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One More Time: The Best of Mike Royko

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Mike Royko was the best American newspaper columnist ever. Like Johnny Carson did for late night television, Royko DEFINED what it means to be a columnist. Even if you do not reside in Chicago, your heart cannot help but be moved by the columns in which he tried to help the little people against whatever force (bureaucratic, criminal or otherwise) that was trying to trample them. Sometimes humorous, sometimes disdainful, but always full of life, a Royko column was always a treasure. His loss is much lamented and this book is a fitting tribute.

I have been a fan of Mike's for 25 years. When he died I felt I had lost a friend. I said to my husband that I hoped that Mrs. Royko or someone would publish a book such as this one. The story of closing the summer house I read shortly after it was written and hoped that it would be included. I still can't read it without crying.

Baltimore had its sage in H.L. Mencken. San Francisco had Herb Caen. Chicago surely owes a debt of gratitude to the late, great Mike Royko for his faithful reproductions of the comical tragedians - or is it tragic comedians? - who trod the stage of the City Hall and Cook County Courthouse. To laugh or not to laugh, that was always the Hamlet-like question that begged an answer at the end of every column Royko wrote.

Royko won a Pulitzer Prize for his portrayal of the larger-than-life Mayor Daley after years of study. "Boss" was his doctoral dissertation following a decade of undergraduate work turning in blue book after blue book of the myriad shenanigans overseen or overlooked by Daley.

Like the guy whose newly-renovated home was demolished by the city who had the wrong address. Or the old lady who was threatened by an alderman for feeding pigeons in the dead of winter which was against the city code, although her real offense was going against The Code, namely, the fact that her voting card was stamped "Republican."

Although Royko wore a white collar on the job, you knew he always had a blue collar underneath. His column was often the only obstacle that stood between the little guy and the impersonal Machine that threatened his well-being, job, reputation, property, even pets: "For every honest, inoffensive, harmless citizen, there is a bureaucrat waiting to goof him up."

His lunch-bucket instincts extended to all facets of life. He detested yuppies, building inspectors, fern bars, self-important people who use cell phones in the movie theater and ward heelers. He also disdained celebrity worship, Bob Dylan in particular, and movies "that have unhappy endings or movies in which the villain wins, or movies in which the hero whines, or movies in which the hero isn't a hero, but a helpless wimp. If I want to become depressed, why should I spend three dollars at the movies. I can go to work, instead."

I started reading Mike Royko's columns as reprints in Reader's Digest. I was immediately taken by his comapssion, logic, humor, and most of all common sense. He had the gift of getting straight to the heart of a problem, and of saying what's right. His gift was the insightful column. His satire never (or rarely) bit. He is missed...

This book is a treat for Royko fans, and anybody curious about life in Chicago. Our city's greatest columnist, Mike Royko (1933-97) could be funny, bitter, sentimental, and self-deprecating, all in the same column. His use of alter ego Slats Grobnik was masterful. In plain English, Royko took on smug politicians, lazy bureaucrats, hypocrites, crooks and status seekers. He sympathized with underdogs, minorities and tavern patrons. Oddly, Royko favored the rich-yuppie Cubs, but ignored the luckless, blue-collar White Sox. The columns on Jackie Robinson (did Royko really catch that ball?) and the old farmer in Wisconsin are here, but they missed the one about Ben Wilson's death. Sadly, this volume contains a mere 110 of Royko's 7,000+ columns. We could use another, thicker edition.

This is a book I'll go back to over and over. Everytime I need a lift, I pull it off the shelf and read through a couple of columns. Royko could be abrasive--most people either loved him or hated him. There was no neutral ground. He never backed down from an argument . He attacked pretension and phoniness like a pit bull. For anyone who has ever felt beaten down and stepped on by bureaucracy or red tape, pick up this book. Mike was on your side.

The pieces that moved me most in this collection were the two columns he wrote on the death of John Belushi and the piece he wrote after the death of his wife. If the latter piece doesn't move you, your heart has turned to stone.

What amazes me about Royko is that his writing was able to penetrate the consciousness of three generations of readers. Studs Terkel, the classic old-time Chicogoan and a very accomplished writer in his own right, writes the forward to this book. Terkel has looked at Royko as the standard by which all writers from Chicago have measured themselves for the past thirty years. Nobody captured the spirit of the city in which he lived more than Royko, Terkel explains. Although Terkel is roughly fifteen years older than Royko, he clearly has looked up to him. Conversely, any newspaper reader who was no younger than eighteen when Royko died would proclaim him the best thing in the paper at the time. That's a span of over sixty years. While Royko aged, all Chicagoans with journalistic aspirations continued to hold him as the unattainable ideal. His articles, which he wrote EVERY DAY, were always dead on. That includes his final one, wherein he tackles the myth that the Chicago Cubs' perennial woefullness was the result of a hex put on them by an old Greek and his billy goat. Royko's musings are memorably preserved in this collection. Whether it was his beloved Cubs, the downtrodden and voiceless, our governments' ineptitude, from the well-dressed, fast-talking, slicksters in Washington to the well-fed, oily-skinned, greedy alderman in Chicago, Royko had the ability, more than any other observer in his day, to capture the the poignancy of everyday, twentieth-century life. Many great writers have borne their craft in Chicago. When it comes to bringing their city to life, however, three stand out as the ones who span this century. In the first third of the century, it was a poet, Carl Sandburg. In the second part, it was a novelist, Nelson Algren. Royko, a newspaper columnist, takes the last part, hands down. If you've never been to Chicago, this book will tell you all you need to know about the past thirty-five years here. Nobody covered it better than Mike.

Mike Royko WAS Chicago. His column in three of the city's newspapers was truly the world's window to Chicago as well as Chicago's window to the front sidewalk. He chronicalized the best -- and the worst -- our city had to offer.

Mike's gone now, but his work lives. "One More Time" reads like a compendium of a Chicago that was and perhaps still is. The editors who selected the columns for this anthology of Mike's work did a fantastic job not just of capturing his ability, charm and style, but also capturing the mood of a city and a nation.

His farewell column to Mayor Daley the first was one for the ages. People from, say, Westchester County, NY, can read this column and understand why we Chicagoans elected Mayor Daley six times. And, thinking about it, why Richie keeps getting elected.

Other wonders included his "God" column from the 1980s, talking about how much we earthlings "loved" and "respected" God, his "Birth of Jesus in Chicago" column and his final column on the Cubs and why they're perenial losers. Also, don't miss the Jackie Robinson column for one of the most incredible discussions of how people learned to be one -- even if for a small time.

Mike, if only you were here now! You'd love writing about Richie, George Ryan, Enron and God knows how many other Chicago and National fobiles. We miss you, but this book makes it easier to enjoy and remember what we had.

Mike Royko at his best. Learn more about him from intros to each section. Excellent with only 1 drawback: too hard to put down.

I had always followed Mike's column in the newspaper and this compilation of some of his articles lifted my spirits and made me laugh. Mike Royko, wherever you are, you will always be my hero. Mr. Royko ranks up there with another great satirist, Mark Twain. He is to Chicago what Mark Twain was to the Missippi region. Like Twain, he had the gift of aiming the spotlight on bigotry, petty self-righteousness, stupidity, greed, and a host of other of the human animal's less attractive attributes in such a way as to make many of us roll with laughter and really think. I am afraid that there will not be another one like him. The nineteenth century had Twain. The twentieth century had Mike Royko. Where in this present century will we find someone who can speak for the little person so persuasively and as fearlessly as he did? Or to stand up to the "system" as doggedly and with so much humor?