– Looking for votes in all the wrong places? Downtown-bound 10th Warders boarded the CTA`s Number 14 Jeffery Boulevard bus Monday morning and got handed something other than just transfers. The driver was passing out campaign brochures on behalf of Glenn Dawson, who`s running for state representative and 10th Ward Democratic committeeman. And no one appreciated the effort: Dawson told INC. he doesn`t know the driver, and the driver`s bosses at the CTA weren`t too pleased when they heard the story.
– What do you do if you`re a judge running in the Democratic primary for a Cook County Circuit Court vacancy and neither your political party nor the bar groups have endorsed you? Associate Judge John J. O`Toole seems to have hatched a novel idea. When unneeded jurors were dismissed from his Daley Center courtroom on Tuesday, a bailiff handed them ”Elect Judge O`Toole”
brochures along with their pay envelopes. And to think that the Chicago Council of Lawyers once said O`Toole ”lacked the temperament and judicial ability to qualify” for the bench.
CITY DITTIES . . .
– Mayor Gene Sawyer had to cancel his Saturday get-together on the South Side where black and Hispanic leaders were invited to unite behind Jesse Jackson`s presidential bid. Sawyer might be enthusiastic about Jackson, but he`s not tuned into campaign info. The campaign already had invited most of the leaders on Sawyer`s list to their own Saturday meeting on the West Side.
– INC. hears Robert Threatte, commissioner of the city Department of General Services, resigned Thursday. And no one was saying he`d be missed.
– And no one at the city`s Department of Inspectional Services misses former Commissioner Raleigh Mathis, who was replaced last October by Maurice Parrish. But Mathis is still there, working as a consultant and driving a city car. And he might be around a lot longer.
THE MAIL ROOM . . .
Some aldermen-those who opposed Sawyer`s election as mayor-found it curious that they never received their invitations to Friday`s rededication of the Near West Side Social Security Center as the Harold Washington Center. The name change was put through by U.S. Rep. Gus Savage (D., Chicago)-no friend of Sawyer or Sawyer-backers. Invites to all 50 aldermen were all sent to City Hall by the federal General Services Administration. But only some-the ones for Ald. Dorothy Tillman (3d), Ald. Tim Evans (4th) and other Evans backers-got ”lost” in the City Hall mailroom. Imagine.
GRAMMY SIGHTS AND SOUNDS . . .
– Sights: A CBS-TV cameraman with a bizarre sense of humor provided some yucks for press corps members who watched Wednesday`s telecast on monitors that didn`t play the ad spots seen by TV viewers. Instead of commercials, he treated the press to closeups of the legs of whatever female happened to be on camera at the time. And if Whitney Houston could have seen a monitor when he zoomed in
on her, she`d have sat in a more ladylike fashion. . . . One of the Fat Boys
(now there`s a darned special bunch of kids) was wearing a jacket made of the same Louis Vuitton material used for purses and luggage. . . . When did Lou Reed start looking like Joe Piscopo?
– Sounds: New York Mayor Ed Koch is so hip. He said he was tickled to be seated next to one of his favorite performers: ”Cindy Laufer.”. . . Al Schlesinger, chairman of the Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, made a public-but personal-plea during his pre-telecast remarks to those in Radio City Music Hall. He asked Michael Jackson`s manager, Frank Dileo for two tickets to Michael`s sold-out Thursday night show at Madison Square Garden. . . . Jackie Mason tied with Belinda Carlisle for worst hair color.
– Stuff: When Garrison Keillor, who did not attend the big show, was asked by a colleague Wednesday morning if he thought he`d win a Grammy he said, ”I hope so. I`m counting on it.” And his savvy 19-year-old son, Jason, who accepted the award for him, took advantage of the press exposure to hype a New York appearance by his rock band. . . . Best country vocal performance winner Randy Travis has a small role as a bartender in ”Young Guns,” a movie now filming that stars Emilio Estevez, Charlie Sheen and Kiefer Sutherland.
INC.LINGS . . .
Lyric Opera`s Ardis Krainik was approached about succeeding Terrence A. McEwen as general director of the San Francisco Opera, but says she`s staying in Chicago. . . . Friday birthdays: Paula Prentiss, 49; Barbara McNair, 49;
Eleanor ”Sis” Daley, 81; Tim Weigel, 41, Mary Wilson, 44. Saturday birthdays: Andy Gibb, 30; Rex Harrison, 80; WLUP`s Scott Dirks, 30; and WCLR`s Dr. Phil Duncan, 39.
