FireBlade Book Review: Mike Royko’s Opinions

Review by Jerry Stratton, 5/28/2001

“Let us be proud,” Nixon said, “of those who sacrificed, who gave their lives that the people of Vietnam might live in freedom.”
Why kid ourselves? They didn’t die for anyone’s freedom. They died because we made a mistake. And we can’t justify it with slogans and phrases from other times.
It was a war that made the sixties the most terrible decade in our history. It tore us internally. It left many with a lust for revolution, and others with a lust for repression. It saw young people crossing borders or going to prison rather than fighting.
If we insist on looking for something of value in this war, then maybe it is this:
Maybe we finally have the painful knowledge that we can never again believe everything our leaders tell us. Maybe the next time somebody says that our young men must fight and die somewhere, we will not take their word that it is for a worthy cause.

Mike Royko would have been almost gonzo if he’d been more Libertarian. Certainly, he was growing that way before he died, especially with his views on drugs and modifying his stand against gun control.

“Sez Who? Sez Me” covers the Nixon years, and through Jimmy Carter into Ronald Reagan. But Royko covers a lot more than politics; life in Chicago is itself gonzo. Royko is as much Chicago as Bill Daley, Lex Luthor to Daley’s corrupt, gutsy Superman.

Much of his writing takes place in a place called “The Billy Goat Tavern”, a special quasi-real, partially imagined place underneath Wacker drive in downtown Chicago. The Billy Goat Tavern remains proud of its association with the columnist. But from restaurants to bars to the strange inefficiencies of local, state, and national politicians, Mike Royko always has something to hang his typewriter on.

“Sez Who? Sez Me” is where I first heard of Chicago novelist Nelson Algren. It took me about ten years to get around to reading any Algren books, but it was still Mike Royko who set me up for it. Algren wrote “The Man with the Golden Arm” (which I strongly recommend), set in the “slums of Chicago”, specifically the Division Street area.

Slum? I was offended. That was no slum. That was my neighborhood. Curious, I went ahead and read the book, and I was stunned. It was the first time I had read a novel that was set in a place I knew. And Algren had captured it. He had the people, the sounds, the alleys, the streets.

If I appreciate Royko for nothing else, I appreciate introducing me to one of the best novelists of the twentieth century.

“Like I Was Sayin’” covers the switch from the The Daily News to The Sun-Times. Highlights include the loss of his friend John Belushi--And Belushi playing a “Royko-like” character in “Continental Divide”--and the Nelson Algren Street fiasco.

When a reporter called and asked him his opinion on a high school banning his book about Mayor Daley, he replied that:

I feel fortunate that a book of mine, that has absolutely no sex, and only a few quotations containing swear words, should have a chance to be banned anywhere.

The reporter still didn’t understand. “Why do you want it banned? Don’t you want people to read it?”

Of course I do. That’s why I want it banned. There’s nothing that can stimulate interest in a book as quickly as when somebody tries to ban it.

Now I know how the one hundred-year-old man felt when he was hit with a paternity suit. “I didn’t do it, but I’ll be downright proud to plead guilty.”

I think my favorite Royko editorial is in “Like I was sayin’...” where he wrote a follow-up editorial to his annual Cub quiz and the joke question about forties Cub shortstop Lennie Merullo--and Lennie Merullo contacted him and sent him a photo. Look for it toward the end, “Punch Line for Lennie”.

The original collections are no longer in print, but there are two new books that collect some of his editorials, “One More Time” and “For the Love of Mike”.

Recommendation: Possible Purchase

Buy One More Time: The Best of Mike Royko at Amazon!
Buy For the Love of Mike: More of the Best of Mike Royko at Amazon!
Buy Sez Who? Sez Me at Amazon!
Buy Like I Was Sayin’... at Amazon!
Buy Slats Grobnik and Some Other Friends at Amazon!
Buy Dr. Kookie, You’re Right! at Amazon!
Search for more items by Mike Royko

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Jerry

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