Studs (Terkel) puts the key human issues on our radar like no one else can (MEGA-BARFER)

Chicago Sun-Times ^ | August 30, 2004 | LAURA WASHINGTON

[Chi-townChief]

"I'm a bone that fits every stew."

-- from The Dew Breaker,

by Edwidge Danticat

Louis ''Studs'' Terkel rails about the bloodshed of war, blasts George W. Bush for cynically double-dealing on Iraq, agonizes over the plight of displaced public housing residents, wonders where all the jobs have gone.

Yes, Studs is mad at the world. This world-renowned nonagenarian knows better than anyone that there's much to be angry about. Still, much must be right with the world, because Studs is in it.

That was my grateful reflection as I hung up the phone the other day after checking up on Studs. He gave his friends a scare last month when he took a tumble in his Uptown home.

His son Dan reports that he's on the mend.

Indeed, Studs is fit for every stew. And he's an alchemist. This prolific author turns our ordinary lives and foibles into gold. Death and Dying. Working. Race. Hard Times. Coming of Age. His oeuvre is everyday life writ large. Studs has the remarkable knack of putting the key human issues on the public's radar as no one else can.

The proteges of this Pulitzer Prize winner are legion, and I'm lucky to be one of them. Barbara Ehrenreich, Alex Kotlowitz, Tony Fitzpatrick, Michael Moore -- just to get you started. His influence on the American left is unparalleled.

But the best part is that he belongs to Chicago. Kotlowitz, author of the best-seller There are No Children Here, says it best. ''He's an American treasure. Even better yet, he's our American treasure.''

Studs is the quintessential practitioner of joie de vivre. He insists on his beloved martini at every social occasion; his cigars are a lifelong mainstay.

He rambles about town by hitching rides with friends and the CTA, making himself so accessible to so many. He vows he'll never retire. In his trademark red socks and red-checked shirt, he still makes the rounds around town, raising gravelly voiced toasts, stumping for candidates, debating history.

But how do you capture the essence of Studs?

He carries an infinite number of titles. Author, journalist, historian, actor, disc jockey, activist. He has been called the ultimate listener, master interviewer, icon and institution.

Yet even en masse, those labels don't fully define him.

One thing is sure: It is the regular folk who inspire him most. He once quipped to the New York Times: ''Sir Francis Drake conquered the Spanish Armada.'' He added: ''Those who shed those other tears are what history should be about. Who built the pyramids? Mrs. Pharaoh's fingernails were as manicured as Elizabeth Taylor's. Thousands of people built them. What are their stories?''

For me, Studs is defined by the stories -- not the ones he tells, but the ones he makes.

It was an evening in 1983. I was drudging my way through the dirty clothes at the neighborhood laundromat in Lincoln Park. During the spin cycle I ducked into Glascott's bar for a glass of wine. Studs was there, and we struck up some talk with the other bar patrons. The laundry was forgotten.

Talk turned to politics, and the incendiary mayoral contest between Harold Washington and Bernie Epton. A gaggle of lakefront yuppies were on one side of the argument; Studs and I were on the other.

It was ferocious and went long into the night. Harold Washington is a felon, and unqualified to be mayor, they charged. The Epton campaign was a cynical racist smear, we retorted.

We closed the place up and most departed for home. But Studs and I would have the last word. We gleefully pranced down Halsted Street, pulling down the Epton posters along the way. We had done our duty for Harold.

Studs was 71 then. I've been a devoted fan ever since. Studs Terkel has taught us all that when you stand for something, you have to take a stand. He's still standing.

Send me your Studs stories. It'll make for a spicy stew.

mailto:lauraswashington@aol.com

[Chi-townChief]

Whenever I hear Terkel's name, the phrase I immediately associate with it is "The World's Biggest Phony."

[Big Guy and Rusty 99]

I know very little of him except that he is a comrade.

[Temple Drake]

I used to work for Studs ... this was 15 years ago and more. He appeared to wear the same outfit every day -- a blazer and a checked shirt. Looked like a "worker". In reality, his wife Ida (whom he cheated on with astonishing regularity, rumor had it) would purchase him a large new batch of top-quality checked cotton shirts at Lands' End every year. He used to go drinking with various handlers, make appearances at union shindigs, etc. ... When he was faced with a live microphone, Studs came to life and performed. When the mike was off, Studs was just a confused old man, babbling Wobbly slogans...

[laconic]

He's an old phony who lives in a mansion and spews pieties about the poor in public housing. A real nasty old lefty who has amassed millions from the fools who buy his books about "working" people.

[LibWhacker]

Sheesh! . . . That old fossil's still alive? Thought he died in the last century.

I swear these leftists have sold their souls to the devil. They never die.

[Chi-townChief]

That would be great as one of the Studs stories that Ms. Washington is looking for!!

[Temple Drake]

she would not like my stories ... there are more, and they are not pretty...

[Chi-townChief]

So much the better.

[Big Guy and Rusty 99]

Wouldn't the fact that he is a rich man stand out tot the workers of the world?

Tell me more, I am facinated by this gilded red.

[Capriole]

I can't believe he's not dead yet. But if he were, how could we tell?

Studs is a former bartender who is much taken with his own wit. So, for that matter, are Chicago's left-liberal intelligentsia, who took him up as a sort of pet, to demonstrate how egalitarian they were. He is a tiresome old communist whose pretentions are made worse because he has been told for fifty years that he is a genius, and heartily believes it.

[Temple Drake]

those "books" are not actually written -- he simply approaches people he thinks will say what he wants said, lays a cassette deck in front of them and records whatever they say. He hires people to transcribe these tapes. Probably his publisher produces some poorly-compensated editor to turn the resulting tapes into a "book". He does no writing as far as I know.

[cookcounty]

Studs Terkel: An older, gentler Michael Moore. Though, unlike Moore the Chee-Toe loving Manatee, he did hold a blue-collar job for more than one day.

[laconic]

He's the guy Dan Rather was going to interview for 60 Minutes when he got into a fare dispute with a Chicago cabbie and the cabbie wouldn't let him out of the cab until he paid. Comical sight of the cab driving around Chicago with Rather beating on the windows yelling to be let out. Rather apparently thought he was taking the taxi to one of the modest housing areas of the city closer to Midway Airport and was shocked when the cabbie drove miles further and told him "Studs" lived in a mansion on Chicago's Gold Coast.

[Inyokern]

But Studs and I would have the last word. We gleefully pranced down Halsted Street, pulling down the Epton posters along the way. We had done our duty for Harold.

To Democrats, this is perfectly acceptable behavior. She BRAGS in a newspaper about tearing down Republican posters. It was her DUTY.

[laconic]

He reminds me of Ansel Adams who campaigned against any residential building on the Big Sur. Interesting that Ansel Adams himself lived in a Big house on the Big Sur but that, of course, was merely an inconvenient fact. Its the "First Among Equals" approach to leftism. Similar to John Denver wailing about the nonexistant energy crisis and gas guzzlers after having secretly installed a 10,000 gallon underground gas tank on his Aspen ranch. Or Barbra "Dishpan Hands" Streisand suggesting that the middle class save energy by using clothes lines instead of gas driers.

[Temple Drake]

that's nothing. He used to have a secretary who lateer "wrote" a book like her idol Studs) who was a white girl. She used to go around saying "I HATE white people!" thus earning her street cred with with local comintern.

[jackbill]

Yes, Studs is mad at the world.

Apparently a typo. The sentence should have read: "Yes, Studs is mad."

[ArcLight]

Never mind his politics. I love old Studs. He really is a great guy, a superb journalist and an American treasure.

[Temple Drake]

he is a crazy old man who loves getting free drinks ... where's the treasure in that?

[concentric circles]

I love Studs. I can hear his voice now, gravelly, animated, anxious to make a point or get to the punch line of some old story rushing to escape while it still relates to the moment.

His interests are varied and his knowledge, encyclopedic. He did great interviews because he took the time to learn about his subject.

I always disliked his politics but at least he came by his beliefs honestly. His communist sympathies dated to the days before communists revealed themselves to be blood thirsty tyrants. Wobblies were always deluded idealists but at least their idealism possessed a democratic streak unlike the leftists of today.