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Rhea and Rava — Petraits Rescueon April 7, 2020 at 4:17 pm

Pets in need of homes

Rhea and Rava — Petraits Rescue

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Chicago Real Estate Market Update: March Contracts Fell Off A Cliffon April 7, 2020 at 4:27 pm

Getting Real

Chicago Real Estate Market Update: March Contracts Fell Off A Cliff

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“Getting roots done is ‘not essential’”–Mayor Lightfooton April 7, 2020 at 5:20 pm

The Barbershop: Dennis Byrne, Proprietor

“Getting roots done is ‘not essential’”–Mayor Lightfoot

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Ten Songs to Quarantine By. Number 1 Is A Natural.on April 7, 2020 at 7:37 pm

Getting More From Les

Ten Songs to Quarantine By. Number 1 Is A Natural.

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Let’s Not Forget April Autism Awareness Month 2020on April 8, 2020 at 1:04 am

Purple Reigns: How to Live a Full Life with Lupus

Let’s Not Forget April Autism Awareness Month 2020

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Why Is This Night/Sunday Different From All Other Nights?on April 8, 2020 at 3:40 am

Grateful Girl

Why Is This Night/Sunday Different From All Other Nights?

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Chicago firefighter dies of ‘complications of COVID-19,’ fire officials sayon April 8, 2020 at 2:44 am

A Chicago firefighter died Tuesday evening after a battle with the coronavirus, according to a Chicago Fire Department spokesman.

“CFD has lost one of our own to complications of COVID-19. Firefighter Mario Araujo, a proud member of CFD Truck Company 25 passed away this evening,” department spokesman Larry Langford tweeted Tuesday.

Araujo, 49, joined the fire department in October 2003 and spent most of his career on Truck 25, which operates out of Engine 102 in Rogers Park on the North Side, Langford said.

“This tragic loss underscores the seriousness that we face as a city and a nation,” Langford said. “CFD members put themselves in harm’s way without hesitation to selflessly uphold the oath they took to be there for every person they encounter during an emergency situation.”

The Cook County medical examiner’s office did not immediately provide details about the death.

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Chicago Blackhawks: Analyzing every No. 1 pick since Patrick Kaneon April 7, 2020 at 3:00 pm

(Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

(Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

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Chicago Blackhawks Patrick Kane

(Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

The Chicago Blackhawks drafted Patrick Kane first overall in 2007, but how have the number one overall picks done against the Hawks since?

The Chicago Blackhawks were a bad hockey team for a long time. Think of the worst ran teams in all of the sports right now, the Cleveland Browns, Ottawa Senators, Miami Marlins, Washington Redskins, etc, that is what the Blackhawks were for a long time. Then they had a little bit of luck when they won the draft lottery in 2007. That bit of luck changed their franchise forever.

They drafted London Knights star Patrick Kane with the first overall pick in the 2007 NHL Draft and it was the best thing the franchise ever did. With Jonathan Toews waiting in the wings from the draft before, they were immediately set up for future success. Well 389 goals and 633 assists for 1022 points later, Kane is probably going to go down as the greatest Blackhawks player who ever lived.

Not every team that has won the lottery since has had the team success that the Blackhawks have had, but they all have pretty much gotten elite players. They might not be quite as good as Kane (with one exception) but they are all pretty much panning out to be above average NHL players (with another exception).

With all of those number one picks since Kane, it is fair to wonder how they have done in their NHL careers but also how they have done against our Blackhawks. Some of them have dominated when they visit the United Center or when the Hawks visit them and some haven’t had such success. These are the 12 men who have been selected since Kane and how they have done against them:

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Chicago Bulls: John Paxson could sacrifice himself for the teamon April 7, 2020 at 7:24 pm

Chicago Bulls (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

Chicago Bulls (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

Many Chicago Bulls fans never thought they would see the day, but John Paxson could finally be on his way out.

I struggle to actually believe what I am writing at the moment, because of all the negativity surrounding the Chicago Bulls over the years. I’ve grown accustomed to disappointment, as I’m sure many other fans have as well.

This offseason (if you can call it that) or, suspension, rather has been full of interesting storylines for the Bulls. Whether or not the regular season ever comes back, Chicago is going to look a lot different at the top of the organization.

The team has used this COVID-19 pandemic to start looking towards the future, and they are officially in the heat of their new basketball executive search. While a couple of notable names have already stepped out of the running, the Bulls are still hopeful to find someone who can come in and be the center of all basketball decision-making.

As we’ve noted recently, this will mean both John Paxson and Gar Forman are no longer going to hold a lot of power — if any. The GarPax era is effectively over.

But, up to this point, all the talk has been about Paxson staying with the organization. He has stated he will do however much or little the team would like him to do as he steps back from his role as VP.

Now, The Chicago Sun-Times has reported that Paxson is taking it a step further.

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“A source told the Sun-Times on Tuesday that not only is Paxson all for stepping aside from his position and acting more as an adviser to the Reinsdorf family when the front-office restructure is finalized, but would completely step down from the organization if the Reinsdorfs and the new-look executive group deemed it better for the rebuild to continue.”

I am stunned by these words — absolutely stunned, but in a good way, of course.

How many fans saw it coming to this? How many fans actually believed that, at some point in their lifetime, they would see Paxson ready to remove himself from the Bulls organization altogether?

On one hand, it’s shocking and somewhat unbelievable. On the other hand, though, it’s a remarkable act of humility on Paxson’s part.

I think it’s safe to say Paxson’s ego has gotten in the way at times, especially with how he’s wanted the new executive to come in with an open mind about head coach Jim Boylen. Paxson has shown firm belief in Boylen, even when everyone else sees how blatantly incompetent he is as a coach.

Paxson has stuck to his guns with Boylen over the last several months, but now, he’s willing to admit he may have been wrong. The fact that he’s willing to take a step back and allow the Bulls organization to move on completely from his services speaks volumes about his character.

It is truly a day I never saw coming, at least not yet. I was fully prepared for a few more years in basketball purgatory, but alas, it looks like the Bulls are ready to turn the page.

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The untold story of Joe Mantegna’s teenage garage bandon April 7, 2020 at 4:15 pm

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Since 2004 Plastic Crimewave (aka Steve Krakow) has used the Secret History of Chicago Music to shine a light on worthy artists with Chicago ties who’ve been forgotten, underrated, or never noticed in the first place.

If you didn’t know that actor Joe Mantegna played in a garage band called the Apocryphals in high school and college, you’re not alone. I had the privilege of getting the story from the man himself, and as far as I’m aware, what you’re about to read is the most detailed account of the group’s history published anywhere.

Mantegna was born in Chicago to Italian immigrants on November 13, 1947, and as a kid he regularly attended his older brother’s accordion recitals. He didn’t initially have much interest in making music himself–he got an earlier start as an actor, playing a dog and a pixie in hospital shows while being treated for rheumatic fever at age eight. Mantegna does remember entertaining his family by doing an impression of popular singer Johnnie Ray, though, specifically his 1951 tune “The Little White Cloud That Cried.”

During Mantegna’s junior year at Morton East High School in Cicero, his English class was assigned a project on British culture. His classmates Art Stout, Ricky Johnson, and Neal Sordelli decided it’d be hilarious to make their project a Beatles tribute band (it was 1963, after all), so they christened themselves the Weasels and donned Beatles wigs. They couldn’t be the Fab Four with only three kids, though, and they needed somebody to play bass and sing. Mantegna could carry a tune but couldn’t play an instrument, so they got him a regular guitar that he learned his way around well enough to get by, sticking to the lowest four strings as though it were a bass. The Weasels were an instant hit, and suddenly started getting invites to play local sock hops and teen dances–which convinced the band there was actually money to be made.

They got encouragement from Mantegna’s mentor and drama teacher at Morton East, Jack Leckel, who also ran the theater departments at Morton West in Berwyn and a nearby junior college. Leckel came up with the name “the Apocryphals” (the band didn’t even know what it meant at first) and helped them buy their first sound equipment. He also suggested they wear frills, pearls, and one glove, but he was a little too far ahead of his time for Chicago. “We just thought of ourselves as a rock ‘n’ roll band, not a glam band,” Mantegna says. “We’re thinking, ‘What, this is nuts!’ But then bands like the Beau Brummels came along and did stuff like that.”

Mantegna got a real bass at a pawn shop, and when Stout and Johnson left the Apocryphals, the band brought aboard drummer Tom Massari and guitarist Chris Montagna. Leckel asked the group to write a song for a school play, so Mantegna and Sordelli came up with “Bernardine”–which in 1965 became the A side of the Apocryphals’ first small-press 45 (Leckel chose the B side, “Gloomy Sunday,” aka “the Hungarian Suicide Song,” made famous in the States by a Billie Holiday cover in ’41).

The band did mostly R&B covers, gigging at north-side clubs such as the Cheetah, the Holiday Ballroom, and My Sister’s Place. They ended up playing with several notable locals, including the Missing Links (three members of which would help form the Chicago Transit Authority in 1968) and a very green Ides of March (whose front man, future superstar Jim “Eye of the Tiger” Peterik, got his first studio experience playing tambourine with the Apocryphals). They eventually secured management with Joe Sugarman, who in the 90s would strike it rich as the creator of BluBlocker sunglasses. In the late 60s he brought the Apocryphals to the Mad label, founded by bar-walking sax honker Tommy Jones, and it released three of the band’s five singles. Sugarman also helped the Apocryphals land opening slots for bigger national acts, among them Paul Revere & the Raiders and Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs. In April 1968, they warmed up for Neil Diamond the night after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.

Mantegna began studies at the Goodman School of Drama at DePaul in 1967, and until ’69 he was able to keep playing in the band. But as soon as he made his professional acting debut–a role in a 1969 production of Hair that required him to do eight shows per week, spread over six days–the writing was on the wall. The rest of the band had been wanting to move in a heavier direction (you can hear hints of it on the psychedelic Sordelli original “Images”), so the Apocryphals called it a day. The other three members added some players and carried on as the horn band Rajah, with Mantegna occasionally filling in on vocals until he got another role in Godspell. Massari, Sordelli, and Mantegna remain friends to this day–and Mantegna is also close with the founders of Chicago he met through the Missing Links. v



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