Leven plays John Connor’s friend Riley on Fox’s “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles“.

Role matures for Obama adviser

Democratic candidate like ‘older brother’ to fellow Chicagoan who works as Washington go-between for presidential campaign

By Mike Dorning and Christi Parsons

Washington Bureau

August 10, 2008

WASHINGTON — As a young paralegal looking for career advice, Mike Strautmanis certainly knocked on the right door.

Michelle Robinson, a promising associate at the same Chicago Loop law firm, Sidley Austin, proved to be a good friend and attentive mentor. And so did her future husband, Barack Obama, who has done plenty well managing his own career.

Strautmanis, now 39 and a senior counsel to Obama’s presidential campaign, has emerged as a member of a circle of Chicagoans positioned in influential roles on the Illinois senator’s team.

He may not have as lengthy a political resume as chief strategist David Axelrod, a longtime Chicago-based political consultant who had achieved a national reputation before the Obama campaign, or senior adviser Valerie Jarrett, a former deputy chief of staff to Mayor Richard Daley and city department head who has moved among Chicago’s business and political elite for years.

But Strautmanis, a genial political diplomat with an easy manner and a ready smile, has a connection with the candidate that stretches back as far as nearly anyone involved in the operation.

“Mike and I are good, good friends,” said Obama, 47. “It predates me being involved in politics or him being involved in politics. I’m older than him so I serve an older-brother role … . I hope he feels I’ve been there for him, and he’s certainly been a very loyal and terrifically helpful colleague.”

That history has been an asset for someone who, in Obama’s U.S. Senate office, served as an ambassador of sorts in the capital to key Democratic constituencies, such as African-American leaders, unions and other liberal interest groups.

D.C. liaison

He now plays a similar role as a liaison between the campaign and members of Congress, other political leaders and groups—basically, anyone in Washington who needs to talk to a top-level campaign adviser but can’t get to Chicago.

“One of the roles I’ve always wound up playing is being a translator, telling people, ‘Yes, he has a different approach. He’s serious about change. This is what it means.’ And my relationship with him gives credibility to that,” said Strautmanis, breakfasting on an egg-white omelet one recent morning at the outdoor patio of the Four Seasons Hotel in Washington’s fashionable Georgetown neighborhood.

He knows where Obama is coming from, in part because he’s traveled some of the same distance.

Like Obama, Strautmanis grew up an African-American child in a predominantly white world, connected to the immigrant experience through his father and admitted early to the corridors of privilege through financial aid at a prestigious local prep school.

In Strautmanis’ case that was the Uptown neighborhood on Chicago’s North Side, where he and his mother moved from the South Side after she married a Latvian immigrant. The school was the Jesuit-run St. Ignatius College Prep, one of Chicago’s power Catholic schools.

His mother, Sandra Bradley-Strautmanis, taught at Jenner Elementary School on the grounds of the Cabrini-Green public housing project. His stepfather, Juris Strautmanis, was a guidance counselor at Jenner and a singer for Cikagas Piecisi (the Chicago Five), a long-running Latvian-American folk-comedy band.

“My dad is one of the people who taught me how to laugh,” said the younger Strautmanis.

As a teenager, he threw himself into school plays and later started as a theater major at the University of Illinois, though he graduated with a degree in advertising. Strautmanis also did a bit of stand-up and improvisational comedy during college, skills that his friends in politics say they see today.

His interest in the law developed while working a summer job in college as a bicycle messenger. “I ended up delivering packages to these glittering buildings in downtown Chicago, and when you’re a kid growing up in Chicago, these are the most important buildings in your life,” Strautmanis said. “They housed these powerful law firms. So I thought, ‘This must be the best place to be.’ ”

In classic Chicago style, he moved up in law and politics partly through the relationships he forged.

He was befriended by the Obamas before he even went to law school. At the University of Illinois Law School, he spent late-night study sessions at the International House of Pancakes with now-Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., who describes Strautmanis as “in a permanent state of Zen, very even-handed, very mild-mannered.”

Making connections

When as a young lawyer he developed an interest in politics, he seized an opportunity at an office Christmas party to introduce himself to South Side political boss Tom Hynes.

When he wanted to move to Washington, Strautmanis thrust his resume into the hands of then-U.S. Assistant Atty. Gen. Deval Patrick, now governor of Massachusetts, as Patrick left a speech in Chicago. A Clinton administration political appointment followed.

Later, he worked in Rod Blagojevich’s congressional office but did not go back to Illinois when Blagojevich was elected governor, instead remaining in Washington to work as a lobbyist for trial lawyers until Obama’s election. Through the years, he kept in touch with Obama, traveling back to Chicago to volunteer on campaigns and filling him in on news from Washington.

Friends within the campaign suggest that Strautmanis’ finesse and his connection with Michelle and Barack Obama empower him to take on tougher tasks that require personal authority. Obama said he functions as “a utility man.”

One recent summer day, Jarrett said, she asked Strautmanis to help her take care of what she described only as a “delicate matter.”

“He understands the importance of the personal touch and that e-mails and phone calls are not always appropriate,” she said. “There are times when a face-to-face is just the right thing to do. He dropped everything and hopped on a plane.”

please come and visit us and support listener-supported radio’s support of listener-supported live music shows.

and as a reminder, the East River Music Project is a 501c3 organization. we work on a shoestring budget and none of us gets paid, which means your entire tax-deductible contribution will go toward the production of the shows.

even if you’re not in the NYC area, be a mensch and help us out a little. donations of $1 or $5 would be great. if you donate and then visit NYC, my friend and fellow ERMP board member Toby Carroll will buy you a beer.

there will be DJs, and drinks, and it will be a damn good time

add this event at: upcoming | going | facebook | last.fm

Brecht Forum

451 West Street
between Bank and Bethune
(w 11th st and w 12th st)
in New York f’ing City

The East River Music Project: Summer 2008 Season (our sixth season!) is made possible in part with public funds from the Manhattan Community Arts Fund, supported by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and administered by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. The July 18 2008 benefit for the East River Music Project is underwritten by Heraty Law.

thanks, you’re a champ.

there will be DJs, and drinks, and it will be a damn good time

add this event at: upcoming | going | facebook | last.fm

Brecht Forum
451 West Street
between Bank and Bethune
in New York f’ing City

The East River Music Project: Summer 2008 Season (our sixth season!) is made possible in part with public funds from the Manhattan Community Arts Fund, supported by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and administered by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.

The July 18 2008 benefit for the East River Music Project is underwritten by Heraty Law.

By MEL WATKINS

Published: June 23, 2008

George Carlin, the Grammy-Award winning standup comedian and actor who was hailed for his irreverent social commentary, poignant observations of the absurdities of everyday life and language, and groundbreaking routines like “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television,” died in Santa Monica, Calif., on Sunday, according to his publicist, Jeff Abraham. He was 71.

The cause of death was heart failure. Mr. Carlin, who had a history of heart problems, went into the hospital on Sunday afternoon after complaining of heart trouble. The comedian had worked last weekend at The Orleans in Las Vegas.

Recently, Mr. Carlin was named the recipient of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. He was to receive the award at the Kennedy Center in November. “In his lengthy career as a comedian, writer, and actor, George Carlin has not only made us laugh, but he makes us think,” said Stephen A. Schwarzman, the Kennedy Center chairman. “His influence on the next generation of comics has been far-reaching.”

Mr. Carlin began his standup comedy act in the late 1950s and made his first television solo guest appearance on “The Merv Griffin Show” in 1965. At that time, he was primarily known for his clever wordplay and reminiscences of his Irish working-class upbringing in New York.

But from the outset there were indications of an anti-establishment edge to his comedy. Initially, it surfaced in the witty patter of a host of offbeat characters like the wacky sportscaster Biff Barf and the hippy-dippy weatherman Al Sleet. “The weather was dominated by a large Canadian low, which is not to be confused with a Mexican high. Tonight’s forecast . . . dark, continued mostly dark tonight turning to widely scattered light in the morning.”

Mr. Carlin released his first comedy album, “Take-Offs and Put-Ons,” to rave reviews in 1967. He also dabbled in acting, winning a recurring part as Marlo Thomas’ theatrical agent in the sitcom “That Girl” (1966-67) and a supporting role in the movie “With Six You Get Egg-Roll,” released in 1968.

By the end of the decade, he was one of America’s best known comedians. He made more than 80 major television appearances during that time, including the Ed Sullivan Show and Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show; he was also regularly featured at major nightclubs in New York and Las Vegas.

That early success and celebrity, however, was as dinky and hollow as a gratuitous pratfall to Mr. Carlin. “I was entertaining the fathers and the mothers of the people I sympathized with, and in some cases associated with, and whose point of view I shared,” he recalled later, as quoted in the book “Going Too Far” by Tony Hendra, which was published in 1987. “I was a traitor, in so many words. I was living a lie.”

In 1970, Mr. Carlin discarded his suit, tie, and clean-cut image as well as the relatively conventional material that had catapulted him to the top. Mr. Carlin reinvented himself, emerging with a beard, long hair, jeans and a routine that, according to one critic, was steeped in “drugs and bawdy language.” There was an immediate backlash. The Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas terminated his three-year contract, and, months later, he was advised to leave town when an angry mob threatened him at the Lake Geneva Playboy Club. Afterward, he temporarily abandoned the nightclub circuit and began appearing at coffee houses, folk clubs and colleges where he found a younger, hipper audience that was more attuned to both his new image and his material.

By 1972, when he released his second album, “FM & AM,” his star was again on the rise. The album, which won a Grammy Award as best comedy recording, combined older material on the “AM” side with bolder, more acerbic routines on the “FM” side. Among the more controversial cuts was a routine euphemistically entitled “Shoot,” in which Mr. Carlin explored the etymology and common usage of the popular idiom for excrement. The bit was part of the comic’s longer routine “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television,” which appeared on his third album “Class Clown,” also released in 1972.

“There are some words you can say part of the time. Most of the time ‘ass’ is all right on television,” Mr. Carlin noted in his introduction to the then controversial monologue. “You can say, well, ‘You’ve made a perfect ass of yourself tonight.’ You can use ass in a religious sense, if you happen to be the redeemer riding into town on one - perfectly all right.”

The material seems innocuous by today’s standards, but it caused an uproar when broadcast on the New York radio station WBAI in the early ’70s. The station was censured and fined by the FCC. And in 1978, their ruling was supported by the Supreme Court, which Time magazine reported, “upheld an FCC ban on ‘offensive material’ during hours when children are in the audience.” Mr. Carlin refused to drop the bit and was arrested several times after reciting it on stage.

By the mid-’70s, like his comic predecessor Lenny Bruce and the fast-rising Richard Pryor, Mr. Carlin had emerged as a cultural renegade. In addition to his irreverent jests about religion and politics, he openly talked about the use of drugs, including acid and peyote, and said that he kicked cocaine not for moral or legal reasons but after he found “far more pain in the deal than pleasure.” But the edgier, more biting comedy he developed during this period, along with his candid admission of drug use, cemented his reputation as the “comic voice of the counterculture.”

Mr. Carlin released a half dozen comedy albums during the ’70s, including the million-record sellers “Class Clown,” “Occupation: Foole” (1973) and “An Evening With Wally Lando” (1975). He was chosen to host the first episode of the late-night comedy show “Saturday Night Live” in 1975. And two years later, he found the perfect platform for his brand of acerbic, cerebral, sometimes off-color standup humor in the fledgling, less restricted world of cable television. By 1977, when his first HBO comedy special, “George Carlin at USC” was aired, he was recognized as one of the era’s most influential comedians. He also become a best-selling author of books that expanded on his comedy routines, including “When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?,” which was published by Hyperion in 2004.

Pursuing a Dream

Mr. Carlin was born in New York City in 1937. “I grew up in New York wanting to be like those funny men in the movies and on the radio,” he said. “My grandfather, mother and father were gifted verbally, and my mother passed that along to me. She always made sure I was conscious of language and words.”

He quit high school to join the Air Force in the mid-’50s and, while stationed in Shreveport, La., worked as a radio disc jockey. Discharged in 1957, he set out to pursue his boyhood dream of becoming an actor and comic. He moved to Boston where he met and teamed up with Jack Burns, a newscaster and comedian. The team worked on radio stations in Boston, Fort Worth, and Los Angeles, and performed in clubs throughout the country during the late ’50s.

After attracting the attention of the comedian Mort Sahl, who dubbed them “a duo of hip wits,” they appeared as guests on “The Tonight Show” with Jack Paar. Still, the Carlin-Burns team was only moderately successful, and, in 1960, Mr. Carlin struck out on his own.

During a career that spanned five decades, he emerged as one of the most durable, productive and versatile comedians of his era. He evolved from Jerry Seinfeld-like whimsy and a buttoned-down decorum in the ’60s to counterculture icon in the ’70s. By the ’80s, he was known as a scathing social critic who could artfully wring laughs from a list of oxymorons that ranged from “jumbo shrimp” to “military intelligence.” And in the 1990s and into the 21st century the balding but still pony-tailed comic prowled the stage - eyes ablaze and bristling with intensity - as the circuit’s most splenetic curmudgeon.

During his live 1996 HBO special, “Back in Town,” he raged over the shallowness of the ’90s “me first” culture - mocking the infatuation with camcorders, hyphenated names, sneakers with lights on them, and lambasting white guys over 10 years old who wear their baseball hats backwards. Baby boomers, “who went from ‘do your thing’ to ‘just say no’ …from cocaine to Rogaine,” and pro life advocates (”How come when it’s us it’s an abortion, and when it’s a chicken it’s an omelet?”), were some of his prime targets. In the years following his 1977 cable debut, Mr. Carlin was nominated for a half dozen Grammy awards and received CableAces awards for best stand-up comedy special for “George Carlin: Doin’ It Again (1990) and “George Carlin: Jammin’ ” (1992). He also won his second Grammy for the album “Jammin” in 1994.

Personal Struggles

During the course of his career, Mr. Carlin overcame numerous personal trials. His early arrests for obscenity (all of which were dismissed) and struggle to overcome his self-described “heavy drug use” were the most publicized. But in the ’80s he also weathered serious tax problems, a heart attack and two open heart surgeries.

In December 2004 he entered a rehabilitation center to address his addictions to Vicodin and red wine. Mr. Carlin had a well-chronicled cocaine problem in his 30s, and though he was able to taper his cocaine use on his own, he said, he continued to abuse alcohol and also became addicted to Vicodin. He entered rehab at the end of that year, then took two months off before continuing his comedy tours.

“Standup is the centerpiece of my life, my business, my art, my survival and my way of being,” Mr. Carlin once told an interviewer. “This is my art, to interpret the world.” But, while it always took center stage in his career, Mr. Carlin did not restrict himself to the comedy stage. He frequently indulged his childhood fantasy of becoming a movie star. Among his later credits were supporting parts in “Car Wash” (1976), “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” (1989), “The Prince of Tides” (1991), and “Dogma” (1999).

His 1997 book, “Brain Droppings,” became an instant best seller. And among several continuing TV roles, he starred in the Fox sitcom “The George Carlin Show,” which aired for one season. “That was an experiment on my part to see if there might be a way I could fit into the corporate entertainment structure,” he said after the show was canceled in 1994. “And I don’t,” he added.

Despite the longevity of his career and his problematic personal life, Mr. Carlin remained one of the most original and productive comedians in show business. “It’s his lifelong affection for language and passion for truth that continue to fuel his performances,” a critic observed of the comedian when he was in his mid-60s. And Chris Albrecht, an HBO executive, said, “He is as prolific a comedian as I have witnessed.”

Mr. Carlin is survived by his wife, Sally Wade; daughter Kelly Carlin McCall; son-in-law, Bob McCall, brother, Patrick Carlin and sister-in-law, Marlene Carlin. His first wife, Brenda Hosbrook, died in 1997.

Although some criticized parts of his later work as too contentious, Mr. Carlin defended the material, insisting that his comedy had always been driven by an intolerance for the shortcomings of humanity and society. “Scratch any cynic,” he said, “and you’ll find a disappointed idealist.”

Still, when pushed to explain the pessimism and overt spleen that had crept into his act, he quickly reaffirmed the zeal that inspired his lists of complaints and grievances. “I don’t have pet peeves,” he said, correcting the interviewer. And with a mischievous glint in his eyes, he added, “I have major, psychotic hatreds.”

The Village Voice was there. (Twice.) So was CMJ. I expect some footage will turn up on Punkcast before too long as well.

LVHRD had some kind words to say in anticipation of the show, as did Flavorpill and The Fader.

Diana Wong was also on hand to document the proceedings. All photos below are hers…

Animental:

Soiled Mattress and the Springs:

Lucky Dragons:

And more Lucky Dragons:

UPDATE: The order for Saturday’s show, from first to last, will be as follows:David Horvitz

John Wiese

Lexie Mountain Boys

Lucky Dragons

Animental

Soiled Mattress and the Springs

East River Amphitheater (Cherry St. @ FDR Drive, NYC).

More free shows at East River Park this year are listed HERE.

Logo Dispute: A whip forward

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER EDITORIAL BOARD

Starbucks has comfortable, even cozy coffee houses. But was that a very sharp corporate elbow the globally grown giant threw at our local roller derby league?

Not quite a flying elbow, says Quinn Heraty, the New York attorney representing the Rat City Rollergirls. But for a time it looked like Starbucks was getting ready to send the women sprawling.

Starbucks received a U.S. Patent and Trademark Office extension to file in opposition to Rat City’s cool, black eye and attitude logo. As the Seattle P-I reported last week, Starbucks seemed to sense infringement on its logo from, well, the fact that both use concentric circles. Hmm, and there’s a woman and two stars in both logos?

This struck us and a lot of readers as somewhere between crazy and overboard. Fortunately, Starbucks seems to be pouring a cup of mellow.

Heraty said Thursday, “All of my interactions with Starbucks have been good and friendly.” Starbucks spokeswoman Stacey Krum said the company shares Heraty’s positive feelings about progress in their discussions. She said corporate help in making slight design modifications might be a possibility.

Heraty said she hopes to “resolve this matter soon to everyone’s mutual benefit in a collaborative fashion.” Maybe the two colorful Seattle institutions can support each other with a point-scoring whip forward.

Heraty Law client Leven Rambin (along with James Cruickshank, Zak Williams, & Timo Weiland) will host Fingerpaint and a silent auction to benefit the Make It Right Foundation. MIRF builds green affordable housing for victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Fingerpaint seeks to facilitate the exposure of talented young artists through ad hoc art events at high-end galleries in New York City. Each show will be followed by a silent auction.

The title ‘Fingerpaint’ evokes the do-it-yourself mentality often associated with youth culture, the childish impertinence of us ’sneaking in’ to these high-end galleries, and the firm belief that our passions can be harnessed to benefit the lives of future generations.

May 28th, 7-11PM
at the former DIA Gallery
548 w 22nd st
(on 22nd near 11th Ave)