Zorn: Grading the Democratic National Convention at the halfway point

Some bumpy and odd moments, but Chicago is coming off well

8-22-2024 (issue No. 155)

This week:

• Last week’s winning quip

• Grading the DNC at midterm time

• News and Views — Hot takes, fully baked

• Land of Linkin’ — Where I tell readers where to go

• Squaring up the news — Where Charlie Meyerson tells readers where to go

• PolitiFact credits Donald Trump’s assertions that he won’t cut Medicare, and the internet does a spit take

• Mary Schmich — Heading down to the convention as an ordinary, curious citizen

• Meet the new boss — passages from an old podcast interview with Chicago Public Media’s incoming CEO Melissa Bell

• What’s on “The Mincing Rascals” podcast this week — Nothing but convention talk, naturally

• Quotables — A collection of compelling, sometimes appalling passages I’ve encountered lately

• Quips — The winning visual jokes and this week’s contest finalists

• Good Sports — Your weekly update on the White Sox’ race to a possibly historic bottom

• Tune of the Week — A salute to Maurice Williams, the author of “98 seconds of pop perfection,” the doo-wop hit “Stay”

Eric Zorn is a former opinion columnist for the Chicago Tribune. Find a longer bio and contact information here. This issue exceeds in size the maximum length for a standard email. To read the entire issue in your browser, click on the headline link above. Paid subscribers receive each Picayune Plus in their email inbox each Tuesday, are part of our civil and productive commenting community and enjoy the sublime satisfaction of supporting this enterprise.

Last week’s winning quip

When someone says “I expected more of you,” I’m always like, “Well whose fault is that?” — @joeljeffrey

Here are this week’s nominees and the winner of the Tuesday visual-jokes poll. Here is the direct link to the new poll.

Midterm DNC grade: B+

The weather has been beautiful in Chicago this week, the speeches at the Democratic National Convention have been high quality and, as of this writing at the end of the day Wednesday, the street disturbances have been mild. Protesters have clashed with police, but the skirmishes have been minor, and the de-escalation training that officers went through seems to have paid off.

Should things wrap up relatively peacefully Friday morning, it will be a credit to Mayor Brandon Johnson, police Superintendent Larry Snelling and the members of his department, convention planners and all the city bureaucrats involved in getting the city ready for this complex and fraught event.

Other observations:

It’s baffling that in this age of artificial intelligence, drones and sophisticated technology that we have no better estimate of the size of protests than “The crowd, numbering perhaps a few thousand,” as one news story put it, or, “The crowd seemed to fall well short of the 25,000 or so predicted by (Monday’s protest) organizers.”

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Protesters

Seeing images of pro-Palestinian protesters flying the flag of Hezbollah and hearing praise for Hamas as well as such chants as “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” causes me to ask again just exactly what it is they want to have happen in the conflict between Israel and Hamas. (See my look at their entire list of demands here in this week’s Picayune Plus). A cease-fire? An end to the U.S. supplying or funding weapons being used to attack Gaza? An end to all military aid to Israel? A two-state solution? The end of Israel as a Jewish state? A return of the hostages Hamas took in the Oct. 7 attack? I don’t know. So I don’t know the extent to which I feel support for their efforts.

I do know I’d feel more comfortable with their chants if they more often included and emphasized the word “peace.” And I’d appreciate it if convention officials relented and gave one of their representatives a speaking slot on Thursday, putting a little meat on the bone of the frequent contention of other speakers that one should listen those with with opposing political views.

Meanwhile, Behind Enemy Lines, a radical protest group attempting to disrupt the week’s festivities, is promoting such slogans as “Make it great like ‘68” and “Shut down the DNC for Gaza” in an apparent and so far feckless effort to generate attention-getting mayhem that goes well beyond peaceful protest.

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Scheduling

Those in charge of evening events at the DNC seem blithely unaware that they’re producing a TV show and that the reason it’s called “prime time” is because that’s when most viewers are available to watch. But President Joe Biden didn’t even start speaking until 10:30 p.m. Chicago time Monday — 11:30 p.m on the East Coast. Former President Barack Obama didn’t begin his speech until 10:03 p.m. Chicago time Tuesday, and vice presidential nominee Tim Walz didn’t kick off his rousing pep talk until 10:23 p.m Wednesday.

Organizers ought to be doing whatever is necessary — from starting early to cutting minor speeches in half to cutting certain stage appearances entirely (as they cut singer James Taylor Monday night) — to get the main speakers to the podium so they can finish each night’s festivities as close to 10 p.m. Chicago time as possible.

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Feeble taunt

I agree with my “Mincing Rascals” podcast colleague Austin Berg that Gov. JB Pritzker’s attack line in his Tuesday night convention speech — Donald “Trump is rich in only one thing: stupidity” — was elementary-school quality, at best. It sounded like the kind of insult you sputter at someone when your wits totally desert you.

Trump is not a book-smart man, to be sure, but that’s among the least of his flaws as a leader.

News & Views

News: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is said to be considering dropping out of the presidential race as early as Friday and endorsing Donald Trump.

View: Assuming that those willing to support the batty nepo baby despite his peculiar and troubling history and oddball views were very turned off by both Trump and President Joe Biden, it might be that they won’t pay much heed to RFK Jr.’s endorsement, if indeed it comes.

A Pew Research Center poll taken early last month — before Biden dropped out — showed these folks pretty evenly split:

But the poll was taken before Kamala Harris tapped in for Biden at the top of the ticket. All I know is that numerous deceased Kennedys will be rolling in their graves if RFK Jr.’s exit and endorsement tip the election to Trump, and that the living members of this legendary Democratic family will be enraged.

News: Chicago’s contract with the ShotSpotter gunfire detection system is set to expire one month from Thursday.

View: Mayor Brandon Johnson’s continued insistence on abandoning the technology favored by most of the alders in the high-crime neighborhoods where it’s installed is politically unwise. Yes, Johnson promised to eliminate ShotSpotter during his campaign last year, but winning 52% of the vote in the runoff election dominated by many other issues is hardly a popular mandate to keep that specific promise.

Meanwhile, the StopShotSpotter group has not responded to my offer to publish its reply to my transcript of the interview Mike Pesca and I conducted with an executive of ShotSpotter. Perhaps I’ll hear from them as this issue heats up in the next month.

News: The Associated Press style mavens dictated Aug. 13 that the media should honor Gov. JB Pritzker’s preference for no periods in his initials, and the Tribune and Sun-Times have complied.

View: I wrote to the top editors of both major local papers last month asking why they didn’t go along with Pritzker’s preference for JB over J.B., and neither responded to me. But I’m glad to see they are not ignoring the wisdom of the Associated Press.

Land of Linkin’

• Dan Kois in Slate: “What Happened to Getting a Doctor’s Finger in Your Butt?” The subhead says, “Men were taught to fear it for decades. I was a little shocked what happened when I asked why it never happened to me.”

• “Infant mortality spiked in Texas after abortion ban.” A study from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that “infant deaths in Texas rose nearly 13% compared to an increase of just 1.8% in the rest of the country.”

• “Budget whiz Ralph Martire has a plan to close Chicago’s $34 billion pension gap” in Chicago Magazine and “Paul Vallas: How to address the revenue side of Chicago’s pension crisis” in the Tribune.

• “Can you get sick from the germs in toilet plumes?” Unlikely, says the article, but the description of said plumes may trouble you anyway. “The plumes, which may contain bacteria and viruses, can shoot almost five feet into the air —the approximate height of the nose and mouth of an average adult— within about eight seconds of the flush. … If you’re in a large, public restroom that has a dozen stalls, there’s a dozen plumes spreading throughout there constantly.”

• Congratulations and best wishes to my former colleague Clarence Page on his “semi-retirement” in which he’s cutting back to one column a week.

Squaring up the news

This is a bonus supplement to the Land of Linkin’ from veteran radio, internet and newspaper journalist Charlie Meyerson. Each week, he offers a selection of intriguing links from his daily email news briefing Chicago Public Square:

■ New York’s Jonathan Chait: Barack Obama’s speech carried “a hidden message.”

■ Wonkette’s Evan Hurst: The Obamas “absolutely ruined” Donald Trump’s night.

■ The Democrats’ musical roll call of the states and territories (Spotify playlist) was a hit. Here is the state-by-state list of songs.

■ USA Today’s Rex Huppke: “As I left the United Center and rode past the not-burning buildings of Chicago, reluctantly un-murdered, I couldn’t wait to get home and rinse off the positivity.”

■ Cartoonist Tom Tomorrow offers the Trump campaign some revised slogans.

■ Western Illinois University has axed its entire library faculty.

You can (and should) subscribe to Chicago Public Square free here.

Immigration chat

Here is a snippet of transcript from a Fox News interview with Oklahoma Republican U.S. Sen. James Lankford, co-author of the bi-partisan immigration reform bill that Republicans killed earlier this year:

Fox host Brett Baier: It was your colleagues in your party, sir, who torpedoed this, who didn’t get the facts right on what you just outlined was in that measure. They killed it. Ironically not Democrats.

Lankford : Right. It was painful to … watch it. It got stirred up in all the presidential politics, and several of my colleagues started looking for ways after President Trump said, “Don't fix anything during the presidential election. It's the single biggest issue during the election. Don't resolve this. We’ll resolve it next year.”

Quite a few of my colleagues backed up and looked for a reason to be able to vote against it. And then walked away. I get that. That's a decision everybody makes. My issue is, if we're pursuing everything, we very often end up with nothing. If we're pursuing someone coming later to fix it, later seems to never come. When we have a moment to fix things, we should fix as many things that we can, then, then come back later and fix the rest.

Baier: That's on Donald Trump, Senator.

Lankford: Again, he's got an office that he's running for. He's got a campaign that he's running. I'm already in office. I've got a responsibility to be able to carry on.

PolitiFail

The generally reliable truth seekers at PolitiFact took a pratfall this week when branding as “mostly false” Democrats’ claims that Donald Trump wants to cut Medicare because, they wrote, “in his 2024 campaign, Trump has made clear that his Medicare policy is to make no cuts.”

But here is a video of Trump talking several times about cutting “entitlements,” and the credulity of the fact checkers in taking the reflexively dishonest Trump at his word brought out many online wits:

See “Trump’s History Of Proposed Cuts To Medicare Spending” and “Trump pledged to protect Medicare and Medicaid, but his 2020 budget calls for major spending cuts,” then ask yourself why any fact checker would credit anything a man with his finger perpetually to the wind has to say about his long-term intentions.

Legendary journalist Carol Marin outside the Democratic National Convention (Photo by Mary Schmich)

Mary Schmich visits the DNC

My former colleague Mary Schmich posts occasional column-like entries on Facebook. Here, reprinted with permission, is a recent offering:

People keep asking me, “Do you miss covering the convention?”

To which I’ve said: I miss the action, I don’t miss the stress.

But this afternoon an inner voice said, “Honey, you miss it. Go check it out.”

So even though I, ahem, had other things I should have been doing, I rode the Green Line toward the United Center, out where glitzy Chicago turns into brick-and-grit Chicago, just to see how close an old reporter with no credential could get to the action.

I got off at the Damen stop, not sure where I was going.

The inner voice said, “Just follow the hip young people with daypacks.”

So I did. Block after block, past newly erected fences and police barricades and old brick houses and a man pulling a rolling suitcase full of glitter-laden Kamala T-shirts. Past rows of police vans and fleets of police bicycles. Everyone seemed mellow.

Occasionally the words of the hip young people I was following drifted my way. “Appropriations committee.” “Farm bill.” “Trump.”

After a long while—a mile?—we turned a corner and the hip young people were allowed through a barricade. The guard motioned me to move across the street. And that was fine. I did not want to be standing in that long, long, long, long media line. Well, only a little bit.

And then my old pal Carol Marin hopped out of a car! She does have a credential, so after a chat, she headed toward the United Center and I walked on.

Past a couple of trucks bearing big signs that said Let Kennedy Debate. Past some gridlocked streets. Past a few peaceful protesters. An older white man holding a “Resist Hate” sign was talking amiably to a young Black man in a red Trump shirt.

My inner voice clucked, "If you were still a proper reporter, you would stop and ask those two what the heck they're saying."

Then it was on to Union Square, where I expected to see protesters. The park was nearly empty--just some teenagers playing basketball and two dozen bicycle police relaxing under the trees.

And then I walked all the way home soaking up the beautiful Chicago day.

That's it, an uncredentialed old reporter’s full, uneventful dispatch from the DNC, which I will be very happy to watch on TV.

Melissa Bell, incoming CEO of Chicago Public Media.

Meet the new boss, seems like a good boss

Employees as well as fans of Chicago Public Media (WBEZ-FM and the Sun-Times) will be interested to listen to Ezra Klein’s 2016 podcast interview with CPM’s new Chief Executive Officer Melissa Bell. At the time she was publisher of Vox Media, which she’d co-founded with Klein. Bell, now 45, will take over the not-for-profit radio/newspaper combination next month. Here are a few edited excerpts from that interview, in which Bell came off as someone you’d like to work for:

On her college experience

Georgetown University opened my eyes to the world. I was able to study religion there. One of the things about Jesuit education is that they really have a focus on religion. So I became really entranced with Hinduism and Buddhism and weird, weird classes that my parents were questioning every time they saw my transcripts.

On 9/11’s impact on her life

I was a legal assistant in New York in 2001, and my office was a couple of blocks from the World Trade Center. I was on my way to work that morning, and I saw a lot of really horrible, tragic things, and I felt a futility to my existence. I felt a little lost. So I left New York and moved back home to San Diego and worked as a waitress. I was trying to figure out what to do next, and I ended up taking a job at a ski resort in Colorado when I waited tables in the winter. The most fun part about waiting tables is that you get to have little mini interviews with every table when you meet them. So I think that it actually helped me figure out how to strike up conversations with people and how to get into some other personal lives very quickly. I did this for two years.

On her early interest in journalism

I did a 10th grade research paper on Leo Tolstoy. We had read “Anna Karenina.” I did my research on his wife, who was really his editor. She transcribed all of his work, and she shaped it. She sat there with this really brilliant madman and made his work stronger and better and more incredible. I remember thinking that I loved this idea of taking a creative person's work and helping push that forward and making something really great out of it. This is always what excites me the most. Helping really, really creative people do their work is what excites me.

On her post-college entry into journalism

I earned enough money waiting tables for two years that I was able to backpack through Eastern Europe and travel in Mexico. I realized that you can do that as a journalist and get paid to do it. I also had this idea that maybe one day I could be a book editor and I just could get paid to read books, and so maybe if I was like a journalist for a little while, I could transition to that. So I went to grad school at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism. I was so hungry for school again. I’m a nerd. I ended up in India for their international program, and I fell madly and deeply and passionately in love with that country. I worked for the Hindustan Times.

They eventually launched a partnership with The Wall Street Journal and started a business paper called Mint. They brought me back after my J-school internship to help launch Mint. I worked on their weekend magazine as an editor and writer covering art and architecture.

On returning to the U.S. from India

It was hard being that far away from my family, and that was one of the main reasons I wanted to come back to the U.S. I’d worked for Raju Narisetti at Mint and he’d gone on to be managing editor for digital at The Washington Post. He hired me.

I really fell in love with internet writing because it allows you to be in a conversation with your audience and show them that you're discovering and that you're in a process of learning, and that process never ends. It’s not writing that comes across as like the ultimate end point. I started to pay attention to the blogs and started to advocate for them, and started to push for more resources and push for more technology.

Lessons she’d learned at Vox Media

It's really difficult to do good work without having partners in crime and having co-conspirators and colleagues that you trust.

I've learned a lot about managing teams and learning from people, and seeing how I might not have every skill set in the book, but I can use my skills in certain ways and then rely on some of our other teammates for their skills, and how that power — the power of a team — comes together and can be really successful.

Her advice to young, aspiring journalists

Follow your curiosity. My curiosity led me to India, which led me to this totally random life that I now have. But I was curious, and I let myself go down that line. Do something totally random, like work at a pizza counter in Rhode Island. Do something for a little while and then go back to school. I don't think it's good to jump from college to grad school right away.

The best advice she ever got

Marcus W. Brauchli, the executive editor of The Washington Post when I was there, told me, “If you're going to be a pioneer, you’ve got to be OK with taking a few arrows.” It was a good reminder that not everyone's going to like you, and you’ve got to be OK with that.

Minced Words

Austin Berg, Cate Plys, Marj Halperin and I joined host John Williams to talk about the Democratic National Convention for this week’s episode of “The Mincing Rascals” podcast. Subscribe to us wherever you get your podcasts. Or bookmark this page. If you’re not a podcast listener, you can hear an edited version of the show at 8 p.m. most Saturday evenings on WGN-AM 720.

Read the background bios of some regular panelists here.

Quotables

A collection of compelling, sometimes appalling passages I’ve encountered lately

You wake up in Chicago, pull back the curtain and you know where you are. You could be nowhere else. You are in a big, brash, muscular, broad shouldered motherfuckin’ city. A metropolis, completely non-neurotic, ever-moving, big hearted but cold blooded machine with millions of moving parts — a beast that will, if disrespected or not taken seriously, roll over you without remorse. It is, also, as I like to point out frequently, one of America’s last great no bullshit zones. Pomposity, pretentiousness, putting on airs of any kind, douchery and lack of a sense of humor will not get you far in Chicago. … Chicago is a town, a city that doesn’t ever have to measure itself against any other city. Other places have to measure themselves against it. It’s big, it’s outgoing, it’s tough, it’s opinionated, and everybody’s got a story. — Anthony Bourdain

I love (Illinois Gov. JB) Pritzker, but every time he appears on stage I think his first words are going to be "Yabba-dabba-do!” — Stephen Colbert

I feel like Bill Clinton and Dick Van Dyke are merging into one person. — Dan Petrella

You don't have to agree with every policy position of Kamala Harris. I  don't. But you do have to recognize her prosecutor mindset that understands right from wrong, good from evil. She's a steady hand and will bring leadership to the White House that Donald Trump could never do. Let me be clear to my Republican friends at home watching: If you vote for Kamala Harris in 2024, you're not a Democrat. You're a patriot.  — former Republican Lieutenant Governor of Georgia, Geoff Duncan speaking to the Democratic National Convention

(Donald Trump’s) behavior hasn’t changed since he came down that brass escalator in the garish lobby of Trump Tower on June 16, 2015, and started slurring Mexicans as criminals and rapists. I won’t categorize how he’s been since then. Either you figured it out long ago or you never will. — Neil Steinberg

The “Macarena” (was) the 1996 equivalent of virtue signaling when it came to cultural diversity. — The Chicago Tribune Editorial Board

When people ask Kamala Harris how she'll pay for her economic plan, she should say, "Mexico will pay for it." — Rex Huppke

We have to win in November or we’re not going to have Pennsylvania. They’ll change the name. They’re going to change the name of Pennsylvania — Donald Trump

Donald Trump is a moral leader for people offended by Colin Kaepernick’s knee, but not Derek Chauvin’s. — John Fugelsang

It’s (Trump’s) same old con: doubling down on ugly, misogynistic, racist lies as a substitute for real ideas and solutions that will actually make people’s lives better. — Michelle Obama

To make progress on the things we care about, the things that really affect people’s lives, we need to remember that we’ve all got our blind spots and contradictions and prejudices. And that if we want to win over those who aren’t yet ready to support our candidates, we need to listen to their concerns and maybe learn something in the process. … The vast majority of us do not want to live in a country that’s bitter and divided. We want something better. We want to be better. — Barack Obama

Did the former VP speak at the Republican convention? No. Did the former First Lady? No. Did the former Second Lady? No. Did any former presidents? No. Did the former chief of staff? No. The people who knew Trump best didn't speak. Not even Ivanka. Hulk Hogan spoke, though. — Alex Cole

Republicans are so lucky that Michelle Obama hates politics. — @DapperDomo

Note: As I wrote in Tuesday’s Picayune Plus, several angry readers wrote last week to cancel their PS subscriptions in response to the strong anti-Trump slant to the quotes I chose. Fair enough.

I sense that we are entering the Toxic Presidential Election Zone — that period of time when furious rhetoric ratchets up and people grow even less tolerant of opposing views than they normally are.

I first noticed this is 2008 when the comments section of “Change of Subject,” my Chicago Tribune blog, became a cesspool of invective as the race between Obama and Republican John McCain went to the wire. Normally, the comment threads were chippy but relatively civil, but the animosity and ad hominem attacks got so bad as the election approached that I turned off comments to try to keep a lid on the anger, and did so again prior to subsequent presidential elections.

I have no plans to do that here — the Picayune Sentinel’s first presidential election season — because our commenters have so far proven tough but fair, for the most part, and the temperature isn’t anywhere close to too high. I am prepared to lose some readers over my ill-disguised contempt for Trump and Trumpism, but I’m more than willing to continue to let his defenders among paying subscribers post their defenses of him and their critiques of Kamala Harris.

Quips

In Tuesday’s paid-subscriber editions, I present my favorite tweets that rely on visual humor. Subscribers vote for their favorite, and I post the winner here every Thursday:

The new nominees for Quip of the Week:

• If you send me all of your old home movies on VHS tape I will transfer them to a landfill and free you from the prison of your past. — @citizenkawala

• I come from a family of failed magicians. I have two half sisters. — @ThePunnyWorld

• Active voice: "I love your article." Passive voice: "Your article is loved." Passive-aggressive voice: "I love the potential this article had." — @NC_Renic

• Nobody will remember: Your salary. How busy you were. How many hours you worked. People will remember: Nothing because you are a tiny firefly flitting about on an infinite intergalactic canvas filled with stars. And that time you accidentally called your girlfriend mom. — @BuckyIsotope

• At least I can say I tried. I didn’t try, but I can say I did. — @JohnLyonTweets

• Your stomach believes all potatoes are mashed. — @poutinesmoothie

• Triscuits taste like unrequited love. — @benedictsred

• Bartender: This drink is from that guy at the end of the bar. Me: A glass of milk? *looks to the left* Crap. That’s my doctor. — @SamSkoronski

• “Who let the dogs out?” they ask. “No idea” I say. They let me go. As I walk away from the police station, my limp slowly disappears. — @BuckyIsotope

• I'm the picture of health, but not a very flattering picture. I'm the passport photo of health. — @Cpin42

The “Nobody will remember” quip is a new meme.

Vote here and check the current results in the poll.

For instructions and guidelines regarding the poll, click here.

Why the new name for this feature? See “I’m rebranding ‘Tweet of the Week’ in a gesture of contempt for Elon Musk.”

Good Sports

The No-No Sox

Here is my weekly comparison standings of the 2024 White Sox with the 2003 Detroit Tigers and the 1962 New York Mets, teams that have defined futility for more than 80 years. Included in the comparison is the 1916 Philadelphia Athletics, the worst team in baseball’s modern era (20th century on).

After 128 games:

Awful Announcing posted “The Chicago Tribune’s Paul Sullivan talks disastrous White Sox season.”

Everything’s gone wrong. Bad decisions by management, bad play, poor free-agent signings, injuries. You can name it, everything that could go wrong has gone wrong. … This is the worst team I’ve ever seen, by far. … It’s a Triple-A team playing in the majors, and it shows.

Sullivan said that the team’s “goal right now is to not break the Mets’ record” of 120 losses in a season. But as I’ve pointed out before, that record would almost certainly have been 121 or 122 losses had it not been for two rainouts that allowed that dreadful Mets to play only 160 games.

Meanwhile, the Tribune reported this week:

What had been a foregone conclusion became official Saturday night when the Sox were mathematically eliminated from all playoff contention. According to MLB Network Game Day, it's the earliest calendar date a team has been eliminated from the playoff race in the divisional era, which began in 1969.

Could the Sox set the mark for worst team in the modern era? It’s by no means out of the question. The 1916 Philadelphia A’s played a 153-game season and finished 36-117. Out to another decimal place, that’s a winning percentage of .2353. The Sox play in a 162-game era. If they go 38-124, that will be a winning percentage of .2346. So the magic number of victories the Sox need in their last 34 games to end up with 39 wins and a better winning percentage than the 1916 A’s is now 8, so they will need to go 8-26 (.235) to escape that ignominious distinction.

To avoid losing 121 games, the Sox must finish the season with at least 42 wins. That means the now 31-97 Sox will need to go 11-23 ( .324 ) down the stretch.

The previous worst White Sox team ever was the 1932 club, which went 49-102 for a winning percentage of .325. The worst White Sox team in the era of the 162-game season was the 1970 club, which went 56-106 for a .346 winning percentage.

Tune of the Week

I’ve been opening up Tune of the Week nominations in an effort to bring some newer sounds to the mix. I’m asking readers to use the comments area for paid subscribers or to email me to leave nominations (post-2000 releases, please!) along with YouTube links and at least a few sentences explaining why the nominated song is meaningful or delightful to you.

From The New York Times last week:

Maurice Williams, the singer and songwriter whose 1960 single “Stay,” recorded with his doo-wop group the Zodiacs, shot to No. 1 and became a cover-song staple for a long line of musical acts, including the Four Seasons, the Hollies and Jackson Browne, died on Aug. 6 in Charlotte, N.C. He was 86. …

Mr. Williams recalled the origins of “Stay,” his only chart-topping single, in a 2018 video interview. “This young lady I was going with, she was over to my house, and this particular night, her brother was supposed to pick her up at 10,” he said. “So he came, and I said, ‘Well, you can stay a little longer.’ And she said, ‘No, I gotta go.’”

The next morning he woke up and wove that and other snippets from their conversation — “Now, your daddy don’t mind/And your mommy don’t mind” — into song form, building to its indelible signature line, which, seven years later, the Zodiacs’ Henry Gaston would render in a celestial falsetto.

In its obituary coverage, Billboard reported:

Maurice Williams & the Zodiacs meet the most common definition of one-hit wonders, as they had just one top 40 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 – but, boy, what a hit. … The track runs just 1:38. It is the shortest of the 1,174 singles that have reached No. 1 on the Hot 100. … But despite its historic brevity, the record never feels that short. It’s simply exactly as long as it needed to be to tell its story. …

“Stay” was only the third No. 1 in Hot 100 history (which commenced in August 1958) that was both written and recorded by a Black artist. It followed Lloyd Price’s “Stagger Lee” (which he co-wrote with Harold Logan) and Dave “Baby” Cortez’s instrumental smash “The Happy Organ” (which he co-wrote with Ken Wood). …

Two cover versions have reached the top 20 on the Hot 100 – one by the Four Seasons in April 1964 and another by Jackson Browne in August 1978 (with David Lindley handling the falsetto vocals). … Williams’ place in the Hot 100 record books seems secure: Even with hit songs getting shorter and shorter in the TikTok era, no one has yet passed Williams for his 98 seconds of pop perfection.

Cyndi Lauper released a catchy, Caribbean-flavored cover in 2003, which Williams reportedly said he liked “more than anybody’s” version except his own.

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