“While men were watching professional football or drinking beer or bowling, they, the women, were thinking about us, concentrating, studying, deciding – whether to accept us, discard us, exchange us, kill us or whether simply to leave us. In the end it hardly mattered; no matter what they did, we ended up lonely and insane.” —Charles Bukowski
As you can tell from the above, I am one of those hopeless romantics, Mr. Lance Romance, with Cupid’s arrow sticking out of my arse cheek. Today is Valentine’s Day. A day of hearts, flowers, candy, gifts, and whatever. All romance, kissy face, teeth aching treacle sweetness.
In Chicago, we celebrate Valentine’s Day by killing men. We send the gift of lead.
On February 14, 1929, Chicago showed the world how to properly celebrate Valentine’s Day. The celebration was and still is, romanticized in film, history, and fiction. It was the day Chicago put the red in Valentine’s Day, making it the official color. Alphonse Capone is credited with creating the celebration. It made people see those lovey-dovey hearts in a whole new manner.
Image: Chicago Tribune
Rat-a-tat-tat kaboom became the official music of L-U-V on that cold, snowy February day. The whole world saw how Chicago celebrated Valentine’s Day in a whole new way. Somewhere in the world, the ritual is emulated daily.
During the Capone era, rolling shootouts were common in Chicago. Over the past weeks, they returned. The Violent Olympic Games are closing with Capone Days, a series of events involving cars and guns, re-enacting those days of yore. This Olympic event involves excellent skills, including speed, race car driving skills, and spray and pray skills with firearms to hit human targets without being shot.
Killing a target wins a Gold Medal. Wounding is a Silver Medal. A Bronze Medal is awarded for bullet holes in vehicles.
The most recent event occurred Monday night around 10:50 PM on Irving Park Road, between Rockwell and Ashland. Two cars chased each other while firing guns. One car, a Jeep, crashed outside Lakeview High School. The driver ran off. The passenger was found dead, shot multiple times. Aside from the body and several shell casings, there were bullet holes in the school’s windows. The second car was described as a Dodge sedan. (CWB Chicago)
This was the second rolling shootout event on a similar stretch of Irving Park Road in a week. On Sunday, there was a rolling shootout that ended in the Division/Rush Street area. There was a multi-block rolling shootout in the West Town neighborhood last week. These events are occurring all over the city, including the expressways.
This phenomenon once again proves no one and no place is safe in Chicago. The violence in Chicago is more than brazen criminality. This continuing wave of violence is people who know they can get away with anything, anytime, and anyplace. There will be no repercussions, no accountability, no justice, and no punishment. It is mutual combat, even when innocent victims are murdered. For example, the retired teacher on the Dan Ryan Expressway was a case of mutual combat.
According to Cook County State’s Attorney, Kim Foxx, mutual combat is not grounds for charging people with murder or other felonies.
That is great! After Capone Days, we should bring back dueling at dawn in our parks and Old West mano-e-mano gunfights at high noon on our streets.
How about the Mutual Combat Games in Soldier Field with cheering fans. There could be cheerleaders, the Luvaguns. Marching bands could take the field before and in between events. There ought to be announcers for the play-by-play. Oh, and an organ player, every sports venue needs an organ player. Maybe a local songwriter can come up with snappy dirges.
They could sell memorabilia, clothing, and hats with bloody bullet holes printed on them. One of our local breweries could whip up a themed beer, Dead Eye Ale. Maybe bullet-shaped pretzels with blood-red-dyed salt to go with the beer. There could be a sportsbook for betting. We could televise the events—real live-action with real guns and other weapons of choice.
Early on Sunday mornings, we can close a mile or two long stretch of DuSable Drive and the lakefront for Rolling Shoot Out events. Due to the dangerous nature, they would have to be filmed, preferably by drones or helicopter.
Chicago is a sports town, and we need new sporting events. Those ancient Romans knew how to entertain their populace with exciting gory circuses. We could be the template for a whole new sports franchise, a league of our own.
Since there is no justice, no public outrage, no screaming editorials from the inept Chicago news media, and no empathy or mercy from our cold-hearted public officials or the citizens, why not create something new to justify the murder and mayhem?
Legalize mutual combat and make it a professional sport. It will provide a stream of needed income, jobs for facility and city workers, income for funeral directors, and hopefully rid us of at least half or more of the violent criminals in this city. It will also provide entertainment for the merciless cold-hearted people who elect ruthless cold-hearted politicians.
Cook County taxpayers could benefit. Since the State’s Attorney’s Office is useless, it can be eliminated from the county budget, saving us the money wasted on willful malfeasance.
Our politicians dealt us a Dead Man’s hand. We may as well take advantage of it.
“These murders went out of the comprehension of a civilized city,” … “The butchering of seven men by open daylight raises this question for Chicago: Is it helpless?” (Chicago Tribune on the St. Valentines Massacre)
As summer turns to fall, none of the news is good. COVID-19 is still a threat. Getting shot, killed, beaten, robbed, or carjacked in Chicago is a worse threat. Now, experts are warning the upcoming flu season could be “brutal.”
We are lost. We do not know what to fear most, disease or being violently victimized as the Summer Olympics of Violence winds down. If the violence abates during the fall, Mayor Lightfoot and her Police Superintendent, David Brown, will claim victory. All their failed, and failing plans, strategies, deployments, and precision deployments worked. The mayor will award Brown the Gold Cookie. The losers will be winners.
Crime usually drops off in the fall and through winter. Of course, the friendly media will credit failure and convince the gullible naïfs in this city that Brown was a success. The citizens of Chicago are easily fooled and will believe whatever the media tells them.
Chicagoans complain about everything except the things that matter, like life and death on the streets. The bloodshed is hushed up. Brown tosses out dry, boring data. How many guns the police took off the street, how many people were arrested for gun possession, blah, blah.
Whatever is being done is not stopping the violence. It is not mitigating or curbing it. Prevention is almost impossible.
Seven people were killed during the St. Valentine’s massacre, a mass shooting heard around the world. Newspapers nationwide were in an uproar. Headlines screamed. Editorials were brutal. The citizenry was appalled. It led to the demise of Capone’s grip on Chicago.
There were over 50 mass shootings this year, most over the spring and summer. Not one peep from the friendly editorial boards. Not one word from community groups or supposed activists. No outrage from the citizens. It is all ho-hum. Lightfoot and the incompetent State’s Attorney, Kim Foxx keep getting the benefit of the doubt.
Foxx is supposed to be the voice of victims in court. Foxx flipped the script. She is the voice of the criminals. The news media and editorial boards lap it up.
We are heading into another warm weekend. Already, “At least four people were killed and 10 others wounded in a string of shootings across Chicago overnight. A fifth victim was beaten to death.” (WGN9 9/17/2021) These shootings and the beating occurred from one end of the city to another, 78th Street to Irving Park Road, between 8:30 PM and 8:30 AM.
Why is the violence in this city not considered “out of the comprehension of a civilized city?” Are we no longer civilized? Where is the outrage over the daily butchering of men, women, and children, even infants, all hours of the day and night?
“Is Chicago helpless?” The answer is yes. If COVID-19 does not kill you, a stray bullet might. Yet, the news media is focusing on COVID more than violence. The mayor and Tex Brown are getting a free pass. There is no anger among the citizens. No one is pointing fingers at the real culprits, the mayor, most of the mute alderpersons, the Police Superintendent, Kim Foxx, and the courts. We are being failed on all levels. We are accepting failure as an option.
The weekend is upon us. The weather will be nice. It will be perfect for the Summer Olympic of Violence games to go on. So, mask up, social distance, stay out of crowds, and stay off the streets. Stay alive.
