Horny for My Creativity: Honoring Gilda

If it wasn't for the downside, having cancer would be the best thing and everyone would want it.

Here's a test. Who said that?

Gilda Radner. She also said the thing that I'm using in this post's title. If you don't know that quote, well, who are you? Look it up.

If you are of a certain age, you might know who Gilda Radner was. She was that skinny, bushy-haired lady who was more freaking hilarious than anyone else in SNL's heyday. She died when she was only 42 of ovarian cancer. In her honor, this organization called Gilda's Club was born; it provided support services for cancer survivors. She talked openly about the difficult aspects of cancer, such as impacts on sexuality, at a time when many cancer patients were hiding their bald heads in shame inside their homes, afraid that people would "know." Gilda's Clubs exist all over the country. And now, there are a handful of them that are changing their names because young people don't know who Gilda Radner was, because she, you know, had the audacity to DIE before they were even born, and of course the number one thing that cancer centers need to be is "relevant" for the youth. Under this new plan, all of the clubs will eventually change to an extremely boring "Cancer Support Community" moniker.

This is such an overwhelming load of bullshit.

I will say little more about the cancer aspect of this tragic name change. First, let me just put out there that I don't think Susan Komen is a well-known historical figure, and there's a damn large cancer organization named after HER. But no matter. Let me mention that cancer is not supposed to be "on trend" and that people who run these institutions should realize that if someone who was born after Gilda Radner died has cancer, that person is crazy young to have cancer and has bigger problems than not knowing who the namesake is outside his support group's building.

But I've got an even bigger beef here. What does this mean, that we as adults who have some sense of history need to get all worked up over the idea that "kids today" will think we're lame? Are we going to start renaming all the streets and towns and schools all across the U.S. Clinton, Bush, and Obama, just so we don't fall into the Dead Presidents trap?

Names are important. Naming can be a meaningful, even a spiritual, act. Have you ever read N. Scott Momaday's The Names? No, of course not. Well, you should. If only so you could spend your days wishing you could meet someone who actually spoke like this, until one day you had the opportunity to do so when he was speaking at the Planetarium in Chicago during some eclipse, and you were offered one of your all-time favorite Chicago memories: "The names at first are those of animals and of birds, of objects that have one definition in the eye, another in the hand, of forms and features on the rim of the world, or of sounds that carry on the bright wind and in the void. They are old and original in the mind, like the beat of rain on the river, and intrinsic in the native tongue, failing even as those who bear them turn once in the memory, go on, and are gone forever."

And that's what I'm going to talk about here--names, and Chicago. I have to believe that Chicago's Gilda's Club will always remain such, even though that looks really unlikely. It would be great if we could be the lone holdout here. We are very proud of our Second City comedic culture, and I don't see us agreeing to dis Gilda when so many people, male and female, who grew up here still remember their mad crushes on the woman. But there's also the simple fact that we LOVE our names in Chicago.

Now in New York, maybe you're cool with saying you're going somewhere that's at first and ninth, or however New Yorkers talk. Pretty much anyone with a map could figure out what you mean. But here? Please. We have one of the most logical, well-planned grid systems in the country and maybe the world. And then we went all Chicago-style on it, and NAMED everything, making it impossible for the uninitiated to traverse.

So when I talk about where I grew up, I say Austin and Madison. The west side of the city has sub-neighborhoods with nicknames like K-town, neighborhoods that are almost entirely black today but filled with streets with random white ethnic names like Karlov, Kolin, Keeler, Kostner, Kilpatrick. Who the hell are those dudes? Does anyone know? It's doubtful. We also have this fairly obnoxious tradition here of giving "honorary street names" to just about everyone and his brother. They are these little brown signs that are attached to the regular green street signs, and they usually represent single blocks. Sometimes you see these names and you just wonder, really? Was that just somebody's uncle who always sat on the bench over there or what?

But that is part of what makes Chicago awesome. We are serious about our names. There are all kinds of people who will look at you blankly if you ask where Macy's is. Some people will refuse to answer out of stubbornness or hostility. If you don't know what I'm talking about, well, then you're not from here. And my kids don't even bother to call it the Sears Tower because they still call it the "Serious Tower."

We have this complicated highway system, right? But do we talk about 90/94, 290, etc., like every single other place on earth? Hell no! We drive down the Edens, the Kennedy, the Dan Ryan, and we don't drive on the Eisenhower because it's actually just the "Ike." And you know what? I actually know who all those people are. Over time when I was a child, I asked my parents, and they told me. And I know my dead Presidents and my Polish war heroes and my esteemed black authors as well.

We are attached to names in this town. I remember when they decided to change the El lines to color names. I'm sure the Millennials out there only know the red, blue, green, brown, and orange lines (and now the pink line--worst color for a train line, and there's that yellow line that runs for like a block in the north suburbs). But me? I still sometimes call the trains the Howard, Dan Ryan, Congress, Douglass, Lake, Midway, or Ravenswood.

When I was in grade school, the local middle school was Hawthorne. By the time I went into 7th grade, it had been changed to Percy Julian. I remember this, because there was a lot of conversation about it, and here was why the name was changed: We lived in a very diverse community and people thought there were too many schools named after white people. So the name was changed, and a bunch of kids learned about a black scientist they might not have heard of before who was a pioneer in using plants such as soy for medical advancements. He's often known as the guy who invented peanut butter, but that's not actually true. He did, however, at one point say this: "I have had one goal in my life, that of playing some role in making life a little easier for the persons who come after me."

See what happens when you name things after people who have been forgotten? Kids might actually, you know, learn to remember them.

After all, who gets to decide who's relevant? Does death put you in the irrelevant category? Is there some kind of "canon" of people who get to have shit named after them? Personally, I'm glad that I live in a place that has schools with names like Brooks, Chavez, Payton, Robinson, and Washington (not George, but Harold). I like how some of the more random names force us to learn something we didn't know before--like who the hell "Lou" Jones is. I ride the Rock Island line, a commuter rail that brings me from the far south side of the city to within a block of my office downtown. A few years ago, they finally built a station by Comiskey (OK, here's one instance where I admit that the new name can be apt, because that place really is "The Cell"). This station is called 35th Street/"Lou" Jones. The automated voice sounds hilarious saying this. Now, who is this Lou dude?

It's not a dude at all. Lovana Jones was a state senator serving the south side of Chicago for almost 20 years. She was known for her grass-roots political style and her work with poor children. She died in 2006 and they decided to name this station after her in 2009. I didn't know anything about her until then. She sounds like a pretty neat lady. I'm sure she would have gotten a kick out of hearing the voice coo "LOOOOOOOOO Jones" every time some kid got off the train to get to class at IIT.

And so, because I like names and honoring them and the people who built the legacy behind them, I hope that Chicago has the good sense to keep its Gilda's Club for as long as it possibly can. When she died, I remember people nodding wisely and saying "oh well you know she SMOKED," as everyone seems to like to blame women for their own cancer deaths, even though the SNL cast at that time might have collectively had the worst personal habits on the planet and yet, you know, they are almost all STILL ALIVE (John Belushi obviously being a major exception). Now we know that she most likely had a genetic predisposition to cancer (BRCA gene) and that if this was well-understood at the time, she might have lived. I remember the conversation around the circumstances of her death only a very little bit, however. What I remember very well was this:

There was this really skinny Jewish lady with hairy armpits and enormous bushy hair who was able to literally bring you to your knees with how freaking funny she was, and even the people she was famous for making fun of actually loved her for it, and eventually sent condolences to her family signed "Baba Wawa."

It was that lady who built the legacy that became Gilda's Club, and we should remember her for it. We should use this, actually, as an opportunity to tell those kids who are terrified when they walk through the Club door because they don't know whether they will live or what will happen or what it will be like, that having cancer does not mean that you are not still that person you were before your diagnosis. Once there was this lady who was hilarious and insightful and everyone loved her, and she had cancer, and no, she didn't make it, which isn't fair but is a reality that you need to learn to live with, and she said this:


I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity.