Randolph Street: The American Carnival

... But yes, I think it can be very easily done

We'll just put some bleachers out in the sun

And have it on Highway 61.

from "Highway 61 Revisited," Bob Dylan, 1965

Here's the third and final installment of Jon Randolph's series of pix taken along US Route 61 following the Mississippi River, from 1976 through 1985.

"Mailboxes," Keeler, Wisconsin

"Three Gents," Mississippi

"Eagle," Davenport, Iowa

"Edsel," Burlington, Iowa

"Hat," Mississippi

"Wait," Minnesota

Good old Jon Randolph - as we speak, he's sitting back in a fishing boat on a crystal clear Canadian lake, keeping an eye on his line for action, pulling his cap low against the morning glare, perhaps even enjoying a cool libation. That's the life. We have only one thing to say - get the hell back to work, you bum!

Randolph Street, featuring the work of Chicago's premier photojournalist, appears here every Friday. The Third City brings you the best in writing, opinion, memoir and other gibberish every day. Keep an eye open for the move to our very own website - swear to god, it's coming soon!

Randolph Street: Bob Dylan In Chicago

Jon Randolph is alive! Randolph Street is a day late but well worth the wait. Chicago's finest photojournalist tells the tale of today's pix in his own words. Take it away Jon. - The Eds.

I took these photos in September, 1975, when I was working for WTTW Channel 11 in Chicago. I'd loved Dylan since the Freewheelin' album was released in May, 1963. It was a dream come true that he was scheduled to appear on Soundstage for a tribute to John Hammond....

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I'm not sure Dylan was even the biggest star of the show - after all, Hammond had played a key role in the careers of Marion Williams, Helen Humes, Benny Goodman, Teddy Wilson, George Benson, Red Norvo, Philly Joe Jones, Milt Hinton, and even John Hammond, Jr.

With Scarlet Rivera playing violin, Dylan sang "Hurricane," "Simple Twist of Fate," and "Oh, Sister." It was well after midnight when Dylan finished his set. I was standing next to a young hipster record producer when he said to his pal, "He's still got it. Goddamn, I thought he was through."

Amen.

Benny Jay: Not Dead Yet

We're about half way through game one at bowling, when Cap breaks the news: Harry Kalas, the longtime announcer for the Philadelphia Phillies, died this morning.

"Just dropped over," says Cap. "Heart attack...."

"Damn," says Norm. "I didn't hear that...."

"Mark Fidrych, too," I say. "You know, The Bird."

"Heart attack?" says Norm.

"Naw -- crushed by a truck," I say. "He was fixing a truck and it fell on him...."

"A truck fell on him? Damn," says Norm. "I was just a shorty, but I remember Fidrych. I loved The Bird -- he be talkin' to the ball and shit...."

We're silent. "Marilyn Chambers also died," I say. "But, man, you probably don't remember her. She's a little ahead of your time."

Norm flashes his annoyed-with-me look. "C'mon, Benny. Don't get it twisted. I know Marilyn Chambers -- `Behind the Green Doors.'"

"Damn, Norm," I say. "You know your porn."

What follows is a one-or-two minute discussion of great porn movies of the `70s. I got to give Norm credit -- he knows his stuff. I make a mental note to send him Milo's opus on fake tits.

All this talk of death gets me kinda gloomy -- I'm bowling lousy. Can't pick up my spares. Feeling old and tired. Checking my pulse rate. Worried. Don't get enough sleep. Too much running around. Gotta take it easy.

But Young Ralph's got the answer. He leads the team to the bar and buys us shots of whiskey. He lines them up -- five shot glasses in a row. The whole team looks at me. They know -- when it comes to drinking, I'm the world's biggest wuss.

"C'mon, Benny," says Young Ralph. "Try it."

"Oh, all right," I say. They cheer. And the five of us -- me, J-Dub, Norm, Cap and Young Ralph -- click glasses and knock `em back. Or they knock `em back. I take a sip -- almost gag.

"That's not how you drink it," says Young Ralph. "You gotta knock it back."

So what the hell. When in Rome, and all that stuff. I take a gulp and knock it back. It burns like hot oil running down my throat. But, damn -- it's got a kick that fires me up. I come back to the alley, braying like a beast.

"Now you know why all these mutha fuckas drink," Cap tells me.

I roll a strike. I pick up a spare -- finally. I start singing to the Led Zepplin Young Ralph's playing on the juke box: "Dazed and Confused" and "A Whole Lotta Love." He ups the ante, switching to Hendrix: "Foxy Lady," "All Along the Watchtower, " "Voodoo Chile." Me and Ralph are jamming on air guitar. "Check it out," I tell him. "I'm playing with me left hand -- just like Jimi."

The tamale man comes in -- a chubby little dude who sells homemade tamales out of a lunch box. Norm and he have a special relationship. Norm talks to him in a babble of English mixed with every Spanish word Norm knows, most of them curse words. The dude seems to love it.

He sells a few tamales and turns to leave. Norm catches him before he's out the door. "Why you leave-oh without saying by-oh," he bellows.

J Dub and I are cracking up. "I guess you call that Spanglish," says J Dub.

"There's nothing Span about it," I say. "Just English with a funny accent."

He laughs. I laugh. We're all laughing. Our team gets hot and wins the last two games. Feeling good, feeling strong. No more talk about gloom and doom. What's that song Dylan sings about those not busy being born are busy dying? Forget that, we ain't dying -- we're living. Fifty-something years old, but my life's just getting started.

It's amazing what one little shot of whiskey can do for you.

Benny Jay: The Keys On Richard's Chain

I get up early to go to Richard Pegue's funeral. I figure I have no choice since I expect half the town's gonna be there.

I take Lake Shore Drive, heading south. Traffic's heavy on the north side, but south of the Loop, it picks up.

The service is at Apostolic Church of God, the mega-church at the corner of 63rd and Dorchester Avenue.

I sign the guest book and take a seat in the back of the sanctuary. Must be over 1,500 people there with more coming in. Almost every one's black. Can't say I'm surprised. For over 40 years, Richard, a disc jockey, played R & B and soul, the kind of music everybody loves. But he played it on WVON and other black stations. And you know how it goes in the Chi. Whites here, blacks there. Might as well live on different galaxies in space. Ask black baby boomers if they've heard of Richard and they'll say -- "Are you crazy? I grew up listening to that man." But most white guys -- they don't even know the name.

The church organ's playing soft, sorrowful chords of mourning. Up on the stage, Pam Morris, the mistress of ceremony, runs through the speakers.

I think back to when I met Richard -- must have been a dozen years ago. I wrote an article about him. After that we'd meet every now and then at a diner -- a smoky, cab driver's joint -- a little west of the Hancock. Richard would roll in after dropping off his wife at work. He carried his cell phone in one hand and a big clump of keys in the other. More than once I asked him what's with the keys? But he never gave me a straight answer. Richard liked his secrets. He joked about having an alter ego -- Willie the Janitor, the black guy no one pays attention to, even though he secretly owns properties all over town. He'd talk in riddles, like a character in a song by Bob Dylan. I'd ask him head on -- what are you getting at? And he'd smile and let it go at that. Half the time I didn't know what he was driving at. Thought I knew but I wasn't sure.

I scan the church, looking for familiar faces. I recognize a few from the diner. Richard was always bringing folks together. He'd call me up and say there's someone you should meet. So I'd go to the diner and meet one of his guys. There was his Computer Guy, his T-shirt Guy, the guy who sold him fresh-baked cookies. I was his Writer Guy. I'd tell Richard that me and the others were like the keys on his chain -- we unlocked different parts of his life. He liked that metaphor. He'd smile his elusive Richard smile and tell me we had to write a book. I'd tell him, if we're gonna write a book, he'd have to give me something good to write about. He'd just smile some more and say he'd tell me all I needed to knew when the time was right to tell me.

The service moves quickly. Richard Steele, Richard's oldest friend, talks about how they formed a doo-wop group -- in order to pick up girls -- almost 50 years ago, when they were students at Hirsch High School. Jackie Taylor introduces Melanie McCullough and Theo Huff, two singers from her company, The Black Ensemble Theater. McCullough sings "At Last" and Huff sings "Try a Little Tenderness," one of my all-time favorites. I love that song every time I hear it even though I've heard it many times before. Huff sings it strong, sounds just like Otis Redding. Almost makes me forget I'm at a funeral.

After the service, I head back north along the Drive. I scan the radio look for "Try A Little Tenderness." But all I hear is commercials, so I turn off the radio and let the memory of the song linger in my mind as I drive by Soldier Field and the Museum Campus, returning to the white side of town....

Two days later I get a call. The voice on the phone says she's Stephanie, daughter of Helena Appleton. I can't believe it. Helena and I worked together over 25 years ago. I loved Helena. She treated me like a son. I used to help her fetch her groceries at the Stop `n Shop on Randolph Street. We'd be walking through the Loop and she'd give me all the gossip. Stephanie and I try to recall when we last saw each other. Must have been in 1987 -- at her mother's funeral.

Anyway, Stephanie read a tribute I wrote to Richard and decided she had to call. Turns out she knew Richard for over 30 years -- used to do voice-over work for him back in the `70s.

We swap stories about Richard, fill each other in on the last twenty years of our lives, exchange email addresses, and promise to do a better job of staying in touch.

I hang up the phone and look out the window at a squirrel running across the telephone wire in the alley. All those years of meeting Richard at the diner and we never made the Helena connection. Who would have thought that Helena's daughter was another key on Richard's chain? Guess I shouldn't be surprised. Like I told you, the man knew half the people in this town.

Benny Jay: Southern Man On The Radio

In the middle of the day, I get my Younger Daughter out of school and drive her to the orthodontist.

While she's getting her braces removed, I'm killing time at Einstein's bagel shop -- head down, lost in thoughts, jotting notes to myself, concentrating on the words -- when I hear her call my name.

I look up and I see her only I have to look twice to make sure it's really her. It's like I dropped her off when she was 15 and suddenly she's 17.

"I look older, don't I?" she says.

I'm not sure what to say, so I try to say something funny: "Okay, that's it -- we gotta watch out for those boys...."

"Dad...."

"The horny bastards...."

"Oh, my God...."

"Did your older sister give you the older sister talk yet?"

"You are so weird...."

Back in the car, heading for school, I'm feeling like time's passing too fast. I'm heading into a new phase of life and I'm not sure I want to get there.

Then "Southern Man" comes on the radio.

"Yes!" I exclaim.

I crank up the dial and sing along. I know the words so well, I'm like Pete Seeger leading the crowd through "This Land is Your Land." I call out the line before Neil Young sings them: "`I see cotton and I see black....'"

"He's talkin' about slavery," I say.

"`Tall white mansions and little shacks....'"

"Tell it, Neil, tell it...."

"`Southern Man when will you pay them back?'"

I'm slamming my hand against the steering wheel in beat to the song....

"`I hear screamin' and bullwhips crackin' -- how long, how long, ahhh!'"

"He's not even singing anymore. He's so mad -- he's just howling. You tell `em, Neil!"

We stop at the light. "Listen to the guitar solo -- it's blind rage!"

I'm doing a wicked air guitar. Got my left hand working the frets and my right hand picking the strings. I'm playing note for note with Neil Young. At some point I switch to air piano, banging the imaginary keyboard. Then I go back to guitar. Man, I do it all....

When the song's over, I'm almost exhausted.

"Good song," says my daughter.

"God, I love Neil Young," I say. "He's one of the only old rockers who gets better with time. Like John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan -- especially Bob Dylan."

We drive the rest of the way in silence. At the school, she flashes me a no-braces smile and says, "thanks, dad," as she hops out the door.

"Don't forget to watch out for those boys," I yell. But she's gone so fast she doesn't hear a word I'm saying....

Big Mike: "Do I Look Like A Liar?"

Tuesday was Trivia night at Dick's Pizza. Skip the Trombonist, my usual teammate, had to substitute for Andy the Trivia-meister, who was busy helping an old pal settle into alcohol rehab. I have a lot of trouble with Skip's questions whenever he fills in but I'm an ace when Andy runs the show. Andy and I must have similar interests. I do know this: we both have copies of the "New York Times Almanac" in the bathroom. Perhaps Skip doesn't read in the bathroom.

Anyway, I was happy to be out from under the sobriquet, Team Gorlock. The name was Skip's idea. He's a devotee of "The Colbert Report." Gorlock, a character on the show, is Stephen Colbert's lawyer.

Since I was playing alone against five other teams, I chose the moniker Frankie Machine in honor of one of Chicago's greatest authors. That was the lead character's name in Nelson Algren's book, "The Man with the Golden Arm."

I quickly found myself firmly ensconced in second place. Here's a sample question: What do Karl Marx, Bob Dylan, and Sonny Liston have in common? (Answer at the end of the post.)

I sat next to a garrulous young couple - a pretty woman and her athletic-looking partner. She'd struck up a conversation with me before the game started, asking about the crossword puzzle I was doing while I waited. She proceeded to tell me her name was Natasha, that she was an accountant, that she'd been born in Guyana, that she was highly ambitious, and that she'd lived in Orlando, Florida until recently.

Natasha asked me what I do. When she learned I'm a writer a lightbulb flashed on over her head. "Do you write biographies?" she asked.

"I'll write anything as long as the money's right."

"Have you ever heard of Dee Brown?"

The name sounded familiar. I remembered that Dee Brown had written "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee," one of the seminal consciousness-raising Native American books of the 1970s. "Yeah," I said, "I think so."

She pointed a thumb at her escort and said, "Here he is."

I recoiled a bit. Dee Brown, I figured, ought to be pushing 100. Natasha noted my puzzlement.

"You know, Dee Brown," she said. "The basketball player. He won the Slam Dunk Contest in 1991."

"Oh yeah," I said, but not too convincingly. The fellow appeared too callow to be even the younger Dee Brown.

A few moments later, I pressed Natasha, "So he's really Dee Brown the basketball player?"

"Of course he is! Why would I lie? Do I look like a liar?"

I don't know what a liar looks like but I do know Dee Brown was a star for the Boston Celtics in the 90s. Natasha introduced me to him with the preamble that I was a fine writer and would like to write a biography of him. I was about to say I'd expressed no such desire when the fellow clasped my hand eagerly and began telling me he was in Louisville to start up a basketball camp for youngsters. "Write a story about me," he said, handing me his card. "Anything you can do will help."

He and Natasha decided to play Trivia. They called themselves Royal Crown. Skip insisted on calling them Royal Clown. During the first round, I moaned out loud about the difficulty of the questions. "They ain't so hard," the fellow said. "I got at least six out of ten."

"Six out of ten! You're shitting me," I blurted. I figured I'd answered only four correctly.

"Damn," he said. "This is easy."

Skip then announced the first round scores. The fellow and Natasha had answered only two correctly. "Aw, man!" the fellow moaned.

When the game was over, I'd finished in second place while Royal Crown was second to last. Still, the fellow pranced around the room high-fiving people.

And then, like that, the couple left. Someone told Jason the Bartender that the fellow was Dee Brown. Jason, a basketball fanatic, tilted his head. "Yeah?' he said. "Didn't look like him."

My mind immediately flashed to a story I'd read in the papers last fall. A New Jersey man was arrested after spending the summer telling people he was the New York Yankees pitcher Joba Chamberlain. Apparently, his summer was packed with free drinks and food and more sex than he'd ever had before. The man was charged with criminal simulation and theft of services.

I fingered this Dee Brown fellow's card. Could he be the real thing? I'll let you know in a future post.

(Trivia answer: all three appeared on the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" album cover.)

Benny Jay: Can't Sleep, Part II

The alarm rings at six, but I'm already awake. I never fell asleep even after I went back to bed. Just lay there thinking.

I get up, shower, down a cup of coffee, drive my Younger Daughter to school, and follow the school bus down the Eisenhower, across Austin Avenue and up Lake Street to Oak Park High School. I'm in a daze from lack of sleep, but as soon as I enter the old field house, I perk up. Something about me and sports.

I hang around George Jackson. His daughter runs the 800. Nice guy. I did a double take first time he told me his name. I wondered if his parents named him for the Soledad prisoner immortalized by Dylan ("Sometimes I think this whole world is a big prison yard, some of us are prisoners, the rest of us are guards"). But he was born before that George Jackson was famous.

I enjoy watching the meet with him. We talk to the girls as they run past. Give them advice. Like, don't go out too fast. Or, now's the time to make your kick. Not that anyone can hear us. We're mostly saying it to ourselves.

After an hour, he's got to go and I'm by myself. I scan the crowd for my buddies -- Ray, Bill, Daddy Dee. They're not here. I'm a little disappointed. Half the fun of going to these meets is talking to my friends.

I head over to Coach Caldow. But he's deeply focused on tracking the times. So I start talking to this random dude at the scorers table. I'm not sure who he is -- coach, parent, volunteer? He doesn't say anything, so it becomes a game: How much do I have to talk before he responds? I got time -- it's a track meet. They go all day.

Pointing to an article in today's paper, I tell him it's amazing that so many people are seeing "Friday the 13th."

"It's the number one movie in the country -- did like $47 million. I thought it was a Depression. How can people have enough money to see Friday the 13th?"

Silence.

"How many "Friday the 13th"s have there been? Eight, nine -- ten? You'd think they'd run out of plots...."

The girls line up for the 800.

"The girl to watch is Raena Rhone. She's the tall girl in -- I think it's the third lane. She's an amazing runner -- watch her...."

The gun sounds. Raena shoots out to the lead. It's like she doesn't really run so much as glides around the track -- makes it look so easy as she wins going away.

"I told you -- that's the girl," I say to the guy. "Remember her name. Raena Rhone. Years from now you can tell everyone that you saw her run way back when. You can even say you discovered her. You don't even have to give me credit...."

I get a half smile from him when I say that.

On the way home, I nearly fall asleep at the wheel. We're waiting for a red light at the intersection of Pulaski and Irving. A car horn blasts me awake.

I get home and head upstairs to my bedroom. I open a novel -- "Water for Elephants." It's about this veterinarian school dropout who runs away with the circus. I glance at the clock -- 2:45.

I open the book....

I snap awake. The book's lying across my face. I sit up and look at the clock -- 4:45. Damn, two hours!

I try to get up, but my head's still foggy. I told you, those sleepless nights will haunt you all day.

Benny Jay: Lunch With The Boys

I'm eating lunch at a greasy gyros joint on Halsted in Greektown with Marcus, the lawyer, and Ronnie, the gambler.

Marcus says we gotta try the sandwiches. So Ronnie and I get the chicken sandwich, only Marcus orders the Greek chicken lunch special. My sandwich is good, but his chicken looks really good, all smothered in gravy. It's got this big potato and rice. I'm watching him wolf down that bird -- all but licking up the gravy -- and I'm thinking: Damn, shoulda got the chicken special!

Marcus looks up, a chicken bone in his mouth. "Want some?" he asks, his mouth full.

I wanna say: Hell, yeah, man -- let's swap right now. My sandwich for your chicken. But I'm too proud, so I say: "No, man -- my sandwich is really good...."

We're talking about -- what else -- Blago. Ronnie's starts singing his praise. He's the only guy I know who thinks Blago's doing a good job. Marcus and I head him off -- cause, you know, we love Ronnie and all -- but we've heard his Blago rap before.

"C'mon, man," I say. "You don't really believe that crap....."

"He's got a presumption of innocence," says Ronnie.

"There's a difference between a presumption of innocence in a legal proceeding and in the court of public opinion," says Marcus, "where they've caught him on tape....."

"Let's talk about those tapes," says Ronnie. "I want to know -- how did they get the authorization to tape his conversations?"

"They had to go to a federal judge," I say.

"Oh, what are the grounds for taping his phones?" says Ronnie. "I wanna know. Cause they abuse that power all the time....."

He's making a compelling argument but I can't stop looking at his sandwich. I'm three-quarters of the way through my sandwich. And Marcus? He's polished off the potato. Lapped up the gravy. Eaten all the chicken. Now he's gnawing on the chicken bones and sucking out the marrow.

But Ronnie's one of those guys who can't eat while he's really excited, and he's only taken one bite.

"Ron, are you gonna eat your sandwich?" asks Marcus.

Apparently, his mind works like mine.

"Yeah," says Ronnie.

"But it's gonna get cold," I say.

"I'll eat it...."

"I hate it when food gets cold...."

Ronnie launches into this incredible story about the night in 1984 when four cops showed up at his front door. They said they had a warrant to search his house looking for evidence of bookmaking. He told them that he's not a bookie -- he may make bets, but he doesn't take them. They wandered all over his house, poking through his stuff, finding his roomie's stash of weed, like a-ha they were Sherlock freakin' Holmes. Then they slapped on the cuffs and dragged him down to the lock up and threw him in a cell with this black guy. Ronnie said: What are you in here for? And the guy said, running numbers -- only I didn't do it. Ronnie said he was in for being a bookie, only he didn't do it either. Apparently, no one in jail is guilty, only unjustly accused. Listening to Ronnie, I realize you can learn a lot about Chicago from spending time in a jail. One of the guards told him about a cop -- a sergeant in that very station -- who was a bookie. Another cop offered to get Ronnie out of jail early, if he paid him $100. It was like a Dylan song, where the police are free to break the laws they're supposed to enforce. They kept Ronnie in jail for six hours. Months later he was still getting hauled into court for hearings, and he wound up pleading guilty to some rinky-dink bullshit charge just to kill the case. It was nothing but an exercise in harassment. They had no compelling cause to search his house. The warrant was bogus. Someone with clout had it in for him -- he suspects an ex-girlfriend -- so she got the cops to get a judge to go along. And, yeah, they found the weed. But so what. It wasn't his weed. And they weren't even there to look for weed. And they should just legalize weed anyway. And you can find anything on anybody if you look through their private stuff. Cause everyone's guilty of something.....

He takes a breath.

I have to agree with just about everything he said. Only I can't help noticing -- he's barely touched his chicken sandwich.

"Hey, Ron," says Marcus. "Are you gonna eat your sandwich?"

"I'm gonna eat it," he says.

"It's probably cold," I say.

"I'll eat it...."

"I'm just sayin' -- I can't stand it when a sandwich gets cold...."

"I'm gonna eat it -- I'm gonna eat it...."

Back we go to Blago. Poring over the minute details of his case. We talk about him for an hour. Probably could talk about him for another hour. Can't get enough Blago.

When we leave, Ronnie's only eaten about one-half of his sandwich.