Big Mike: That Thanksgiving Glow

One Thanksgiving I found myself in possession of a goose. Don’t ask me how. I don’t recall actually going to the store with the intention of buying a goose. I wouldn’t even know how to select one. All I know is, I had a goose.

My now ex-wife Beth and I had been invited to our friends Danny and Sophia’s place for Thanksgiving that year. When they learned I had a goose, they became as giddy as kids on the last day of school. What a memorable Thanksgiving this would be, we all told each other. We’re gonna have a goose.

All of us had been born and raised in the big city (Beth in Milwaukee and the rest of us, of course, in Chicago) so none of us had ever had a goose. Big city people eat chickens, capons, cornish hens and the occasional duck at a Chinese restaurant. And turkey at Thanksgiving.

Had we been pushed on the subject, we’d have ventured that the only people who ate goose lived in log cabins and had Sears catalogues in the outhouse. But we were adventurous sorts so we were eager to flout urban tradition. No turkey for us avant-gardists — we had a goose!

Danny and Sophia had just moved into their new house on the west end of Evanston. The night before, Sophia called me up with the bad news that their new gas oven hadn’t been connected yet. Sophia mumbled something about the gas company finding unsafe couplings but quickly added after hearing me gasp that they weren’t in any imminent danger, that the block wouldn’t disappear in a mushroom cloud.

“So should we come over to your house?” Sophia suggested.

“No, it’s too cramped here,” I replied. Besides the four of us, we’d have Beth’s father, Art, with us. He’d just lost his wife in a car wreck the previous April and Beth didn’t want him spending his first holiday without her alone. (By the way, Art was of that Great Depression/World War II generation of men who’d have sacrificed a limb rather than reveal any emotion. I have no memory of him shedding a tear or otherwise bemoaning the loss of his wife, although in the days after the accident he repeatedly shook his head sadly and said, “That was a good car. It had a good motor. It’s too bad.”)

“Let’s grill the goose!” I said and Sophia hailed the idea as if I’d just articulated a plan to wipe out world hunger.

The next afternoon, Danny wheeled out their enormous Weber kettle from the garage and parked it next to the back door. I loaded it up with charcoal, figuring it would take a good four or five hours to grill a nice juicy goose. I sprayed so much lighter fluid on the pile that I started getting high on the fumes. I tossed a match on it and, when the flames began to dance higher than the treetops, brought out the fully stuffed goose.

For the first couple of hours I lifted the Weber’s lid constantly, wondering why the goose remained a sickly white-pink.

“Don’t open the grill so much,” Sophia warned me. “Every time you do that you lose heat.”

It turned dark out. Art asked when we were going to eat. Already on the far side of 80, he’d become used to eating dinner at the time normal people were thinking about a late lunch. Soon, I replied, soon — although I’d sneaked a peek a few minutes before and had found that only the bird’s wingtips had begun to darken. So I dashed outside again and opened the Weber’s vents fully, hoping to hot those coals up to the max.

I rejoined the group back in the living room where “It’s A Wonderful Life” was on TV. By the time Jimmy Stewart was about to jump off the bridge, at least two of us were snoring. Finally, when the townspeople brought bushels-full of cash to Stewart’s house, I snapped out of my own coma and managed to hoist myself off the sofa so I could check on the goose.

I stepped out on the enclosed back porch and was hit by a wave of fatty, smoky goose aroma. Ah, I thought, she’s gotta be going good be now.

Outside, the entire backyard was filled with dense smoke. Yee-ow, I thought, she’s gotta be done by now.

I lifted the Weber’s lid and was nearly blinded by a roaring inferno. From what I could see through the flames, the goose was glowing red. The entire fowl had shrunk to about a third its original size. The stuffing that had previously been overflowing out its cavity was now withered. Things didn’t look good.

I only had a large serving fork with me so I grabbed a strong-enough looking twig from the ground and wrestled with the scorched bird. Finally, I had it balanced with my two tools and lifted it off the grate. Now what the hell was I going to do with it? The oil sac on its butt still was on fire so I did the only thing I could — I put the goose on the flagstones and started beating it with my twig. My efforts were insufficient as the grease fired up even more in the open air. “Help!” I called — but not too loudly since I wasn’t terribly interested in alerting Danny and Sophia’s neighbors to my plight.

I called for help a half dozen more times before the goose’s oil sac finally burned itself out. Right about that time Sophia popped her head out the porch door and asked, “Mike, do you hear somebody calling for help?”

“Naw,” I said. Sophia’s eyes grew wide when she spied the charred carcass on the ground.

We cleaned the goose off and carved away as much of the blackened ruins as possible. We were left with about a forkful of edible fowl for each person. We filled ourselves up on mashed potatoes and green bean casserole.

“I am so sorry you guys,” I said when we were finished. Oh no, everybody lied, it was fine. A half hour later, I caught Danny sneaking a peanut butter sandwich.

We were right about one thing: it was a memorable Thanksgiving.

Benny Jay: Ohio State v. Michigan In The Big House

It’s football Saturday in the United States of America and I’m in Ann Arbor for the Big Game: Ohio State versus the University of Michigan.

I got a ticket from my cousin’s kid, Josh, who’s a junior at Michigan studying music. The kid sings like an angel and he knows all the words to every song ever written and if things break the right way you’ll see him on Broadway or the Metropolitan Opera House. Trust me….

At the moment, Josh is playing his role as big man on campus, leading me and my younger daughter through throngs of people lining both sides of the street, and almost shouting to be heard above the roar of the frat boys, who got the rap music blasting from the huge speakers on the porches and in the windows of fraternity row.

“We gotta get your ticket validated,” Josh is explaining.

It’s all a part of his elaborate scheme to get me — a fifty-something-year-old geezer — into the student section of the big house.

Oops, my bad — I mean, The Big House, as in the 106,000-seat football stadium which folks in Michigan treat like a holy temple.

Did I tell you I’m excited? Well, I am — exceedingly, almost embarrassingly, so. I got my University of Michigan baseball hat perched on my head, and I feel like the kid I used to be, climbing the stairs — two steps at a time — to the upper balcony in the old Chicago Stadium to watch the great Stormin’ Norman Van Lier and all his comrades on the Bulls battle for Truth, Justice and the American Way….

It’s funny — me being so excited. I didn’t go Michigan. I went to some rinky-dink liberal arts college in nowheresville, Wisconsin. In fact, now that we’re on the subject, one of the main reasons I went to that Tater Tot school, as opposed to somewhere cool, like Michigan,  is because my best friend went there.  If there’s a dumber reason for selecting a college, I’ll need a moment to think of it.  About three months into the school year my friend and fought — as in fists flailing and bodies thrashing — over a girl. After it was over, I lay in bed wondering: What the hell have I done with my life?

Josh leads us through the carnival of maize-and-blue-bedecked fans — who are singing the Michigan fight song or cursing Ohio State — and into the Big House itself. Oh, exalted shrine — I’m not worthy. Down the stairs we walk — down, down, down  endless flights of concrete steps to our place just behind the band near the north goal line.

Every one’s trying to fight the gloom and doom. Michigan hasn’t beat Ohio State in six years, and they’re supposed to get blown out today.  That’s cause Michigan’s current coach, Rich Rodriguez, is not nearly as good as the previous one, Lloyd Carr, who wasn’t half as good as the legendary Coach Bo Schembechler.

As a matter of fact, the stadium announcer’s telling us that several players from Coach Bo’s 1969 squad — the first he coached — are here to celebrate one of his greatest triumphs. It was forty years ago that Ohio State — undefeated and ranked number one in the nation — marched onto this very field and got their butts whooped by Coach Bo’s boys.

“Those who stay will be champions,” Coach Bo promised his team at the start of the season. And, dang it, he made good on his vow….

The announcer calls out their names. And as these geezers — even older than me, if that’s possible — limp onto the field, I put on my shades to hide my tears. God, I’m getting sentimental in my old age….

I’m sitting with Josh and his pals from the Men’s Glee Club. There’s this one dude in front of me — call him Baby Bo — who reminds me of me some thirty years ago in that he knows every fact,  every detail, about his favorite team.

“All I want is for Michigan to beat Ohio State just once,” he says. “Is that too much to ask?”

The game begins and we sing, chant, and yell as, miracle of miracles, the clouds part and the sun comes out.

“The sky is Michigan blue,” says Josh. “It’s for Bo Schemblecher….”

“That’s Schembechler,” corrects Baby Bo.

“I misspoke….”

“That’s like mispronouncing Jesus….”

“I’m sorry — I’m a little tongue tied. I’m emotional….”

“Fair enough….”

Ohio State grabs an early lead and it looks like the blowout we expected. But, no, here come the Wolverines, clawing their way back until it’s the fourth quarter and they’re down ten and inside the Ohio State ten-yard line.  The quarterback throws a pass for the end zone….

Intercepted!

All the air escapes the Big House balloon with a mighty hissss….

Fans file out — like they can’t stand the sight of another Ohio State victory.

Baby Bo slumps onto the bleachers. He looks heartbroken — all he wanted was one win over Ohio State. Just one….

I want to impart a little wisdom from the geezer in the student section. If losing the Big Game — like going to the wrong college — is the worse that happens to him, well, he’s done all right.

But I leave him alone. He’s young. His whole life’s ahead of him. He’ll learn….

Letter From Milo: Three Cases of Poor Judgment

1. I’ve got a friend, let’s call him Joe to spare him any embarrassment, who made it pretty big out in Hollywood. Joe struggled for years before finally finding his niche. He worked as a script reader, tried his hand at acting and failed miserably as a writer before achieving success as a producer.

By way of explanation for you clueless, pathetic losers who aren’t privy to the inside Hollywood shit like I am, the title of “producer” is meaningless. Being a producer is like being a Kentucky Colonel. It’s as much a joke as it is a genuine honorific.

A person doesn’t have to produce anything to be a producer. The only criteria for being a producer is having the audacity to declare yourself one. There must be tens of thousands of people, probably more, calling themselves producers, but only a small fraction of those people have ever actually produced a movie or TV show.

My friend, Joe, is one of the lucky ones. He actually produces films. This is a story about the first film he produced. Against all odds, he ran across a good script, found two bankable actors willing to do it, and rounded up the financing for production.

When it came time to discuss his compensation, the money men offered Joe a flat fee or a piece of the action, whichever he preferred. Now, Joe is no country boy. He is a Chicagoan, born and bred. He understands that making movies is a crapshoot. He also understands that Hollywood bookkeeping is an art form, every bit as creative as writing, painting or musical composition.

Joe opted for a flat fee.

As luck would have it, the movie turned out to be a huge hit, making several hundred million dollars. Had Joe taken a piece of the action, his payday would have been 15 times larger.

The movie did so well that the money men decided to make a sequel. They figured it was a can’t-miss proposition. So did Joe. This time he took a piece of the action. Of course, the sequel turned out to be a huge flop, making about 20 bucks worldwide. Joe claims he didn’t even make expenses.

“The only good thing that came out of it,” Joe explained, “is that now I’m able to produce more movies. You see, making two movies and having one of them be a big hit is an astounding track record in the film business. Now all I have to do is figure out how to make some fucking money.”

2. I have a good friend, let’s call him Bruce Diksas to spare him any embarrassment, who was hanging out in the Pacific Northwest around 1980. He had followed a woman to Seattle in the hope of keeping a romance alive. The woman had enrolled in graduate school and spent most of her days in class or studying, so, Bruce found himself with a lot of time on his hands. And, like any ambitious, industrious, hard-working young man, Bruce decided to spend his free time in one of Seattle’s many legal poker rooms.

Now, Bruce is a pretty good poker player, but, like all of us who enjoy the game, he thinks he’s much better than he really is. He usually lost more than he won. Despite his bad luck, Bruce enjoyed his time at the tables, Playing poker all day was a very pleasant way to pass the time.

One of the main topics of conversation at the tables was a small business located in a storefront across the street from the card room. It seemed that the business was a source of local pride. It was growing rapidly and would soon be going public. A few of the players at the tables discussed the pros and cons of investing in the company, buying a few shares to help out the local boys.

Out of curiosity, Bruce stepped outside to check out the storefront. He was thinking about sinking a few hundred dollars into the company, just for the hell of it. As soon as he saw its name on the storefront window, however, Bruce, knew that the company had no chance of success. It was a stupid name. It made no sense. Shouldn’t a company’s name say what it does? Shouldn’t it at least be catchy, something that sticks in the mind? Why even have a company if you can’t give it a decent name? Any company with a name like that was doomed to failure. He’d be better off investing in lottery tickets.

The company’s name was “Microsoft.”

“I still say it’s a stupid name,” Bruce says to me years later.

“A lot of those internet companies have dumb names,” I reply. “Look at Yahoo or Google.”

Pouring himself another drink, Bruce says, “You’ll notice I didn’t buy any shares in those companies, either.”

3. I’ve got another friend, let’s call him Milo to spare him any embarrassment, who, in the mid 1970s, lived in a coach house on Burling Street just south of Armitage. The neighborhood, in those pre-gentrification days, was still very rough, gang-infested, with run-down buildings everywhere. Milo shared the place with his friends Bruce Diksas and Wayne Gray, and they split the 80 dollars a month rent.

Granted, 80 dollars a month was not a lot of money, even in the 1970s. Still, it was not always easy coming up with the 27 dollars apiece every month. None of the boys worked regularly and what money they scraped up was usually earmarked for drugs and alcohol, and occasionally a greasy hot dog at the Doggie Diner on Armitage.

The property was owned by a retired bartender named John, and he didn’t mind if the boys were late with the rent once in a while. Milo, Bruce and Wayne were a scruffy, eccentric and endlessly entertaining trio, more Stooges than Musketeers. The old barkeep enjoyed their company, joining the boys for backyard cookouts and drinkfests. One of the boys even talked John into smoking his first joint, which, to the old man’s surprise, he enjoyed immensely.

Sadly, John’s health began to fail. He couldn’t take care of the property anymore. Just walking up and down the stairs had become a chore. It was time, he decided, to sell the property and move into the Polish Eagle Nursing Home in Marquette Park.

John offered the property to Milo for $32,000. Think about it. A two-flat with a coach house in the DePaul/Lincoln Park neighborhood for a little over $30,000. Even though he had no money, Milo could have easily purchased the place. As a military veteran he could have taken advantage of the G.I. Bill and bought the property with no money down.

After giving it a little thought, Milo decided NOT to buy the place. When someone asked him why he chose not to buy, Milo haughtily replied, “I’m not into property, man.”

Those five words have haunted Milo for years. The property that he refused to buy for roughly 30K, is now worth in excess of one million dollars.

Sometimes, when Milo tells the story of his lost real estate opportunity, someone will ask, “If you weren’t into property, what exactly were you into?”

Milo always ruefully replies, “At the time, I was into stupidity.”

Big Mike: Wherein I Have A Nervous Breakdown

The noise started a half hour before the old codger came up my driveway, his shaggy dog in tow.

I’d been in the garage yesterday afternoon breaking down boxes from our move. Yeah, yeah, I know — it’s been two months since we moved in to the new Bloomington, Indiana, digs but the task of moving is a miserable ordeal and once you unpack those boxes containing the stuff you really need on a daily basis, you get sick of the whole process and you leave the rest for sometime later (hopefully after you’re dead). So I figure I’m really ahead of the game about now — we only have a dozen or so boxes left to unpack.

Besides — that wok, that antique toaster, the Saudi tea set, the Lazy Susan with one chipped tray, the riding crop, the cutesy little ice cream maker and all the rest — I don’t care if I ever see any of those things again. Of course one day a lightbulb will flash over the The Loved One’s head and she’ll say, Hey, where’s our ice cream maker? At which point she’ll go through the dozen boxes looking for it and, in the process, pull out the riding crop and the Saudi tea set too. Then they’ll sit, collecting dust on the kitchen counter or the mantle, still never having been used.

Anyway, back to the noise. As I was folding the empty boxes and rearranging the unopened ones, I noticed a piercing, shrill, whistle coming from, uh, coming from somewhere. I tried to ignore it but it kept reinserting itself into my consciousness. At first it was annoying; after fifteen minutes it was maddening.

Then the thought hit me — the house across the road is occupied by an elderly couple. Their grown children have to mow their lawn. On those rare occasions when an appreciable snow falls in these parts, neighbors have to shovel their driveway. Whenever people refer to the couple, they add the whispered caution: We really have to keep an eye on them. You never know, something might happen.

Could this piercing, shrill whistle be some type of emergency alarm, one made for elderly people’s homes that goes off when they haven’t made any motion in the house because, you know, they’re not moving? Yikes. I promised myself I’d walk across the road to check on the couple but, next thing I knew, I was back in the mindless rhythm of breaking down boxes. A quarter of an hour later, the hair on my arms stood on end as I thought about the poor old couple laying there with their alarm shrieking and me ignoring it. So I started walking toward their house.

And just like that, the noise stopped. Had I been imagining it? I turned around and went back into the garage and there it was again. But where in the hell was it coming from? Was it a ringing in my ears that’s the first sign of a nervous breakdown? After a few minutes, I semi-shouted “Shut that mother-fucking noise up!”

That’s when the old codger with the shaggy dog came walking up my driveway. Oh great, I thought, whoever this bird is, he’s gonna think I’m a lunatic, shouting at the world, alone in my garage.

He was a neighbor from down the road hoping to meet the new neighbors. We exchanged pleasantries and then I giggled nervously and explained why I’d been shouting at the world, alone in my garage. “I didn’t hear anybody shouting,” he said, obviously lying.

After a few more minutes of chitchat, he suddenly stopped talking and cocked his head. “What is that noise?” he asked.

“Aha! I knew there was a noise,” I said, triumphantly.

“Of course there’s a noise. I’m hard of hearing and I can hear it!” He turned his head to show me a hearing aid that was about the size of a stadium amplifier. “If I can hear it, it must be driving you crazy.”

“Yup,” I said, beaming.

The old codger went on his way before, he explained, the whistle started getting on his nerves. I snooped around the garage, looking for the source of the noise. Finally I concluded it was coming from the garage door opener. I climbed a ladder and jiggled its wires, pressed all the buttons on it and even unplugged it a couple of times. Nothing. No matter what I did, the whistle kept blaring.

It was time for me to pick up The Loved One from work. When we pulled into the garage, the first thing she said as she got out of the car was, “What is that noise?”

“Uh huh,” I said, as if my own personal Theory of Everything had just been validated. “I think it’s the garage door opener.”

After she changed out of her work duds, The Loved One and I took turns climbing the ladder to examine the opener mechanism. We both did everything I’d done previously but the whistle persisted.

“Maybe it’s coming from the attic. Move the ladder over there,” she said pointing to a little access door in the ceiling. “I’ll go up and see.”

The Loved One is a tad jittery about ladders but she gamely climbed up and pushed the door open. She stood on her tip-toes, flashlight in hand and peeked in. “I can’t see anything,” she announced.

Then I climbed up. I could hardly get my shoulders through the little doorway. I saw plenty of insulation and spider webs but nothing from which might emanate a piercing, shrill whistle.

After I climbed down, The Loved One said, “Let’s switch off the circuit breaker and see what happens.”

“Aw, that isn’t gonna do anything,” I said. “I already tried unplugging the opener.”

“Let’s just try it.”

“Knock yourself out.”

With that, she began fiddling with the breaker box. She flipped every possible switch. Finally, she flipped the master circuit breaker. The house went pitch black. Still, the whistle persisted.

“Those damned people,” The Loved One hissed in the dark.

“Who?”

“The old owners. They must’ve had something going on around here and that’s some kind of alarm for it.”

“Whaddya talking about?”

“I don’t know,” she said. She only needed to find someone to blame.

By now, the whistle had been sounding for three good hours. I knew I’d never be able to get to sleep. I pondered our next move. Should we call the old owners? An electrician? The police? The men in the white coats?

“What the hell is it?” The Loved One said through gritted teeth.

At that moment, I imagined it was coming from outside, near the garbage shed where raccoons and opossums create havoc just about every night. Maybe it was a garbage alarm that the old owners had neglected to tell us about. I scouted the area around the house, even pointing my flashlight up into the pine trees. Nothing.

I came back in and — who knows why? — The Loved One and I both started moving toward a table near the middle of the outside wall of the garage as if we’d been hypnotized. Then, simultaneously, we reached for an old computer peripheral, a heavy, white metal box-like thing with heavy duty power cords coming out of it. I remembered pulling it out of one of the boxes and sort of dropping it that afternoon. I also remembered thinking, What the hell do we have to save all this old computer crap for?

The Loved One snatched it out of my hands and flipped a switch on it. The piercing, shrill whistle stopped. It was an alarm indicating its battery was dying. I must have inadvertantly turned on the power button when I almost dropped it earlier.

The silence was deafening, only to be broken when we both started laughing maniacally.

One of my earlier theories had been right — the piercing shrill whistle was indeed the precursor to a nervous breakdown.

Randolph Street: Highway 61

Store Window–Port Gibson, Mississippi

Bandgirl-Keokuk, Iowa

Touchdown–Keokuk, Iowa

McDonald’s–Minnesota

Trumpet–Keokuk, Iowa

Highway Sign–Missouri

This is a personal look at Mid-America that I shot between 1976 and 1985.  These were taken along the approximately 1700 miles of US Highway 61 that roughly follows the Mississippi River from New Orleans to Minneapolis, then juts northeast to Duluth and along the western edge of Lake Superior to Thunder Bay, Ontario.  All photographs © Jon Randolph.

Benny Jay: God Is A Black Man Named Rick Stone

On the spur of the moment, my wife and I head over to the Black Ensemble Theater to see the latest from the great Jackie Taylor: “The Message is in the Music (God is a Black Man Named Ricky).”

We’re all geeked up to see it cause 1.) it got strong reviews – particularly Hedy Weiss’s write-up in the Sun-Times – and 2.) it stars my old friend, Rick Stone, the aforementioned Ricky, in the role of God.

I got a big chuckle out of that bit of creative casting. Don’t get me wrong – Rick’s got a lot going for him. He’s a charismatic song-and-dance man, who’s played Howlin’ Wolf, Rufus Thomas, Nat King Cole and other superstar entertainers in previous Jackie Taylor productions.

Oh, and, by the way, did I tell you we wrote a book together? Well, we did. It’s called “The Greens,” and it’s about two teenagers (one black, one white) having the time of their lives running around Chicago back in the 1970s, and — if I may take this time to make this shameless plug — it’s the world’s greatest book!

Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes, Rick Stone as God? As in the force of all that’s good in the world? Well, as much as I love Rick, I don’t know about that. I mean, he does say – “peace” – at the end of the greeting on his phone-answer machine. But let’s be real –  he’d be the first to tell you that he’s been more Lucifer than God for a good chunk of his fifty-something years. Why, one time, when he was seventeen, he and his gang-bangin’ buddies broke into this railroad car and stole all these guns and — sorry, you’ll have to read the book to get the rest of the story.

I figure Jackie Taylor must be making a larger point about redemption by casting Rick as God because she knows all about the things he did way back when. They grew up together in the Cabrini-Green housing project on Chicago’s north side.  In fact, she helped Rick turn around his life years ago by giving him a spot on the Black Ensemble stage to showcase his singing, acting and dancing talents. The way I see it — if anyone should be playing God, it’s Jackie Taylor.

But there he is up on the stage – resplendently dressed in white – playing the Big Man himself. He’s got it down cold, too. Powerful, yet compassionate. Strong, but wise. Forceful, but forgiving. And tolerant – really tolerant. When his right-hand man questions his love for Elvis Presley, Rick/God says: “This is my house and in my house everybody comes to the party.”

I appreciate the sentiments because I feel the same way about The Carpenters, and it reminds me of an exchange we had after I made a disparaging remark (or two) about Elvis.

“Don’t say nothin’ about Elvis, man,” Rick told me.

“You’re kidding me – you really like Elvis?”

“Man, why wouldn’t I love Elvis? The man had soul. I seen all of his movies  – `Viva Las Vegas,’ `Kissin’ Cousins,’ `King Creole’….”

He went on to say he adored Barry Manilow and that “Mandy” was his favorite song.

Okay, just kidding about that – Rick’s not that tolerant.

Anyway, in the play Lucifer attempts to take over the world, which gives some unbelievably, talented singers an opportunity to sing some absolutely, fantastic songs.

They got a singer named Rhonda Preston who sings Gladys Knight and Aretha Franklin as well as the originals, I kid you not. You absolutely have to hear her sing Aretha Franklin’s “Ain’t No Way.” It will make the hair on you arms stand up.

They have another singer — France Jean-Baptiste — who sings “Imagine” so beautifully, it makes you want to cry for shame at the difference between the way the world is as opposed to the way it’s supposed to be.

They got a scene with the cast singing Sam Cooke’s “We’re Having a Party”….

And they have a smoking good band….

And Lucifer – played by Donald Barnes sings “Fight the Power”….

And they have all sorts of songs by The Beatles, Paul Simon and Curtis Mayfield….

And — oh, just go see it for yourself….

The Black Ensemble’s phone number: 773-769-4451. Their website is www.blackensemble.org

It cost forty-five dollars. Call them up. Make a reservation. It runs until the end of year. If enough of you go, maybe they’ll extend the run. Personally, if it were up to me, they’d run it forever.

By the way, as with all Jackie Taylor productions, the cast lines up in the lobby at the end of the show to shake your hand and thank you for coming. When you see Rick, tell him Benny Jay sent you. Then tell him — peace.

He’ll get a kick out of that. Hey, it can’t hurt to have God on your side….

All The Bells & Whistles

The 00s: A Short List of Good Records from the Last Ten Years (Pt. 3)

Sleater-Kinney: The Woods

This record showed a very strange transformation. Sleater-Kinney, throughout most of their career, was a three-piece with music that was nervous, brittle and jumpy. With two guitars, no bass, riotous songs under three minutes in length, and a Pacific Northwest residence, the trio seemed like holdouts from the beginning of the 90s, when punk broke out and started selling zillions of records. But late in the game, on their final record, Sleater-Kinney did something remarkable — they began to play like Led Zeppelin and Hendrix and other bands that punk killed off.

Dave Grohl of Nirvana is often cited as the direct descendant of John Bonham. On The Woods, Janet Weiss stakes her claim. The woman is devastating. The whole band’s performance is astounding. Everything is loud. Loud, louder, still louder, loudest and then, louder than that. Even with the volume turned down the album is loud. It boasts the loudest harmonium you’ve ever heard in your life. (Remember the Hooters? Remember that plastic hybrid of a keyboard and harmonica they played? [Sing along: And we danced / Like a wave on the ocean / Romanced / We were liars in love. Okay, stop singing.]) Sleater-Kinney douse their harmonium in gasoline and set it on fire. Then they throw it into the crowd. Then they do the same with all their instruments. Then they do it to themselves. And as the smoke dissipates, the way out appears.

by Timothy Imse