Big Mike: Useless Justice

I've been poring over a couple of books about the Chicago crime syndicate: "The Outfit: The Role of Chicago's Underworld in the Shaping of Modern America," by Gus Russo; and "Captive City," by Ovid Demaris.

Reading them has left me horrified by the cozy relationship between the underworld and the upperworld. Crooks and sadists like Al Capone, Frank Nitti, Tony Accardo, Paul Ricca, Murray Humphreys, Sam Giancana and a slew of succeeding crime bosses were essentially business partners with assorted mayors, police commanders, judges, state senators and members of some of the city's most prestigious boards of directors. It was all an open secret that most Chicagoans chose to ignore.

I see no reason to believe the dynamic has changed now that organized crime is run by younger, more ethnically and racially diverse goons. Any accomplished office-holder has to be aware of the long reach of drug dealing, pimping and burgling gangs into City Hall, the circuit courts and the state house.

It seems crazy, but many of us celebrate these slobs. Take the whole Godfather-Sopranos-Rat Pack mania that's been going on for years. Countless lunkheads titter at "Goodfellas" lines and listen to Louie Prima disks because that's what Wise Guys listened to. Oh, what a guy the Don was, making people offers they couldn't refuse! And Giancana and Sinatra were as thick as, well, thieves - isn't that a riot?

I once did a story about Mike North, at the time, the king of Chicago sports talk radio. He brought me into his northwest suburban home and proudly showed off his basement den on which he'd spent a mint recreating precisely the office of Vito Corleone, right down to the cherry wood blinds.

After reading Russo and Demaris, I'd equate North's interior decorating choices with those of someone who elects to reproduce John Gacy's bedroom or Osama bin Laden's cave in his home.

Organized crime depends in large part on the labors of little men who jimmy car trunks, break into homes or knock over jewelers. Some of these penny-ante crooks even become local heroes of a sort. The Panczko boys - Pops, Butch and Peanuts - for instance, were compulsive burglars who were lovingly profiled in numerous Sunday newspaper magazine sections.

We laugh at and secretly cherish these chestnuts of Chicago's colorful history: Hey, our petty criminals and smart and entertaining! And our Mob is ten times better than New York's Five Families, the Cleveland and Detroit guys or those flamboyant LA kingpins. Hell, they almost bumped off Castro! They got Kennedy elected and then they killed him for two-timing them! Our monsters are better than your monsters!

I've had a couple of run ins with home burglars. In 1980, I was awakened by strange noises in the middle of a hot July night. I got up to investigate and discovered a treasure trove of my belongings piled on the back porch, waiting to be lugged down the stairs. I dashed to my roommate's bedroom to alert her. As I knocked on her door, I glanced toward the back door and saw the burglar coming back in for more swag.

I shouted and ran at him. When he saw me, his eyes became wide as saucers. He turned and flew down the stairs. I chased him only as far as the back porch because, well, I was naked. No wonder his eyes had grown so wide!

A dozen years later, in another apartment, I came home one afternoon to find my TV, VCR and stereo piled neatly near the front door. I found a note from my next door neighbor who said she'd happened to glance into my living room window and seen a stranger prowling around so she called the cops. The burglar was nabbed while hiding in the basement stairway under my back porch.

I also found several clean socks, taken from my sock drawer, scattered around the areas where the valuables had been. Later, I found a couple of socks in the basement stairway. I figured the burglar had used them to wipe stray fingerprints off the surrounding surfaces. Pretty smart.

Anyway, I showed up at the punk's trial a couple of months later. Before the proceeding, I sat in an ante-room with a couple of harried, distracted Assistant State's Attorneys. They told me they were certain this punk had been responsible for a rash of similar burglaries in my neighborhood. They thanked me, profusely and hurriedly, for showing up.

I went back out into the courtroom and sat next to the punk, whose picture I'd seen when the prosecutors had opened their file in front of me. As we rose for the judge to enter the court, I took advantage of the rustling and whispered to him, "I better never see you around my house again." The punk, maybe 19 or 20 years old, looked at me with panic on his face.

The case was called and the two of us marched up to the bench as if we'd come to court together. This elicited a surprised look from the judge. Then he fell back into his previous bored visage, thumbed through the case file and addressed me.

"Mr. Glab, did you find anything missing from your house?"

Now I panicked. None of my valuables were missing, of course. But if I answered no, he might decide there was no case here. I thought quickly. Aha! There was something missing!

"Yes, your honor. I found two socks - one white and one gray - in the basement stairway under my back porch."

I was ready to launch into an explanation of my fingerprint-wiping theory. But the judge cut me off, loudly.

"What?" he hollered. He threw the file toward his clerk. "Get this out of here! Case dismissed."

"Oh, but I...," I began, but he talked over me, directing his ire at the Assistant State's Attorneys. "Don't waste my time with stuff like this. What's the matter with you?"

The prosecutors looked sheepish. Then they looked at me. I shrugged. They shook their heads.

"Next," the judge announced.

The un-convicted burglar walked free. I like to think he kept my warning in mind. Maybe I even scared him straight. Maybe. Then again, he may have aspired to become so good at his occupation that one day some lunkhead might decorate his house the way he had. Or a Sunday newspaper magazine writer would pen a loving profile of him.

Benny Jay: My Time Of Year

It's Daddy Dee who tells me about the concert at Martyrs. He says he's singing with Tributosaurus, this cover band that sings the songs of the legends, and on this particular night they're singing War.

For a minute I think I'm not going cause it's raining, number one; and, number two, I don't want to play the part of the old timer gathering with other old timers to sing old songs from the past.

But forget that. I am old -- no use sitting at home about it. And I love War. Always have. Always will. Plus, my wife got me this new umbrella -- cherry red and everything -- which covers up the whole sidewalk, it's so big.

So my wife and I go. And they knock us out. There must be ten guys in the band, including a horn section, a keyboardist, a bass player, a drummer and a percussionist. One of the singers is a big feller named Matt Spiegel, who's deceptively nimble. Moves like a cat. Reminds me of Nathan Lane. And he's got almost operatic range -- he really sounds like the singer in War. The trumpet player is, of all people, Mike Cichowicz, who happens to be the older brother of The Tit, the kid who snuck me into see "The Godfather" about, oh, two billion light years ago. And the coolest of the cool is the guitar player, who sits on his stool and barely blinks an eye. Daddy Dee calls him Big D, but I think of him as Baby Buddha cause he radiates a peaceful kind of mellow.

Daddy Dee and Matt are trading solos, singing every song in the book -- "Spill the Wind," "The World is a Ghetto," "Why Can't We Be Friends" and so on. I'm on the dance floor, not so much dancing as tapping my umbrella to the beat. Got a couple of beer-bellied old timers in Hawaiian shirts standing behind me. They know every word and they're singing along, bringing back phrases I haven't thought about in years: "Let's have a picnic go to the park, rollin' in the grass `til long after dark...."

The band does an off-the-charts version of "Slippin' Into Darkness." In my mind, it's the summer of `78 and we're down by the boathouse on the North Avenue beach around midnight. Some one's passing the wine and the weed -- must be two dozen people crowded around a boom box that's playing this song. A police car cruises up and everyone scatters cause it's after curfew. I run all the way to Fullerton and double back after the police car's gone. Every one's returned. Got the song playing right where we left it -- "Slippin' into darkness, takes my mind beyond the trees." Didn't miss a beat....

The band moves into "Summer," one of my all-time all times. Now I'm singing with the boys in the Hawaiian shirts: "Ridin' round town with all the windows down, eight track playin' all your fav'rit songs...."

The concert ends and we head outside, walking down Lincoln Avenue in the dead of night. Rain's stopped. Clouds gone. Seems warmer. I take off my jacket. A cool breeze strokes my arm. I'm tapping my umbrella against the ground like it's a cane. Feeling all sprightly -- like Fred Astaire. Summer's coming. I can feel it. Gonna ride my bike up and down the lakefront. Check out the outdoor concerts in Grant Park. Dance under the stars `n everything. From the corner of my mind the refrain returns: "Yes, it's summer, summer time is here/yes, it's summer, my time of year...."

Letter From Milo: Legalize This

Back in the good old days when I used to smoke a bit of reefer (I developed glaucoma at a young age), I paid about $40 an ounce for a bag of decent Mexican weed. Out of that forty dollars I figure about $10 went into the pocket of the dealer, another ten went into the dealer's supplier's pocket and the rest of the money found its circuitous way back to Mexico.

At the time, in the early 70s, there was an epidemic of glaucoma in the USA and there were literally millions of folks who had to smoke reefer to gain some relief from the affliction. That meant that there were millions of $40 transactions taking place every week. That also meant that a lot of money was going into the dealers' pockets and a huge amount of money was flowing back to Mexico.

But not one cent went into the coffers of the United States government. In fact, the government was actually losing billions of dollars trying the suppress the marijuana trade.

As I understand it, the price of marijuana has skyrocketed over the years. The same bag that cost me $40 now sells for several hundred. Yet, the government still does not make a penny from this multi-billion dollar business.

It is estimated that marijuana is California's largest cash crop. Yet California - which is in the throes of a terrible budget crisis, and has to borrow money from the feds just to maintain basic civic services - refuses to even consider legalizing and taxing marijuana. This strikes me, and quite a few other commentators, as the height of fiduciary irresponsibility.

The government taxes and regulates tobacco, alcohol and gambling. Why can't they tax and regulate marijuana? Let the potheads help pay the salaries of our city and state employees. Then we might hear conversations like this:

Cop: Did you know you were going the wrong way down a one-way street?

Driver: (giggling) Didn't realize it, officer.

Cop: Young man, are you stoned?

Driver: Chill, dude, who do you think is paying your salary?

Cop: Ah, sorry boss. Didn't mean to inconvenience you.

I won't even try to argue the ethical, moral or health issues of marijuana, but from a strictly economical viewpoint, the continued prohibition on marijuana makes no sense. It is a costly, ineffective program that has proven to be a complete failure. Marijuana is as popular as ever. It is a multi-billion dollar business with the potential to bring in billions of tax dollars. I just don't get it.

While I'm at it, I'd like to propose the legalization of all drugs. Legalize everything - coke, heroin, meth, crack, cough syrup, model airplane glue, banana peels - everything.

Alarmists might say I'm crazy: Milo, are you nuts? The streets would be crawling with depraved junkies.

I say, So fucking what? The streets are already crawling with junkies. I doubt if the number will increase just because drugs become legal. A certain percentage of the population will always be drug addicts. Oh, there might be a spike in useage at first, but once the novelty wears off people will come to their senses.

Besides, there's nothing as harmless as a junkie when he's loaded. They pass their days staring at TV, dozing or picking lint from their belly buttons. Junkies only become dangerous when they don't have any junk. That's when they break into your home, rob you on the street or commit senseless murders.

I say let the junkies register in a national addict program, then they can visit their MD, get a prescription, walk down to their neighborhood Osco and pick up their drug of choice. It works with methadone programs, and it will work with other drug programs.

Besides reaping huge amounts of tax dollars, legalizing drugs will have added benefits.

With the stroke of the legislative pen we could empty our prisons, which are filled with people serving time for drug-related offenses and costing taxpayers billions yearly in upkeep. We could break the power of the narco states in South America and Asia. Terrorists who rely on drug money to finance their schemes will have to get day jobs. The Mexican border gangs, who have created their own mini-states along the Rio Grande, will fade away.

If history has proven anything, it's that vice can't be stopped. Prohibition is the prime example. Did people quit drinking liquor because the government banned it? The only thing Prohibition did was to enrich organized gangs and entrench them in society, so that even now, 90 years after Prohibition was enacted, mobsters are still a force to be reckoned with. Had it not been for Prohibition, mobsters would never have been anything but a historical footnote in American history. No Godfather, no Goodfellas, no Untouchables.

Let the good times roll!

Benny Jay: The Godfather

I get "The Godfather" from the video store. Been planning to watch it for weeks. Hear so many guys talk about it. They quote the lines and relive the scenes -- obviously, it's influenced their lives. I play along -- like it's influenced my life too. But the fact is I only saw it once, when it came out 37 years ago. I don't remember much about what happens.

I get it the night my wife's out with some friends. She's not crazy about watching movies she's seen before -- even if she's only seen them once many years ago. Me? I can watch the great ones over and over over....

So it's just me and my younger daughter and after awhile, as much as she likes it, she goes to bed because she has to get up really early. I should go to bed too, but I can't stop watching. As the movie goes on, the scenes, the characters, the dialogue -- they all come back. Sonny Corleone beating the crap out of his brother in law, Vito Corleone playing with his grandson in the tomato garden, Michael Corleone, cold-blooded and calculating, renouncing his belief in Satan at his godson's baptism, while his henchmen gun down gangsters all over town.

I think of Bubba -- this skinny, little black kid I knew in high school. One day in the locker room after gym, I overheard him tell his buddies about how he'd been ballin' this girl -- Didn't even bother undressing, had her up against the door, and was banging her so hard the door slammed against the wall, while she was calling out his name: "Oh, Bubba, Bubba, Bubba...."

I was 16 at the time. I wasn't even kissing girls -- much less banging them against the wall -- even though I was dreaming about girls day and night. When I heard Bubba tell that story, I was beyond jealous. I was thinking: why can't that stuff happen to me?

And now all these years later I'm watching "The Godfather" and I realize -- Bubba made it up. He never banged no babe! He stole that story from the scene where Sonny -- fully clothed -- is banging this girl and the door's slamming against the wall, and she's calling out his name: "Sonny, Sonny, Sonny."

And to think I fell for it. To think I was actually jealous of Bubba. The little twerp -- probably wasn't getting any more than me.

The movie ends and the credits roll and I sit in the dark and stare at the screen. I think about Cichowicz -- better known as Chicken Tit, and later just The Tit -- this chubby, baby-faced boy who sat in front of me in German class. Funny as hell, really good with imitations. He worked as an usher at the Valencia Theater on Sherman Street in downtown Evanston. He saw the movies so many times, he knew the lines by heart. He'd entertain me in study hall -- when we were supposed to be studying German -- doing bits from "The Godfather," "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," "Dirty Harry," "Shaft"....

I remember standing in the alley behind the Valencia. The Tit opened the door. He was wearing his usher's uniform -- this red sports coat that was about one size too small. Made him look like a Chipmunk. He had a flashlight and he led me down the aisle to my seat. There was hardly anyone in the theater cause it was a matinee. I don't know why I bothered sneaking in. It couldn't have cost more than $1.50 to see a movie. I guess it was just the thing to do. Anyway, that's when I saw "The Godfather."

After high school, The Tit went his way and I went mine. Last I saw of him was at Jonny's funeral. Damn, Jonny. One of my best friends in high school. It's been seven years since he died. Cancer.

I go to the computer and read Roger Ebert's original review of "The Godfather," from January 1, 1972. It's the same old thing, once I get on the Internet, I can't get off. I start going from this thing to that. I wind up reading stories about John Cazale, the actor who played Fredo. I love Fredo -- he's my favorite Corleone. The runt of the family. He could never match up to Michael or Sonny. I can relate. So, I bet, can Bubba -- and The Tit.

Cazale was in "The Deer Hunter" and "Dog Day Afternoon." He died young -- cancer. Just like Jonny. After his funeral, all of his actor friends and peers -- Pacino, DeNiro, Gene Hackman, Meryl Streep -- said he was the best.

Damn, it's quiet in the house. Every one's asleep. No one's up. Except for me -- and the ghosts....