🏀 Remembering Hall of Famer Bill Walton

Plus: Chicago's longest-running alt theater festival. [View this email in your browser]( [READER Logo]( Daily Reader | May 28, 2024 As you might imagine, the death of Bill Walton unleashed a flood of memories for me—a baby boomer who’s been loving basketball since forever. Back in the day, Walton was one of my favorites. He was a 6’11” center, nimble and graceful on his feet. Which is ironic given that eventually his feet gave out on him, causing him much pain and prematurely ending what undoubtedly would have been a stupendous NBA career. As it was, Walton was one of the all-time greatest college players and a MVP in his abbreviated time in the big leagues. Just thinking about Bill Walton takes me back in time to 1973. Alone on the couch in my parents’ house, watching [Walton and UCLA]( annihilate Memphis State in a college championship game. He scored 44 points, hitting 21 of 22 shots. He was putting on such a fantastical display that I felt compelled to bring in another witness to watch. So I called out to the only person nearby . . . “Ma! Come here. You gotta watch Walton!” “Ma” being my ever-patient mother, who had probably never heard of Bill Walton until that moment. And who, I’m sure, instantly forgot about him as soon as that moment passed. Another Walton memory comes from 1977, when he and the Portland Trail Blazers defeated Norm Van Lier and my beloved Bulls in a fantabulous playoff series. Losing that series broke my heart. And yet . . . One day, years later, I was killing time in the public library in downtown Los Angeles. Just wandering through the stacks when I came upon a book about Walton.  I plucked it from the shelf and found the part about that series with the Bulls. Turns out that after the close-out game, Van Lier and Walton retreated to a house in the mountains of Oregon and got high. Obviously, Norm got over the sting of the loss pretty fast. As well he should—after all, it’s only a game, and life goes on. And truth be told—I kinda wish I was hanging out with them. After his basketball career, Walton became a TV color commentator—one of the funniest and most spontaneous TV orators ever. Which is remarkable, given that for most of his young life he was a stutterer and overcame that condition through relentless practice. He was famous for going on extended riffs that had little to do with the game, including [one sent to me]( by Mick Dumke, who shares my love for Walton. It came in the middle of an otherwise forgettable college game, when Walton drifted away on a long and winding tangent about Bob Dylan. While the game was still very much going on, of course. Walton wound up paying homage to Shadows in the Night, an album in which Dylan sings songs made famous by Frank Sinatra, including “That Lucky Old Sun,” which includes a line Walton liked so much that he quoted it twice . . . Show me that river, take me across, wash all my troubles away / Like that lucky old sun, give me nothing to do, but roll around heaven all day Curiously enough, I was thinking of Walton just the other night while watching a playoff game between Dallas and Minnesota. The Dallas center Dereck Lively II was effortlessly racing up the court and I thought—man, he reminds me of a young Bill Walton. That night I went to bed thinking of Walton in his prime scoring 44 against Memphis. The next day I learned Walton had died. At age 71. Cancer. RIP Bill Walton—you were as lucky as the sun. [Logo with text: The Ben Joravsky Show. Features man wearing a cap and headphones, and Chicago flag stars.]( 🎙 [Listen to The Ben Joravsky Show]( 🎙 ◈ [So Much Blue]( by Percival Everett. Every novel by Everett is better than the next. This 2017 classic, clearly inspired by Kafka, is about secrets. ◈ [Emma Oxnevad]( on Back to Black. ◈ Ben Joravsky (from 1994) on [Norm Van Lier](. ◈ Filmmaker [Steve James]( on his Bill Walton movie. ◈ Sun-Times columnist [Rummana Hussain]( on Ronnie and Rossana. ◈ Alderman [Gil Villegas]( on City Hall. [two actresses on stage in a performance]( [Rhino Fest offers theatrical symbiosis]( Chicago’s longest-running alternative theater festival spreads out over six venues and neighborhoods; Erin Kilmurray’s the Function returns to East Garfield Park. by [Kerry Reid]( | [Read more]( → [City kids on the move]( Last Stop on Market Street with Young People’s Theatre of Chicago hits the high notes. by [Marissa Oberlander]( | [Read more]( → [Review: Backspot]( Backspot puts queer women of color at the center of the sports film. by [Noah Berlatsky]( | [Read more]( → [Review: Flipside]( Flipside is a warm and discursive documentary. by [Leor Galil]( | [Read more]( → Want to be the first to know all the bands coming to Chicago? 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