Sunday Down South

My legs are sore. I've walked more than your average bear the past couple days. I took a woman up on her invitation for a walk Saturday night and we ended up traipsing through her neighborhood for a couple hours, at least. Then yesterday, my mom and I took a lengthy stroll down Lincoln Avenue to the Victory Garden Theater. So they're sore but in a good way.

The weekend was productive, wallet-draining, and fun. I got home yesterday morning a bit after 8 and found that my alarm was buzzing. After scurrying upstairs, I hastily shut it off lest I wake Stevie. (I wasn't worried about Becca as she sleeps the sleep of the dead. A nuclear blast at, say, Francois' Cafe & Bakery wouldn't wake her.) I did my best to get my eyes to stay open and finally hit the shower. I then jumped back in my car and hit the highway south. Although the interstate was busy it moved steadily. There was no backup around Des Plaines this time and, most oddly, the toll at the beginning of the Kennedy was deserted. Well, as deserted as expressways in Chicago can be, anyway. The upshot was that I made it to my mom's place in good time. I was a bit peckish so we headed out for brunch. But not after she admitted to me that she "didn't have time" to grab some Italian beef for me from Sirelli's. Didn't have time my ass. That frau was out partying like it's 1999 - I just know it. So we planned a post-theater run to Jay's. While Jay's beef is good and my brother swears by it, I prefer Sirelli's. Theirs just has a that red cunt hair more herb to it and less salt in the gravy. But, considering the crap to be found here, I couldn't complain. So we headed out. The plan was to park over by Lincoln and Bryn Mawr and then bus it to the theater. The area that the theater is in - Lincoln/ Clark/Fullerton - is a yuppie haven so all of the parking spots are filled with Beamers. So we parked and grabbed a bus. On the bus ride, I found further evidence to support my theory that the woman going around calling herself my mother is really a pod person. (Readers may recall a post from last week in which I first proposed this hypothesis.) A couple years ago, my "mom" started reminding me how good sex is for one's health. My pure, sweet, innocent good Catholic girl mother who never talked about sex for the first 30 or so years of my life, suddenly became a vocal advocate of fornication. (It is from her that I get my pureness, sweetness, and innocence.) The first time it came as a gentle reminder about prostate health. She mailed me an article from the paper about the topic. Then yesterday, while discussing gout, of all things (I had related a story about a co-worker afflicted with it), she told me that she'd read that sex does something-or-other with bile so I should have lots of sex. I was flabbergasted. I mean, I agree with her completely, but...but...it was my mother saying this!

Switching topics, I told her that I was keen on pancakes and we got off near Lincoln and Ashland to eat at the Wishbone. The place bills itself as Southern Reconstruction Cooking. The interior looked absoulutely nothing like any restaurant I saw in the south and the patrons were 99% yuppies. The food, however, was pretty tasty. I had pancakes and grits. My only 2 complaints were: 1) the hot sauce was girly. I mean, it would be better described as cayenne-infused vinegar because it had no zip to it at all. None. Zilch. 2) Their andouille was made of chicken. WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS ALL ABOUT? Perusing the menu, I kept seeing these italicized words that made me shutter: No Pork. How in the name of fuck did a city that was named Hog Butcher to the World start serving sausage made out of chicken? Sheeot. Get that crap outta here!

While we were eating, my mom told me a humorous story. Somehow we got onto the topic of my birth and she related that she wasn't given any drugs when I popped out so I asked her if she cussed the whole time and this prompted the tale. As my dad was bringing my mom up to the maternity ward, they shared an elevator with another couple who heading there as well. They were both very solemn and were carrying Bibles. As they ascended, the couple read Bible verses to one another in hushed voices and prayed for a healthy child. "Back in those days," my mother said, "we didn't have private rooms so all the women were in one big room. And I ended up next to the woman that we had shared the elevator with. I remember her screaming at her husband, 'Don't you come near me you son of a bitch! Don't ever touch me again!'" I found the story to be quite humorous and it also provided yet more evidence for my theory that the woman who goes around saying she's my mother is, in fact, a pod person. Now, back when I knew her, she never swore and she'd use terms like "the F-word" if she were quoting someone. (How she managed to do this after having been married to my dad for twenty some-odd years is a complete mystery to me). Then a few years ago, she started using the actual profanities when quoting someone else but she'd always lean in towards you and whisper the offending word. When she recited the above story, howver, she said "son of a bitch" and used the same volume level that she used in telling the rest of the story. See, pod person.

After dining, we decided to stroll the rest of the way, a distance of a bit more than a mile. Along the way, we noticed the outrageous prices for real estate in the area and stopped in at a used book store. We finally made it to the theater around 3. We were a bit on the early side so we grabbed some aqua and waited in the lobby. The doors opened after a short while and we took our seats. It was a small room - held about 60 people. It was all black with a Mac laptop humming away in the small booth at the back. The stage had two sections of scaffolding at the back and padding on the floor.

The lights went down, some music started, and 3 people came out bearing white sheets. They held them up in front of themselves and created a screen upon which a collage of various photos was projected. Photos of nekkid people and body parts lit various colors and with images projected onto them. It was a Philip Glass piece - one that I swear was used in Errol Morris' The Thin Blue Line. It was a nice intro but I think it went on a bit too long. I gained great respect for the folks who were able to keep their arms extended upwards for that amount of time. Once the music stopped, they scurried backstage. It wasn't long before four folks came out. They stood at the front of the stage with dim lights shining down from behind them. Each person danced something different but each pair had a routine which shared a move or two. At first I was just ogling the women. The cast is 6 or 7 people in toto with 4 or 5 women. The frauleins were in their mid-20s to roughly my equally young age. So, for a few minutes I just watched the outlines of women's hips and breasts while occasionally sneaking in a glimpse of their naughty bits. After a while, though, the prurient aspect wore off (a lot but not totally) and I became engrossed in the performance. This first routine wasn't really my cup of tea but I did appreciate the technical aspect of the choreography, the way the dances shared a few elements with each other but remained quite distinct. There was a lot less dancing during the show than I had expected. One neat bit had the actors all atop the scaffolding. An indistinct brown pattern was projected onto the upper half of the scaffolding where they stood while a nebulous blue pattern filled the lower half and the floor. It was like they were sitting on docks at a lake. One person would dip their toes into the blue light like they were testing the water before going for a swim. Eventually everyone went jumped down and played in the "water". They even brought their heads up into the brown light to catch a gasp of "air". Much of the performance involved this kind of stuff - the actors running around and up & down the scaffolding like kids on monkey bars. Sort of play-acting, if you will. About three quarters through, one of the actresses had a small spotlight put on her face and she addressed the audience. She thanked we the audience and explained a little bit about the purpose of the show. (Body image and such.) Then she tried to cajole folks to join them onstage. A little Homer Simpson voice went off in my head: "Get naked and dance around with 5 hotties, eh? Hmm..." I really, really, really, really wanted to. But...but my mum was there. If I'd been there by myself or with a friend, I think some Chicagoites would have seen more of me than they would have cared to. Christ, I know what would have happened. I'd get onstage in my birthday suit and the hottie who spoke to us in the audience would have tried to show me some dance moves. Then I'd have gotten a boner and pulled the worst dance moves ever by a white man. No problem. I'd be heading back behind the Cheddar Curtain afterwards. Next time. I'll give them an image of body, alright. One that they'll never forget too.

While my mom described her opinion of the show using various euphemisms like "interesting" and "different", I rather liked it. A bunch. I liked the all-encompassing aspect. The dark room, the sharp contrast between the stage and the way the performers were lit. The way the stage could be transformed with patterns projected onto it. (And there were naked women too!) I enjoyed how they played with space but wished they had explored that more. As with the first bit I described with the docks and the water, the projections could really divide up the stage. But I just wish they'd done more of that and cut it up further. I mean, you had 2 scaffolds each with a space on top and beneath. I think it would have been cool had they done something with those 4 areas. What? I dunno - I'm not Joey ArtCritic. Maybe some kind of avant garde Hollywood Squares. Hey, I'm just an audience member from Wisconsin, not some fancy artist from the Metropolis. Overall, I really enjoyed the show and would love to go again. Who's up for it?

Mom and I caught a bus back to her van and we headed back to her place. But! But we made a quick run to Jay's. I had no idea that one of their locations was so close to my mom's place - I thought it was way further southwest. Fuck! If I'd have know that, I'd be stopping there every fucking trip down there.