Scratch Crib

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:

http://video.ap.org/v/Default.aspx?g=f9f1ffe4-630f-4540-b12e-38728443646b&mk=en-ap&f=ilchs&fg=email

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".............

Valli pulled out a gun and winged Jurges in the buttocks and the left hand. She blamed the shooting on “too much gin.” This event was a partial inspiration for the Bernard Malamud novel “The Natural.”
In 1949 another Cub named Eddie Waitkus was shot by another female at the Edgewater Beach Hotel in Chicago. She was disturbed because the Cubs traded Waitkus to Philadelphia in 1948.
These things just aren’t natural.
Unless you live in Cubdom.
Kristinant, 52, has been a medium since he was 9. His father was one, too. A medium works with spirits. A psychic predicts things.
The hard core baseball backstory to our seance is that Jurges was placed on the disabled list after the shooting. The Cubs acquired shorststop Mark Koenig, who hit .353 for the Cubs in a 33 game pennant drive. Koneig had played with the New York Yankees between 1925-30. During that period his teammate was Leo Durocher---who managed the 1968 Cubs!
The Cubs went on to win the 1932 National League pennant but the team only voted Koenig a half share of playoff money. The Cubs met the Yankees in the ‘32 World Series. Koenig’s old pal Babe Ruth was upset at the slight.
So with Cubs pitcher Charlie Root on the mound, Ruth allegedly pointed to center field and called his home run.
But those in the know say Ruth was pointing at the Cubs dugout and calling out the team for their treatment of Koenig.
The Yankees swept the Cubs 4 games to 0 in the ‘32 World Series.
“Billy is telling me the good went away in the post season of ‘32,” said Kristinant, who had no tip off on Jurges’ background. “That’s why it never came back. I don’t know if he got kicked out or what, but the good went away. He said he is part of it.”
Chicago baseball historian/Scratch Crib correspondent Mike Reischl was in the hotel room. Only then did he mention Koenig to Kristinant. He had a copy of “The Golden Era Cubs 1876-1940 (Bonus Books), co-written by late great Sun-Timesman Eddie Gold. “Billy Jurges and Billy Herman were the only two dissenters on the vote to appropriate the playoff share money to Koenig,” Reischl reported.
“Aaaah,” Kristinant said with a satisfied smile. “That makes sense where I’m getting ‘2’s (Jurges and Herman). Babe Ruth was mocking Billy. They had words. He pointed at Billy, but I don’t know where he was playing. (Jurges did return at shortstop for the World Series). I also feel something about the Giants. (Koenig ended his career in 1936 with the New York Giants).
“Money pisses Billy off. (Koenig appeared as himself in the 1942 film “Pride of the Yankees”). Just talking about money makes him mad. Now he knows. Now it makes sense. He’s looking for his redemption. That’s what I do as a medium, is I give them their redemption. Billy, you can move on. You’re forgiven for taking Mark’s money.”
See you all in October at Wrigley Field.

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5:30 p.m. April 11----

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":

http://www.foxsearchlight.com/youngatheart/

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.......

....British filmmakers Sally George and Stephen Walker spent seven weeks following Cilman and the chorus as they learn songs such as Bob Dylan’s “Forever Young” and James Brown’s “I Feel Good.” The theatrical group also takes their show on the road, appearing at a local high school and medium security jail.
“They’ve wanted to be known in America a little bit,” Cilman said during a stop in Chicago. “Because they’ve been so stuck in Europe. They always thought that was so weird. They wondered why there wasn’t any American interest.”
Walker added, “In Europe, the further south you go or the further east you go towards Asia, attitudes towards older people do begin to change. Japan does have a very different culture towards old people. I don’t know how this film will play in those countries. But when people see it, in 99 per cent of the cases, they get something very strong from it. They laugh, they cry.
“Getting them through the door is the difficult thing.”
Young@ Heart is known for its musical theater in Europe. As early as 1991 Young @ Heart collaborated with Northampton theater director Roy Faudree to present “Louis Lou I--A Revolting Musical,” a reinterpretation of the French Revolution using the songs of Frank Sinatra. There were more than 100 people involved in the production.
“Europeans are set up in a much different way to support the arts than America,” Cilman said. “They bring us over there and treat us fabulously. We went to France and that was scary. Everybody said ‘Okay, you guys made it everywhere else but France, they’re gonna’ hate you,’ because they’re too cynical and all that. The French were the best. First they really listened. These are theater pieces, not concerts. People can get rowdy and start clapping as if it is a concert. It throws you off your stride. The French sat quiet throughout the whole show and at the end they exploded. It was so beautiful to watch.”
The Young @ Heart documentary has met with critical acclaim in hipster American ports like Sundance and the SXSW music conferernce. Cilman said he did receive an American HBO pitch that wanted to follow Young @ Heart on a European tour. He wouldn’t do that. “The people who do the theater work aren’t the least bit interested in that,” Cilman said. “They find it sort of in conflict with what we do. ‘20/20’ did a piece on the group that never actually aired. It caused so much trouble. I told Stephen to get these guys where they’re comfortable---and you’ll get them where they’re real.”
Walker said, “My mission was to be uncompromising about things. We always knew about the issue of death although we didn’t actually expect people to die while we were making the film. We talked openly about death and discussed their fears. We were determined to make a film which tried to get as close as you can to the heart of what it is to be old. And what its like to face this---if we’re lucky.”

For more on Young @ Heart visit their website at http://www.youngatheartchorus.com

Posted by David Hoekstra at 05:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

1 p.m. April 11----

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:

Lovable Losers Literary Revue April 9

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................

.....Evans also has a fine website http://www.lovablelosersliteraryrevue.com/ which will be bookmarked for the next 100 years in my FAVORITE LINKS.

As featured guest I was asked to close the April 9 revue debut with a prayer:

THE CUBS PRAYER '2008

OUR PINIELLA WHO ART IN WRIGLEY
HALLOWED BE THY NAME
THY KINGMAN COME
THY WILL BE DONE
ON EARTH AS IT IS THE 7TH INNING STRETCH

GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY OLD STYLE
AND FORGIVE US FOR OUR HIT AND RUNS
AS WE FORGIVE THOSE WHO HIT AND RUN AGAINST US

AND LEAD US NOT INTO THE BLEACHERS
BUT DELIVER US FROM ZELL
FOR THINE IS THE KINGDOM, THE LACK OF POWER IN APRIL and THE GLORY OF FUKADOME
FOR EVER AND EVER
AT LEAST UNTIL OCTOBER

AMEN.

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