The Royko Thread

I think one of those posters ought to hang in the Oval Office these days myself.

 

. . . not to mention the VP's foxhole . . .

 

all great men and women have flaws. royko was a drunk. he's not the only man/woman with a horrible flaw. royko is one of the main reasons i rarely drink. his dad owned a bar, and when you spend that kind of time in a bar, you pick up some terrible habits (along with a great deal of insight about everyday people). i can count on one hand the number of times i've had a drink at my dad's bar.

 

And I can count on the fingers of no hands the number of times I;ve been stopped for DUI and questioned the cop's ancestry and sexual orientation.

 

Give the guy a break. He was sloshed.

 

True story.

Friend of mine was drinking one winter night at the Goat with Royko and several other Tribune people. At bar time, Royko was, as one might guess, 11 sheets to the wind, and in no position to drive. In those days, the Tribune people would take turns driving him home, and it was my friend's turn. So he drives to Mike's house, pulls up in front, and Royko barks, "go around back, you dolt! I can't be waking up my wife at this hour!"

Friend drives through the alley, and Royko gets out. He's tottering from side to side a bit, walks halfway through his backyard, then decides he needs to take a piss. Tribune rule was, you pretty much had to walk Royko to his door when he was drunk. Friend doesn't want to just drive away for fear Royko will pass out face down in the snow in his back yard, and my friend will be the guy who killed the greatest columnist in Chicago history. So he gets out of his car and waits. It's a bit uncomfortable and awkward, but whatever.

Out of the darkness, Royko's second wife suddenly appears, hollerin' at the top of her lungs. She procedes to hit my friend over his head with some kind of object.

"Get out of here you fuckin' peppin Tom!" she yells. "You sick bastard. Watching an old man talk piss! Get out of here before I call the police!"

Royko, with nary a look back, had already ducked inside.

 

Wow.

 

A lot of people thought Royko's columns about San Diego before the 1984 play-offs were partly responsbile for the Cubs choke. He basically called the fans a bunch of pussies. When the Cubs went out west for the final three games the fans there were rabid.

 

Well, I guess we've solved it.

No one who was a drunk can make a list of great writers.

I'll be done revising the canon sometime in 2439.

 

He was just as ignorant a few years later with the talk of realignment. Basically he said Chicago was not a "cowboy boot" town, and the Cubs shouldn't be put in the NL West. Too bad for him the schedule was unbalanced, and the Cubs would have ended up with just about the same schedule as they already had.

But the realignment plan was scrapped, and Royko had a few thousand drinks.

 

Hemingway's drunkeness really took away from his writing too.

 

Again comparing a columnist to one of the great modern writers.

Apples, meet oranges. Oranges, here are some apples.