A Walk Down Memory Lane

I was in the West Town, Wicker Park area recently to see a show. I used to hang out around there a lot in the early 90s because that's where my psychopathic then-boyfriend lived. This was a couple years before Details magazine proclaimed Wicker Park to be the world's hippest neighborhood, and a couple decades before its current incarnation.

If you walked around the neighborhood back then you saw plenty of homeless people and vacant lots. In fact, many of the homeless people set up little encampments on the vacant lots with tents and other amenities. There was one guy I used to see that I was kind of afraid of. He had only one leg and had actually fashioned a wooden leg from an oar, like Peg-Leg Pete or something.

Well, one morning I was trudging to the El dressed in my suit on my way to work with only a couple hours of sleep due to my accomodation to the boyfriend's psychopathic lifestyle. Suddenly I found myself flying into the air and landing on the sidewalk. When I was able to take stock of the situation I realized that there was dog shit all over my shoe, and it had evidently provoked my fall. Dismayed, I looked up and saw the guy with the wooden leg gazing down at me. "I slipped in dog shit," I wailed. "That's OK," he told me. "You can wipe it off." This is one of the nicer things that has happened to me over the years, and makes me think that homeless people could be angels or Jesus or something.

Helmet: The Double Door

For reasons I cannot explain, I've never been to the Double Door before. It's a small and charming place. After I got there I sat in the balcony, drank a couple beers and watched the first band.

Bruiser: Bruiser was lots of fun. They had a sort of nasty, edgy, Buzzcocks kind of thing going, and two of the three band members had really long hair. It's always a treat for me to see guys with long hair.

Villain vs. Villain: I made my way to the stage to see this act. You can get really close to the band at the Double Door, and I took full advantage of this feature. I was close enough that I was able to study the way the musicians' arm hairs contrasted with their florid and sweat slickened tattoos. Since I'm pretty sure no one from Villain vs. Villain will ever read this, I will mention that I found the singer's histrionics a little on the comical side.

Intranaut: More LA noise rock which I love so much I think maybe I should move to California. Some of the music was painfully beautiful. Then it was jazzy, then it was convulsively loud. I really enjoyed Intranaut.

Helmet: However you want to categorize Helmet, they sparked my love affair with sludgy, emerging from the swamps, syncopated, enormous machine making its way down Broadway type music. Also the "Meantime" cassette playing  too loud from my little Walkman lit the way through a very bad period in my life. I parked myself in front of a monitor providing an excellent view of Paige Hamilton's fingers on his guitar. After the show I had a very enjoyable conversation with Helmet's new bass player, Dave Case, about what it's like to play the bass in Helmet. A good time was had by yours truly.

Macbeth: Lyric Opera

The first time I saw Verdi's Macbeth at the Lyric, I was vaguely irritated by the spectacle of guys striding around in kilts singing in Italian. This didn't stop me from coming back for another round, however. The 2010 production was directed by Barbara Gaines of Chicago Shakespeare Theater. Since I cannot stay away from any staging of "The Scottish Play," I'd already seen two different Barbara Gaines versions. The first was sometime in the 80s, and featured a dwarf actress who did amazing gymnastics during the fight scenes. More recently, my friend Gordon took me to see Macbeth at Chicago Shakespeare Theater for my birthday. This was a rather tricked out production where Lady Macbeth appeared naked in a glass bath tub during her death scene, among other eyebrow-raising features.                                                     

So I wasn't exactly surprised that Mrs. Macbeth showed quite a bit of skin in the current version. Prior to the beginning of the opera I had earnestly studied the program notes which advised us to approach the production as "Verdi's Macbeth" rather than "Shakespeare's Macbeth." This admonition worked its magic as I was completely riveted by the acting and music. Lady Macbeth was amazing!

I'm not sure what it is about opera; maybe the tremendous sonic vibrations in the air due to all the vocal firepower, but not infrequently around about the middle of the second act, every mucus-bearing cavity in my head opens up without warning. I choke, I swallow repeatedly hoping to vanquish the urgent desire to cough. Said swallowing brings on nausea. Tears flow from my eyes as I pray for some type of loud singing or orchestral displays that will drown out the hacking which inevitably follows. I hope a special place in heaven awaits me, as I seem to be the only person in the house who trys to exercise such self-control!