County Bored: When Commissioner Ted Lechowicz produces the Cook County Board map Thursday, activist blacks and suburban Repubs will be racing each other to court. Blacks say there aren’t enough minority districts. GOPers are screaming about such touches as putting Olympia Fields in a black district.
Either Orr: County Clerk David Orr still is mulling whether to run for County Board president or mayor. One indication of the way he’s leaning was a town meeting he held Tuesday night on how Chicago schools should be financed, a subject usually not in the job description for county clerk. The meeting was at the tony Fourth Presbyterian Church on North Michigan Avenue, which led one participant to note: “It was a little north of where the problem is.”
School Daze: Word is Repub legislative leaders urged on by Jim Edgar will move to pass something (anything) this week to get the school mess out of their yard and back into the teachers union’s playground.
Willie’s World: Conventional Wisdom gave President Clinton good reviews for his proposal to reinvent government (whatever that means). But a couple of papers often critical of the prez said that it isn’t government that’s being reinvented. It’s Bill Clinton.
Hooray for Hollywood Sincerity 101: One of the UCLA extension courses offered for fall is “Acting for the Person in Business,” which promises, among other things, to teach the student to “create enjoyable and lasting relationships-enhanced through the techniques of acting.”
Talk show talk
The new theme music for “Jenny Jones” was written by a former musician who has gone into another line of work: Jenny Jones. . . . Is it too early to remind Chevy Chase of his boast back in June that he would be “funnier than Letterman”? P.S. Bad reviews aside, Chase actually held his own against the competition on his first night out, edging Dave, Jay and Ted nationally. Here, however, he got beat in his first half hour by local news on Channels 2, 5 and 7, and in the second half hour by “Nightline” (with a show about Notre Dame’s football problems) on ABC and “Roseanne” reruns on Channel 50. . . . Chase’s show not only was panned by critics, but The Hotline political newswire couldn’t find anything to put in its daily “laughs” section which features even bad jokes from Jay Leno and David Letterman.
Stage stuff
Straw Dog Theatre just got Studs Terkel’s approval to proceed on a stage version of his latest book, “Race,” which will be presented during Black History Month in February. . . . Pegasus Players will present “Beggar’s Holiday,” Duke Ellington’s only complete score for a book musical, with a brand new book by Dale “Man of La Mancha” Wasserman next April. The show ran for 111 performances on Broadway in 1947. The original book by John Latouche, whose lyrics the new show will retain, is widely regarded as confusing.
Polpourri: Pressure’s building on Kirk Dillard, Edgar’s chief of staff, to give up his job and replace state Sen. Tom McCracken who’s on his way to the RTA. . . . Al Hofeld, the millionaire lawyer running for attorney general, called campaign aide Gary Strell to express sympathy over his father’s death and then fired him for charging too much. Strell was Neil Hartigan’s Downstate coordinator in 1990. . . . Former Florida congressman Andy Ireland can draw on his experience in his new job. He’s vice president of government relations for Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.
INC.lings
Thursday birthdays: Angela Cartwright, 41; Michael Keaton, 42; Billy Preston, 47; Cliff Robertson, 68; Topol, 58; Tom Wopat, 41; WXRT’s Frank E. Lee, 40. . . . Watch for chemistry Saturday when Dan Ruettiger is interviewed before the Michigan-Notre Dame football telecast on ABC-TV. Ruettiger, the motivational speaker and former Notre Dame football player whose life story is the basis of the movie “Rudy,” will be interviewed by sports commentator Mary Ann Grabovy. The two were college sweethearts back in South Bend, where the movie will have its Oct. 6 premiere.
