Janet Reno
I think I like her! By now almost everybody has heard of Janet Reno's appearance on the Jan. 20 edition of Saturday Night Live. She popped though a "brick" wall to confront her impersonator who was doing a farewell version of the Janet Reno Dance Party. She gave him the once over—"I like your dress." ( Of course hers was identical. ) When asked what she does to relax, Reno said, "Dance," whereupon the whole ensemble, led by the two Janet's, boogied.
In a pre-inauguration week interview, Reno was asked what she would do once she gave the required resignation to the incoming President. She told reporters she would take a week to go kayaking, alone. Then she was going to get into her red pick-up truck and drive across the country for an unspecified amount of time. I like that idea—first get away from everybody—out of Washington, somewhere to breathe clean ( hopefully ) air. Then get in those wheels and see the country you have been working for, and get in touch with the real people out there away from the good ol' networks in the artificially insular la-la land that is political D.C. If anyone short of Chelsea deserves a break from the spotlight it is Reno. She has had it uphill with her peers and the press ever since she took her oath of office.
Travel and hometown
They say that travel "broadens" one. For me, it is always interesting and sometimes exciting, but in the end, I return loving Chicago more. There is a cosmopolitanism and honesty about this often corrupt and podunk town that engenders love and loyalty. It really is "home" to second generation bohunk's like me. Chicago is built on a gritty reality that a bunch of local writers from Henry Blake Fuller and Gwendolyn Brooks to Algren and Edna Ferber knew well, each in a different way. Sam Steward and Jon-Henri Damski knew queers street-side. Valerie Taylor, Willa Cather and Margaret Anderson had a take on the working class and the artistic lesbian. A city on the make and on the take—all hands fishing around in the melting pot for their share of the gold.
There was a joke going around during the election vote-count fracas that even in Chicago when you vote twice, you at least do it for the same candidate. We have an air of honest dishonesty. We know that a vein of corruption runs under the veneer of Washington, D.C.—the more money there is to throw around, the deeper the cut. In Chicago, the same is true—Mike Royko said it best, when he said that old Mayor Daley was basically an upright man on religion and family, but his philosophy about dipping in the political money bags ( graft ) was "Don't get caught." No Chicagoan who has been able to read a paper since Truman was in office can pretend that they aren't aware of the convictions of elected officials, cops, and go-betweens. The Chicagoans that "got caught" often have gone beyond our city, holding positions from Governors and Judges to U.S. Congressmen. The tip of the iceberg. But what makes out hearts still open to the rascals and the raffish? This is a town were Rostenskowski could get a position as TV political commentator long before his Presidential pardon. I remember watching him tell John Calloway, the only reason he was convicted was in essence because they changed the unwritten rules on money in Washington. If Jesse Jackson was going to get forgiveness anywhere, it was here at home. We are big on forgiving sinners in Chicago, because we know human fraility and its big brother move in our midst. Maybe it has something to do with the Irish-Catholic heritage wedded to Baptist sensibilities. Man was created a sinner, confess and be forgiven.
The Patronage Polka
The queer bar sub-culture in Chicago, breeding ground for community activists, was built on a system of kickbacks for everything from liquor licenses to building inspections.
The 1970s saw the conviction of 23 cops for demanding payoffs from our bars. Leg-men for elected officials still make thinly veiled visits for campaign contributions to bars and businesses. You want service, you gotta pay for it in some way.
Chicagoans, especially queer Chicagoans, know a thing or two about the selective enforcement of laws. Maybe that's why there is less tolerance for the nomination of Dubya's choice for Attorney General here than other places. Chicagoans know that for the powers that be, there are many ways around a law—and, many ways to change it if it "don't quite fit" the morality of the moment. Those of us of a certain age have seen it all here; we have a healthy skepticism for any politicians that promise to be impartial trustees of the public good.
Copyright 2001 by Marie J. Kuda. e-mail: kudoschgo@aol.com
