If you’re looking at the number of Covid-19 cases increasing daily (50,000 at latest count) and you’re pining away for your annual Fourth of July family get-together, I stumbled across something that might just help.

Remember Hot Doug Sohn – the affable and amiable proprietor of Hot Doug’s in Chicago, with his wild boar and pate and elk sausage hot dogs and his scrumptious duck fat fries? He’s back! Well, kind of. He’s on the big screen (well, on whatever size TV screen you have) in “Hot Doug: The Movie.”

These days, the real experience has been gone for six years, and the movie theaters are closed, so we must work with what we have left. Instead of a fireworks display, get a box of sparklers.

But if you’re thinking of grilling up some quality dogs with your significant other or kids or whatever close-knit home arrangement you have with someone this weekend, or even if you’re flying solo these days, you could do worse than relive the great social experience that a visit to Hot Doug’s was.

What you will be taken with right away is the social connections that happened there. There he is, Hot Doug himself, behind the counter, joking with his customers with the incredible ease of a buddy, which is what he was to his legion of followers. Somebody sidles up shyly and asks to shake his hand – he offers it up tentatively with a joke and a big laugh, and then gives her a bear hug, all while keeping the orders expedited.

To be in line felt like you were awaiting a book signing by a celebrated author, and once you got to the counter, you were pleased to see that Hot Doug was such a nice guy – a real down-to-earth mensch with an easy laugh and a jocular manner. You have arrived – and you would soon experience the best encased meat you’ve ever had.

Calling his creations hot dogs never seemed appropriate. That’s why he was never in the running for Golden Weenie, our annual prize awarded to the best Chicago Style Hot Dog in the city.

Apart from the Chicago Dog (which was outstanding), there was the Sal Tessio Italian Sausage, the Anna Kendrick (self-explanatory), the Ale and Chipotle Buffalo Sausage with Smokey Bacon Sauce and Sage Derby Cheese, the Spinach and Feta-Stuffed Pork Loukaniko with Artichoke Raita, Kalamata Olives and Feta Cheese, the Foie Gras and Sauternes Duck Sausage with Truffle Aioli, Foie Gras Mousse and Fleur de Sel, and the  Ribeye Steak Sausage with Horseradish Cream, Maple-Smoked Cheddar Cheese and Crispy Fried Onions (which I can also vouch for).

Tat Gallery

It all sounds pretty frou-frou, and I was a skeptic before I was invited there once by Hot-C. First time out, I got the Chicago Style Dog. No judgment from Hot Doug, other than perhaps a remark from him about being a straight-up, no-frills kind of guy, and his apology to Hot-C for that. I liked him immediately. Everybody did. Seeing him in the movie was a treat.

You’ll see a collection of devotees paying homage to Hot Doug, his wife, expressing disbelief in people waiting five hours in line for a hot dog, folks with Hot Doug tattoos (for a gallery, here is a previous blog), and his employees, many of whom were with him for more than a decade in some cases, and who decided to stay until the end, which came about on a chilly October day.

In these times, on this holiday, crack open a cold one or six, get some decent sausages, order up the movie, (free on Amazon Prime) and hope for better days when we can all hang out together again.

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CPS students demanding police free schools. Courtesy of CopsOutCPS.com

In 2007, when I started teaching at TEAM Englewood High School, a student told me about how his house was broken into. I asked if the police had any leads, he said the police hadn’t come, even though they called them yesterday. I heard more stories from my students about issues with the police. I also noticed that police were stationed in the school building and wondered about how my students felt.

During my time at TEAM Englewood I watched as a school that was adequately funded at the start and had a 90% college acceptance rate be defunded to the point of being closed.

Schools in Chicago have been purposefully defunded for so long that school communities have become desperate for any help, so we let the police into our schools. This choice caused the school to prison pipeline. It is pure and simple, backed by a plethora of research and confirmed by the pleas of students who have been organizing to get police free schools for years. 

A child with trauma doesn’t get the ability to work daily with a therapist, they get police. We have 4 crisis counselors for over 350,000 students, but 144 cops in schools.

Problems with police in schools:

• Negatively impacts students academic success 
• Students with special needs are 3x’s more likely to be arrested 
• Latinx students are 6x’s more likely to be arrested 
• Even though Black students make up 40% of CPS student population they accounted for 60% of arrests

Every time CPD has been proven to harm Chicagoans on the street or in school, the city responds with ‘let’s reform police’. Instead of ‘let’s try investing in our communities or schools’. Chicago is spending $1.6 Billion on police. $33 million to police our students in schools. We have reformed CPD for generations. 

People argue that police are good role models for our students, but you know who is a good role model? Black educators. Chicago, through school closings and discriminatory hiring practices, removed thousands of Black educators. You want role models? Hire Black educators, and yes they are out there.

People argue that police keep us safe from school shooters. Fear clouds facts. Police in schools don’t prevent school shooters. 

People say police keep students and teachers safe in “tough” schools. Why do tough schools exist? Because kids attending schools that are under-resourced and that come from communities that have been defunded don’t have supports in place to help them. The toughest kids I have worked with all wanted support and to be successful. They just didn’t have what they should’ve had. That $33 million contract comes out to $90,000 a day. We can do things differently. We could provide our schools with conflict resolution specialists and therapists. Resources to actually help our children which will then help our city. 

Saving our students lives requires a disinvestment in policing and a reallocation of funds into communities and schools.  I implore you to not let your fear and anecdotes erase facts, research, and the voices of our students. As a city, we can and must do better for our students. Police should not be in schools. Cancel the CPD-CPS contract and invest that $33 million into the betterment of our students’ lives. Invest in our children.

CopsOutCPS.com

*This post was a 3 minute statement I made to the Chicago City Council Committee on Education and Public Safety about removing police from Chicago Public Schools. For more information about this topic check out CopsOutCPS.com 

My boyhood TV hero died this week. You probably think I am talking about Carl Reiner, who passed away June 29th. After all, Reiner created The Dick Van Dyke Show, one of my favorite TV shows of all time. But as a pre-school kid, I just knew the faces in front of the camera, and Mr. Reiner’s portrayal of Alan Bradie, funny as it was, was just a small part of the show. He wasn’t even as important as always dumped on Mel Coolie. And I could only watch the show once a week; no binge-watching back then. So Reiner didn’t really make much of an impression on me in the early 1960s.

No, the man  I watched on TV day in and day out, the man this young kid aspired to be when I grew up, wasn’t an actor or a writer, and certainly no comedian.  My hero was Hugh Downs, who died July 1st at age 99.

If you know the name and if you remember him at all, it is probably for his stints as host of Today or possibly 20/20, ABC’s news magazine answer to 60 Minutes. In a New York Times obituary discussing his career, one can learn a lot about his time on those two shows, as well as his years as the announcer and second banana to Jack Paar on Paar’s iteration of The Tonight Show.

But you must read way down to the 16th paragraph of the article to find a brief one-sentence mention of the  11 years Downs spent as host of the TV game show Concentration. But for me, that was Hugh Downs. That is where I met him every morning.

It was a simple game, call out some numbers, match some prizes, solve a simple rebus puzzle, and go home a winner. No need to know trivia, or how much a week’s supply of Alpo dog food cost, or what a survey said. It was the perfect show for a five-year-old with a good memory and an innate ability to solve word puzzles. It would be the launching pad for my life of TV game-show appearances (It’s Academic and Jeopardy!, the Family Feud near-miss) and Password games with friends that are as bitterly fought as a Bears-Packers game in the Halas days. And Mr. Downs was the perfect low-key host. He never got in the way of the game

So Hugh, while I salute all the other great TV work you did, when I write my book Concentration will never have to wait until paragraph 16! I’ll put it right there at the top.

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Half a lifetime ago I attended a workshop that had me sign a contract not to drink or take drugs during the length of the event.

At the dinner break, my friends who were lapping up the frozen margaritas, passed a glass for their suddenly sober pal to taste. “What’s with you,” they teased, this is delicious.”

“I gave my word I wouldn’t drink,” I stuttered.

“Yeah, but who’s going to know?” was the logic.

I had the glass up to my lips when the answer hit me, “Me”! Duh, I would know!

It was a tiny step in the direction of integrity. And despite tripping and falling time and time again, I look back at that event as the turning point in my life, the discovery that everything needed for a life of joy and meaning is found within, in the redeeming truth of “I would know.”

I would know right from wrong; I would know what was principled and what was unjust. And the choice was mine. I was not powerless, neither a victim nor a dupe. I would choose the path, making adult decisions freed from biased childhood conditioning predetermined by genetics and molded by environment.

It was not an overnight epiphany that suddenly opened my eyes. It took time to convert missteps to steppingstones. But when I realized that my integrity is the one thing I own that nobody can take away, it led me to forge a life that followed my own script, not parental or societal demands. (“My son the lawyer” was the guiding ambition for many a boyhood friend!)

I came to question the importance of striving on the gerbil wheel of wealth and power. I became grateful for the blessing of good health and the ability to earn a decent living. I admit I still scan the real estate pages for the house on the hill but I’m not envious. While I do not have all that I want, for sure, I want what I have!

I hear a lot of older men complain about no longer “being in the game.” I know what they are saying and feeling: instead of running things and making big business decisions they’re having trouble walking and deciding on Ginger tea or the decaffeinated Chamomile. They’re stuck on their perceived loss of influence and affluence.

I say, play a new game! Pen your own mid-life rewrite. I say that with a tinge of regret for I have spent too many days venerating old photo albums that were not true pictures of the past. Right now, this very moment, is our most precious commodity and it is not guaranteed. The phrase, “buy some time,” is a euphemism; it is not for sale.

It took a lot of personal work, regular attendance at weekly Co-Dependent Anonymous meetings (highly recommended) and buckets of tears, but finally I recognized that heartache is not a medical condition. And I exited the loop of nostalgia that kept me circling an illusion.

I can’t write enough about what I’m calling “personal integrity.” Behind all the gloss, bluster, grandiosity, fear, bravado, cowardness, glibness, stubbornness… deep within and then some, is the core of who we are; the inner space where we find the redeeming truth of “I would know.”

This is the space to go to when the big decisions in your life wait to be made. You must be brave. No choice in one direction is without pull from another. Even as you open your heart to embracing the rapture of life, you cannot close your eyes to its unalterable transience. Accepting this reality is the gift and the millstone of growing older.

“Murphy’s Law” was one of the first punk songs I was compelled to like.

The other was “Sheena Is A Punk Rocker.” These days I might prefer “Rockaway Beach,” but then again there’s always a new Ramones song to discover. Anyway, both were brought to my attention by a childhood friend, Walter Oleksijew.

Wally was the first guy to skate, smoke, and listen to punk rock. He was probably the first guy to do a lot of other things too. But, he was bold, funny, and magnetic. Maybe enigmatic is the correct word? Regardless, he made you laugh, and feel comfortable in your own skin.

Wally brought me into the world of punk rock and roll. First with the Ramones in 5th grade, then with Murphy’s Law in 10th. I never really took to the dress code, but I loved the aesthetic. I also loved writing original music. These bands captured the zeitgeist, I wanted to encapsulate.

First off, who writes a theme song about their band? Murphy’s Law, that’s who! I mean, it’s badass. Almost as badass as writing a song about a teenage lobotomy, but let us not get sidetracked.

On their self-titled, Profile Records, release, Jimmy G doesn’t ask you to “Put your hands in the air,” but instead tells the listener, “We don’t care what you say/We’re gonna mosh it up today.” If you want to join in, cool. If not, we are going to mosh, drink beer, and have fun.

It has one verse and three choruses, with a lead guitar mixed in at the bridge. It made me want to have sex with women, and drink beer. Better yet, “Murphy’s Law,” made me want to punch a hole in the world. It made me feel alive.

I know there were other punk songs I liked, but this song, and this album, broke new ground for me. It got me away from The Smiths, and LL Cool J for a moment. It showed me a new side of rock music, a side that didn’t take itself so serious.

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