The temperature was 90+ degrees in Chicago Wednesday. Our time at a rap concert outside at Grant Park that night was hot — in more ways than one.

I wrote a post earlier this week about my quest to understand what young people are listening to these days. If the musicians we heard in the Petrillo Band Shell Wednesday night are any indication, those kids have very good taste! The Taste of Chicago concert was free if you stood on the lawn, and thousands upon thousands of teenagers and 20-somethings gathered there peacefully — and happily — to hear Donnie Trumpet and The Social Experiment, The Roots, and … Chance the Rapper, a last minute addition. My disability status allowed me $25 seats in the shell. We opted for those. It wasn’t long before Mike guided me to a walkway behind our seats, though. I needed to stand up — and dance!

Donnie Trumpet and The Social Experiment opened the show. Donnie’s real name is Nico Segal, he’s a good friend of my friend Chance the Rapper, and he plays, guess what? The trumpet. A lot of people were there Wednesday to see Chance the Rapper, but if you ask me, it was The Social Experiment’s time to shine. The band features three trumpets, a trombone, two sax players, two keyboards, guitar, bass, drums, and … vibes. I really, really, really liked The Social Experiment.

Before Wednesday, I hadn’t quite taken to this rap thing. I’d assumed rap was more talk than music. I have trouble understanding what they’re saying. I can’t see to watch them do their cool moves. But The Social Experiment changed all that for me. It’s horns, back-up singers, and rap — all in one.

Donnie Trumpet, The Social Experiment and Chance the Rapper. A beautiful night.

The band’s performance was a 21st century variety show. Donnie brought one young performer on stage after another, boasting over and over again to the audience that “These musicians are all from Chicago!” I especially liked Michael Golden, one of many rappers who came out to perform with the band. He had his Go lyrics choreographed, so sometimes, when he’d repeat a phrase, like, say, “Don’t Go, don’t go” the guys on stage would chorus along, often in harmony. Like Motown! Female singers in the background were doing harmony, too — beautiful.

I read up on Donnie Trumpet a.k.a. Nico Segal a little bit and learned that he has Cuban background. That might explain the band’s Afro-Cuban sound. The music The Social Experiment played Wednesday also combined gospel, doo-wop, Motown, rhythms like Prince used, jazz like Miles Davis played, reggae and even … marching band. You couldn’t help but dance to it.

Mike and I were so sweaty it was gross to hold each other. Whitney the Seeing Eye dog stayed home (she doesn’t like crowds) so I unfolded my white cane and danced with it instead. About half an hour into Social Experiment, Chance made his entry, the audience went ballistic, and the exhiliration left Mike and me laughing — with joy.

It wasn’t all fun, though. Many of the lyrics I heard Wednesday touched on violence and chaos. A Chicago Tribune review of Chance the Rapper described his Paranoia trac “as incisive and moving a perspective on Chicago’s poverty-stricken killing zone as any piece of art.” In the article, Chance talked about growing up on Chicago’s South Side. “You have to be around it, you get sensitive to the sound and sight of a fight, the way a gun sounds — it doesn’t sound like the movies,” Chance told the reporter. “The idea of having friends who passed before they were 16, 17, you realize other people who aren’t from here aren’t like that, and they fear us.”

The concert was on Wednesday, the night before this week’s shootings in Dallas. Alton Sterling had been killed by a police officer in Baton Rouge the day before, and after the crowd took a moment of silence to ponder that, Donnie Trumpet stepped back up to the mike. “Moments of silence should be followed by moments of joy.”

Chance and the band responded with a version of the song “Blessings” and its refrain, “I’m gon’ praise him, praise him, ‘til I’m gone.” It was moving — and exhilarating — to be in the midst of thousands of happy, peaceful fans enjoying music together.

And so, with this post today, I’m gon’ praise Chance, Donnie Trumpet, The Social Experiment, the fans, the Chicago Park District, the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and the security staff for providing such an eye-opening, ahem, night to this middle-aged blind music lover.

I’ll leave you here with another Chance the Rapper quote from the Chicago Tribune, this one about his track called Paranoia.

”In Chicago people are afraid too. So to say, ‘I know you’re scared,’ it’s a kid speaking to an adult, to anyone who is outside this. He’s saying, ‘I’m in the same position, I’m scared too.’ I can’t be inattentive or unprepared. Because they could pull on me at any time. It’s fear of the next step. That song is saying if everyone would stop and say how they feel, we might realize we have a lot more in common than we thought.”

Last week, in my ongoing quest to understand what the young people are doing these days, I took advantage of an offer to get two tickets in the handicapped section for a Taste of Chicago concert.

The bands are The Roots (who I know of thanks to QuestLove) and someone called Donnie Trumpet, who I’d never heard of. I looked up Donnie Trumpet, checked out a You Tube video and he sounded pretty cool. Interesting — almost pretty — music.

Mike said he’d come along. We bought two tickets.
This morning  when  Mike checked out the Chicago Tribune web site he saw this big news:

Chance The Rapper announced that he will be opening up for The Roots on Wednesday along with his friend Donnie Trumpet.

I. Love. Chance.

He first charmed me when I turned on the kitchen radio on a lazy Saturday morning last summer . There he was, a guest on NPR’s Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me during a live taping of the show at Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park. Chance was sweet, smart, very, very funny and was wearing one of his grandmother’s favorite yellow cardigans. Two young woman from the audience stormed the stage. I would have held on and jumped up there, too,  if I’d been with them
in the audience.

I heard him on Saturday Night Live and fell in love all over again. and now I hear him every time Mike has a White Sox game on TV (and that’s a lot of times).  Chance is a fan, and he narrates the White Sox 2016 promotion videos, which appear before games, and also run as TV commercials.

More from a story in Chicago’s RedEye.

And you can view the Chance videos by clicking on the image below.

Fans get a rush out of the video. His monologue tells of the city’s rise and being “built upon the muscles of broad shoulders and strong backs.”

The speech is set against a backdrop of Sox highlights and snippets of Chicagoans going about our everyday work lives.

“To make it in Chicago, there’s one thing we’d better be able to do,” he says. “Step up.”

I’m steppin’ up tonight.

Now, what do I wear?

Here we are on July Fourth, and as a show of patriotism, a big American beer brand decided to rename its beer America for the summer.

This Canadian brand did something very different to celebrate that country’s own independence celebration, Canada Day, July 1.

Your assignment: Compare and contrast.

Alanna Royale was smokin’.

For our part, Beth and I celebrated the holiday by dynamiting ourselves out of our Printers Row cocoon and heading to an old standard, an all-time favorite: Fitzgerald’s. Every Fourth of July, the funky, homey, welcoming unpretentious club in Berwyn (an unpretentious suburb of Chicago) holds a four-day American Music Festival. Musical acts play on multiple stages in tents, in the club, in the Sidebar—it’s like an American music smorgasbord.

We took the Blue line. The club is a short a half-mile walk from the L stop. We got there around 3:00 p.m. We saw several acts and hung out with our friends (and friends of Harper) Chris and Larry, and heard a lot of great music. I peppered the two of them about their upcoming annual hike down and back up the Grand Canyon, for probably the umpteenth time. (They’re a patient lot.) I try to talk myself into it (but always end up thinking better of the idea when I get back to my couch).

The highlight was a band called Alanna Royal. Beth had heard proprietor Bill Fitzgerald talking up this act on the local NPR station earlier this week. When she found out they have a brass section, our Saturday was immediately determined.

They didn’t disappoint. Alanna Quinn-Broadus, the lead singer is, well, a force of nature. A hunka’ burnin’ love and blues and soul. The horns were great, the band was tight, and if you get a chance to see this Nashville group, do it. They get around pretty good.

The music at Fitzgerald’s American Music Festival ranges every year from a bit of traditional jazz to some folk, blues, and soul. You know, the kind of stuff it’s really fun to be proud of America for.

Oh, and the beer was good, but there wasn’t any America, I don’t think.

Happy Fourth of July weekend, everybody. Last week we published a post Mike wrote about his visit to Pittsburgh and to the area in Western Pennsylvania where his parents grew up, and his visit with his cousin Linda. Well, that sparked Linda to write about one of the unique facets of the small town near the Monongahela River where her mother and Mike’s father were raised. Enjoy.

by Linda K. Porter

It’s here again: The 4^th of July weekend celebration of independence. Parades, fireworks, bells, whistles, and backyard picnics are already planned, and invitations are out.

No bar codes, no scanners. Just trust.

Our farmers market opened in Denbo once again this past week. Denbo has its own rich story, and my mother, Michael’s father, and our six other aunts and uncles all grew up together in a small two-bedroom house there. Juicy red garden tomatoes, delectable green onions, and crunchy green cucumbers are now available at the Denbo farmers market for 4^th of July picnic tables. The Ratica family has farmed the land for three generations and started to sell their goods to the locals about ten years ago. Word of mouth spread quickly, and customers are driving short and long distances to partake of the organic bounty.

It’s probably a lot like other farmers markets–except for one thing.

Our farmers market is based on the “honor system.” No cash register, no clerk to help with your purchase, no change, no credit, and no checks. The stand is devoid of modern technology. Farmer Bob Ratica restocks the vegetables once or twice daily and labels each package with a price. For a little over two bucks, you can buy three large tomatoes. One bite, and you would pay double or triple to get another. The buyer adds up the purchase, and deposits the money into a small slot in a locked money box: Dimes, nickels, and quarters are welcome.

And that’s it.

A roadside sign explains it all.

Attempts to cheat the farmer will get you something of a scarlet letter. I know of only one instance where someone was stealing. It has been said that Mr. Ratica caught the perpetrator by hiding out behind an old building nearby. The farmer didn’t even confront the thief, but instead posted a sign on a piece of jagged edged cardboard with a message in bold black marker: “Bubba Smith is Not Welcome Here.” (Name has been changed to protect the real Bubba from further scorn.)

As summer evolves, the farm will be stocked with corn, potatoes, watermelon and cantaloupe. There has also been asparagus, zucchini, parsley, beets, cabbage, lettuce and herbs. Farmer Ratica guarantees all of his products, and I don’t know of anyone who has requested a refund. This hardworking farmer, son of immigrants, good friend of the Knezovich brothers, has placed his trust in his neighbors.

In light of Mike’s visit back to his Denbo roots last weekend, I forgot to remind him: We don’t have coal or steel any longer, but we still have honor.

Happy 4^th of July!

In my playwriting post last week I promised a second post with more details on my failed attempt to memorize and perform a monologue without being able to see the script – or the audience.

I wrote my two-minute dog monolog on my talking computer, then listened to it line by line and repeated the lines one at a time onto a voice recorder. Throughout the week I’d listen to the recording, and I made a special point to do so before swimming laps for exercise. That way I could rehearse underwater, too.

And still, I arrived at class the next week feeling uneasy, and, of course, I flubbed my lines. So. Is it more difficult to memorize a script when you can’t read print? Would reading my monolog over and over throughout the week (rather than listening to it) have made my memorization efforts more of a success?

I don’t know.

The next classs went much better. We didn’t have to hand in that assignment, we just had to perform it. The teachers wouldn’t have my script in front of them. They couldn’t know if I was memorizing or ad libbing. Performing my piece in class this past Saturday was far less nerve-racking.

Our homework last week was to choose a famous book or play or movie, write a two-minute interpretation of that work, and perform it as a play in class. The play could be a one-person show or we could ask fellow students to take parts, too.

Our class is studying the Too Much Light (TML) style. We’re creating very short minimalist plays. No costumes (actors just wear their street clothes) and no elaborate set design. Each short play starts by announcing the title and saying, “Go!” Plays end by simply calling out “Curtain!”

A teacher sat next to me to describe the action when my classmates performed their pieces Saturday. I was one of three classmates helping one writer perform his interpretation of Batman, another enlisted other students to perform her piece on Harry Potter.

I was born to play the part. Here I am with friends at a high school costume party in 1976 — we’re dressed as the characters from Wizard of Oz. (photo courtesy of Laura Gale).

My favorite was the two-minute interpretation of the movie Titanic: It opened with a woman sitting in a chair with her back to us, hugging herself, moaning and making kissy sounds throughout the entire two-minute play. This was a minimalist portrayal of a character making out with someone non-stop. A second actor would periodically approach the make-out artist, nudge her chair and say, “Hey!” You know, like, “Hey – I’m out here!” The make-out artist wouldn’t even look, just simply shake her off.

The actor doing the nudging happens to use a wheelchair, which, to me, made the scene even more effective. She’d roll away, come back, nudge the make-out artist’s chair, say “Hey!” and be shaken off, then roll away and come back and say “Hey!” Over and over again.

Finally the nudger showed up with a water pitcher in her lap. This time, after saying “Hey!” she poured the pitcher of water over the make-out artist’s head. “Curtain!” There you have it: The make-out artist portrayed Kate Winslett’s character in Titanic, the nudger played the iceberg, and the entire movie that one an Oscar for best picture in 1997 was over in two minutes.

I chose The Wizard of Oz, figuring I could be Dorothy, and my Seeing Eye dog could play Toto. Our TML teachers had urged us to consider the theme of the work we’d be interpreting, so my free time the week before was spent pondering no place like home, the ruby slippers, clicking three times, and Dorothy’s dance segments with the scarecrow and the Tin Man.

Which led me to wonder: Why didn’t Dorothy dance with the cowardly lion? And that’s when it came to me. The Wizard of Oz as a night at a dance club. My class mates and teachers liked the idea and had plenty of recommendations afterwards of ways to enhance the script and my performance. I’ll end this post now with my original script. Enjoy!

Scene opens with me talking to Seeing Eye dog Whitney as we walk on stage, my feet obviously hurting.

Me: Man, she really was a witch, wasn’t she?

We stop in front of the stage, facing the audience.

Me: These shoes are killing me.

I lean down to adjust them, get a kiss from my dog and stay down there to talk with her face to face.

Me: We leave the farm, head to the city, try to meet Mr. Right, and jeez. The first guy was nice and all, but boy was he dumb. The second one was so stiff, and that third guy, what a chicken. God these shoes hurt.

I fumble with the shoes and finally stand up again to face the audience.

Me: These damn shoes! They’re so tight they won’t come off…

I run the heel of one shoe off the other, obviously struggling to get that one shoe off, to no avail.

me, grunting: One!

I run the heel of the second shoe off the first shoe, obviously struggling to shove that second shoe off, to no avail.

me, grunting again: Two!

I repeat with the first shoe, trying one last time, obviously struggling, to no avail.

me, grunting again: Three!

Curtain!