Rev up the Judgemobile! Reviews of how I amused myself in Chicago.
With others (the Hot Mom crowd)
Cowboy Mouth Concert (three thumbs up): Good God, the floor at the House of Blues is a bouncy wood trampoline when thousands of people jump up and down in unison. The band was good, as always, with some added spite in their banter for some standing Chicago gig that turned them down this year.
Howl At The Moon (deformed thumb partially down): This is a dueling piano bar in River North. Hot Mom’s out-of-state friends started holding seats at 5:30, then at 7 the singers began. After one song I arched my eyebrow at the woman who had recommended it.
My eyebrow said, “This is awful. Did they not warm up first?”
“This is the B team,” she explained. “The A team comes on later.”
The B team sang songs from Disney movies that only Moms know, and sang them poorly. I drank all I could, but I just never got into it I held out till 9 when the A team came on, and they were certainly better, but I left after an hour.
On My Own
Museum of Broadcast Communications (one thumb up): I was determined to have a museum-free Chicago visit, but this was in the same building as my hotel and I have journalist blood.
Hints if you go: open this unmarked door to the cleaning supplies by the Fibber McGee and Molly exhibit.
I got pretty excited to see this old AP ticker with the 11/1963 Dallas dateline:
And then I saw this exhibit and lost the next half hour of my life.
It’s a loop of every breaking news report for the LAST FIFTY YEARS. If I didn’t have tickets to the matinee of Book of Mormon I would still be there.
Book of Mormon (Three thumbs and a big toe up): Loved it. Made me laugh every minute, made me cry at the end. I make no apologies. The music swells, the conflict is resolved, humanity is uplifted. And my seats were right in the the sweet spot that collects all the stage energy: row F center.
Such a good show. Go see it, even if you’re Mormon. Don’t see it if you’re Ugandan, you’ll be insulted.
I went to Millennium Park the next day, but that’s a post of its own.
2 responses to “Chicago: Reviews”
Wow. I can’t keep up with all your doings in the Big City.
Hattie -well, the second city, anyway. Plenty big for me. I talked to some guy at the Book of Mormon and he sneered at how little there was to do in Saint Louis and my response used the phrases “my home” and “hometown” so liberally that he clammed up.