Red Green in Concert Without Duct Tape

Back in February, I got a ticket to see Red Green in concert. Red Green is a Canadian who developed a whole empire around a semi-clueless guy who did handyman projects with duct tape, belonged to a lodge (think real life Flinstones) and had a variety of friends with quirks. My sister exposed me to this humor back in the 1990's as she was able to pick up the show from a Sault Ste Marie, Michigan TV station. Red "invaded" the US in 2000-ish and duct tape has never been the same. Many PBS stations, generally not in the big cities like Chicago, picked up the syndication and Possum Lodge fever swept parts of the US. I had to go back to Iowa to see him, although he was picked up by a small PBS station in Chicago about 4 years ago. Unfortunately, I didn't find out until a couple years ago so missed a number of episodes. Plus, the show is on Saturday night and I generally have World of Warcraft plans, not TV plans, on Saturday night.

I think the TV show is funny, more so because I've known people who use duct tape in the manner in which the character uses it. The relationship humor is spot on. I think the show appeals to those of us out in the sticks who have had to "make do", "make up", and "make over" what life has given us. I thought, if the show is funny, the stand-up ought to be as funny, too.

The show was held in the Rialto Square Theater in Joliet, Illinois. It's a great 1920's era restored theater that is a gem to walk into and just stand there looking. The photos I took were really blurry, owing to the crush of people around me who wouldn't allow me to just stand in one place and shoot. Plus, inside the theater part, I felt conspicuous using flash. The marquee is above and the carvings and pillars above the entry are carried out throughout the theater. I believe they have theater tours and it might be something to look into.

I got there a bit early. There is next to nothing open in downtown Joliet at 6:25 p.m. on a Monday night. Parking, in the one garage I remembered was by cash only. I had no cash. I almost never have cash anymore as 99% of the places I go take debit or credit cards. The guy let me park on the promise I'd come back to him. I asked where an ATM from my bank was and he directed me beyond the theater. I walked 15 minutes around downtown Joliet and never saw an ATM for my bank. I gave up and went inside, worried that I'd have a parking ticket or worse, have my car towed. Neither happened, but this is a notice to me. I need to have a 10 spot in my wallet at all times for things like this.

Now, about the show. Red Green encouraged people to take all the photos they wanted. I know a bit about cameras and knew my little point and shoot wasn't going to get him in any kind of focus. He did stop occasionally, to make a joke and I tried to take photos during those times. This is the best I could do.

The show is humorous. There were times of knee-slapping humor. There were times to chortle, to guffaw, to snicker. There were also a few times, when stuff fell flat but I guess that happens to all stand-up comedians. Knowing the TV show helps the humor. I think anyone dragged along who didn't know the show probably didn't get some of the jokes. Of course, I can't, a day later, recall anything that was stand-out funny, but the show certainly had its moments.

There was a woman behind me and to my right who thought everything was funny, every joke, every movement, every stare, every point at the audience. I can't go that far. The venue was not sold out and there were very good seats in front of me which were not filled. A couple of people left half-way through the first act and several groups of people around me did not come back after intermission.

I did not realize it but the TV show is no longer in production. They filmed 300 episodes and are working to get all shows up on the web site for free. I do know one of the actors passed away about a year ago and several cast members had moved on to do other things. At one point, the Canadian Broadcasting Company was going to cancel the show due to funding but the faithful raised a lot of money to help keep it on the air for another couple of years. This tour seems to be a result of the cancellation. Let's take the schtick to the people.

The thing, for me, is that although I think the show is really funny, the live comedy wasn't as good. This is the first "concert", if you can call stand-up a concert, involving a comedian that I have seen. I don't know if, say, Jerry Seinfeld at his prime, was like this. It's one guy, on a vast stage and everything is on him to keep the audience engaged. We have a shared theme here, The Red Green Show, but, I knew several of the jokes he used (Internet memes) and some of the jokes were familiar schticks from the show. I don't know that I had any real idea of what the show would be. This was new.

Now that I've seen him, I won't go to another show unless I give it as a gift to someone. For me, it wasn't the kind of humor that I am dying to see again. He's wry, he can make some very good topical humor, some pointed observational human traits humor, but about 25% of the show just wasn't, for me, funny. Still, I am very glad I went and if you know anything about Red Green, I encourage you to go to one of the shows.

I enjoyed going to this. The drive home was wonderful with a sliver of a moon, Jupiter and lots of visible stars. It was kind of the icing on a lovely evening.

Beverage:  Huckleberry tea

Deb

Happiness Is a Familiar Place

In heading off into the "wilds" of Chicago to attend a concert, I am mindful of the timing of things. Evening concerts require that you leave at a certain hour in order to get to the venue and find parking, if you are not taking public transport. That certain time to be out the door can mean that dinner, such as it is, has to be procured by the venue or on the way to the venue. I had to be out the door by 4:30, if I wanted to eat when I got down there. I also had to pick up my ticket at the "Will Call" window and I didn't want to be dashing in at 6:53 and have to stand in line and miss the opening song.

One of the great things about Chicago is the abundance of restaurants. You want a cuisine, you can find it. It might be a storefront place with 8 tables and a waiter who simply nods when you point to something or it could be white tablecloth covered, reservation-only places with a waiter in a tux who raises an eyebrow when you ask for water. In researching the restaurants around the Old Town School of Folk Music, I had my choice from Mexican to Italian to pub grub to American to sandwich and coffee shops to a German place a few blocks up the street.

In the photo in the post below, you can see the Grafton Pub and Grill. This is an Irish-themed pub with traditional and Americanize Irish fare on the menu. It is also, as you can see, about 35 steps south of the venue. I decided that arriving as close to 5:30 as possible would garner me a table, decent food and an easy walk without worry to the School. If there was a line, I could walk 4 blocks north and eat at the German restaurant. But, reality being what it is, when I finally left the house, at 4:35, the Grafton was sort of on the list and the German restaurant way farther down. I knew I needed to eat but feeling 'meh', I didn't know what I wanted.

There wasn't a line at the Grafton, but there was a semi-packed house. On Sunday evening, it appears they have live music and this has a following. Honestly, I didn't want noise beyond maybe music. The noise of people enjoying company and the tuning of instruments spilled out the open windows and doors (It was near 75 degrees Sunday night). I just didn't want to have to be sociable. So, north I went.

I dropped by the box office and picked up my ticket. With this vital piece of paper in hand, I started walking. There was an Indian restaurant on the corner. This one is Mexican. This is a bar with a patio. Here's a coffee shop and there's Starbucks. In my memory, the last time I was here, there had been a deli with reasonably priced sandwiches and lacking in anything more than utilitarian decor somewhere around here. That's what I wanted. A simple sandwich. Just enough to shove the hunger where it needed to be and to get me home after the show. If I didn't run into that deli, I knew, from reading the restaurant link, Subway was around here somewhere.

I passed a thrift store, a bead store, a used book store which was, thankfully, closed. And then, there it was, on the opposite side of the street.

Costello's in Lincoln Square is where I ate. Carole might remember them from when we saw Old Blind Dogs at Old Town. The decor has not changed although the yellow and red paint on the walls is new. Same colors. Same menu and I mean, the same menu. It's a bunch of tables, a window bar and a counter with a cold drink cooler and a soft drink dispenser. You order off the limited menu, which is nothing but sandwiches. I felt a familiarity with the place. This was not going to be weird food. This was going to be good, filling and familiar and the latter, above all, was what I wanted.

"Can I help you?" "I would like a turkey sandwich but there are things in your sandwiches that don't appeal to me tonight." "Well, let's make one up for you that you would like." It took about 3 minutes to place the order. "Do you want smoked, honey roasted or oven roasted turkey?" "Do you want pepper jack, Swiss, American, Colby, Monterrey Jack, Provolone, Muenster or Cheddar on your sandwich?" "Do you want white, wheat, Russian rye, Jewish rye, ciabatta, foccicia, hard roll, pumpernickel, or a wrap?" "Any veggies? We have lettuce, cucumber, onion, celery, carrots, cole slaw, tomatoes and peppers." Choice is good except when you're hungry and just want a turkey sandwich. The gal behind the counter just giggled when I said, "Wow. So many choices."

That's a turkey, provolone and lettuce wrap. I got mustard on it (Would you like stone ground, yellow, hot or German?). They bake it so the cheese melts and the wrap crisps. I don't remember the 5 different sides I could have. I stuck with chips.

Good. Very good. It was enough. There was a group of musicians in the place, too. They were playing folk and old-style country music. Two mandolins, 3 guitars, a banjo and I couldn't see what the one gal was playing. The place was empty except for me and the musicians and the staff. I call this a serendipitous moment. I just wanted a sandwich. I got music with it. It put me in the right frame of mind to fully enjoy the concert upcoming.

Chicago neighborhoods are filled with these kinds of treasures, from used book stores to simple delis. I sometimes think that actually living in the city wouldn't be a bad thing, but I don't think I could make that move. It was lovely to drive in and experience it, however. Subway will make me a turkey sandwich just the way I order it, anywhere, in the entire country. It will be absolutely the same. These kinds of places are fun to experience because the food is good and it may be a turkey sandwich but it was quite different.

Beverage:  African Rooibos tea

Deb

The Last of the Tax Return

I've become, as I've grown older, rather anal about my tax return. It irritates me that my personal IRA takes the entire month of January to prepare my statement. I want to get the forms filled out and out of here. That way, if I have to pay elebenty billion dollars to the gov'mint, I have several months to figure out how to mail all those pennies.

This year, they were quicker and I received my statement on the last Monday of January. I spent the next weekend with TaxAct online doing my taxes. I had used TurboTax but found the fees they charged for electronic delivery to be distasteful. I've also found, and this will be the 3rd year of using TaxAct, that their forms are easier to fill out and they have suggested things I wouldn't have considered. I think it's your preference.

I was rather amazed at what I was to get back this year. It was more than last year. I wound up owing the State of Illinois an amount that constituted the price of a delivered pizza. I hope they enjoy it. Knowing I had this refund coming, I spent a whole week analyzing my financial life to decide the best way to use this.

I whittled down my needs to the following: 1) Replenish the savings account. This is kind of a no-brainer but with the financial problems I sometimes have, I have to make a conscious choice to put this first. 2) Fix the car. There has been a small problem with the steering dampener for over a year. It had a leak. It's not the kind of thing you have to jump up and fix NOW. It doesn't cause a safety or driving problem until the dampener is nearly empty. It just makes the steering column shake more when you go over bumps. But, I decided that I would fix it because I could and that would prevent a bigger repair later when perhaps I can ill afford it. Get an oil change and new wipers at the same time. I'm good to go now. 3) Get my eyes checked and get new glasses. It had been over 2 years since I'd done this. I noticed a very slight degradation in vision, not enough that I couldn't see, but enough that I knew I needed to do this for myself. I picked up my new glasses today. They are the ones on the left. Yes, there will be a before and after photo next week.

There was some extra after doing all these things. I saved my initial target amount and realized I could save more. What a wonderful feeling! I decided I deserved to take myself out and have tickets for The Tannahill Weavers and Red Green in concert, not together although that would be quite the show. I have not been to a live concert in several years. I couldn't afford it. I think the last concert I attended was with Pam and we went to see a Scottish Military band. Fitting that my return to concerting would be a Scottish folk group.

So, with the pick up of my glasses, the divvying up of the tax return has ended. I think I was much smarter this year, than last year. I don't think I planned as well. It's still baby steps to get where I'd like to be and sometimes I think someone moves the markers back. But I'm happy and that's what matters.

Beverage:  Dr Pepper

Deb

Breathe.

It's about time.

But I've found out that his show has been on WYCC, channel 20, a public station run by the City Colleges of Chicago. I don't know how long. If you have not watched this show, Red would say, "Good for you." I say, "Your life is incomplete."

Now, to figure out how to get tickets. I may need new brakes and new wipers but this is Red Green.

Beverage: Grape Pomegranate juice

Deb

Happy Birthday!

Jazz clarinetist Artie Shaw would have been 100 on Sunday. NPR did a nice piece on him which you can read here.

Artie Shaw was interviewed and profiled extensively for the Ken Burns' Jazz series on PBS. As one of the last remaining band leaders of the swing era, his memories formed a core around which that era could be examined in the limited amount of time allotted to it. He said one of his fondest memories was of giving a concert on an aircraft carrier somewhere in the Pacific. The sailors had seen some of the bitterest fighting and a lot of men were not coming home. The USO arranged for Shaw and his band to give the guys in this battle group a taste of home.

The band was set up on one of the flight decks which was lowered into the carrier. The sailors weren't told which band was coming only that a jazz band was coming to play for them. As the deck rose to the top, Shaw and his band started into their signature song "Begin the Beguine". He said he remembered the roar that went up from the men. He said he could still hear it 60+ years later. There was film footage of that event shown in the program. Men sitting everywhere on this carrier and Shaw standing front and center starting the song.

"Begin the Beguine" is one of my top 10 favorites. It's a song I love to play when the top is down on the Jeep and I'm driving along at 60 miles per hour. I think of Mr. Shaw and his story every time I hear it and I think about those guys in the Pacific Ocean, thousands of miles from home, doing something I wonder if I ever could because the world's freedom depended upon the performance of their job. Shaw said he never wanted to be a "popular" entertainer because he felt you gave away too much of your music. Yet one song cheered thousands of guys and has gone on to cheer millions. That's my definition of "popular".

Happy 100th Birthday! I'm sure the concert you're giving on Sunday will make the angels sing.

Beverage: China Black Tea

Deb

Happy Music

Music hath charms to soothe a savage beast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.

--William Congreve

Such a familiar quotation, but it's true. What you are listening to says a great deal about who you are.

Everyone knows I listen to jazz. My parents listened to singers who have been given the moniker "crooners"; Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Perry Como, Bing Crosby. They grew up in the 1950's, when the solo jazz artist was in his prime. Swing's time had passed with the end of World War II. People listened to music. I remember my father, who couldn't carry a tune in a dump truck, singing all these jazz standards to the cows as he milked them. It doesn't seem at all a stretch to be a jazz lover now. "Lady What-ga"? Rap? Isn't that another term for knocking on something, like a door?

I fire up my iMac, turn on iTunes and let the music flow. I have a little over 5 days worth of music. In true collector form, there a number of tunes for which I have 4 or 5 versions, my favorite jazz standard, "April in Paris", is an example. My iTunes play list probably consists of 70% jazz in some form and the rest in classical, pop, celtic, folk, Christmas, movie music and other eclectic categories.

When I'm contemplative, there is nothing like Copeland, Mussorgsky, Grieg or Joshua Bell. I don't usually have music playing when I read because I find myself pulled towards interaction with the music when I have chosen interaction with the printed word. When I play World of Warcraft, the games sounds and musical snippets get repetitive, so I'll turn on my iTunes, set the sort for some category and let it go. In the summer, if I'm sitting on the deck, I'll some times crank up the volume on the computer, which sits right by the window, and pump Ella and Louis and Frank and Dizzy out into the atmosphere. The Beach Boys can't be beat for driving around Chicago with the top down on a July Sunday.

As I'm cleaning my house in preparation for a visit from my daughter, I've had 'happy' music on. Generally, this consists of peppy jazz, Count Basie and Duke Ellington, Artie Shaw and Benny Goodman with some Glenn Miller thrown in for good measure. But I also include my favorite Scottish band, Old Blind Dogs, in the category of 'happy' music. The skirl of the pipes, the bouzouki, the fiddle make a nice counterpoint to buffing windows, dusting pictures and door frames and sorting and shredding mountains of papers.

I was listening to WDCB, College of DuPage. Last night, I turned on the radio before going to bed, just to unwind. They were running promos of upcoming programs and this music came out of my radio in response to a promo for "Mountain Stage". It was peppy. It was bouncy. It was happy. Who is this? Pine Leaf Boys. Never heard of them.

So, this morning, I did some research. Oh man. I will have to find a way to get one of their CDs. I could play this music a lot. Give them a listen. Go to the "Media" tab and click on the videos. This is infectious music. I see they were at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago, the venue where Carole and I saw a lot of Old Blind Dogs. I couldn't afford to attend a concert there right now, but Chicago has a lot of free festivals during the summer. Maybe they will turn up on the venue for one of them. I'm thinking, like OBD, listening to them live is much more of an experience.

Tonight, I work on the living room. Maybe some Nat King Cole?

Beverage: China Black Tea

Deb