Karl Klockars

I don’t know why we’re supposed to talk like Shakespeare today.  I don’t know who to assign this faux-hip pirate-wannabe day of celebrating the Bard, but I’m pretty sure the idea didn’t spring fully formed from our Mayor’s mind.

It could very well be that in addition to selling everything that isn’t bolted down (and some, literally, that is – I’m looking at you, parking meters), he wants to giggle down from his 5th floor office at all of us goofballs saying “thee” and “thou” and “forsooth” and so on.

Just in case you missed it, Mayor Daley decided today would be a good time to kick Talk Like Shakespeare Day into gear.  It’s supposed to be a celebration of William Shakespeare’s birthday – although no one really knows when the hell he was actually born.  But why let facts get in the way of a good PR opportunity?

It’s something close to his 445th birthday – let’s hear it for completely arbitrary choices of numbers!  Unfortunately, most Chicago students aren’t literate enough to participate in a “talk like an intelligent human being” day, let alone speaking like Shakespeare.

So rather than poke around with MacBeth all afternoon to get into a bard-like mood, I’d like to suggest an alternative Speak Like A ____ Day.  Why not celebrate a more recent, more timely, and much heralded (and recently deceased) true Chicago icon, great Chicago writer and seemingly eternal Chicago representative Studs Terkel?

Say it with me:  Speak Like Studs! Or, Talk Like Terkel!

Who wants to wander about and drop the “forsooth” and the “verily” and bite their thumbs?  Like hell, sir!  I want to stand on a soapbox in Bughouse Square and preach to anyone who will listen!  I want to talk about Division Street and Working and Studs’ Place and red checked shirts!

Who needs some English guy who was born almost half a millennium ago, when you’ve got lines like this:

“I want a language that speaks the truth.“

And:

“I hope for peace and sanity – it’s the same thing.“

And my favorite:

“Take it easy, but take it.”

Maybe there’s no Speak Like Studs day because he also said stuff like this:

“Chicago is not the most corrupt American city. It’s the most theatrically corrupt.”

Not exactly something you could see a Daley getting behind – but then, there’s no Chicago Terkel Society that’s being run by the city to spend more city PR budget on, now is there?  Now, granted, Studs didn’t write “A Midsummernight’s Dream,” but then, Shakespeare didn’t write “Working.”

Plus, you can’t YouTube the Bard – well, his plays, sure, but not the guy himself.  Studs is all over it.  When it comes to technological access to either, I vote Studs.

Is it necessary to celebrate 400 year old plays, when they’re mandatory reading in every high school freshman english class just about everywhere?  Why are kids reading Romeo and Juliet when they can watch the Baz Luhrmann version? Accurate enough for government work, right?  And if the kids need some sort of easing into Terkel’s oral-history style of writing, just put a copy of the Studs-styled World War Z in front of them.  Anything about Zombies is certain to get the high-school male’s mind working in ways you’d like to aim them towards.

I’ve even got a timepeg for you.  It was spring of 1974 that Working was released.  I don’t know the date, but it was 35 years ago, which fits the “random multiple of decades or half-decades” mode of anniversary remembrance the city has set forth by today’s Bard Day.  Have I convinced you yet?

Look, I’m not trying to disrespect Shakespeare or anything.  I’m sure he was a great guy, and that movie they made a few years ago where Gwyneth Paltrow walked around naked was great, I’m sure.  Sorry I missed it.  But we’re sitting on a lot of great “talk like” material here, that’s not almost 500 years old.

Put on a pork pie hat.  Smoke a cigar.  Have a glass of the spirits of your choice.  Go talk to someone about social justice in a gravelly voice, filled with an incredible amount of humility and love for humanity.  Think about Chicago in the 40s and 50s and how it’s changed over the decades, and think about Studs being there for all of it.  Think about living history, and not long-dead literature, great though it may be.