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Dedicated to the One I Love: The Irv Kupcinet Bridge

January 11th, 2008 by Scott Marks

This Reporter, Harold Washington and Irv & Essee

How do you do, ladies and gentlemen. I’d like to say good evening as Kup’s World begins tonight with a remembrance of bridges past. The date: June Five, 1986. The occasion: The dedication of This Reporter’s bridge. And I don’t mean the one that Dr. Morris Fineman, DDS implanted free of charge in exchange for repeat mentions in this column.

You know, you gotta’ love Windy City weather. It’s June Five, the start of summer, everyone is wearing outer coats and the sky has that lovely dirty-milk bottle gray hue. HEH! HEH! It’s no wonder that some choose to live in San Diego.

In spite of the bl-ustery, bl-ueless, bl-ackened sky the sun was shining in the hearts of both myself and this reporter’s lovely bride, Essee whose name I mention in the column in exchange for a little hand release every third Sunday morning of the month.

You know, so many people have…had, I should say, been walking all over me for decades it just seemed right to name a bridge in my honor. So many dignitaries were in attendance. Of course there was the Polish Prince, Roman ‘Pooch’ Pucinski. Yes sir, you can’t fool me, I’m for Pucinski, to borrow from his old campaign jingle. I gotta’ tell ya’ when the two of us stand facing each other in profile it looks like a couple of Buicks about to collide. Nya-Ha! Unfortunately, his lovely wife…daughter, err pardon me, Areola was not in attendance. She was at home with five other family members shaking the stove in order to make popcorn.

It goes without saying, I’d like to add, that WGM-Radio’s Wally Phillips was on hand with microphone in hand and dishrag on head. His makes my rug look like George Chakiris. And to think he married that same Barbara gal so many times and she never told him.

Unfortunately my dear friend Sig Sakowicz was unable to attend. While running late he accidentally tripped over his left breast and had to be rushed to Our Lady of Blazonyczik Mercy Hospital in Libertyville. Maybe it’s a good thing. The last time Sig and Burton Natarus were in the same room together the alderman tried fitting him with a horse diaper.

Another bl-ow was that I failed to get a good picture taken with my kind of town’s favorite idiot movie savant, Scott Markus. There were so many topics that I wanted to cover with him, most notably Eisenstein’s employment of dia-lec-tical montage and the use of signs and signifiers in the films of Jean Marie Straub.

Sadly, this is the only photographic representation that exists of our meeting. Look at that lousy picture. It would have been better with the lens cap on. I’ve seen sharper compositions in Kevin Smith films. Scott was gracious enough to bring a copy of Kup’s Chicago, my tome to the city I call home, for me to inscribe. Looking on is Chicago’s first bl-ack mayor, the honorable Harold Washington, who, underneath his business suit, was wearing a lovely Seymour Paisan designer original.

I remember at the precise moment of signing Essee leaning over and whispering in my ear, “It’s K-U-P-C-I-N-E-T.” We shook hands and Scott burst out laughing when I tickled the inside of his palm with my middle finger. Always a sure-fife yuk-getter. As for a posed picture together, some things are never meant to be. After the crowd dispersed, I just looked around for Scott and like Abraham, Lincoln and Marovitz, he was gone.

Here is a link to more photos of the dedication taken by Devon Avenue’s premier portraiture, Mlodinoff Studios whose services were offered gratis in exchange for this mention.

And good night to one and all!

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