Saturday, March 22, 2008 9:27 AM
Spring is in the air (snow in the Midwest notwithstanding). Which means Opening Day is getting closer by the minute. With that in mind, Chicago-based author, lawyer and Blawg guest blogger Randy Richardson is taking a break from his normal Saturday Book Highlighter to share this friendly heads up for any and all Chicago Cubs fans gearing up for another season of believing...
******
On Wednesday, April 9, 7:30, I'll step up to the plate to read from my personal Cubs love-hate essay, "Of Fairy Tales and Felix Pie," and I invite you to join me and our rag-tag ensemble that we call The Lovable Losers Literary Revue.
Our home base is the back room of El Jardin Restaurant, 3335 N. Clark St., three blocks south of Wrigley Field.
The Lovable Losers Literary Revue, a hootenanny of Chicago writers, musicians, filmmakers, actors and bums, will celebrate and mourn the Cubs’ long losing streak monthly, all Cubs season long. Each evening will begin with a toast and end with a prayer, and in between there will be literary readings, historical reenactments, trivia contests, singing, sacrifices and general rooting.
We’ll dredge up all those old memories: Lee Elia’s tirade, Steve Goodman’s A Dying Cubs Fan’s Last Request, Franklin Pierce Adams’ Baseball’s Sad Lexicon, as well as a smattering of disgusted Harry Caray commentary. We’ll laugh at some. We’ll cry at others. And then we’ll laugh at all the criers.
A cross between Dean Martin’s Celebrity Roast (with the Cubs as the roastee) and Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me, The Lovable Losers Literary Revue will explore the relationship we all have to our team.
Our opening celebration evening's lineup: Featured guest Dave Hoekstra, Sun-Times writer extraordinaire, leading a Cubs prayer; Donald G. Evans, batting leadoff, with an opening toast; Dummy belting out a punk rendition of "Hey, Hey Holy Mackerel;" Randy Richardson (yep, little ol' me) stepping up to the plate to read his essay "Of Fairy Tales and Felix Pie;" and Heather Haneman and some of her drag queen friends guest conducting "Take Me Out to the Ballgame." We'll be throwing Cubs trivia at you, too, with some prizes for the Ws.
Join us while the Cubs play the Pirates at PNC Park. (6:05 p.m. start). Sneaking peaks allowed. We will update the game throughout the reading.
For the complete schedule and much more, visit our website at Lovable Losers Literary Revue. Tune in Sunday, April 6, to WGN radio for Rick Kogan's "Sunday Papers" program (6:30 - 9 a.m.) when Lovable Losers emcee Don Evans is scheduled to talk about the our literary series.
To whet your appetite, here's a spring training excerpt of the essay I'll be reading:
It is April and the wind is blowing in from Lake Michigan, and my teeth are chattering and my toes are popsicles, and I’m sitting in section 400 in Wrigley Field's upper deck. I’m wearing a crisp off-white One Size Fits All, the maroon red C stitched into an unblemished white felt circle. The brim is pre-bent, the button on top bright red and tightly sewn.
This is not rational; it’s delusional. I’m ignoring one hundred years of overwhelming, irrefutable evidence and somehow reached the illogical conclusion that this is the year, that next year is finally here. We are a fraternity of fans unlike any other, bound not by winning, but by losing. We are the ultimate hopeless romantics, believing in fairy tales and Felix Pie. We are the die-hards.
It’s the bottom of the ninth. There are two outs, the Cubs are down 3-2 to the Cards with runners on third and second and first base open. Daryle Ward, one of baseball’s premier pinch hitters, is on deck. Cards’ ace closer Jason Isringhausen is on the mound. Felix Pie, the Cubs’ can’t miss prospect, is in the batter’s box with a full count. I, a long-suffering Cubs fan, know what’s coming. It’s inevitable. I see it before it happens, but there’s nothing I can do to stop it from happening.
“Don’t swing, Pie,” I murmur to myself. “Please don’t swing.” Now I pray to the baseball lords. One of these days they have to hear me, right?
Isringhausen winds up and unleashes a blazing fastball high and inside. Swish. The ump gives the signal to make it official. Strike three.
“He just swung at ball four,” I mutter to the ether. “He swung at friggin’ ball four.”
An over-served, over-exuberant Cards' fan jumps in the air and 16 ounces of Bud Light rains down. On top of my Cubs hat.
************************************************************************************
Randy Richardson is an author, humorist, former journalist, and a lawyer. His fiction debut, Lost in the Ivy, a murder mystery set against the backdrop of Chicago's storied Wrigley Field, won the Writers Marketing Association's “Fresh Voices” Book Award and the Illinois Woman's Press Association's Mate E. Palmer Communications Contest. He writes the Dad Libs column for SanityCentral.com and is a frequent contributor to Chicago Parent magazine. In his day job, he is an attorney for the Social Security Administration’s disability appeals branch. At night and during lunch breaks, he serves as president of the Chicago Writers Association (chicagowrites.org) and works on his second novel while a 4-year-old tugs on his legs. Visit his website at www.lostintheivy.com.
***********************************************************************************