Punk rock percolates beside Illinois’ better-known musicians

 

Bill Knight column for 5-17, 18 or 19, 2021

 Now showing at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield is “The State of Sound: A World of Music from Illinois.” Described as an “immersive and interactive exhibit,” it continues through January, exhibiting decades of the state’s popular music through displays of instruments, props and costumes from the likes of Earth, Wind & Fire, Benny Goodman, John Prine and scores of others.

Its text was written by music journalist and author Dave Hoekstra, an ex-Chicago Sun-Times writer, and since I’ve known Hoekstra for years, I’m sure his work will be comprehensive. But it’s a challenge.

            After all, consider Illinois’ musical heritage: Blues giants Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Paul Butterfield and Luther Allison; folk artists Steve Goodman and Burl Ives; jazz geniuses Herbie Hancock and Miles Davis; country artists Suzy Bogguss and Alison Krause; pop lineups like the Cryan’ Shames and the Buckinghams; and rock ‘n’ roll!

From Cheap Trick and REO Speedwagon to Tom Morello and Eddie Vedder, rockers range from Styx to the Smashing Pumpkins, with Dan Fogelberg, Mudvayne and Head East from Central Illinois and innumerable acts that never recorded commercially. They understandably may be overlooked despite their activities and scenes, so after enjoying the display, visitors might seek supplements of sorts.

One that’s set to come out in June, “Punks in Peoria: Making A Scene in The American Heartland” from the University of Illinois Press, looks at punk rock’s birth and growth in downstate Illinois where in the 1970s and ’80s it had an economic downturn, with factories closing, workers striking, and uncertainty rising. Like “greasers, hippies and garage rockers,” the book says, “punk rock offered a sense of belonging, a community in opposition to ‘the system’.”

Peoria’s punk scene was “an ever-changing ebb and flow of bands, friends, supporters and hangers-on – constantly turning over, and those who made up the scene were generally unaware of what came before.”

Co-written by Jonathan Wright (Peoria Magazines editor) and Dawson Barrett (author of “The Defiant: Protest Movements in Post-Liberal America”), the illustrated book is a well-reported account of the rise of and changes in punk music, blending overlapping histories with the authors’ cultural commentary. They concede Peoria probably wasn’t unique, but one example of a fever breaking from the Bible Belt/Rust Belt, part of the timeless search for friends and fun.

Although generalized as two camps – “sex-drugs-rock ‘n’ roll” types and “straight-edge” skateboarders – people gathered together at various places for Do It Yourself/underground shows for peers listening to hardcore, indie rock, synth and thrash metal in church basements and barns. There, onstage outrage often spilled outside or into crowds, with mayhem devolving into fights and police.

“It was goth kids, gay kids, punk-rock kids, nerds and dorks … music people,” remembered musician Matt Shane.

Mostly affectionate, the text is sometimes unsparing in its observations. The notorious Bloody F. Mess is “a strong personality,” they write (an understated description of the confrontational character who was more of a performance artist than a talented musician). Bloody takes credit for helping “create the first punk rock scene in Peoria in the early ‘80s,” and now lives in Oregon, where he says he’s adopted Hindu ways.

The 231-page paperback provides revealing context and appreciation, too. Peoria punks defied stereotypes, adopting the once-derogatory term “corn chips” as a sign they were fine with being “different,” and sometimes standing up as Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice (SHARP) and protesting white supremacists,

Ultimately, DIY promoters brought in bigger, better acts, from Naked Raygun to Fugazi, achieving a sense of recognition, if not mainstream “legitimacy.”

In a nod to the Vaudeville-era phrase about Peoria being a tough proving ground for entertainment, the pair continues, “What played in Peoria, in many cases, really could play anywhere.”

And though they’re not in a Hall of Fame, such energetic, scruffy groups merit attention, too.

 

A related “soundtrack” featuring music from Caustic Defiance, Chips Patrol and 12 other acts from the period is available with pre-orders. For details, go to www.punksinpeoria.com.

CEO pay schemes targeted by stockholders, judges, unions

 Bill Knight column for 5-13, 14 or 15, 2021

 GE shareholders last week rejected a $47 million bonus set for CEO Larry Culp after members of the International Union of Electronic, Electrical, Salaried, Machine and Furniture Workers/Communications Workers of America (IUE-CWA) protested at GE’s Boston headquarters.

Culp is the sixth richest American CEO, according to the New York Times, and has steered a company offshoring work and laying off employees.

Also last week, bankruptcy judges for ex-retailer Toys “R” Us started proceedings to put former top executives on trial for millions of dollars in bonuses they took days before the company declared bankruptcy.

Toys “R” Us Chief Executive David Brandon got $2.8 million as part of a deal for top executives, according to the Wall Street Journal, which noted that the trend of execs taking bonuses right before companies go bankrupt – leaving creditors and workers up in the air – has happened with other corporations such as J.C. Penney and Hertz.

Last month, the Teamsters union, which owns about 7,000 shares of McDonald’s, sued 9 of 12 members of the company’s board of directors concerning $56 million in cash, bonuses, stock options and other benefits for McDonald’s ex-CEO Steve Easterbrook.

The size of the “windfall” bonus was only part of the union’s claim, which says the board failed to appropriately investigate Easterbrook’s relationship with a co-worker that violated corporate policy, which resulted in his 2019 termination.

“The board permitted him to walk away with a lavish severance package worth tens of millions of dollars,” the Teamsters allege. “The company simply had no business rewarding an executive who had a known history of flouting company policy with such a massive exit package.”

Instead of firing Easterbrook “for cause” due to the violation – depriving him of his severance – the board discharged him “without cause,” so he could keep the generous package.

Elsewhere, economic accountability seems absent in too many executive suites.

GameStop CEO George Sherman is leaving that embattled corporation July 31 with $169 million in vested stock despite dramatic losses of value this year. In January, stock manipulations inflated its share price to $483 after ending 2020 at $19.

Other corporate chiefs remain at their jobs with lucrative bonuses – some despite dismal financial performances of companies they supposedly lead.

“Many of these CEOs have improved profitability by laying off workers,” said U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who’s proposed new taxes on the ultra-wealthy.

“A tiny handful of people who have shimmied all the way to the top of the greasy pole get all of the rewards, while everyone else gets left behind,” she added.

“Winning for losing” examples:

* Boeing CEO David Calhoun got compensation worth $21.2 million for 2020, when the company lost $12 billion;

* Hilton CEO Chris Nassetta received $55.9 million in compensation when the hotel chain lost $720 million; and

* Norwegian Cruise Line CEO Frank Del Rio was given $36.4 million in pay last year, when Norwegian Cruise lost $4 billion.

Meanwhile, the labor-backed Economic Policy Institute reported that CEO pay continues to skyrocket compared to worker compensation. The gap between executive compensation and average worker pay has been growing for decades, but CEOs of big companies now make, on average, 320 times as much as their typical worker, according to EPI, compared to 61 to 1 in 1989.

From 1978 to 2019, compensation grew 14% for typical workers but rose 1,167% for CEOs.

Such excesses call for more vigilance and action by boards of directors, shareholders and employees.

‘Mary Worth’ and its disputed heritage in the working poor

 

Bill Knight column for 5-10, 11 or 12, 2021

Five years ago this week, cartoonist June Brigman took over the iconic newspaper comic strip “Mary Worth,” continuing a popular feature whose roots some say are tied to a Depression-era strip with a lead character of the same name but much different circumstances.

Brigman is a veteran illustrator, working on comic books including “Supergirl” (DC) and “Power Pack” (Marvel), plus “Star Wars” titles and the “Brenda Starr” strip.

“Mary Worth” syndicator King Features disputes a connection to “Apple Mary,” an oft-forgotten strip by Martha Orr about a plucky woman hit hard by economic misfortune, making ends meet by selling apples on the street, and dispensing advice.

“ ‘Mary Worth’ is not a continuation of the Depression Era favorite ‘Apple Mary’,” the company says. “The strip was created as a replacement. The only thing the new title character had in common with her predecessor was a first name.”

Actually, the strips share several things: her last name, a late husband with the same name who worked on Wall Street, a past in New York City, and even a subtitle to “Apple Mary” – “Mary Worth’s Family.”

What they don’t share is a lead character struggling with poverty.

Today’s Mary is a “60-something” Ohio native, college graduate, ex-teacher and widow of Jack” Worth, a Wall Street whiz who left her a comfortable income. She once lived in New York but now resides in a condo in Santa Royale, Calif., where she volunteers at the local hospital and advises friends and colleagues.

The original Mary was an elderly widow who sold apples on the street to get by and humbly offering advice to others.

Debuting in 1934, “Apple Mary” became a popular feature, offering hope in trying times. Orr was one of the first women comic-strip artists, and “Apple Mary” was credited as the first “soap opera” strip.

Also an early strip to use current events in its plots, its inspiration came from newspaperman Damon Runyon’s short story “Madame la Gimp” – which also inspired the character Apple Annie in the films “Lady for A Day” and “Pocketful of Miracles.”

“Comic strips like ‘Little Orphan Annie,’ ‘Annie Rooney’ and ‘Apple Mary’ (later ‘Mary Worth’) described the plight of the dispossessed middle classes, who moved from security, even affluence, to poverty,” wrote Barry D. Karl in “The Uneasy State: The United States from 1915 to 1945.”

Apple Mary’s late husband was a tycoon whose death left her penniless, with a crippled grandson, but she persevered.

“The series met with instant success in the bleak 1930’s but, as the United States was slowly getting out of the Depression, the worthy but indigent Mary became more and more irrelevant,” wrote Maurine Horn in “The World Encyclopedia of Comics.”

In 1938, Orr – whose uncle was Pulitzer Prize-winning Chicago Tribune editorial cartoonist Carey Orr – quit the strip, which was taken over by writer Allen Saunders and Orr’s assistant, artist Dale Conner (together credited as Dale Allen). Saunders in the “The Journal of Popular Culture” and other sources said he added the subtitle “Mary Worth’s Family” and by 1942 its title was “Mary Worth,” still written by Saunders.

Saunders said he was given the strip and developed it to accommodate women newspaper readers. A veteran of other continuity strips he termed “open-ended novels” (“Steve Roper & Mike Nomad,” “Kerry Drake”), Saunders said he revised the character by restoring her family fortune and moving Mary from a New York tenement to Santa Royale, Calif.

Whether or not “Mary Worth” emerged from “Apple Mary,” the first strip at least lay the foundation. The current Mary continued to dispense advice after Saunders retired in 1979, with several writers and artists working on the strip. Today, Karen Moy writes the strip (available at comicskingdom.com if your local paper doesn’t carry the strip.)

“Apple Mary” soothed troubled readers needing an escape from the uncertainty of the 1930s and ’40s, and it showed continuity comic strips with domestic instead of action themes could succeed. More recent stories have addressed social issues, such as juvenile delinquency, unwed motherhood, drug addiction, alcoholism, concerns about the elderly and the generation gap.

However, it’s regrettable that apparent discomfort with a poverty-stricken protagonist sacrificed the sense that the less-fortunate an be wise, decent models, too.