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April 22, 2008
Cubs Win/Spirit of Billy Jurges
1:20 p.m. April 22---
Billy Jurges is looking good.
Of course he’s dead, but on March 3 I got Chicago area medium Rik Kristinant to channel the former Cubs shortstop on his feelings about the 2008 Cubs. March 3 was the anniversary of Jurges’ death. He was born on May 9, 1908. You know, the last year the Cubs won the World Series. We held the seance at the Sheffield House, 3834 N. Sheffield in Chicago. This was formerly the Hotel Carlos.
Jurges told us things would be just fine this year if the Cubs “played for love.”
Since our seance Cubs general manager Jim Hendry acquired throwback outfielder Reed Johnson, who keeps a photo of Ty Cobb by his locker. Ace pitcher Carlos Zambrano has mellowed for the betterment of the team. Koskue Fukadome has brought the Japanese baseball tradition of grace, unity and going with the pitch to Chicago.
“The Great Chicago Earthquake” happened on April 18, registering 5.2 on the richter scale. The last time an earthquake shook Chicago shook this much was in 1968, the year the Cubs woke up from decades of hibernation and ascended to first place.
People are already whispering about 2008 post season play.
Click this link to watch our now historic meeting with Billy:
On July 6, 1932 cabaret singer Violet Valli visited Jurges in Room 509 of the Hotel Carlos. She wanted to confront Jurges about their "love affair".............
As a life long fan of old school rhythm and blues and soul music it didn’t surprise me that the Young @ Heart chorus is more appreciated in Europe than in America. In my travels through Europe, Japan and Mexico I’ve found more interest in American roots music than in America. These are older places than the U.S.A. and the appreciation for history runs deeper.
Even the Zapp Band is considered out of date in the states.
The Young @ Heart choral group began in 1982 in an elderly housing project in Northampton, Mass. Nowadays members come from across the region. No original members remain. No one in the 24-voice chorus is under 72 years of age.
In keeping with the music/road motif of the Scratch Crib blog, link to Young @ Heart's take of the Talking Heads "Road to Nowhere":
Choral Director Bob Cilman came up with the idea of having his elder singers cover songs by David Bowie (think “Golden Years”), the Clash and Prince. This was around the same time that the timeless Duplex Planet pop culture magazine was born out of a nursing home in Boston. The group is now the shining stars of the resplendent Young @ Heart documentary which opens on April 18.......
The funny thing about the April 9 maiden voyage of the monthly Lovable Losers Literary Revue was how the Chicago Cubs--the evening’s timeless subject---framed the event by blowing two leads against the lowly Pittsburgh Pirates.
The game, which the Cubs eventually won in 15 innings, was on television sets throughout El Jardin ("The Garden"), the site of the reading. The Mexican restaurant opened in 1967 in the southern shadows of Wrigley Field. El Jardin is known for concoting one of the best homemade margaritas in Chicago. Former Cubs Dusty Baker, Frank Castillo and Sammy Sosa have all visited El Jardin.
Presumably after a game.
The evening was organized and hosted by long time Cubs fan/Chicago author Donald Evans. The restaurant's back room was packed with more than 50 Cubs fans and literary devotees. Cub die hards like The Bleacher Preacher (Jerry Pritikin), my long time pal Nick Novich of "Nick's" fame and Scratch Crib contributor Mike Reischl were in the house. So was my friend, former Cubs Vine Line editor Jim McArdle. He recently retired from the Cubs publication department and is working on a book about the Cubs 2008 season for Triumph Books. He already has a lot of material.
Evans offered a tender toast to launch the 90-minute revue. Two members from the Chicago punk band Dummy played a fast acoustic version of the ‘69 Cubs theme “Hey Hey Holy Mackeral,” although it sounded more hard bluegrassy to me.
For a Sun-Times video recap of the evening click this link:
That group line dancing to Steve Goodman's "Go Cubs Go" are led by Heather Handeman, who wrote the 2007 book "Big Wigs: Stories of a Straight Girl in a Drag Queen's World" (State Street Publishing, $19.95). But her dancers didn't want to appear at this event in drag. That's like Phil Regan not putting spit on the baseball!
Evans plans to conduct the free literary revue readings on a monthly basis through October................
Its Opening Day!
At least it is in Japan, where baseball's Oakland A's are hosting the Boston Red Sox. But this one almost got by me. March 22 was the 50th Anniversary of the opening of Lefty O'Douls, 333 Geary Blvd. in San Francisco. Lefty's may be the longest running sports bar in America.
According to file reports from the San Francisco Chronicle, Mayor George Christopher showed up for the 1958 opening with two Pan American Airlines flight attendants (Lefty was one of the first liasions between Japanese and American baseball) and elder actor Eddie Nugent wore a coachman's uniform and carried a trumpet. Lefty was there. A box of home plate dirt was imported from his beloved Polo Grounds.
It makes me want to go to O'Douls for a beer. RIght now.
But since I am in Chicago, I'll revisit this edited version of an August, 2003 report I filed for the Sun-Times........,
SAN FRANCISCO--One long ago morning after seeing Tom Jones get slammed by brassieres at the House of Blues nightclub in Los Angeles, a friend and I were hit by road fever. We decided to take a day trip up Highway 101 to San Francisco. It's not unusual to see the Golden Gate Bridge. And have dinner in North Beach at Ristorante Fior d'Italia, 601 Union, the oldest Italian restaurant in America (est. 1886). Or laugh at the hippies playing hackey-sack in the Haight.
But our destination was Lefty O' Doul's, the last great sports bar in America. The California sky was as blue as our Advil. She had the top down on her red Mazda and music from Tom Jones' "Live in Las Vegas" tumbled into the air like lucky dice. By the time we reached Santa Barbara, I was feeling so good I began regaling her with stories of Lefty, who opened his San Francisco restaurant and bar in 1958.
Lefty was born in 1897 in San Francisco. He always dressed in green. He had green suits, green pants, green hats and green socks. He had green eyes. Lefty is the only major league player ever to hit more than 30 home runs and strike out fewer than 20 times in the same season. He had a lifetime .349 batting average in 970 major league games.......
MY CHICAGO KITCHEN----Hungry hearts wanted to know the muse behind the spicy "Poorman's Jambalaya" I made for my Sun-Times/You Tube experiment. Here's the video, followed by the recipe. As a template I used the 1984 version of "Chef Paul Prudhomme's Louisiana Kitchen." You should see my copy of the book. Most pages are stained and some are burned.
Its never too early to start planning the road trip from Chicago to New Orleans for the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. One mandatory stop is Chamoun's Rest Haven Restaurant in Clarksdale, Miss. I called yesterday to make sure they are still open. They are.
Here's an edited version of a story I wrote from a visit in early 2004. I was hungry. I had spent half a day talking to musician-producer Jim Dickinson at his North Mississippi compound. Then I went to this classic diner to eat Lebanese food. I think Mississippi is an underappreciated state.
CLARKSDALE, Miss. -- The parched terrain surrounding Chamoun's Rest Haven Restaurant is best-known for nourishing the blues. John Lee Hooker, Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters all came from this part of the Delta, 75 miles south of Memphis. Blues are not usually linked to Lebanese cuisine. But the Rest Haven has been serving kibbies in the Delta since 1947........
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Dave Hoekstra has been a Chicago Sun-Times staff
writer since 1985. His collection of Sun-Times travel
columns, "Ticket To Everywhere," was published in 2000
by Lake Claremont Press. He was lead writer for "Farm
Aid: Song for America" (Rodale Press, 2005) which
commemorated the 20th anniversary of the Willie Nelson
inspired effort.
He won a 1987 Chicago Newspaper Guild Stick O-Type
Award for Column Writing. Hoekstra wrote and
co-proudced the WTTW-Channel 11 PBS special: "The
Staple Singers and the Civil Rights Movement,"
nominated for a 2001-02 Chicago Emmy for a documentary
program/cultural significance.
Dave Hoekstra has been a 
