allows objectionable content. If Musk opens the flood gates of “free speech,” advertisers may flee, turning Twitter into his big loser. He will learn fast, especially from his investor partner(s), that freewheeling management of a social media company is not a good business model.

All this angst about Twitter is a waste of mental energy and journalists’ time. There are way more critical issues in this country than who owns, how they will operate a social media platform, or how much “offensive” content they allow. If Twitter or Facebook offends you, delete your account. It really is that simple. If you need social media for self-affirmation or acceptance, you need professional help. If journalists need social media to provide stories, they should seek employment in another field.

If Twitter disappeared tomorrow, there would be no wailing, gnashing of teeth, or rending of garments. The world will not end. It would be just one more business on the trash pile of history.