Cubs Lovable Losers
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................
