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IN THIS ISSUE T R - prepare for a deluge of novel Chicago Music Blues guitarist @ coronavirus patients Lurrie Bell beat mental illness to build a thriving career P T B 34 Early Warnings Rescheduled ECS K K H concerts and other updated listings CLRH M EP M 34 Gossip Wolf Silkworm veteran TDK R Tim Midyett fi nally drops the fi rst C EB W Mint Mile fulllength Steve Reidell AEJL SWMD L G of Air Credits almost remakes the DIBJ MS FILM Genesis album Duke and EAS N L 23 Small Screen Standup Mae more GD A H CITY LIFE L CSC -J 03 Shop Local Instead of buying Martin’s new series FeelGoodgets C E B N B from Amazon support Chicago heavy but there’s always a laugh OPINION L C M DLC M businesses from your couch 10 Feature Essays on isolation waiting around the corner 36 Savage Love Dan Savage off ers C J F S F J H I H C M J What staying at home has taught 25 Movies of note ThePlatform advice on whether to hook up with M K S K FOOD & DRINK us about our city and ourselves packages thrills in a thick shroud an ER doctor during a pandemic N DLJL 04 Gardeners You can’t grow toilet of moral ambiguity Uncorked MM A M-K JRN JN M paper but you can grow your own ARTS & CULTURE is a charming take on younger O M S C S food 16 Lit Cameron Esposito looks back generations rejecting their parents’ ------on her defi ning moments in the traditions and Vivarium leans DD J D memoir SaveYourself into science fi ction to depict the D AC W 17 Community How DIY face dystopian utopia SMCJ G MPC masks can help our local hospitals YD 18 Comedy How soon is “too soon” MUSIC & SSP to make jokes about coronavirus? AT A NIGHTLIFE SEC K K THEATER 26 Feature The Chicago ADVERTISING 19 Essay A love letter to the Underground Quartet recapture -- @ C Chicago theater community their freewheeling jazz spirit CLASSIFIEDS - @ 21 Review Steven Straff ord’s solo years a er their fi rst album 38 Jobs NEWS chronicle of meth addiction 30 Shows of note Even a 38 Apartments & Spaces SDP F & POLITICS VPSA M 06 Joravsky | Politics Look on streams online with th Street pandemic can’t stop the fl ow of 38 Marketplace CRM T P the bright side Chicago Burke 22 Profi le Nora Dunn’s Steppenwolf great music Our critics review new SA R Lipinski and Conway lost! show is postponed but the SNL vet and recent releases that you can L M-H L S A R 08 Interviews with a isn’t holding back enjoy at home O P S Hospitals BF B’ G MFNS doctor and nurse as hospitals 31 The Secret History of CSM WR

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The Reader’s stay-at-home Who voted for Iris Martinez? Chicago movie journal: Make A C R R Maybe she was the most qualiﬁ ed RR T ® chronicles candidate in the clerk of the Circuit no little home-viewing plans Here’s a daily-ish journal of how our Court race. Or maybe she had the Now is the time to tackle some staﬀ , friends, family, and pets are best name. daunting cinema. spending time. 2 CHICA OREADER - MARCH ll CITY LIFE

KELLY SIKKEMA / UNSPLASH

wonderland that is HarvesTime Foods for a while, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get your chicharrones esponjados fix. The Lincoln Square institution is offering free same-day and curbside pickup. Visit Harves- timefoods.com to place an order. The website for Lincoln Park’s lush Green City Market also has a searchable list of vendors (read: farmers) that are o ering pickup and delivery. Meals and more If you haven’t yet, check out Reader senior writer Mike Sula’s recent stories about the restaurant delivery site Dining at a Distance and e orts by Rogers Park Food Not Bombs to convert restaurant food waste into food for the needy. Many local restaurants have gotten creative and are offering meal kits, care packages, and grocery staples for delivery. Ordering direct from the restaurants helps them avoid the fees of delivery sites. Self-care Four words: discreet flat-rate shipping. If you’ve never ordered online from sex toy store Early to Bed and you don’t want your mail carrier or neighbors all up in your business, those four little words will be key. The shop’s online store is accepting orders, though they warn there may be a delay in fulfi llment. See what we did there? Gifts that keep on giving Many service-based businesses—spas, SHOP LOCAL salons, child-care providers, etc.—that have been shut down by the stay-at-home order are o ering gift certifi cates, and all of the Support Chicago businesses from your couch owners I’ve spoken to are counting on the gifty influx of cash while their doors are Because Amazon is gonna be just fi ne. closed. Even better: if you can buy a gift you don’t intend to claim. If your go-to self-care By KAREN HAWKINS oasis isn’t open now, giving to them ensures that someday in the future they will be. We appreciate how many businesses ou need something—make that every- with a single click, you’re supporting the closed, including podcasts and their best- around the city are hosting fundraisers for thing—delivered, and before you’ve local economy from the comfort of your seller lists. their idle employees, including some of our Yeven fi nished typing A-m-, your brows- couch. Not all heroes wear capes; some wear Get crafty favorite bars, restaurants, and music ven- er has taken you to that magical behemoth pajamas. All damn day. A customer of South Loop crafter’s par- ues. Koval Distillery is hosting a GoFundMe in the sky (aka Seattle) that will make all of Books adise Yarnify called the need to keep your that caught our eye—and not just because your free two-day shipping dreams come Many beloved members of the Chicago- hands busy a “Pandemic Project,” and what- alcohol is involved. The company is raising true. Not so fast, friend. Before you hit Add to land Independent Bookstore Alliance ever language you use, this yarn shop’s on- money to help provide alcohol-based hand Cart and add another dime to Je Bezos’s bil- (ChIBA)—including Women & Children First line store is open. They note that they don’t sanitizers to the medical community, retire- lions—with a B—consider supporting a local and 57th Street Books—are accepting online always get prompt notifi cation when orders ment homes, and others involved in fi ghting business instead, especially for things you’d orders you can have shipped to your door. come in and ask that customers e-mail a coronavirus. At press time they had raised usually stroll by and buy. Visit your favorite store’s website to verify copy of orders to barbaraofyarnify@gmail. more than $24,000 toward their $40,000 Many of your favorite independent shops their delivery status. Some are o ering free com. goal from 531 donors. v and stores are delivering on demand, and shipping and have digital programming you Groceries while it may not be as convenient as buying can access while their physical spaces are You won’t be able to wander around the @ChiefRebelle ll MARCH - CHICAOREADER 3 Search the Reader’s online database of thousands of Chicago-area restaurants FOOD & DRINK at chicagoreader.com/food.

ter gardener, founder of the Peterson Garden den and provide education and materi- Project, and the owner of City Grange garden als relevant to their growing conditions. center in Lincoln Square. She’s the author of • Organize the people with food-grow- Start a Community Food Garden: The Essen- ing knowledge and deploy tial Handbook and Fearless Food Gardening them in their communities. in Chicagoland (with Teresa Gale), and has • Have an ongoing campaign of support lectured on the topic of Victory Gardens at the with media. Library of Congress. What can people do right now to get What were Victory Gardens and what was started? their historical impact in Chicago? Start to think about where they can garden. LaManda Joy: People have been growing If you have a yard, go stand outside. Figure their own food in times of crisis since agri- out where the sunniest spot is. When it comes culture was invented. But Victory Gardens, time to create raised beds, there’re a lot of under that name, happened in WWI and ways to do it. You can build a wooden raised WWII all over the world. bed, you can build something out of cinder- Chicago, during WWII, due to great fore- blocks. You can do in-ground gardening, thought, collaboration, and coordination, led although I like to recommend gardening with the nation in the Victory Garden movement. fresh soil in the city just because [of potential In 1942, organizers were able to recruit and contamination by] lead-based paint and stuff educate upwards of 300,000 new gardeners like that. to grow their own food in an incredibly short amount of time. Many people think of Victo- What seeds can you put directly in the ry Gardens as something that was “nice to do” ground? You can do this, Chicago. KELLYNEIL/UNSPLASH for people on the homefront (which I’m sure It’s still a little cold out for direct seeding it was—gardening has many benefi ts beyond without some sort of covering, but some of food) but, in reality, those vegetable gardens the earliest, and easiest, plants that can be supplemented food shortages and rationing grown directly are radishes, lettuces, spinach, FOOD FEATURE due to the heavy burden the war effort was arugula, sorrel. making on global supply chains. What seeds are still worth starting? Get growing Why is this a good idea to revisit in general? If you’re going to start seeds indoors, it I’ve spent the past decade teaching people should happen right now. Generally what we Chatting with expert gardeners shows that the time for a new Victory Garden how to grow their own food in pop-up victo- call “hot crops” (tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, movement is right now. ry gardens with the Peterson Garden Proj- etc.) should be started indoors eight weeks ect (PGP). We’ve had thousands of people go before the “last frost date” (the last average By M through the program, and the results for the day we can get a hard frost which, for Chica- individuals and the communities have been go, is between May 1 to 10). These plants also incredible. Food grown, yes (almost a quarter like to be planted when soil temps are warm- million pounds), but the friendships, commu- er so, depending on the weather, you may not nity, stress relief. There’s a quote that I use in want to put them into your garden until later OVID-19 has struck Illinois in force just as peaceful than spending a summer watching my book by Geoff Lawton (a famous perma- in May, so you could have a few more weeks the spring gardening season is starting. your own basil plant sprout and fl ourish. culturalist), “All the world’s problems can be to get those healthy seedlings going inside. CIf you’re a gardener in Chicago, you’ve During World War II a massive worldwide solved in a garden.” And I think it is so true. probably already ordered and started germi- gardening campaign known as Victory Gar- What are good resources for seed starting? nating your seeds, plotted your now-dormant dens provided food security for millions of Why is it a good time now during a We have a blog at CityGrange.com that backyard or balcony plot (or pots), and made people during disruptions to the supply chain. pandemic? explains it all, but I would encourage any new a wish list of seedlings you’d like to buy from Chicago was a leader in that movement. And it I think if we want to look back at this experi- gardener to fi nd educational resources based garden centers and the various community could be again. ence and not have it be the shitshow sorrow on local sources. I’ve seen it many times—a plant sales scheduled to begin in May. I talked with a pair of gardening experts of our lives, gardening can help us all band new gardener finds a blog they like from a If you’re not a gardener, you might be think- about why home and community gardening is together and do something good, feed our- gardener in California and the timing and ing about becoming one. You can’t grow toilet more important now than ever, and what they selves, feel better, have something to do. information is way off for a Chicago gardener paper, but you can grow your own food. If had to say is encouraging. My interview with to follow successfully. you aren’t thinking of gardening, you should, one is here, and you can fi nd the other at Chi- What could a revived victory garden push if only because it will give you something re- cagoReader.com, along with a list of gardening look like? *But please continue to order food from warding and productive to do.* Growing your resources and plant sales. Our conversations Much like it did in WWII—except restaurants. v own food yields many good things besides the have been edited for length and clarity. with diff erent outreach tools. food. There’s nothing more meditative and LaManda Joy is an Illinois Extension mas- • Engage people that have spaces to gar- @MikeSula 4 CHICA OREADER - MARCH ll Help us. Help our city. Just like so many small, independent businesses, the Chicago Reader is impacted in so many ways in this crisis.

Each month, more than 125 people help produce the paper, weekly online and daily in print.

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And if you can, please help the Reader. https://www.chicagoreader.com/donate ll MARCH - CHICAOREADER 5 NEWS & POLITICS

POLITICS Good news week Look on the bright side, Chicago: Burke, Lipinski, and Conway lost! By B J

o cheer you up during this pandemic, I’ve who inherited their positions from their pored over last week’s election results, daddies. Tlooking for the good news. Newman’s margin of victory came largely That’s correct—bad news has been from the suburbs. But she even picked up quarantined. roughly 44 percent of the vote in Lipinski’s So, let’s start with . . . Alderman Ed Burke home ward—the 23rd—where his daddy once was defeated! He lost the committeeman seat ran a mighty machine. So, more gloating, he inherited from his daddy during the first everybody. year of the Nixon administration. A very long Anything else? Oh, yes, citywide turnout time ago. wasn’t so bad. State representative Aaron Ortiz defeated OK, it was anemic, at about 31 percent. But him—hip, hip, hooray. that’s better than the 24 percent we had for the I know it’s not nice to gloat. But this is a 2012 presidential primary. So, you could say gloatable moment. On top of everything else, things are looking up. Burke was Donald Trump’s property tax law- The governing explanation for the low turn- yer. He made you pay more in property taxes out in 2012 was balmy election-day weather. It by using his clout to get Trump to pay less on was so nice that voters were distracted by fun his tower. So, c’mon, Chicago. Let’s all gloat things like walking along the lake. together. In this election, turnout was low because of What else? Marie Newman defeated Dan the coronavirus. Lipinski—speaking of powerful Democrats Apparently, Chicagoans don’t vote when it’s 6 CHICA OREADER - MARCH ll NEWS & POLITICS Important So long, Danny boy. Not even your dad’s machine Ostensibly, Evanston was integrated. But by could save you. US HOUSE OFFICE OF PHOTOGRAPHY and large the races existed on either side of a nice and they don’t vote when it’s nasty. Looks great self-imposed divide—rarely, if ever, com- like we’ve got all the bases covered when it ing into contact with one another. comes to making excuses for not voting. They even had a tracking system that placed Reader News For a while, people called on Governor Pritz- white kids in honors classes and Black students Due to business closings and for safety purposes, the March ker to postpone the election because of the in regular classes. coronavirus. But it seems to me that holding The tracking system was probably created 26 issue of the Reader is just being distributed as a PDF, with an election may be the best way to get people to reassure white parents that it would be OK a small press run to fulﬁ ll subscriber and library mailings. to practice social distancing—apparently, the to send their children to school with Black kids. We are also making a limited number of copies available last place they want to congregate is a polling You know, I think we can probably strike for purchase at $12 each. place. probably from that last sentence. How ’bout that? My ﬁ rst coronavirus joke. Man, thinking about high school self-segre- The low turnout was a boon for former Vice gation is a bummer—and this was supposed to Just 200 copies will be sold in this very limited souvenir President Joe Biden. That and strong support be a good-news column. edition of the Reader. from older Black voters, and what pass for How about this? Bill Conway lost in his ef- white north-lakefront liberals. fort to bounce State’s Attorney Kim Foxx from chicagoreader.com/souvenirissues Hmm? Low turnout, Black baby boomers, o¢ ce. and white liberals—sounds like Mayor Rahm’s Foxx won more than 56 percent of the vote coalition. in Chicago—even though Conway spent more The April 2 issue we expect to print and deliver to the more Biden won roughly 53 percent of the city than $10 million of his daddy’s money on ob- than 500 boxes on the Reader box route, including those vote—Senator Bernie Sanders was second with noxious campaign commercials. multi-rack city boxes downtown. 42 percent. Bernie’s strongest support came Not surprisingly, Conway ran strongest in from Latinos and white lefties. He won about MAGA-hat precincts on the northwest and The April 9 issue will also like be mainly PDF, and then on 69 percent of the vote in Alderman Carlos southwest sides, where President Trump did Ramirez Rosa’s 35th Ward—once again, the well in 2016. April 16 we will do a full box run again. Check for details most progressive ward in the city. But Conway also did relatively well in liberal weekly. In contrast, Bernie won only about 23 per- land along the north lakefront where Trump is cent of the vote in the Black wards. As Biden not so popular. won upwards of 73 percent in the 8th and 6th Think about that—lakefront liberals joined wards on the south side. Black people to support Biden and then turned Find the full curated PDF download of the Reader at There are several theories as to why older right around and joined the MAGA crowd to Black voters didn’t vote for Bernie. vote for Conway. Looks like the Mayor Rahm chicagoreader.com/issues My centrist friends love to tell me—and they coalition of older Black people and white liber- by Wednesday each week. tell it to me all the time—“Ben, Black voters are als is only a one-way street. just more conservative than white lefties like Conway’s popularity in liberal land con- you.” founded me. As I understand it, the great I might be susceptible to such arguments accusation against Foxx is that she took a call except I’m old enough to remember that Mayor on Jussie Smollett’s behalf from Tina Tchen, a Harold Washington—who was as left as Ber- well-connected politico who’s besties with the nie—won upwards of 99 percent of the Black Obamas. vote. I can’t see why Gold Coasters or Lincoln Similarly, Jesse Jackson got more than 80 Parkers might object to that. Those neighbor- percent of the Black vote in his 1988 presiden- hoods are crawling with well-connected peo- tial campaign, running on a platform that was ple who take and/or make these kinds of calls Bernie before Bernie. Right down to Medicare all the time. In fact, there’s probably someone for All—though Jackson didn’t call it that. on the Gold Coast making one right now. No, I think there’s a more human explanation You know, I think you can probably strike for Sanders’s inability to connect with older probably from that sentence, too. Black voters: social segregation. White lefties To all those who say Pritzker should have and Black voters rarely come into contact with postponed the election, think of this—at each other. Except during an election, when least we won’t have to hear any more Conway whites drop in as from Mars to ask for Black commercials. Thank you, votes. That may be the best election day news of Apparently, not much has changed on the all. race-relations front since my days as a young Stay safe, Chicago. v The Reader team scholar at Evanston Township High School in the ’70s. @joravben ll MARCH - CHICAOREADER 7 NEWS & POLITICS

colleagues, stories that they’ve heard from BEFORE each other. Our country was grossly unpre- pared for anything like this.

NURSE

This has been the longest week of my life. The ER was inundated with calls with people who the thought they had COVID. It was packed in the lobby and the lines were not organized. Sta walked in along with patients and visitors. It’s calmed down in the last few days. It’s been a ghost town because there are no unnecessary procedures happening. No extra visitors. Yet everyone is still stressed. STORM The patients that are coming in, every- Interviews with a doctor and nurse as Chicago hospitals brace for a deluge of novel coronavirus patients. one’s on red alert and concerned that they might have coronavirus. Staff who are maybe nonessential or in departments that are closed, some without clinical or nursing backgrounds, are being called to greet people, screen them, and take temperatures. These interviews have been edited and con- that mask potentially a few times in a shift, home with medication. You just hope that They’re just wearing street clothes and densed for clarity. especially if the patient is coughing a lot. they can fi ght it o on their own. they’re not wearing masks. Some people are Every time you come out of the patient’s You would never feel good about sending hesitant to be in that role because you’re so EMERGENCY ROOM DOCTOR room, you have to take it o . When you take a person like this home with no interven- exposed. the N95 o you dip it away from your face, tion. If they have an underlying medical Ideally we’d have enough masks. There’s We had to fi ght to wear protective equipment but we’re still at risk of inhaling the virus, disease, and if they have other medical just not enough personal protective equip- for our fi rst patient. We were told we were or exposing the nurses. problems, chances are if their chest X-ray ment like gowns, gloves, masks, and gog- scaring the patient and nurses. The nurses We’re seeing people who are sick with looks like that they’ll probably get worse. gles. When nurses go into a patient’s room, should be scared, because they should have classic COVID symptoms. They’re saturat- There’s really nothing we can offer them. we ideally do as many things as possible. those N95 masks too. The patient’s swab ing 90 percent or lower on room air, they’re We don’t have the ability to monitor them Our sta is reusing equipment. We put our came back positive. having labored breathing. You’ll get a CAT in the hospital. We’re trying to free up our masks in bags that have our names written For some reason, our hospital didn’t think scan and you’ll see ground-glass opacities, beds because these people are coming back. on them. While it’s not ideal, it is what the that this thing was coming. No. This is which is pretty classic. And then their chest That fi rst patient I mentioned was intubat- CDC recommends under adjusted guide- what’s happening. This is what’s supposed X-rays show a viral pneumonia pattern, ed, they’re dying right now. That’s what lines. It’s unnerving. It’s alarming to see to be happening. usually on both sides of the lung. Some you’re waiting for. Next week or the week that. Infection-prevention-wise it doesn’t After our fi rst positive test, several nurs- people, if they have COVID or another viral after, we’re worried that every patient that seem right. es had symptoms who were there on that pneumonia, both sides of their lungs will comes back is going to be like that. I found out last week that I was possibly day, who were not wearing the right equip- have all these white patches throughout. We’re all seeing the same trajectory as exposed to someone. If you’re possibly ex- ment. We didn’t test them. I haven’t been And it’s thickening or infl ammation of the Italy, and we’re all thinking that might hap- posed, you have to still see patients until tested. If you don’t have a fever and you’re lung tissue. pen in the next few weeks. I really hope we you present with symptoms like shortness not a high-risk person, then you’re not get- In younger people with asthma or COPD don’t have to decide who gets a ventilator of breath, dry cough, and fever. I waited ting tested. [chronic obstructive pulmonary disease], and who doesn’t. It would be horrible. days and days until I found out that person There was strong suspicion that this they’re in their 50s, their oxygen is OK but I thought I would never feel this way. I had tested negative. It’s frustrating. thing was airborne. Is it droplets? Is it their chest X-ray looks distinctive. But they can’t believe the federal administration and For a lot of us, reporting for work hasn’t contact? The scary thing is that the doctors just don’t have enough symptoms to be ad- science are clashing like this. The science changed. We’re not working from home. want these N95 masks and the nurses are mitted to the hospital. So then we’re antici- and the evidence is there and they’re still We’re hospital workers and we know that told that they can have one only if we’re pating that in four or fi ve days they’re going trying to pull the wool over our eyes. And this is what we signed up for, but it’s di cult doing an aerosolizing procedure, like intu- to come back and be really sick. We are also they’re doing that to a group of very intel- to be at work when the rest of the world feels bations. I have one that I’ve been reusing the not testing all these people. The numbers ligent people. They’re recommending ban- like it’s shutting down. It’s a phenomenal entire week that’s in a ziplock bag. Wiping it nationwide are grossly inaccurate and much danas instead of N95s. Who do they think thing. Still, it is kind of unifying. As much down a ects the structural integrity of the lower than the actual number of people we are? Are you fucking serious? of a shitshow and as stressful as it is, there N95. I’m not comfortable. It’s loosened on infected. There’s nothing we can really All of us are just absolutely livid. There’s is a sense of camaraderie. There’s a sense of my face. do except tell them to go home and not see no governing body that we really trust. Es- human—I don’t know how to say it—an im- In a normal world, you would change other people. We’re not sending anybody sentially everyone’s really relying on their pressive display of human dedication. v 8 CHICA OREADER - MARCH ll Stay Home. Stay Positive. Stay Connected.

We can’t wait to get back to making music and dancing together at the Old Town School!

In the meantime, many of our classes are currently running online, and we are actively working on more ways to keep you making music and learning new things with us, from home, in the near future.

We are so thankful to be part of the wonderful and supportive arts community in Chicago and are especially thankful for all our dedicated students and teaching artists persevering with us during this time.

For updates, rescheduled concert info, ways to help support our staﬀ & more please visit oldtownschool.org/alert

Stay safe, sane, and keep on playing from all of us at Old Town School of Folk Music!

oldtownschool.org

ll MARCH - CHICAOREADER 9 BOBBY SIMS

10 CHICA OREADER - MARCH ll essays on ISOLATION What staying at home has taught us about our city and ourselves

MAYA DUKMASOVA When the state functions in a normal way, told me that the driver, a man, was inside the driver of the Lexus fl ipped his car o the road. we’re not supposed to see such things. Sys- car when a patrol o cer came across the scene Still, less than a week into a pandemic-spurred THE VIOLENCE HAPPENED elsewhere. Forc- tems and protocols are in place to make sure of the crash on the 5200 block of Lake Shore lockdown, one wonders what the state will es of nature and laws of physics had converged that when a car accident happens its signs are Drive. The o cer called EMS and spoke to a and won’t be able to do for us as more people to fl ing the one-ton gray Lexus so hard against cleared quickly and e ciently, so that tra c witness, who told him that the Lexus “passed need emergency care, lose their minds over a tree or a pole that the car was pinched and life can continue to flow uninterrupted. them at a high rate of speed while traveling social isolation or watching loved ones die, from the passenger side with the ease of ori- We may see a broken tree, a smashed guard- south. Vehicle ran o the road, rolled multiple drink and drive out of boredom or despera- gami paper. I came across the wreckage on rail, a collapsed light pole, but those are only times, and struck a tree before coming to a tion. It seems naive to expect all the curtains Wednesday evening, the fi rst full week of the footprints of the violence. We’re used to rub- rest.” When the fi re department arrived, they to stay put around the stage. coronavirus quarantine. It was jarring to see bernecking at wrecked cars as we drive, but cut the driver out of the car and transported A few days later I walked back to the spot this mangled vehicle sitting abandoned, out of they’re typically protected from close view by him to Illinois Masonic Medical Center. The where the mangled car had been resting. It context, in the deserted parking lot of Foster yellow tape, by a bustle of fi rst responders and driver was conscious and told the o cer that was gone. All that remained of the disturbance Avenue beach. No glass littered the concrete. their vehicles, by the fl ow of our own journeys. he was involved in an accident. CPD couldn’t were a few patches of turf imprinted by tire The roof of the car was gone, sawed o . The As the rhythms of our lives and of the state share the driver’s name. I called the hospital treads and a rainbow rivulet of oil and chem- hood was mostly ripped up o the engine, its are disrupted by a pandemic, was the wrecked to see if they’d tell me if he made it out alive. icals flowing endlessly toward somewhere remnants crinkled up on the passenger side. Lexus a sign of the authorities’ inability to They wouldn’t, since I didn’t have a name. lower. The driver’s-side wheel was mostly o its axle. continue putting on their regular show? Or Then I called the Cook County Medical Exam- Both doors on the driver’s side were ajar; the had I wandered backstage inadvertently to iner, where the spokeswoman was relieved to others were smashed into the interior by the see what I would frequently see if only I took field a question that had nothing to do with KAREN HAWKINS impact. The trunk was still mostly closed; walks every afternoon of my life? COVID-19. They had no records of deaths nothing was visible inside through the cracks. Plenty of people in Chicago already know stemming from incidents on Lake Shore Drive I ALMOST, BUT don’t quite, miss the Bucket The interior of the ES 300 was high-end black what it’s like to receive a second-rate perfor- since the 18th. The guy must have made it. Boys. I am a reluctant resident of downtown, leather—in remarkably good shape despite mance in a rickety theater from their govern- Still, I wondered about the car. Why did and almost overnight, all of the things I gripe the fact that this car, as I later learned, was a ment. There are neighborhoods where not I see it there, some 18 hours after the crash? most about living here are gone: the ricochet- 1995. A purple McDonald’s sauce packet was only wrecked cars but human bodies are left I called Streets and San, where an operator ing bang-clickety-bang-bang of the buckets, nestled in the back of the driver’s seat. The lying in the streets for far too many hours. said, “No one is here to talk to you guys,” then the amplifier of the singer my partner and I airbags hung drably from the steering wheel Maybe now every part of town will get a taste hung up. I eventually reached spokeswoman call “Sam Smith guy,” the beep-beep-beep of and what remained of the passenger door. of what it might be like when the state has Cristina Villarreal by e-mail and phone. Turns heavy construction equipment, the chatty din There was no blood. Was it possible that other priorities than making us feel comfort- out normal city protocol is that, postaccident, of crowds of tourists. Every retail business someone survived this accident? Was it even able. When crises happen the garbage might a vehicle will be left in a public spot like the within blocks is closed, nearly every office an accident? Why was this car sitting in this not get picked up, the mail might never arrive, beach parking lot for fi ve days. If the owner tower is empty, and State Street, that Great parking lot? the car wreck might not be cleared. Might the doesn’t pick it up in that time, the city stick- Street, is eerily quiet. It should be peaceful, Something felt o . Like suddenly one of the coronavirus give all Americans a chance to ers the car with a seven-day notice, and if the but it feels like the beginning of a horror curtains that hangs on the side of the stage to experience how people live in much of the rest car still isn’t picked up, Streets and San then movie. I hate horror movies. And not just be- hide the actors preparing to enter and the ta- of the world? tows it to a city lot. “That’s in normal times,” cause the Black lady always dies fi rst. bles with props and the ropes and ladders and I found a record of the accident on the city’s she clarifi ed. Since Mayor Lori Lightfoot sus- In Coronavirus: The Movie scene two, our exposed brick walls from the audience’s view tra c crash data portal. It occurred at 12:24 pended all towing last week, the car would just heroine wakes up to a city rendered invisible had fallen. It felt like the proverbial glitch in AM on March 18. The driver was alone. The stay where I saw it. If it was gone, the owner by fog. This morning from my high-rise perch, the matrix not only to see the car but to be wreckage was towed to the Foster Beach park- must have had it towed. Unless of course there the fog was all I could see. No buildings in able to approach so closely, examine every ing lot by the Department of Streets and Sani- are still scavenger towers out there, collecting front of me, no street below, nothing but gray angle, even touch it. A couple of beat cops tation. I called the Chicago Police Department, abandoned cars for scrap or to attempt to mist that felt strangely sinister, like the whole were parked in a cruiser nearby, filling out whose media affairs staff is still required to shake down insurance companies. city was being slowly suffocated. I hate this reports. They said they didn’t know anything come to the o ce, and gave the plate number So maybe no curtain had fallen. Maybe movie, but I can’t change the channel. about the car. to a friendly public information officer. She everything had proceeded as normal after the I grew up on the south side of Chicago and ll MARCH - CHICAOREADER 11 DOME DUSSADEECHETTAKUL / PEXELS

continued from 11 If there’s any silver lining in this crisis, for Being in quarantine has crystallized how lucky LEOR GALIL in the south suburbs, and I intentionally claim me, it’s that the complete uncertainty of any- I am, not only to have a job with security and them both, largely so I don’t have to backtrack thing beyond the present moment has allowed paid sick leave—the things that every person WE’VE BEEN TOLD to refrain from a lot of when I’m asked, “What high school did you me to focus more on being creative in my could and should have in a just society—but normal activities in an attempt to stem the go to?” I can reply “Homewood-Flossmoor” approach to designing this paper. I’ve found also to get to do something I enjoy and find rise of COVID-19 infections, and yet the guide- without feeling like a poser. I have distinct myself sketching out ideas in my notebook at meaning in. lines are slippery enough that I cannot fi gure memories of loving downtown when I was a night, when it’s too late to go out walking and out how to go about moving into a new apart- kid. On nights when my mom worked late at I’ve already rewatched my fi ll of Breaking Bad. ment next month. I haven’t moved since 2013, Wabash and Monroe and my dad drove to pick her up, I always volunteered to ride with him so I could gaze up at the sky-high buildings in awe. Downtown Chicago will always be beautiful to me. But without its people, it’s become the most staid wing of a museum—sterile, silent, and fl at. My Chicago, your Chicago, isn’t a museum. It’s a party. A never-ending block party full of friends, relatives, tourists, that guy who brought cheap beer but is making himself fancy-ass cocktails with other people’s liquor, your uncle who’s barbecuing even though it’s 30 degrees outside, your girl who arrived already a little bit tipsy, proclaiming “Comin’ in hot!” In Coronavirus: The Movie, someone has called the po-po on this block party and sent everyone packing. You ain’t gotta go home, but you gotta get the hell outta here. No, scratch that, just go home. And stay there. I often railed against you, downtown, but I’ll never take your vibrancy for granted ever again. When all of this is over, I may even start tipping the Bucket Boys.

RACHEL HAWLEY

I CAN’T HELP but think of that Sondheim line, “Everything’s different, nothing’s changed.” When I go for long walks in the evening, I see people carrying groceries and walking their dogs the way they always have—the neighborhood feels completely undisturbed. But then there are the headlines that tumble around in my head like pennies in a dryer as I walk: “First Coronavirus Death Reported, Governor Announces”; “Markets Plunge as Global Re- cession Appears Almost Inevitable.” I moved to Chicago in September to hunt for jobs while fi nishing my last college classes. Among my friends, mostly recent college graduates, the lines drawn by this situation are particularly clear. For those who have jobs in industries not impacted by the virus, who can work from home, the biggest complaints are stir-craziness and concerns for family members; for those in the service industry or with gigs related to live performance, hard- won jobs have evaporated overnight, leaving fi nances severely strained. 12 CHICA OREADER - MARCH ll when I stumbled upon a cozy two-bedroom to me, though I realize that will change the sour, and I abruptly decided that it was time to overworking myself, but hey, I’m a Virgo. It’s Logan Square apartment that’s long felt like more I box my books and LPs up in the dwin- leave the party. Before I walked out the door, in the damn stars. I’m putting in overtime be- my secret world. I’ve got friends who live in dling number of containers we have at our dis- I saw my friends playing beer pong, holding cause, like when I freelanced, I’m not clocking the building and on adjacent streets, and it’s posal. Work increasingly feels like a welcome cups, and sitting on couches socializing. I out. The fi rst few days, I went for several walks close to the neighborhood’s main thorough- distraction. Except transcribing; that’s still a glanced around the room and my gaze land- around McKinley Park (the New York Times fares but far enough away that I feel comfort- drag. ed on my best friend Lee. He was laughing. I says it’s fi ne). But now I’m a bit stifl ed by fear, ably secluded. As much as I love exploring Chi- felt bad not saying bye to him, but screw it, I paranoia, and stress. I stopped walking and cago and visiting other neighborhoods—and thought, I would see him soon anyways. We started to hit my yoga mat. I’m trying to shake love that the Reader encourages me to get to BRIANNA WELLEN had just made plans to go out next weekend. a five-day headache. And yesterday, after know this city better—I have defi nitely spent That was the last time I would see him alive. some panic, I stocked up on goulash and curry, several days in a row barely venturing outside ON THE SECOND Thursday of self-isolation, I A few days later I learned that Lee was in the remained hydrated, sanitized obsessively, of a three-mile area around my home. Even used bleach to get red wine o my white living hospital. He had an anoxic brain injury and and participated in sun salutations every when I go on routine runs for exercise, I can room wall. It was strange for many reasons, was on life support. I was asked if I wanted to few hours. That’s really all I can keep doing. comfortably circle a nearby park for a breezy one of them being that the wine in question say goodbye before they pulled the plug. I’m taking my social distancing seriously. fi ve-kilometer outing. had been drunk on Tuesday. I’d spent the next As the coronavirus has rapidly spread in the I’m refraining from social gatherings and I’m My day-to-day hasn’t been disrupted much day in my room, working and watching and United States, the number of those infected is learning how to live next to my partner. by the virus. I’ve long been accustomed to living from bed, ignoring the rest of the world rising, and so will the death rates. I can’t help Isolation has nursed my depression, cud- working from home, and too frequently have (my living room included). This isn’t my fi rst but wonder how many people will unknow- dled up right next to it, for God’s sake, and to rely on conducting interviews by phone rodeo. I’ve self-isolated before. Almost exactly ingly have a moment like I did. A last moment demanded more attention. But isolation has to keep up with fast-moving deadlines. I’ve fi ve years ago last week, I was diagnosed with with someone they really loved who might also taught me that even while inside, Chicago recently had so much trouble keeping up with Hodgkin’s lymphoma and spent the next six unexpectedly be the next victim of COVID-19. is loud as hell. Local artists, musicians, yoga my workflow that I’d been spending nights months in chemotherapy and mostly in bed, Right now many of us are scared. We Face- instructors, DJs, and small business owners when I’d hoped to see shows sitting in front working from home (because I could never Time our friends, we answer all of our moth- are coming out for one another while staying of my computer transcribing interviews. In not work), swiping on Tinder with no expecta- ers’ calls. We have decided a mass quarantine in. From confi ned spaces, we connect through this regard, social distancing feels like an ex- tions, watching every season of Law & Order: was the best decision for the general safety social media, Instagram Live, FaceTime, tension of an intense period of work I thought SVU, and physically interacting with no one. of the public. Social distancing, a phrase that Zoom, and whatever the hell else to lean on I’d just managed to shake o . I miss spending Back then I felt like I was missing out on the many didn’t know, is now on repeat. We are one another. This is the time to really relish time with my friends and going out to see mu- entire world happening around me. alone at home with our partners, parents, and what Chicago is doing. I look out of my win- sicians whose songs have carried me through I felt miserable; my 24-year-old body was roommates, or maybe riding it out solo in a dow and see no one, but I know that behind long, uncertain days, but it’s heartwarming to literally failing me. My friends were out studio apartment. As we hunker down, I can’t all those doors Chicago’s artists are mixing up witness the various communities I participate partying without me and, more important, help but think of the most heart-wrenching something good. in find ways to mitigate our economic and creating without me. I was too exhausted to lesson of my life and wonder how many peo- social pains. If only our federal government go to shows, to make art, to dance, to walk to ple around the world will be learning it soon. could be as empathetic. the kitchen to make myself a cocktail, let alone I hope that after the coronavirus has passed, DEANNA ISAACS In the middle of all this, I’m having a di - drink it. My friends were wonderful, and they we as a society are humbled enough to realize cult time putting my arms around the thought checked up on me, but they had their own lives how easily life can change. That every time we YEARS AGO, WHEN I realized there wasn’t of uprooting my habitat and moving to a new to live, other walkers of the world to interact say “See you later” we in fact see them later, going to be enough time for everything, I apartment. I’m excited by what lies ahead. with. When the isolation hit this time, I had a and that every goodbye is said meaningfully, pretty much gave up television. News, yes. A bigger apartment in a two-flat occupied moment of PTSD: a trigger went o that made almost as if we were to never see them again. Anything else, no. Never saw Sex and the City, by the landlords, a genuinely considerate me think it would be that way again, that I or Mad Men, or Game of Thrones, let alone couple who’ve done a lot to make me and my would be left in the dust. I couldn’t have been The Apprentice. I’m telling you this because of girlfriend feel cared for and welcomed. I’m not more wrong. S. NICOLE LANE the many changes the pandemic has brought excited about the prospect of moving. Part of I’ve talked to more friends. Thanks to tech- to my daily life—the insecurity, the isolation, the reason I’ve lived in the same apartment for nology, I’ve been able to see them perform MY LIFE BEFORE the Reader was like this, the cooking—the biggest one so far is this: I so long is I thoroughly dislike the prospect of their jokes and music and art more than ever minus the constant handwashing, food hoard- can’t take my eyes o the jaw-dropping events transferring my life from one place to another; before. I’ve kept in touch with my parents. I ing (which I don’t condone!), lack of hugging, unfolding on television. I am glued to it, day I spent nearly seven years trying to put all my put on a full face of makeup and a skirt with and increase in phone calls. Being a freelance and night. records and archives in their right place, all to pockets just for me. I cooked a meal. If you journalist taught me how to get shit done It could be worse, of course. The coronavi- box it up and fi gure it out in a new place. And know me well, you realize that this is a huge from my couch. My biggest adjustment over rus, fl oating around in snot and sputum and that’s not factoring in the extensive cleaning accomplishment. This isolation is much dif- the past year and a half has been commuting looking like a cannonball from outer space— regimen we’ve all undertaken after every trip ferent than before. And even though it seems to an o ce and wearing jeans for eight hours. all evil wrinkly gray matter and crimson outdoors, or how the “shelter in place” order scary and hopeless at times, at least I can have But now, as we hurtle into the second week of polyps—could land on me or someone I love. may a ect my ability to load a friend’s car with a glass of red wine whenever I want. self-isolation, I have to admit that I’m drained. It could make us very sick. And then, without boxes of books and records to bring them to Working in media means being bombarded enough hospital beds and ventilators to go my new home. with the news of businesses shutting down, around, and no treatment for it anyway, it The concept of moving on its own spikes my YAZMIN DOMINGUEZ friends being laid off, art shows being can- could kill us. anxiety levels, but doing so in the middle of a celed, and the health crisis escalating, which That’s the reality that has us holed up in our pandemic feels so unreal I don’t know how to I REMEMBER NOT having a good time. has now locked us into our shelters. bunkers, keeping an anxious eye on the tube. react. It doesn’t quite feel like it’s happening Something happened that turned my mood I’m anything but bored in isolation. I’m I’ve watched Governor Pritzker and Mayor ll MARCH - CHICAOREADER 13 continued from 13 These days, Lake Michigan has been absent controllably because I know I’m at risk. (I also epiphany: Why not? Lightfoot as they progressively put the city from my life. Even before the governor’s stay- know being hungry is not fun.) My furry friend is Juniper. She’s the feistiest to sleep: restaurants and theaters shuttered; at-home order, I didn’t feel comfortable leav- Luckily for me, before the shutdown, I got a feline I know. We play when she wants to play, schools closed; crowds limited to 250, then ing the house, despite o cials saying it was cat. I’ve said I’d get one for years. I’ve honestly which is typically at 6 AM. She will absolute- 50, then ten; a plea to stay home, followed OK to get fresh air by going on a walk. Having been scared since my fi rst cat, Butterscotch, ly bite you if you try to touch her while she’s by a mandate to do so. On CNN and MSNBC, to leave the house to submit my primary ballot ran away when I was in grammar school. But cleaning her coat. Doors mean nothing to her. American doctors are pleading for face masks; and grab some food put me in a panic. As soon after cat-sitting and a free pet-adoption event A case of the zoomies is all she needs to burst folks running fevers say they can’t get tested; as I have to enter a public space, I sweat un- at Chicago Animal Care and Control, I had an into my room. Naps are life. One thing I did and convoys of trucks are carrying co ns to crematoriums in Italy. And on CNBC, where the increasingly desperate interventions of the Federal Reserve were described this morning as “whack-a-mole,” you can watch the fi nancial markets react in real time to the latest news. Whooosh—the entire $11 trillion Trump bump, vanishing into the ether from which it came. Trump’s press briefi ngs, running to 90 pain- ful minutes of self-congratulation, look like a misfi ring satire with a now-familiar cast: the pu y orange pooh-bah; his bloodless zombie vice president; and (usually) the nation’s infectious disease guru, Dr. Anthony Fauci—a gravel-voiced dead ringer for Alfred E. Neu- man and the only trustworthy person on the podium. What is Fauci thinking as he stands there—eyes down, arms crossed—while Trump pronounces himself a “wartime president,” rates himself a “ten,” and refuses to implement the Defense Production Act, allowing demand to drive up the price of the personal protection equipment vital to health-care workers on the front lines? On Sunday, New York governor Andrew Cuomo said face masks that used to cost 85 cents each are now going for $7, and “we’re competing with other states, and, in some instances, other countries” to get them. Someday the whole story of why we’re months behind on the coronavirus curve that Trump now wants to bend will come out. Meanwhile, history’s unfolding on television. It’s a train wreck, and I can’t stop watching.

JANAYA GREENE

MY DRIVE TO work is not long, though not- so-cautious drivers tend to get expletives from me on occasion. As any Chicagoan can tell you, driving down Lake Shore is one of the most beautiful ways to experience Lake Michigan. Whether it’s frozen or roaring like the nation’s third ocean, the lake is enough to uplift the most terrible of moods. Yeah, it may not span to the other end of the earth, but it grounds me. Life obstacles are really real, but the world is much bigger than myself and my problems. 14 CHICA OREADER - MARCH ll not expect was to be licked almost constantly. or whether or not the angle of their laptop When I ﬁ rst met her, I fell in love because she frames their face in the right way. In the face purred and licked my hand after she smelled of pandemic, why not ask, “Do you think I it. I didn’t realize I wasn’t special: it’s how she should get bangs?” greets everyone and how she lets me know it’s time to relax. Spending time with Juniper, playing with TARYN ALLEN her, pleading for her to stop licking me, and cleaning out her litter are keeping me focused. I HAVE CALLED Chicago home for exactly 143 I have a little being to take care of, and oddly days. enough she’s reminding me that the world The stars seemed to align to get me here too. is bigger than me. She’s reminding me that In the span of a few weeks, I was reunited with taking care of each other, in the ways we can, my long-distance girlfriend, we both started can be the healthiest practice of all at this steady salaried jobs, and we signed a lease on time. (Minus social distancing. Please social our ﬁ rst apartment. If you do the math, you’ll distance.) realize that 143 days ago was the beginning of Chicago winter—a dark and dreadful time about which I was intensely forewarned—but SALEM COLLO-JULIN despite the cold, my first few months here could not have been better. THERE WAS A bouncer in the toilet paper Thanks to the Reader, I was immediately aisle at the drugstore by my house. She was plugged into some of the city’s finest food, a regular employee of the store, who I recog- communities, arts, and culture. Even better nized from my twice-weekly trips there in than free tickets to theater and VIP concert ac- “regular times.” But this weekend her man- cess, however, were the simple pleasures that agers seemed to have instructed her to stand Chicago allowed me to fall in love with: riding nearby and block people from getting into the the train through downtown, cooking late aisle while her coworker frantically tried to dinners with my favorite person, discovering unload a case of paper goods. This stuck out local hidden gems, the list goes on and on. Life as odd because at the time I was one of three felt too perfect to be real. Of course, complete customers shopping, but I kept a few feet of happiness has a unique sort of fragility to it— distance and asked her to throw me a four- like anything, at any moment, could shatter it pack of two-ply. She rolled her eyes and did so. all right before your eyes. VINCENT My dog is loving life in a lot of ways because Still, I never would have guessed it would be RESTAURANT | ANDERSONVILLE, CHICAGO I’m working from home, but he doesn’t under- a global pandemic that would do so. stand that I can’t work from the couch where Though I’m healthy and working from he can sit beside me and bury himself in blan- home with so many comforts, there’s a sort kets. I still go outside for dog-walking time, of spooky and indescribable way that things but it’s rare for me to see other walkers—this feel di erent. A lack of commute means that is a car-centric neighborhood, after all—but I get extra sleep, but it’s not always restful. I COMIDA! when I do, we wave and say hello as usual. A celebrated my girlfriend’s birthday by (guilt- lot of my daily interactions haven’t really ily) taking her to a nearly empty restaurant. Packaged meals available for changed so far. “I’m going to the store, d’ya A scary Twitter thread made us cry, for God’s need anything?” is a pretty common phrase sake. For every TV binge, every laugh, every FREE for pick-up between me and my neighbors anyway, but I familiar cup of coffee, there are a dozen re- suppose it comes with a little bit more weight minders that the future is uncertain. Suggested donation to during a shelter-in-place order. I can only hope that in the coming weeks benefit industry workers I thought that I was pretty good about and months, Chicago stays strong enough to keeping in touch with people, but it feels like outshine the darkness still on its way. There is I’ve heard from a ton of friends in the past few such a wealth of talent and information here, days: phone calls about the executive order, and I’m lucky enough to be with the Reader, text threads with photos of our yards, a Google which feels very much like an epicenter of 1475 W. BALMORAL AVE. Hangout with my volunteer group, and a Zoom that. I want to maintain hope in everything, with my support group. It’s fun to see and hear in Chicago and Chicagoans, in media and cre- Visit vincentchicago.com people while they’re navigating technology, ativity. I just have to believe we’ll all come out or find Vincent Restaurant on Facebook and catch them checking themselves out on stronger on the other side. One hundred and for schedules, menus, and other details the video feed. I find it comforting to think forty-three days in this city is certainly not about people still worried about their hair enough. v ll MARCH - CHICAOREADER 15 ARTS & CULTURE

LIT gling with that. I think we deal with it for the rest of our lives. When you’re inside of a system that marginalizes you on a daily basis From Catholicism to comedy across all vectors it’s impossible to not be a part of that system. That’s really where Pride Cameron Esposito revisits her defi ning moments in the memoir Save Yourself. comes from is expression, trying to do whatever small thing we can to balance that sys- By ZF tem just a little bit and remember that we can love ourselves. But for queer people I would say if you are not sure if you look OK, if you don’t know what to wear to a fancy event, omedian Cameron Esposito has never a lot of affection for myself. I don’t know if if you don’t know how to deal with the fact shied away from talking about her you liked yourself as a kid but I found myself that your parents aren’t responding exactly Cpersonal life onstage. In her reflective humiliating, so to go back and meet that kid the way you want them to, or you don’t feel new memoir Save Yourself (Grand Central and realize that I was actually pretty awe- like you fi t in the queer community because Publishing) she dives even deeper, looking some? I knew who I was. I had stuff I was into. there’s a certain expectation about how your back on her childhood in suburban Western I was really doing my own thing with gender hair should look or how your body should Springs and the personal self-discovery that nonconforming interests and presentation. look, that’s all of us. There’s nothing wrong came with recognizing her own sexuality, And I kind of love that kid actually. with having those feelings of self-hatred. coming out to her parents, and fi nding a home You’re meant to. We are all bred to. And real- in the comedy world. Lockdown is a good time What do you hope people take away from izing that can help you put them away, even to indulge in a read that’s both heartbreak- the book? just in the moment. Like that’s the system at ing and heartwarming, with a heavy dose of I think for some straight people marriage work and so it’s just about identifying, “Oh, laugh-out-loud humor. equality happened and folks think everything I feel shame because I was taught to feel is sorted out and so then they can’t under- shame.” And I don’t have to feel bad about Save Yourself It seems like your work over the last sever- stand when queer folks are talking about our- that. al years has been getting more and more selves as still a marginalized community. So I personal, from Marriage Material to Back hope there are some straight folks who read You talk about your relationship with your like, “Oh, I ended up doing the same job!” to Back to Rape Jokes as well as your show this and get a better handle on what is hap- parents in the book and how coming out because it really is about a group of people Take My Wife, and now this book. What’s pening right now for the queer community. aff ected your relationship with them. What trying to fi gure out what is the most import- led you down this path of public self-exam- And I also hope that there are queer folks can parents do to let their kids know that ant thing. Like what are important things on ination and openness? who read this and feel seen in that experi- they’re supported? the planet? The thing about religion is that I think that is a path that actually many com- ence. I also hope people laugh their heads I think the biggest thing that friends or fam- most religions are corporations. That’s what ics walk. I started out doing stand-up and I off : I think there’s some really funny stuff in ily can do is not center themselves in some- the Catholic church is and so it creates cor- wanted to comment on the stuff around me, here. body else’s queer or coming out experience. ruption, self-interest and all the other things and I think over time it just feels less and So if you’re a parent: asking questions, lis- that happen when ideas are delivered by less helpful to talk about other people and What was the diff erence in cra ing the lan- tening. It’s not necessarily about what’s the humans who are trying to preserve wealth other things and more helpful to talk about guage for a book versus cra ing language thing that you say that’s the perfect thing. I and power. yourself. Because the thing that’s universal for your stand-up? think it’s about taking your feelings—if you in stand-up are the feelings, not the experi- I think I was, without realizing it, sort of per- have them—about somebody’s fi nding them- What does the Chicago comedy scene ences. Speaking honestly about your feelings forming the book in my head as I was writing selves and dealing with that elsewhere. Not mean to you in terms of your career and is kind of really what everyone is showing up it. And then essentially kind of transcribing. I making your kid or your family member be your style of comedy and how it evolved? for, it’s just that sometimes that’s so couched wasn’t looking for it to be a setup/punchline the one who helps you process your feelings. I do think that there’s a specific sort of in sarcasm or distance that you don’t even situation but more so I think I have a particu- Because they’re doing enough work fi nding talk-joking that is a part of my generation recognize it as that. But that’s really what lar way of speaking and I wanted the book to themselves. of comics and also some of the generation stand-up is. It’s a bunch of people standing sound like it was written by me. So I did sort of comics ahead of me—like Kyle Kinane or around being like, “I feel this way about this.” of talk my way through it. Which might not be In the book you talk about the world of Pete Holmes or Kumail Nanjiani—the way how other writers are doing their work, but it comedy being more accepting than the that those folks operated as stand-ups. That’s What was writing a book like for you? was like translating it; doing it fi rst in the per- world of religion in your experience. Do you who I watched and I think infl uenced my style Demoralizing in every way. [Laughs.] It’s iso- formative language and then translating it to think that stand-up comedy—where every- a bunch. A sort of super dry but powerfully lating. It’s incredibly frustrating, because the page. one gathers to hear someone speak—off ers delivered screaming your cultural criticism there is no feedback to get. I’m used to a live a secular version of the kind of community from a position of being shat on because you medium. It feels self-important. It was some- You talk about internalized homopho- that organized religion off ers people? are from Chicago. That feels like it’s still very times extremely harsh to live through some bia in the book—do you have a message One hundred percent. When I talk about the much a part of my style as a comic. v traumas that happened in my life that are for people who are working through that fact that I used to want to be a priest and included in the book. But also it was pretty themselves? now I became a comic, to me that seems like @ZachRunsChicago amazing to revisit my younger self and fi nd I do not know a queer person who isn’t strug- such a direct through line. It literally feels 16 CHICA OREADER - MARCH ll ARTS & CULTURE

Activist Katelyn Bowden in a homemade mask pirators, gloves, disinfectant wipes, and much COURESTY KATELYN BOWDEN more from the University of Chicago Medical Center. Doctors and hospitals have started to versity Medical Center began to use washable tweet to the public asking for help during the lab goggles for eye protection. Jackson Park supply shortage, calling all seamstresses, mak- Hospital nurses are refusing to enter rooms ers, crafters, or DIYers to get your hands ready that don’t have masks. In McLeansboro, Ham- for some mask-making. ilton Memorial Hospital is accepting fabric FreeSewing released a COVID-19 face mask masks from community volunteers as dispos- pattern for the public to easily download and able masks are back-ordered. Hospitals state create masks either for themselves or for the that while fabric masks are less than ideal, general public (they also have an active help it’s what they have to work with during this chat room). The Netherlands-based project is pandemic. Here in Hyde Park, locals are also run by Joost De Cock, whose wife is a surgeon banding together to create a similar impact. and began to see the shortages of masks in Hyde Park resident and informed crafter hospitals. The duo posted a call for makers Cheryl Miller says that “cloth masks made of and provided a one-page PDF of a face-mask two layers of cotton and fi tting snugly can pro- pattern. vide some protection from droplets in the air, So, how legit is a handmade fabric N95 face and are better than no protection when a per- mask? While it is a last resort, it is entirely son has to get up close and personal in home legit. Old-fashioned? Sure. “Prior to modern health or other closer-than-six-feet situations, disposable masks, washable fabric masks were like shopping, riding the bus, etc.” Miller has standard use for hospitals,” says Dawn Rogers, been making masks for herself as well as for a nurse practitioner from Deaconess Hospital’s donation. “It’s reassuring to see other people Patient Safety & Infection Prevention Office. wear masks too, and I believe homemade “We will be able to sterilize these masks and masks can help somewhat but my best e orts use them repeatedly as needed. While it’s less still aren’t as good as an N95,” she says. There- than ideal, we want to do our best to protect fore, social distancing is still the best measure our sta and patients during this pandemic.” to take during the pandemic, especially if Not all face masks are created equal. Emily wearing a homemade mask. Landon, the medical director for infection con- Dottie Je ries is making masks and donat- trol at the U. of C. told CNBC, “First of all, there ing them to Montgomery Place, home to 200 are multiple different kinds of face masks. COMMUNITY older adults, in Hyde Park. She’s working with There is the surgical mask that people wear new and old T-shirts and pillowcases based on that doesn’t really seal up very well. That’s Take your self-isolation to the sewing machine the recommendation and data found by Smart super good if you put it on the patient who’s Here’s how DIY face masks can help our local hospitals. Air. “I have also read that fl annel works well for sick because that will contain their secretions the side of the mask that is against one’s face, and protect everyone around them.” However, By S NL but at the moment, I don’t have any fl annel,” if you want to protect others during this crisis, she says. For Je ries, the hardest part of mak- going old school may be the only option. ing and donating masks has been threading Data has found that homemade masks cap- ot only is Illinois facing a shortage of This news isn’t surprising, however, as U.S. the needle. “I had not used my machine for 15 tured 50 percent of virus particles or more. surgical masks and respirators, so is surgeon generals warned the public in Feb- years,” she says. “So now I’m 15 years older!” Double-layering masks doesn’t help too much. Nthe entire world. Bulk purchases of face ruary to stop buying face masks, as they were The president and CEO of Illinois Health and Materials like tea towels, T-shirts, dish towels, masks have left many hospitals without the straining the supply chain. American hospitals Hospital Association asked the state to donate and vacuum cleaner bags are the best-per- tools to effectively protect themselves and have taken a huge hit recently and although their inventory of N95 masks to their local hos- forming materials for a face mask; however, their patients. Those at the front lines—nurs- masks are only meant to be worn once and then pitals, which number more than 200 statewide. they are harder to breathe in. The priority is es, doctors, and health care workers—need thrown away, health-care professionals are “We urgently need to fi nd alternative supplies, having some type of face shield that covers the this protective gear in order to reduce the risk given no choice but to rewear their supplies. no matter where they are, so our hospitals can entire front of the face, the chin, and the sides and spread of COVID-19. A few days ago, the As a result, hospitals are asking the public to continue to provide life-saving care to current of the face. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention donate materials. and future COVID-19 patients,” he said in a People wearing masks must wash them after published a piece that suggested health-care In northwest Ohio, volunteer quilters from statement. Although Trump and Pence said one use, but right now, hospitals are in crisis personnel can create homemade masks as a the Quilt Foundry are making around 5,000 they would be sending tens of millions more mode (the CDC recommended health-care crisis response to the shortage. This isn’t the masks to donate to hospitals who are running masks to hospitals, it’s unknown when they personnel wear bandanas or scarves). With fi rst time DIY face masks have been called to short on supplies. In Washington state, vinyl will actually arrive and be delivered. As a re- millions of masks needed, people are stepping action. In 2006, the CDC published a study on sheets, foam, and industrial tape are being sult, the public has to step up. Only on Friday, a up and toward their sewing machines. v H5N1 which included a similar tactic for hand- used to create face shields as masks begin to 38-year-old woman was charged with stealing made face masks. disappear from hospitals. Last week, Rush Uni- breathing masks, hand sanitizer, breathing as- @snicolelane ll MARCH - CHICAOREADER 17 ARTS & CULTURE

DOMEDUSSADEECHETTAKUL/PEXELS it live from someone’s living room a er we’ve all quarantined for two weeks and know we won’t spread it to each other. Like, COVID- Tessa Orzech 19 isn’t a person. It can’t hear our words. That @tessa_saysrelax we know of! “Interesting to learn that a global pandemic was the only thing that could cure my Kendall Klitzke FOMO.” @kendallklitzke I definitely think jokes are appropriate, to “If only we had just called #MeToo keep us sane and laughing, but I really hate ‘#SocialDistancing’ maybe it wouldn’t have all the jokes that skew too dark. Like the gotten as much pushback.” doomsday ones, it’s like, alright this is too I think we defi nitely can. The best stuff I have scary to make me laugh. We can joke about seen is just making fun of anyone not taking the way it’s aff ecting everyone’s lives, but it this seriously at all, which I suppose people has to be funny, not just sad or scary. It’s like would assume to be an uncommon stance for you can joke about the fact that you won’t a stereotypical comic to take. Also it’s most- see your friends for a month, but you can’t ly just comics making fun of other comics’ joke about the fact that one of them might reaction to the pandemic, which is kind of be really sick. If you do go too dark during a snake eating its own tail, but if you have this climate, the joke actually has the oppo- a news feed that is entirely comics, it’s real- site intention and it adds to the collective ly evident. My only public joke on the matter COMEDY fear and paranoia. I think times like these was a tweet that went: “Customer touches separate smart comics from people who just me at work. Him: Oh wow. I guess I shouldn’t Jokes in the time of coronavirus want attention for their ideas. The whole have touched you with all of the virus stuff How soon is “too soon” when you’re living through it? point of comedy is to relieve the tension. happening. Oh yes, the virus. THAT’S why you shouldn’t have touched me.” By B W Ryan P. C. Trimble @ryntern Amber Autry “Sex with me is like COVID-19: it happened @amberautrycomedy in Europe long before it happened here.” “My boyfriend has been casually teaching ’m in a great position going into indefi nite ING. Lauren Harsh has been hosting a weekly Mainly, as always in comedy, you CAN joke me jiujitsu and now is scheduling ‘classes’ isolation, because I get to read jokes, like virtual open mike called Cabin Fever. Scott about COVID-19, as long as you’re not punch- daily. I bought all these brownies for the Ithis one from Malic White (@malicwhite), Du has been hosting his own cooking show ing down. Like, am I going to joke about peo- lockdown and I’m being forced to exercise.” on Twitter all day, every day: “Any queer daily on Facebook. Podcasts are recording ple suffering, or food shortages? No. I’ve It’s weird, I’m getting more opportunity who makes it through quarantine without remotely, talk show hosts are monologuing already seen the community band together to write, which I wanted but I asked myself giving themself a weird haircut wins 9 lives.” to empty audiences, and the hilarious tweets and do like, Skype open mics or stream can- today, “If I don’t want to write about coro- While some people are avoiding social media and Facebook statuses have been multiplying celed shows from an empty theater. I’m part navirus, what else do I wanna write about? altogether to keep themselves from having a like bunnies. But in these unusual times, is it of an improv group called Frogprov, which Is anything goofy funny right now?” As of panic attack, over the past handful of years I even OK to be joking? How can you determine improvises in French and English, and we now I’m going to continue to write and trust have surrounded myself with comedians on if something is “too soon” when you’re living were supposed to have a show at iO at the myself. Laughter always prevails! v every platform. And let me tell you, even in the in it every day? I reached out to some comics end of the month. We’re now discussing the midst of a pandemic these comics are WORK- (virtually!) to get their jokes and thoughts. possibility of doing the show but streaming @BriannaWellen

ENOUGH BREAD TO BOSS YOUR BOSS PLAY IN STORE TODAY!

18 CHICA OREADER - MARCH ll THEATER

poster reading TEENAGE DICK one last time the Quarantine”), I can’t help but think that and thought about how lucky we were to be theater at its core is an interactive hands-on able to tell the story in some capacity—even medium, and there is only so much theory out though it was not in the way we intended. there. When I was fi nally alone after parting ways Another loss for young professionals who with the team my mind inevitably began to are just entering the theater community wander. is the opportunity to see Chicago theater I thought about all those theaters dropping at its finest. With the tumultuous political out like fl ies. I thought about how Fast Com- situation and a decade’s worth of struggle, it pany at Jackalope opened and then closed truly felt that this was the season of making their run the following day. I thought about bold statements. Directors from Lili-Anne School Girls; Or, the African Mean Girls Play Brown (School Girls) to Wardell Julius Clark at Goodman, Intimate Apparel at Northlight, (Kill Move Paradise), to Tara Branham (Little Kill Move Paradise at TimeLine, Dhaba on Women), to Brian Balcom (Teenage Dick)— Devon Avenue at Victory Gardens, I Am Not each of their plays opened up gateways for Your Perfect Mexican Daughter and The Most conversation for people from all walks of Spectacularly Lamentable Trial of Miz Mar- life: POC, femme, queer, disabled. Whether tha Washington at Steppenwolf, and Little via their creative team of designers, writers, Women at First Folio Theatre. All of these and performers, or their subject matter itself, productions had something major to contrib- each of their plays was like an act of rebellion ute to our theater ecosystem. showcasing the will of the community and its With 200some companies in Chicago all need to defy the status quo. closing their doors and canceling their pro- Unfortunately, it seems like once again the ductions, it’s a rude awakening to the thriving powers that be have won, this time in viral Opening—and closing—night of Teenage Dick. The author is lower right. COURTESY THEATER WIT theater community Chicago has had and how form. COVID-19 is e ectively shutting down Chicago theater now faces the possibility of what could have been a revolution via art. an incredible defeat. Instead the lack of attention paid to this pan- But the heartbreak for Chicago theater demic early on has erased the possibility of doesn’t stop there. Along with shows getting early containment, inevitably a ecting these ESSAY canceled, companies are no longer able to artistic revolutionists’ livelihood. fund their staff. Chicago Shakespeare The- While every artist is struggling fi nancially ater recently let go of a large number of sta (some more than others, as some theater A love letter to the Chicago members, from front of house to box o ce to companies are willing to pay out their production, due to its financial losses from contracts), no one gets into the arts for the the closure. Steven Tapas and Dianne Nora, paycheck. The reward for many theater prac- theater community during former employees of CST, have since creat- titioners is the excitement of knowing that ed a GoFundMe campaign called “Chicago you and your fellow artists get to be a part Shakespeare Theater Workers Laid Off,” to of di erent stories and put a unique spin on COVID-19 raise funds and distribute it amongst the for- them. Many theatermakers lost multiple con- mer employees. tracts all at once. These are desperate times, but look at what you’ve done so far. Educational institutions have canceled Conversely, some theatermakers have stat- their mainstage productions and senior ed that they are relieved to hear that their con- By A N showcases (a dream for many young prac- tracts are canceled. This is far from shocking. titioners trying to get a jump start into the In this capitalist society, artists are underpaid, industry) and moved all their classes online. overworked, and overbooked. Most artists For those going for an arts administration work multiple jobs whilst sustaining multiple ear Chicago Theater Community, show online. We ended the performance with degree, online courses may be a smooth tran- bookings simultaneously, with no time to stop This was not an easy article to write. tears, laughter, standing ovations, and noth- sition. However, for those pursuing a degree and rest, just to be able to make ends meet. D I recently had the pleasure of being ing but love from the folx who braved leaving in theater arts or performance, this is far While the precarious thoughts of not being part of a very important bit of theater called their homes—the audience, the designers, from easy. able to make rent in April still lurks over their Teenage Dick, at Theater Wit. (I was the vio- the performers, and the entire team. We Recently David Woolley, a former profes- heads, it’s no wonder individuals are apprecia- lence and intimacy designer.) Sadly Monday, laughed and joked, thought about what could sor and mentor of mine, remarked “I have to tive of their overdue time o . March 16, was our last performance in front have been, and remarked that this would not figure out how to teach swordplay remote- Being part of this theater industry comes of a live audience for the foreseeable future be “the last time we worked together”—yet ly!” While I have no doubt that the bold Je with a certain level of uncertainty, not know- given the current circumstance initiated by we all knew deep down that this could be it, Award–winning fight master will come up ing when or where your next gig will be. This what I am calling the “b****-a** arts killer for a lot of us. with some unique experimental way of teach- virus just amplified those anxieties for the virus.” We fi lmed it and are now continuing As I left the theater, accompanied by some ing stage combat to college students online entire community. the run remotely where patrons can view the of the team, I looked back at the big, bold (I can almost see a course title: “Combat in However, all hope is not lost . . . not just yet. ll MARCH - CHICAOREADER 19 THEATER

continued from 19 members from a multitude of companies, and its inception they have sponsored over 1,800 out of this, theater companies can learn the eing on my fourth day quarantined in through that, the Chicago Theatre Standards tickets to theaters of all sizes. importance of keeping their actors safe in my apartment without any semblance were created; a pro-community cultural doc- That same year, the Chicago Theatre Ac- this overworked capitalist society. Don’t Bof how long this confinement is going ument that details inclusive and equitable cess Auditions (CTAA) was founded, with burn your collaborators to the ground. The- to last, I am allowed to spend a whole lot codes of conduct during a rehearsal process. the intention of bridging the gap between ater artists want to create theater and they of time with myself and my thoughts. I The document has since been used by almost non-Equity actors and Equity theater com- will continue doing so if you treat them with thought about what drove me to be a part every company in Chicago and other theater panies. The success rate of CTAA (which held the respect they deserve. of the Chicago theater community and why communities throughout the country. its fi rst unifi ed auditions in 2018 with over I write this so that theater companies so many of my friends continue to fi ght for This not only opened up large conversa- 150 nonunion actors) has been encouraging, can reevaluate the shows they produce next their work within it. I thought about why no tions on equity and representation across and non-Equity companies have also been season and take some time to consider how one ever leaves. Or if they do and somehow the nation but it also brought forth the part of the audition process, providing more they can best support the community both make headlines in Hollywood, they never fail importance of fi ght choreographers and in- opportunities for the actors who are often fi nancially and artistically. to mention their beginnings in Chicago and timacy directors. Intimacy direction at that the lifeblood of storefront theater. I write this so that non-community mem- attribute some of their best experiences to time was still a newer concept to the Chicago In August of 2019, Mark Larson published bers can see how hard these folx work and this community. theater community, but with the #MeToo Ensemble: An Oral History of Chicago The- how important it is to keep funding these The latter part of the decade was very for- movement just on the horizon, companies ater. This is an in-depth historical account hustlers. So the next time you want to see a mative for Chicago theater and proved time began realizing its necessity for the physical spanning 65 years in Chicago theater, told show to support your theater friend, maybe and time again why this city will triumph . . . and emotional safety of their actors. via interviews and fi rst-person perspectives buy a ticket and don’t ask for a comp. despite impossible odds. What followed suit was an abundance of illustrating the power of everyone in the I write this so that every person who has Chicago theater has witnessed numerous examples where the Chicago theater commu- larger “ensemble” of Chicago theater to be looked down on the arts as a means of surviv- scandals and upheavals over the past few nity bonded in solidarity. part of a collective and collaborative force. al and has fl ocked to bingeing their favorite years and it truly feels as though the entire There was a chain of journalistic scan- If you’re beginning to have any doubts about TV show the second they have time o work community decided to act in solidarity dals including Hedy Weiss’s controversial the state of affairs within the industry and can realize the value of arts. A lot of these against the powers that have been governing remarks surrounding Steppenwolf’s 2017 need a shot of motivation, put this on your filmmakers got their start in theater, espe- society in very brutal and toxic ways. production of Antoinette Nwandu’s Pass quarantine reading list. cially Chicago theater. If we catch you on the Let’s do a little recap for some motivation- Over. A group of theatermakers formed the Most recently, we’ve got theater artist other side, go out and see a play! al boosts, shall we? Chicago Theater Accountability Coalition as Michael Turrentine’s podcast on Spotify and But mostly, I write this for you, you beau- We can begin with The Chicago Inclusion a fi rst-response group to hold journalists ac- Apple, How’s Your Heart? In this podcast tiful Chicago theatermakers. We are in this Project—founded in 2015 by actor–casting countable for racism and inequity, cofounded series, “Turrentine and his friends gather together. So stay home, wash your hands, director Emjoy Gavino. This initiative is “a by Ike Holter, Kevin Matthew Reyes, Tony to discuss dating, sex, queerdom, all those call your family, and breathe. Maybe start an collective of artists, committed to creating Santiago, Sasha Smith, and Sydney Charles. feelings, and more.” The first episode was online Shakespeare company, or fi nish that inclusive theater experiences by bringing Their e orts were pivotal and generated con- released on March 16, featuring much-in-de- screenplay or play you have been wanting to together Chicago artists and audiences versation across the nation on e ective and mand actor and choreographer Breon Arzell. complete. Catch up on that Netfl ix Original, normally separated by ethnic background, equitable theater criticism. You can definitely count on me tuning in and watch all the episodes of those assorted economic status, gender identity, physical In a similar vein, Regina Victor and Kath- during this time of social distancing. Dick Wolf shows that your Chicago actor ability, and countless other barriers.” The erine O’Keefe founded Rescripted, an online It’s hard to stay motivated and remind friends were featured on. Do some yoga, Chicago Inclusion Project has since been suc- publication by theater practitioners and for people of their triumphs during these un- spend time with your dog, stop eating ramen, cessful in aiding conscious casting and intro- theater practitioners as a response to the se- certain times when many artists are filing and get more creative with your cooking. ducing upcoming artists who would usually vere lack of diversity within national theater for unemployment. But it’s times like these Shakespeare allegedly wrote King Lear not be seen by theater companies. criticism. Rescripted includes reviews, artist when we need to be reminded of our strength while quarantined in his apartment during In the summer of 2016, an article by Aimee interviews, and essays on the performing and power the most. Chicago theater has the plague. However, you are not Shake- Levitt and Christopher Piatt in the Reader arts. An ongoing series, “Dear White Critics,” confronted a lot: harassment scandals, racial speare and if you would rather sit on your dropped regarding the abuse and harass- was created, according to Victor, to call at- insensitivity, and otherwise-problematic couch and do nothing for two weeks, so be ment at Profi les Theatre—an open secret for tention to insensitive remarks by white the- coverage in the media, inequitable casting it. You deserve it! You have been hustling for many years. This caused an uproar within the ater critics. The most recent installment ran choices, and the ongoing economic hardships months, from gig to gig, balancing your day community, and within two days, the theater a year ago, calling out the Chicago Tribune’s of making theater on a shoestring. It most job with your artistic life, and for the first (which had gone union with Actors Equity in Chris Jones for ableist sentiments regarding definitely will overcome this, too. With ev- time in a long time, you have nothing to do, 2012) had closed permanently. Chicago theater veteran Mary Ann Thebus’s erything that everyone has gone through to because there is literally nothing you can do. Even before the Reader article ran, Not In use of a script while performing Doubt at Gift make Chicago theater the vital industry it It is like a high school summer all over again! Our House—an advocacy group cofounded Theatre. has become, COVID-19 has nothing on us. So relax. Recharge. Because when this is all by Laura T. Fisher and Lori Myers to com- In 2017, theatermakers Tony Santiago and However, though we can take a moment over and we see you on the fl ip side, you are bat sexual discrimination, harassment, Dylan Toropov cofounded Chicago Arts Ac- to be proud of ourselves, we must also stay going to slay this town and show us that you and gender-based violence in a theatrical cess—a platform through which patrons can grounded and not give up the ground we’ve are a fi erce theater warrior not to be trifl ed space—held a meeting to talk about these purchase free tickets to art events around won. with. problems. In attendance were community the city via their website: freetix.org. Since I write this letter so that when we come You got this! v 20 CHICA OREADER - MARCH ll Methtacular! MICHAELBROSILOW

@ North Bar VISIT OUR WEBSITE THU MAR. 26 We See You Comedy transinclusivechicago.org/hire REVIEW @ Aleman Brewery SAT MAR. 28 The crystal shipwreck All About Nutrients w/ Chicago Grow Club Sign On! Steven Straff ord’s solo chronicle of meth addiction streams online with 16th APR. 2 @ North Bar Street. THU Dave Stone Commit your By K R @ The Lincoln Lodge THU APR. 16 organization to at least Late Night 5 teven Stra ord was supposed to be live on- early aughts. (If you’ve been around the theater 3 out 9 objectives as stage at Berwyn’s 16th Street Theater this scene awhile, you can have fun playing fi ll-in- APR. 17 @ The Lincoln Lodge month with a remount of Methtacular!, the-blanks with the shows and collaborators FRI outlined in our Pledge. S Late Night 5 his solo chronicle of his three-year bout with he mentions.) His family seems solid, at least Post your employment meth addiction. But then COVID-19 happened, judging by what we see of his loving mother in APR. 19 @ District Brew Yards and the theater decided to go with a ticketed video interviews spliced into the show. Unlike a SUN opportunities on our Cheers with Beers Cupcake Class streaming version of a show recorded last year lot of young gay people, Stra ord wasn’t kicked Job Board. at Steppenwolf’s LookOut series. out when he came out. His addiction, like that APR. 20 @ North Bar Then again, given the story Stra ord has to of so many others, came instead from a place of MON Monday Night Munchies: tell, it’s amazing he’s alive at all. And at least garden-variety nagging self-doubt, despite his A 420 Comedy Show this time, he’s missing a show for a reason obvious talents. Take a hit of meth, feel more @ North Bar Be Proactive! other than being on a meth binge in a bath- confi dent and attractive. What could go wrong? WED APR. 29 house for several days. (Spoiler alert: he lost Oh boy. Rich Vos that acting gig.) Through a series of increasingly fraught Utilize CTC "Get Trained" Strafford’s been performing this tale at relationships with friends, lovers, and com- MAY 9 @ Laugh Factory SAT binations thereof—including a nebbishy Head Talks with Shane Mauss & Sophia Rokhlin programs to help make M ! teacher who grows violent and a gun-toting R Through / : Thu–Fri : PM, dealer who lives surrounded by fi lth and feral MAY 9 @ North Bar your oraganization Sat and PM, Sun PM, available SAT for streaming at thstreettheater. cats—Stra ord takes us down the rabbit hole Marcella Arguello - Early Show welcoming for employees org, $. of his sex-and-drugs obsession. By working in clever musical bits and audience interaction, @ North Bar and clients alike. SAT MAY 9 theaters around the country for a few years, including a game show called “What’s My Marcella Arguello - Late Show but the performance you can see through Meth?,” Stra ord fi nds ways to break down the 16th Street’s website (directed by Adam Fitz- navel-gazing nature of the autobiographical @ Naperville Settlement gerald and with William TN Hall providing solo form. (The correct answer to a question in SAT JUNE 6 Naperville Soulfest 2020 piano accompaniment for Stra ord’s musical the latter is “Take apart the toaster and fi nd out numbers) doesn’t feel like a guy phoning it in. where the voice is coming from.”) @ The Law Office Pub & Music Hall (HMS Media, which has been recording live In these days of enforced isolation, maybe THU JUNE 25 performances in Chicago for years, did the a solo show about addiction seems a perilous Mike & the Moonpies / Tim Gleason admirable honors here; the visual and aural entertainment choice for some. But Stra ord, quality is excellent.) Rather, he exudes exuber- who beat his meth demon by what he can only ance, leavened with David Sedaris–like dashes describe as luck (though he admits he will of self-deprecating snark. “I love formulas,” never get over wanting to do drugs), o ers a in partnership with Stra ord tells us early on. “Like, Tuesday plus surprisingly sweet and hopeful conclusion for crystal meth equals Friday!” anyone stuck at home, looking at themselves in Refreshingly, Stra ord doesn’t seem to have the mirror: there is nothing wrong with you. v to add your event to TIXREADER COM, a backstory of deep trauma for why he fell into email [email protected] addiction as a young actor in Chicago in the @kerryreid Mobilizing for Mental Health ll MARCH - CHICAOREADER 21 THEATER

Nora Dunn LOWELL THOMAS

Still, she’s angry now. “I don’t want to be the person who panics. Who buys all the food. I went to Whole Foods, and the shelves were almost bare. But I do feel a lot of trepidation because we have no national leadership. “Because our ‘president,’ well, we don’t even have a person up there who is a human being. We need someone to say ‘here’s what we have to do. Boom. Boom. Boom. We’re going to have to su er a little bit. We’re going to lose jobs. It’s a horrible, almost unbelievable shock, but here’s what we’ve got to do to contain this.’ “But he’s not doing that. He’s making it worse. He could have gotten the tests [kits for massive, nationwide testing] in January. He was warned. He didn’t care. My own hope is that he has the virus. And then he’ll be unable to tweet. I don’t know what drugs he’s on. But everyone is seeing it now. I hope.” She continues: “What’s coming to roost here is this: Guess what folks, we really do need a CDC. We do need diplomats. We need leadership. Saying ‘burn it all down’ is all very well and good but, that’s not what’s going to save us. I think PROFILE feverishly watchable slice of history. now, more than ever in my life, community is To me, that interview with Dunn now seems critical. like it happened last year. The entire world has “I have a niece in Seattle. They’ve been hit Nora Dunn vents about 1 and 45 changed—totally, irrevocably, and cataclysmi- hard. I have so many friends in New York and cally—since we spoke. Still, her thoughts have LA. I fear for all of them, all of us.” Her Steppenwolf show is postponed, but the SNL vet isn’t holding back. resonance. Dunn was marked as “difficult” Two weeks ago, Dunn was still going out, but for standing up to the macho atmosphere at she noticed changes. By C S SNL, where she joined the cast for the 1985 “Weird things—like people are in a trance. season, along with fellow rookies Jon Lovitz No one is signaling, driving weird. It’s like wo weeks ago, Saturday Night Live alum that we have a Declaration of Independence. and Dennis Miller. She also became known for we’re all in limbo. There’s this fear of massive and west-side native Nora Dunn was in re- “But you can’t ignore the fact that George her recurring characters, including half of the job losses. I live with my dog, and that’s how Thearsals at Steppenwolf for the title role Washington owned over 300 people. There is Sweeney Sisters duo with Jan Hooks. Decades I communicate with many of my neighbors. I in The Most Spectacularly Lamentable Trial of little evidence that he had a conscience about before #MeToo, Dunn fought for screen time. think today is the fi rst day it’s really hitting me. Miz Martha Washington, by James Ijames. it. He talked about them in terms of worth “It was hard. It was a boys’ club. They would “We have to face the fact that there’s a virus Ijames’s script is hallucinatory and grip- and value. Half of America didn’t believe that. always tell me—whatever I wrote or came up going around that most of us aren’t even al- ping: Martha Washington is in her fi nal days, There was an abolitionist movement in the with—that they didn’t get ‘girl humor.’ I didn’t lowed to be tested for. We’re not being taken thrashing through a fever dream, tended by 18th century. Washington wasn’t part of it. The understand that. Humor is humor. I was so care of. At times like these, we need things not the slaves without whom her lifestyle would play never lets that go. It doesn’t let George o pissed o —I’m like, I’m hired, I’ve shown you to take our mind o the horror of it. Otherwise have been impossible. That’s a grossly incom- and it doesn’t let Martha o either.” tons of material, and you can’t fi nd anything you could lose yourself. A good play can take plete categorization: as Ijames points out in Directed by Whitney White and featuring for me to do? I didn’t hold anything back. But you to a deeper place. You let everything else his prefatory notes, this is no “slave play.” Nikki Crawford as Ann, Celeste M. Cooper there was always the issue that the guys were go and immerse yourself into the story. Ann Dandridge, Doll, Priscilla, Davy, William, as Doll, Sydney Charles as Priscilla, Carl in everything. And we had to accept we were in “I believe this play does that. It’s important. and Sucky Boy are as intricate and indelible as Clemons-Hopkins as Davy, Victor Musoni one or two things.” It’s still important.” v Martha. They also double as other historical as William, and Travis Turner as Sucky Boy, In 1990, Dunn boycotted the episode hosted fi gures, both Black and white. the show had all the makings of a feverishly by noted misogynist Andrew Dice Clay. Lovitz James Ijames’s The Most Spectacularly Lam- As Dunn put it in an interview on March 13, watchable slice of history. Then on March told the tabloids that she was hard to work entable Trial of Miz Martha Washington is “You think of Mount Vernon as a tourist attrac- 17, Steppenwolf announced the show was with, hard to get along with, and would be fi red available through Dramatists Play Service, tion when in fact it was a labor camp. You can’t cancelled due to COVID-19. They have made a before the next season. She didn’t return. dramatists.com. go there and treat it as if it wasn’t part of the commitment to stage it in 2021, with the same “You can’t hold on to your anger,” Dunn said. holocaust here. I love our Constitution. I love artists. So make that “has” all the makings of a “That’s building your own blockade.” @CateySullivan 22 CHICA OREADER - MARCH ll FILM

Feel Good COURTESY NETFLIX

came from drugs, but in adulthood it took the form of chasing romantic partners for a similar high. It’s suggested by Mae’s mother (Lisa Kudrow) that George is not the fi rst person in her life to fi ll the void, and that she only loves the “idea” of people, not people themselves. But what really makes Feel Good stand out is that while their relationship is complicated, the culpability isn’t solely placed on Mae’s shoulders. It’s clear that they both have some growing up to do and some personal demons they have to confront. For George, the biggest roadblock is opening up about her queerness to other people. Mae is the fi rst non-cis man George has ever dated, and her less-than-accepting friends automatically assume that she’s dating a man, so she just goes with it because it’s easier. Queer people are used to living our lives in the shadows to some extent, but it cuts much deeper when that existence arises from your partner’s own internalized shame. As Mae is treated more like a secret than a partner, she becomes a frustrated ball of insecurities. Mae often walks a fine line between feeling like she is too much to handle because of her past SMALL SCREEN and feeling like she’s not enough of a man for George to truly love her. Mae also spends some time questioning Feel Good honestly explores bad times her gender identity. In one scene, she claims to feel like a “failed version” of a girl and a Stand-up Mae Martin’s new series gets heavy, but there’s always a laugh waiting around the corner. boy, and she unfairly compares herself to men when she’s with George, but that development By C C unfortunately takes a bit of a backseat in the grand scheme of things. espite what the title suggests, Netflix a date? Is she into me or am I making this up? burned some bridges along the way. Mae is in It’s true that Feel Good can be heavy some- and Channel 4’s Feel Good might not be Should I kiss her? That would be cool, right? a 12-step program throughout the series, but times, but there’s always a blip of humor right Dthe comforting series you need right They move in together in what seems like a her past—and her overwhelming guilt—is not around the corner. Martin is a natural at neu- now—and it doesn’t claim to be. It’s a rallying blink of an eye—pause for U-Haul joke—and far behind her. What the series really gets at rotic, self-deprecating humor—if this is your cry for the queers, the addicts, and all of the Mae quickly realizes that she can’t keep hiding the heart of, though, is that when addiction is introduction to Martin, there’s a whole world ways they intersect, for better or for worse. her past from George forever. a formative part of your upbringing, you start of her stand-up just waiting for you—and Kud- The series is based on stand-up Mae Full disclosure: I’m no stranger to addiction. playing by its twisted rules in adulthood. row glides on a hilarious mom-like energy that Martin’s own story. She plays a fi ctionalized It dominated my household growing up— Addiction takes charge in your relationships can only be described as unhinged. version of herself whose life gets increasing- whether it came from substances that made with others, and you sometimes fi nd yourself Feel Good is a near-perfect show about im- ly complicated as she starts to date George you feel numb or dangerous habits that made swapping substances for people in an attempt perfect people. It investigates how our lives (Charlotte Ritchie)—who has never dated a you smaller, more desirable to others—and no to suppress the parts of yourself that you think and our relationships with others are so often woman before—while trying not to let her his- matter how much time passes, the scars left are inherently ugly. When George finds out predicated on our pasts and the sometimes tory of addiction get in the way of what could from addiction never really go away. Feel Good about Mae’s history with addiction, she sug- toxic ways we’ve learned to cope. But it’s not be a really good thing. understands that better than most media gests Mae go back to meetings and continue a show without hope. Rather, it brims with Mae and George hit it o quickly after one about addiction I’ve seen, largely due to Mar- with the program. “I had a problem,” Mae says a reassuring optimism and the possibility of of Mae’s shows. Their fi rst date is full of the tin’s personal experiences, which help guide in response, “And now I have you.” making real change, even if it means starting delightfully awkward moments that so often the series with a comforting authenticity. Mae’s character arc is defi ned by a need for from zero. v make up gay relationships but are rarely de- With Feel Good, Martin makes it clear escapism, whether it be from life or her own picted in that way. Questions like: Is this even that she lost a lot of her life to addiction and head. As a young person, that satisfaction @dykediscourse

ssss EXCELLENT sss GOOD ss AVERAGE s POOR • WORTHLESS ll MARCH - CHICAOREADER 23 ANDERSONVILLE UPDATES SUPPORTING OUR BUSINESS COMMUNITY IN THE WEEKS TO COME a erso ille.org p ates GetYour Swag! www.chicagoreader.com/shop

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24 CHICA OREADER - MARCH ll R READER RECOMMENDED b ALL AGES N NEW F Get showtimes and see reviews of everything playing A NOTE FROM this week at chicagoreader.com/movies. FILM THE LOGAN

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NOW PLAYING younger generations rejecting their parents’ traditions The Platform to chart their own path is well tread in fi lm, and has R How many people have to die unnecessarily been told through the lens of various cultures and eth- before change is enacted? That’s the question near the nicities including Indian (Today’s Special and The Hun- heart of Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia’s dystopian thriller The dred-Foot Journey), Italian-Canadian (Little Italy), and Platform, a grimly violent exploration of humans driven Greek (My Big Fat Greek Wedding). With Uncorked, beyond the point of compassion. Almost. If that sounds Prentice Penny explores how this theme might play out cliched, rest assured it’s not. You think you know what’s in a Black American family: Elijah is a wine shop clerk coming but you do not. The premise is simple in David who dreams of becoming a sommelier, but his father— Desola and Pedro Rivero’s stark screenplay: People who runs a Memphis barbeque restaurant—would like can volunteer to spend time in “the pit” in order to him to take over the business someday. Though the get jobs or medical care or just about anything else plotline of father and son confl ict feels predictable, they can’t otherwise aff ord. From the outside, it seems unexpected twists and standout performances from like a tough but seemingly manageable trade, but the Niecy Nash and Courtney B. Vance make Uncorked a reality of the pit is unknown to anybody who hasn’t charming and thoughtful fi lm. —J L104 min. been inside. Goreng (Ivan Massague) signs up because Streaming on Netfl ix he wants to quit smoking and gain professional accredi- tations. The titular platform is a massive, banquet-laden Vivarium structure that descends from the fi rst fl oor (Jon D. R On the surface, Vivarium may seem like just Domínguez‘s vertiginous cinematography is stunning). another takedown of the suburbs, a location fi lmgoers There’s enough food for everyone, but below level 60 have come to expect as the setting for criticizing or so, the food runs out. Every few days, everyone is conformity, if not the backdrop for white savior shenan- gassed to sleep. When they wake up, they’re on a new igans. But unlike other entries in the former category level. Goreng wakes up in level 47. It takes about a day (Suburbicon, The Stepford Wives), Vivarium leans into before his humanity is almost completely erased. He science fi ction to depict the dystopian utopia. Set thinks he’s in hell, until he wakes in 171. When Goren specifi cally in Yonder, which is proudly advertised as joins forces with a fellow detainee Baharat (Emilio “Quality family homes. Forever.”, young couple and Buale), The Platform veers toward the land of bromance house hunters Gemma (Imogen Poots) and Tom (Jesse action thriller, only every thrill is packaged in a thick Eisenberg) quickly discover “forever” becomes quite shroud of moral ambiguity. How many deaths can be literal when you’re trapped. Even worse, they’re given a justifi ed in the name of uprising? How many before the peculiar child (Senan Jennings and Eanna Hardwicke), people at the top stop killing the ones below? The Plat- who ages as rapidly as a dog, to raise. This tight cast form doesn’t provide an answer. But damn if I wouldn’t does wonders for the bland setting, keeping things watch the hell out of the sequel to see how it turns tense every turn of the way. If you liked the cult classic out. —C S 94 min. Streaming on Netfl ix Cube, you’ll dig this, and if you haven’t seen it consider this a double-feature recommendation. —B J Uncorked R, 97 min. Available to rent on Amazon Prime, The story of family-owned restaurants and members of iTunes, Google Play, and VOD ll MARCH - CHICAOREADER 25 the Chicago undeground quartet bottle their lightning again

26 CHICA OREADER - MARCH ll MUSIC

For 19 years, their ﬁ rst album was their only album—but now longtime collaborators Rob Mazurek, Jeﬀ Parker, and Chad Taylor have recaptured the group’s freewheeling jazz spirit.

By N B

xperimental jazz is not a stadium- Parker lives and works in Los Angeles now, the time he met Parker, he was getting bored, been in and out of town, partly to study jazz packing pop genre. But you wouldn’t but his career famously started in Chicago. and the guitarist didn’t have much trouble drumming at the New School in New York, but know that from the enthusiasm of the He’d come to Dorian’s on a short stateside tour converting him to the “out” side. “It was really in 1997 he settled in Chicago—not long after shoulder-to-shoulder capacity crowd supporting his wonderful new album, Suite meeting Je in the early 90s that piqued my the workshop at the Green Mill had evolved stuffed into the narrow space along for Max Brown, which he’s dedicated to his re-interest in more so-called avant-garde mu- into a loose band with rotating membership. Ethe bar at Dorian’s on a Sunday earlier this mother. But he’s also got an even newer record: sics,” Mazurek says. “Sun Ra, Art Ensemble, They called themselves the Chicago Under- month. Programming director Joe Bryl spun Good Days (Astral Spirits) features Parker and Paul Bley, late Coltrane, various electronic ground, and they released a series of records a set of classic spiritual jazz from the likes of two of his longest-term collaborators, drum- music from Xenakis to Autechre.” with various personnel: the fi rst, 1998’s Play- Brother Ah and Infi nite Spirit Music, and then mer Chad Taylor and cornetist Rob Mazurek. In early 1996, shortly after Parker joined ground (Delmark), is credited to the Chicago the crowd cheered as Je Parker’s New Breed In 2001 they all appeared on the album Chicago Tortoise, he and Mazurek set up a regular Underground Orchestra. Recorded throughout Band took the stage. Parker is something of a Underground Quartet, one of Parker’s favorites workshop at the Green Mill for musicians to most of 1996, it features Mazurek, Parker, legend, not just in the jazz world but beyond; in a discography hundreds deep. And on Fri- rehearse new material together without an Taylor, trombonist Sara P. Smith, and bassist he’s a key member of postrock collective Tor- day, March 27—after 19 years that have taken audience. There, Parker says, Mazurek began Chris Lopes. Taylor and Mazurek also formed toise, and he’s worked with the likes of Joshua all three musicians to new cities and even new “to write some compositions that he didn’t the Chicago Underground Trio, with Noel Ku- Redman and Meshell Ndegeocello. But rather continents—they’ll fi nally release the Chicago think would sit so well” with the players on his persmith on bass; their albums often involved than taking the spotlight, he seated himself in Underground Quartet’s second album. straight-ahead jazz gigs. Parker as a guest artist. When Kupersmith the most poorly lit spot. He wasn’t much more Parker first came to town in 1991, after One of the regulars at the workshop was didn’t show up to practice one day, Taylor than a shadow as his guitar released languidly dropping out of music school in Boston in his Taylor. He’d started gigging in Chicago in the and Mazurek started playing without him. “It spiky notes from the dark like magic. mid-20s and getting a job at Tower Records on early 90s, when he was 16, inspired in part by wound up being, you know, amazing!” Taylor bottle their lightning again The social-distancing measures intended Clark and Belden just as it opened. His parents a high school friend, Chicago bassist Matthew says, and that confi guration became the Chi- to slow the spread of COVID-19 weren’t yet in wanted him to complete his degree, but he Lux. It was Lux who told a young Taylor that cago Underground Duo. Then in 2001 the trio place, but Parker already had words for the wanted to try to make a career as a working he had to stop listening to Kenny G. “Matt was decided to release a record with Parker billed man most responsible for the severity of the musician. “I knew that if I’d fi nished, I would like, ‘No no no no, we’ve got to get you on the as an o« cial member. U.S. crisis. In the middle of the set, he leaned just end up being a music teacher, and I didn’t right track,’” Taylor says. Lux soon started him Chicago Underground Quartet (Thrill Jock- over to the mike and said, with his usual non- want that,” he says ruefully. “I know myself, on a diet of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Miles ey) is a classic album—though it would also chalance, “This song is called ‘Go Away.’ It was and I know I would’ve thought, ‘I don’t have Davis, and Art Blakey. turn out to be the quartet’s only recording for written for Donald Trump, because I want that any gigs. I’ll go and be a substitute teacher.’ For a while Taylor tried to hold down a day almost 20 years. It dips in and out of jazz tra- motherfucker to go away.” Then he launched And then the next thing, it’s 20 years later. job while playing gigs at night; in the morn- ditions with the rolling, itchy ease of Parker’s into the intricate bop hook while bassist Paul That defi nitely would have happened, if I had ings he was a lifeguard for the indoor pool at opening guitar figure on “Tunnel Chrome,” Bryan played a killer funk line behind him and fi nished school.” the Standard Club downtown. His roommate, the first track. “I’m on probably 200 albums Josh Johnson stepped away from his keyboard Parker was already interested in experi- bassist Joshua Abrams, would look over at at this point, you know,” Parker says. “And I to blow a skronking sax solo. The high point mental and creative music when he arrived him and see him literally frowning in his sleep. don’t like most of them. I don’t like my playing of the set, “Go Away” was funny, cool, and in Chicago, but he gigged wherever he could, “Josh told me, ‘Chad, you just can’t do this on any records. But the Chicago Underground, weird—a crowd-pleasing rave-up and a knotty playing weddings and straight-ahead jazz gigs. anymore.’ And of course I was scared. How I think I played pretty well.” You can hear Ma- experimental exploration at the same time, It was on one of the latter, an early-90s date led am I going to make a living. But he said, ‘Just zurek’s straight-jazz infl uences on “Four in the with Parker chanting “Go away!” with great by legendary Chicago jazz drummer George quit the job and put all your energy into music. Evening,” which is as mellow as Chet Baker. enthusiasm on the chorus. Fludas, that Parker met Mazurek. The music will support you.’ And sure enough, But then on the next track, “A Re-Occurring In 1981, when he was just 16, Mazurek had that’s happened.” Dream,” he’s spitting and squalling like a Clockwise from top: Chad Taylor, Jeff Parker, been thrilled to see Sun Ra at the Chicago Jazz Taylor knew Mazurek because they’d played strangled duck while Parker plays brooding, and Rob Mazurek, who cofounded the Chicago Festival. But when he moved to Chicago from together in a band with bassist Dennis Carroll dissonant lines. And on the next, “Welcome,” Underground collective in the mid-90s, and Josh Johnson, who plays in Parker’s New Breed Band Naperville in 1983, he left his avant-garde ten- in the early 90s. He knew Parker through Lux, the band channels Coltrane while Taylor and joined the quartet for the new album dencies behind, instead playing what he calls who also worked at Tower. The three had long provides thunderous free-jazz backing on COURTESY ASTRAL SPIRITS RECORDS “classic mainstream jazz” around the city. By been mutual admirers. Since 1992 Taylor had the drums, against which the other members ll MARCH - CHICAOREADER 27 WE WILL RAISE MUSIC A GLASS TOGETHER SOON, CHICAGO.

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Josh Johnson (second from right) replaces Noel Kupersmith in the current version of the Chicago Underground Quartet, with Rob Mazurek, Jeﬀ Parker, and Chad Taylor. COURTESY ASTRAL SPIRITS RECORDS

continued from 27 years back in Chicago, in 2015 he moved to Chicago's Free Weekly Since 1971 clank and spit toward nirvana. Marfa, Texas, where he started a music festival New Breed Band keyboardist and saxophon- called Desert Encrypts. A live album from the ist Josh Johnson, a Chicago native and Los 2018 festival, Desert Encrypts Vol. 1, features Angeles resident, says the record was one of Taylor on drums alongside Mazurek, pianist his early loves, as a fan and as a musician—he Kris Davis, and bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten. first heard it as a teen in the mid-2000s. “I Taylor left Chicago for New York in 2001, hadn’t really heard anything like the Chicago then moved to Philadelphia in 2016. He con- Underground Quartet, that combined a lot of tinues to make a living as a free-jazz drummer, the elements that I hear in jazz. It had so many somewhat to his surprise. In regular times, he things I was interested in, so many disparate tours two weeks out of the month—mostly in interests, but musically all combined in a way Europe, where the pay is better—and in 2018 that feels very e ortless.” he released his first solo album, Myths and Over the next two decades, the quartet’s Morals (Eyes & Ears). “I’ll be on about 17 re- members worked on a range of projects, cordings coming up,” he says. “Not all of them separately and together. By the early 2010s, I’m proud of. But quite a few of them are great. Kupersmith had dropped out of music to be- I feel very blessed.” come a plumber in Milwaukee. Parker moved Taylor played in Parker’s trio with Chris to LA in 2013, and in 2016 he recorded The New Lopes on the 2012 release Bright Light in Breed, an album dedicated to his father that Winter (Delmark). He’s also continued to work uses beats and samples he’d been collecting with Mazurek semi-regularly, including in the and thinking about since his Chicago days. Chicago Underground Duo and on the 2014 From 2000 till ’07, Mazurek lived in Brazil, album Pharoah & the Underground (Delmark) where he formed the São Paulo Underground with saxophonist Pharoah Sanders. But by the with percussionist Mauricio Takara and time of the initial Good Days sessions in 2018, keyboardist Guilherme Granado (and had the Taylor says, it’d been around 15 years since opportunity to record the sounds of electric he’d played with Mazurek and Parker in the eels for some of his compositions). In 2005 same group. We Couldn't Be Free Without You— Mazurek started the Exploding Star Orchestra, The three of them hadn’t made any plans a large ensemble dedicated to investigating to record, but LA producer Chris Schlarb—a Support Community Journalism Chicago’s avant-garde traditions; the initial longtime fan of the Chicago Underground— lineup included Parker and Lux. After several brought them together. While organizing a 28 CHICA OREADER - MARCH ll MUSIC

session for his band, he asked Taylor to play album that the performers weren’t clear on up being lightning in a bottle, never captured warbling. Then, after about a minute and a drums. Schlarb knew he wouldn’t have the the instrumental confi guration until everyone again after the 2001 album. “The collaboration half, Taylor drops in a crisp transition on the budget to pay Taylor his usual rate, so he of- showed up. As they did on the fi rst Chicago Un- is the same beautiful open situation as when drums, seemingly setting a new beat but actu- fered to give Taylor free studio time to record a derground Quartet album 19 years before, they we started,” Mazurek says. “Of course we are ally transitioning the track into disintegrating, new Chicago Underground Quartet record. stroll around the universe of jazz like they’re more mature as musicians and humans now. chaotic spasms—drums, guitar, and horn chit- “I was like, what? Um . . . maybe?” Taylor walking through their backyard. Taylor’s The intention is always strong.” ter across empty space at one another until the says, his voice rising incredulously. “To be soul-funk composition “Batida” gives Parker Experimental jazz isn’t a path anybody nostalgia overtakes them again. The track goes honest, I thought Je was not going to be into a chance to play some badass spaced-out follows expecting to be comfortable. In a lot of back and forth like that—romantic evocations it. But he was. And we made it happen.” blues licks. Parker wrote “Good Days,” which ways, it makes more sense to stop and get a job of a lost past alternating with fragmented The original Chicago Underground Quartet first appeared on Bright Light in Winter, for as a plumber, with a steady income and maybe cries to the future—until the music fades out was a working band that gigged together and Mazurek, but the cornetist couldn’t make that health insurance. “It’s certainly a challenge to altogether. practiced all the time. Good Days arose from session; fi nally able to record the tune, he turns live a creative life,” Mazurek says. But Taylor, There’s a couple minutes of silence, and then an impromptu session with little rehearsal. in a searching, wounded solo over Johnson’s Mazurek, and Parker have kept at it, creating the band comes roaring back for a ten-second With Kupersmith retired, Taylor and Parker ambient keyboard washes. In a complemen- art that’s surprising and meaningful and gen- blast of an amphetamine bop head. It’s an decided to bring in Johnson. The recording tary turn, Mazurek wrote “Strange Wing” (a erally awesome. “The main thing I love about exuberant end to an exuberant record, as well was so casual, and organized so quickly, that commission by the 2016 Novara Jazz Festival) [Taylor and Mazurek] is they’re both just so as a declaration that jazz—and music making Johnson wasn’t sure whether he’d be playing with Parker in mind. It’s a mellow fuzak groove open,” Parker says. “Both of those guys will try in general—is about right now, even when it’s saxophone or keyboards till he showed up. that drifts unexpectedly toward free spiritual anything musically.” also about the past. It’s as though the quartet When he did appear, Parker recalls, Mazurek exploration and back again. The last song on Chicago Underground knew they had more to play, and that they’d be looked at him in confusion and said, “Where’s Part of what’s so engaging and inspirational Quartet is a Mazurek composition called “Nos- ready to take up the tune again—even if it took your bass?” Parker laughs. “Me and Chad are about Good Days is that it feels like such a nat- talgia.” At fi rst, it sounds about like what you’d them almost two decades to do it. v like, ‘No man, he plays keyboards.’” ural continuation of the band’s freewheeling expect from a piece called “Nostalgia”—slow, You wouldn’t know from listening to the spirit—something that easily could’ve ended ambient, romantic, with some cheesy synth @nberlat

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PICK OF THE WEEK Irreversible Entanglements are more political and potent than ever on Who Sent You?

Because of the pandemic, our doors were forced to close until May. The BOB SWEENEY livelihoods of our box office workers, security, stagehands, techs, IE W SY? and bar servers have been directly International Anthem/Don Giovanni intlanthem.bandcamp.com/album/who-sent-you affected by this decision.

We want them to know how much IRREVERSIBLE ENTANGLEMENTS WILL LEAVE YOU SHAKEN The group make tight, synergistic free jazz anchored by the dynamic spoken-word declarations of poet Moor Mother, aka Camae we appreciate their hard work Ayewa. Their music sometimes sounds chaotic and freewheeling, but it ensnares listeners with arrangements carefully considered to help deliver fi ery political messages. The fi ve-piece ensem- and help support them ble—the lineup also includes saxophonist Keir Neuringer, trumpeter Aquiles Navarro, bassist Luke Stewart, and drummer Tcheser Holmes—originally performed as two di erent groups at a during this trying time. 2015 New York benefi t show called Musicians Against Police Brutality. They create art with a pur- pose, and on their new album, Who Sent You? (International Anthem/Don Giovanni), they sound more potent than any other act out there. The title track surrounds you with a vortex of barreling drums as Moor Mother evokes the terrors of living in a police state. She sounds assured and calm, fi ring o words that indict the futility, ineptitude, and foolishness of cops and their failure as civil PLEASE DONATE: servants. “Blues Ideology” rallies against harmful religious ideologies that powerful leaders feed the masses, and the stumbling, anguished instrumentation bolsters the anger in Moor Mother’s jamusa.com/helpourstaff voice (“Pope must be drunk,” she exclaims). No track feels frivolous, and that’s Irreversible Entanglements’ greatest feat: they instill a desire to think, act, and live more purposefully. —JMK

30 CHICA OREADER - MARCH ll b ALL AGES F MUSIC

Blacks’ Myths SEAN PEOPLES

COVID-19 can close And please e-mail us at music@chicagoreader. com to tell us about new fundraisers or direct- venues, but it can’t action campaigns in Chicago’s music community. stop Chicago’s music —J L community The events of last week were unthinkable until Blacks’ Myths, Blacks’ Myths II they happened—including the weeks-long closure Atlantic Rhythms of Chicago’s beloved live-music venues (along with atlanticrhythms.bandcamp.com/album/blacks- bars, restaurants, and many other businesses) to myths-ii slow the spread of COVID-19. But rather than admit defeat or grind to a halt, Long before drummer Warren G. “Trae” Crudup III the local music community has banded together and bassist Luke Stewart launched noisy free-jazz and risen to the occasion. Venues have launched duo Blacks’ Myths in 2018, they backed celebrated dozens of fundraisers to support staff who’ve lost saxophonist James Brandon Lewis as the rhythm most or all of their livelihoods; artists have begun section in his trio. They’ve also enmeshed them- livestreaming concerts, dance parties, and jam ses- selves in D.C.’s jazz scene individually: Crudup per- sions. Somebody on Facebook has even called for a forms with a slew of scene fi xtures, including saxo- Chicago window sing-along, inspired by widely cir- phonist Brian Settles and poet Thomas Sayers Ellis, culated videos of quarantined Italians belting out while Stewart plays in Afrofuturist crossover group pop ballads (“My Heart Will Go On”) and metal rag- Irreversible Entanglements and works for jazz non- ers (“War Pigs”) along with their neighbors. Though profi t and editorial site CapitalBop as “director of the battle against this virus is just beginning, it’s presenting and avant music editor.” Blacks’ Myths inspiring seeing so many people stepping up to 2018 self-titled debut showcases Crudup and Stew- support friends and strangers alike. art’s preternatural musical connection: on “Upper Because Chicago’s music venues are shuttered, South,” Stewart weaves together lightly ping- Crudup and Stewart relax into a linear melody. And per alive,” and you know what? He actually was. the Reader has transformed its usual concert pre- ing foreground notes with a hypnotic, relentless- when shrieking patches of noise erupt from the The 2008 album Tha Carter III, released about ten views into album reviews. We hope this helps boost ly propulsive riff, which Crudup girds with cool, sluggish but triumphant “Free Land,” they feel like years into his career, was a full-blown landmark. It sales for artists who have temporarily lost the abili- in-the-pocket percussion whose brisk snap he can sunlight on the horizon. —LG gave the world a string of smash singles, includ- ty to tour. And we’re not about to let a virus stop us intensify at a moment’s notice. On their follow-up, ing “Lollipop” and “Got Money,” which showed from championing great music! last year’s Blacks’ Myths II (Atlantic Rhythms), they Wayne’s knack for infectious pop hooks. And on Though the future is uncertain, it seems likely tack toward discord; Stewart’s bass takes on a blis- Lil Wayne, Funeral “La La,” “You Ain’t Got Nuthin,” and the legendary this shutdown could continue for weeks or months. tering metallic throb, and Crudup fights off the Young Money “A Milli,” he solidifi ed his reputation as an unstop- If you have the means, please consider donat- feedback with cascading drum fi lls that blow open shop.lilwaynefuneral.com pable MC by hammering out some of the fastest, ing to one of the many fundraising campaigns for pockets of space in the noise. Though Blacks’ cleverest, most skull-rattling wordplay ever com- venue staff or buying albums or merch from musi- Myths II can be intensely discombobulating, its Remember the Lil Wayne of 2008 and 2009? He mitted to tape. Wayne got even wilder on 2009’s cians (we’re recommending several in these pages). most irascible passages make it even sweeter when constantly boasted that he was the “greatest rap- No Ceilings mixtape, which he supposedly record- ll MARCH - CHICAOREADER 31 Find more music listings at MUSIC chicagoreader.com/soundboard.

but now that hip-hop has made a viral hit out of a Rascal Flatts medley sung by a heavily armed man Midnight, Rebirth by Blasphemy in a ski mask and designer bulletproof vest, Wayne Metal Blade kinda sounds old-fashioned. At the end of the day, midnight-ohio.bandcamp.com/album/rebirth-by- though, freaky modern rappers wouldn’t exist blasphemy without Lil Wayne—even as his output becomes less relevant, his importance can’t be denied. Midnight are pretty much the nightmare that heart- —L C land parents feared during the satanic panic of the 1980s, when metal bands’ imagined lyrical (and moral) transgressions meant they were considered Lord Dying, Mysterium Tremendum about as family friendly as murderers. Midnight’s eOne music is nihilism with a beat, rudderless and apoliti- lorddying.bandcamp.com/album/mysterium- cal; they’re as likely to cover 70s midwest punks the tremendum Pagans as black-metal innovators Venom. Athenar, the band’s founder and sloganeer, launched the This Portland-based progressive sludge-metal band culty Cleveland act in 2003 with a short demo o en returned from a lull last year with two new mem- referred to by the title of its first track, “Funeral bers, bassist-vocalist Alyssa Maucere (formerly of Bell.” Recording everything himself (though he usu- Eight Bells) and drummer Kevin Swartz (of Bottom ally uses a backing band live), Athenar went on to and Forgotten Gods), and their third full-length, refi ne Midnight’s mix of punk and metal on a series Mysterium Tremendum (eOne). It’s beautiful, but it’s of EPs—o en splits or tributes—that led up to the a concept album about death—which makes it either band’s debut studio LP, 2011’s Satanic Royalty. Mid- the best thing or the worst thing to listen to while night’s latest full-length, January’s Rebirth by Blas- staring down the barrel of a pandemic. The band’s phemy (Metal Blade), doesn’t break new ground, cofounders, guitarist-vocalist Erik Olsen and guitar- but the track “The Sounds of Hell” might be the ist Chris Evans (not the Captain America guy), have closest to a hit the group can get—it sounds like both faced sorrow and tragedy in recent years— Motörhead covering the Ramones. It’s also one of Evans’s sister suddenly passed away, and both of the more lyrically palatable tracks on the album, Olsen’s parents were diagnosed with cancer—and opening by referring to the “din of warfare” rather they channeled their grief into music. Lord Dying’s than, say, being dragged through fi re by a “seduc- previous two albums may have felt heavier in a tive beast” that’s broken free from “ancient bloody musical sense, but Mysterium Tremendum (which chains.” The song “Devil’s Excrement” might be translates to “terrible mystery”) is heavier psy- about an unleashed evil creature—or the joys of chologically: the band use a diverse array of tech- taking an especially nasty shit. It almost doesn’t niques from the prog-metal toolbox to meditate on matter, because Athenar emphasizes each line of death, spirituality, and the a erlife. The result is not the chorus (“Devil’s excrement / Must unload”) with just awe-inspiring but also surprisingly tender and guitar drama straight out of 1987. Rebirth by Blas- kind. Olsen relies mostly on clean vocals, and on phemy also includes a few upli ing moments, sur- Lord Dying COURTESYEARSPLITPR thoughtful tracks such as “The End of Experience” prisingly, though “positivity” by Midnight’s stan- he sounds vulnerable and plaintive in the face of dards is likely to refer to clawing your way out of a the inevitable—emotions that are cushioned by the grave. The new album continues the traditions Mid- ghostly instrumental buildup of the following track, night established in 2003: they drive their music “Exploring Inward.” That song winds up in shrieking with anger and disgust, and they’re too evil to die. continued from 31 long, strange trip of his own—a prison sentence, defi ance, but the high, clear melodic notes of the —DC ed completely freestyle—he was at the apex of his hospitalizations for codeine withdrawal, countless ballad “Even the Darkness Went Away” strike a tone game, his charisma and skill decimating every rap- face tattoos—but he’s still managed to keep the of elegiac acceptance. Maucere uses her striking per around him. At the turn of the decade, Wayne releases fl owing. Some have been better than oth- singing to great eff ect, and its presence is evidence Bill Nace, Both was releasing new music and collaborations at such ers, but none has held a candle to his best. As the of Lord Dying’s willingness to shake up their already Drag City an astonishing clip (he even put out a rock record, years have gone by, Wayne’s delivery has begun to powerful sound in order to explore a greater emo- billnace.bandcamp.com/album/both Rebirth, in 2010) that it’s hard to fathom how he sound almost tired and mumbly. On his latest full- tional range. Though death is a staple subject in also found time to jump-start the careers of Drake length, the seemingly never-ending 24-track Funer- metal lyrics, it’s rarely explored with as much grace Until COVID-19 laid waste to his and everyone and Nicki Minaj. Since then, Wayne’s been on a al, he occasionally achieves a moment of brilliance, and depth. —MK else’s touring schedule, Bill Nace was looking for-

32 CHICA OREADER - MARCH ll Chicago's Free Weekly Since 1971 MUSIC THE u

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ward to a splendid spring. Not only would the cians who’ve emerged in the past decade how to Philadelphia-based guitarist have opened in Chi- convey the slipperiness and complexity of emo- cago for the Gunn-Truscinski Duo and Mdou Moc- tion in song. The 27-year-old kicked off his career tar; he’d also have joined Gunn, Truscinski, and Kim in the early 2010s with a streak of albums he self- Gordon (his bandmate in Body/Head) at a couple released or put out through small cassette labels, festivals in other states, where the combo would’ve and they all wound up on the Bandcamp page he Rattleback improvised accompaniment to screenings of Andy ran as Alex G. By the time he added “(Sandy)” to Warhol’s 1963 fi lm Kiss. His label, Open Mouth, is his stage name in 2017, his blossoming cult sta- RECORDS still set to go into high gear in the coming months; tus had gotten a major boost from his contribu- it plans to release LPs of psychedelic violin solos tions to Frank Ocean’s two 2016 albums, Endless by Samara Lubelski and electronic drones by Trus- and Blonde. Giannascoli’s second album for big- RATTLEBACK cinski, as well as an album by a trio of Nace, cellist time indie Domino, Rocket, brought him to his RECORDS IS A Leila Bourdreuil, and saxophonist Tamio Shiraishi, own crossover moment that same year. On his fol- which specializes in stacking layers of tissue-thin low-up, September’s House of Sugar, he’s refi ned UNIQUE MUSIC electric noise. Capping off the season will be the his experimental, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink Nace solo record Both, slated for release via Drag approach to indie rock without losing the emo- STORE OFFERING A City on May 22. It provides an excellent opportuni- tional ambiguity that makes his music magnetic. MYRIAD SELECTION ty to experience the range of unguitarlike sounds The radically processed vocals on “Gretel” give he can coax out of his instrument using a small way to a Lynchian melody, hinting at the odd range OF NEW AND USED collection of files, bows, and plectra. One track of feelings that anyone going through major life VINYL, CDS, (they’re all numbered) sounds like field record- changes faces, regardless of age. Giannascoli’s ings of Godzilla stumbling home, dead drunk, a er calming vocals on the chorus act as a balm against CASSETTES, AND a night he won’t remember; another resembles dark moods, and he performs with a resilience that MORE. the same monster’s voice being played backward suggests moving forward won’t be as bad as we slowly. Only near the end of the record does Nace fear. —LG v relent and sound like he’s playing a guitar; “Part 8” See you on the thrusts you into a fever dream of Link Wray closing a blues bar on the moon. —B M other side, Chicago.

(Sandy) Alex G, House of Sugar Domino sandy.bandcamp.com/album/house-of-sugar please recycle

Philadelphia indie-rock alchemist Alexander this paper www.rattlebackrecords.com Giannascoli understands better than most musi- chicagodancesupply.com ll MARCH - CHICAOREADER 33 CHICAGO SHOWS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT IN THE WEEKS TO COME

EARLY WARNINGS b ALLAGESF WOLFBYKEITHHERZIK Riviera Theatre, rescheduled; Never miss tickets purchased for original a show again. date will be honored, 18+ LA Priest 4/5, 9:15 PM, Empty Sign up for the Bottle, postponed until a date newsletter at to be determined chicagoreader. Liz Longley, Anthony da Costa GOSSIP 10/26, 8 PM, SPACE, Evan- com/early ston, rescheduled b Los Angeles Azules 9/19, 8 PM, WOLF Allstate Arena, Rosemont, Claudia Schmidt & Sally Rog- rescheduled; tickets pur- ers, Kat Eggleston 5/3, 1 PM, A furry ear to the ground of chased for the original date SPACE, Evanston, canceled will be honored b Ty Segall & Freedom Band the local music scene Stephen Malkmus with Qais 5/4-5/7, 7:30 PM, Thalia Hall, Essar & the Magik Carpet canceled CALLINGMINTMILE singer and guitar- 4/2, 8:30 PM, Thalia Hall, Aubrie Sellers, Lillie Mae 8/26, postponed until a date to be 7:30 PM, SPACE, Evanston, ist Tim Midyett an underdog is a bit silly, determined, 17+ rescheduled; tickets pur- because he’s spent three decades cranking Dan Mangan 4/2, 8 PM, chased for the original date out jams in some of America’s best guitar Schubas, postponed until a will be honored b bands, including Silkworm and Bottom- date to be determined, 18+ Shopping, Automatic 4 /4 , Stephen Marley 4/3, 8 PM, 8 PM, Subterranean, canceled less Pit, and now plays bass in Sunn O))). SPACE, Evanston, postponed Todd Snider, Jamie Lin Wilson All the same, he’s never gotten his due as until a date to be deter- 4/10, 7:30 PM, Park West, a songwriter! Mint Mile have released a Ólafur Arnalds COURTESYTHEARTIST mined b postponed until a date to be string of tasty EPs since 2015, and on Fri- MC Hotdog, Kenzy (MJ116) determined, 18+ 4/6, 8 PM, Lincoln Hall, Sofi Tukker, Confi dence Man, day, March 20, they dropped their full- NEW Murder by Death, Amigo the Cocorosie 4/11, 7:30 PM, Metro, canceled LP Giobbi 4/11, 8 PM, Riviera length debut, the double LP Ambertron, Devil 7/17, 7 PM, Thalia Hall b canceled Reba McEntire, Caylee Ham- Theatre, postponed until a via Comedy Minus One. It’s a stunner, with Absofacto 6/6, 8 PM, Subter- Oh Sees, Mr. Elevator 9/11-9/12, Dance Gavin Dance 9/5, mack 7/24, 8 PM, Allstate date to be determined A a cast that includes singer Kelly Hogan, ranean, 17+ 8:30 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+ 5:30 PM, Aragon Ballroom, Arena, Rosemont, resched- Squirrel Flower, Why Bonnie Cem Adrian 5/14, 8 PM, Ona 5/13, 8 PM, Schubas, 18+ rescheduled; tickets pur- uled; tickets purchased for 4/7, 7:30 PM, Schubas, can- bassist Matthew Barnhart, Songs: Ohia Martyrs’ Juanito Pascual Trio 5/13, chased for original date will the original date will be celed drummer Jeff Panall, and Palliard pedal Anchr Magazine showcase 8:30 PM, Szold Hall, Old Town be honored b honored b Steeldrivers 4/2, 8 PM, City steel guitarist Justin Brown. The music featuring Curls, Fauvely, School of Folk Music F b Dan Deacon, Ed Schrader’s Haru Nemuri, Air Credits Winery, postponed until a mixes up choppy country rock, folky instru- Pleasures, Flora 6/6, 9 PM, Josh Ritter 9/10, 8 PM, Fourth Music Beat 4/2, 9 PM, Metro, 9/5, 9 PM, Sleeping Village, date to be determined A Schubas, 18+ Presbyterian Church of Chi- postponed until a date to be rescheduled Surf Curse, Choir Boy 5/9, mentals, and even a Christmas song, and Ólafur Arnalds 10/30, cago b determined, 18+ Carrie Newcomer 6/13, 8 PM, 8:30 PM, Thalia Hall, post- on “Likelihood” Midyett and Brown kick 7:30 PM, Art Institute of Chi- Storyhill 5/15, 7 PM, Martyrs’ Iris DeMent, Ana Egge 3/21/21, Maurer Hall, Old Town School poned until a date to be up a booming Crazy Horse thunder. Mint cago, Rubloff Auditorium b This Will Destroy You 9/10, 7 PM, City Winery, resched- of Folk Music, rescheduled A determined, 17+ Mile’s release show at the Hideout on Fri- Russell E.L. Butler, Justin Aulis 9 PM, Sleeping Village uled b NF 8/4, 8 PM, Aragon Ballroom, Switchback 8/15, 8:30 PM, Long, Grey People, Nishko- Ana Tijoux 7/23, 8:30 PM, Drama 4/3, 9 PM, Metro, rescheduled; tickets pur- FitzGerald’s, Berwyn, day, April 24, has been postponed, like sheh 4/11, 10 PM, Smart Bar Thalia Hall, 17+ postponed until a date to be chased for the original date rescheduled most other gatherings on Earth. Cajun Vagabonds 5/2, 8:30 PM, Verve Pipe 6/20, 8 PM, City determined, 18+ will be honored b Tennis, Molly Burch 4/18, Tired of album-anniversary think pieces Szold Hall, Old Town School Winery Driver Era 4/25, 7:30 PM, the Oh Wonder 4/14, 7:30 PM, the 8 PM, the Vic, postponed but still want to commemorate, say, Gen- of Folk Music b Volvox, Harry Cross 4/17, Vic, postponed until a date to Vic, postponed until a date to until a date to be determined Caspian, Cloakroom 6/5, 9 PM, 10 PM, Smart Bar be determined b be determined b b esis’s 1980 album, Duke? To celebrate the Lincoln Hall, 18+ Wavves, Sadgirl, Juiceboxxx Early Day Miners 7/15, 9:15 PM, Omar-S, Shaun J. Wright 4/3, Thy Art Is Murder, Fit for an record’s 40th anniversary, Steve Reidell Dreadwolf, Kill Scenes, Black 5/7, 9 PM, Lincoln Hall, 18+ Empty Bottle, rescheduled 10 PM, Smart Bar, postponed Autopsy, Enterprise Earth, of Air Credits and the Hood Internet has Sam Malone, Lack 5/2, 9 PM, Winnetka Bowling League The Format 7/21-7/23, until a date to be determined Aversions Crown, Extinction remade its first nine songs! He had help GMan Tavern 5/13, 7 PM, Subterranean b 8 PM, Lincoln Hall, resched- Oysterhead 4/22, 8 PM, AD 4/10, 7 PM, Reggies’ Ezra Bell, Royal Jelly Jive 6/25, Winter 6/7, 7 PM, Schubas, 18+ uled; tickets purchased for Aragon Ballroom, canceled; Rock Club, canceled; refunds from his Air Credits bandmate ShowYou- 8 PM, Martyrs’ original March dates will be refunds will be issued by issued by point of purchase Suck , rapper Auggie the 9th, Mike Lust Flamenco Americana with Kati honored, 18+ point of purchase, 17+ Too Free, Drea the Vibe Deal- (Tight Phantomz), Johnny Caluya (Verma), Golenko & Miguel Reyes UPDATED Trevor Hall, Brett Dennen 9 /4 , Peelander-Z 5/19, 9:15 PM, er 4/2, 8:30 PM, Co-Prosperi- Tobacco (Black Moth Super Rainbow), 12/12, 8:30 PM, Szold Hall, 7:30 PM, the Vic, resched- Empty Bottle, postponed until ty Sphere, canceled Old Town School of Folk NOTE: This is a selection of uled, 18+ a date to be determined Torres, Ariana & the Rose and Stacey Marquardt (Reidell’s spouse). Music F b the many concerts have been Colin Hay 3/27, 8 PM, Thalia Penny & Sparrow 8/25, 8 PM, 10/16, 9:30 PM, Empty Bottle, Marquardt also did the artwork, casting Dat Garcia, So a Viola 6/10, canceled or postponed in Hall, rescheduled b SPACE, Evanston, resched- rescheduled Reidell as the lonesome fi gure in a green 8:30 PM, Szold Hall, Old Town light of ongoing concerns Robyn Hitchcock 4/22, 8 PM, uled; tickets purchased for U.S. Girls, Bonjay 4/5, 8:30 PM, suit on the album’s cover, staring out the School of Folk Music Fb about COVID-19. We suggest Maurer Hall, Old Town School the original date will be Lincoln Hall, canceled Glenn Underground, Leja that you contact the point of of Folk Music, rescheduled b honored b Walk Off the Earth, Gabriela window at the moon. Reidell released his Hazer, Katharine Hepburn, purchase if you need Holy Fuck 4/7, 8:30 PM, Lincoln Porches, Sassy 009 4/16, 8 PM, Bee 8/19, 7:30 PM, Athenae- version of Duke on Tuesday, March 24— Roger That 4/23, 10 PM, information about refunds, Hall, postponed until a date Thalia Hall, canceled um Theatre, rescheduled b that’s 40 years to the day a er the original. Smart Bar F ticket exchanges, or to be determined, 18+ Radio Dept 5/2, 10 PM, Empty M. Ward, Pitou 5/1, 8:30 PM, Sweet-voiced Chicago soul man Doug Bill Kirchen 7/23, 8 PM, SPACE, postponed concert dates. Lyfe Jennings 4/3-4/4, 7 PM Bottle, canceled, refunds Thalia Hall, canceled Evanston b and 10 PM, City Winery, will be issued by point of Widespread Panic 8/20-8/22, Shorts led soul-funk unit Master Plan Le over Salmon 6/11, 8 PM, Carsie Blanton, Milton 8/22, postponed until a date to be purchase 8 PM, Chicago Theatre, Inc. from the early 70s till 1980, then SPACE, Evanston b 8:30 PM, FitzGerald’s, Ber- determined Receiving End of Sirens rescheduled; tickets pur- re-formed the band in the 2010s, after Lil Smokies 4/17, 7:30 PM and wyn, rescheduled Joywave 9/11, 8 PM, Subter- 5/20, 7 PM, Bottom Lounge, chased for original dates will soul collectors and labels began flock- 10:30 PM, Schubas, 18+ Boombox Cartel 4/25, 9 PM, ranean, rescheduled and canceled be honored b Lost Dog Street Band 6/7, Aragon Ballroom, canceled moved to new venue; tickets Rookie 9/11, 10 PM; 9/12, 9:15 Winona Forever, Modern ing to his early recordings. Last week the 8 PM, Lincoln Hall, 18+ Anna Calvi 4/2, 9:15 PM, Empty purchased for original date PM, Empty Bottle, resched- Vices, Late Nite Laundry 4/8, group released the full-length Master Maysa 5/1, 7 and 10 PM, City Bottle, postponed until a date will be honored b uled and one show added 8 PM, Schubas, canceled Plan Inc. 3, and they sound as smooth as Winery b to be determined Juice, Mild West, Prxzm Caroline Rose, Toth 4/3, 9 PM, Thom Yorke, Sarah Davachi ever. —JRNLG Delbert McClinton 8/7, 8 PM, Vanessa Carlton, Jenny O. 4/18, 8 PM, Subterranean, Lincoln Hall, postponed until 4/4, 8 PM, United Center, City Winery b 4/5-4/6, 8 PM, City Winery, postponed until a date to be a date to be determined, 18+ postponed until a date to be Monsieur Periné 5/12, 8 PM, postponed until a date to be determined, 18+ Saint Phnx 4/3, 7 PM, Subterra- determined b v Got a tip? Tweet @Gossip_Wolf or e-mail City Winery b determined b King Krule, Lucy 12/2, 7:30 PM, nean, canceled [email protected].

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: My question is on managing “gray area” I just moved to the city where we both intimacies during the pandemic. I have a live for my grad program and he’s my Thursdays on lover/friend that I’ve been hanging out main source for connection, comfort, and with—fucking, drinking tea, going on hikes, support here. Every time I see him we both Cannabiseating ice cream, watching movies, and feel tremendously less stressed and our other activities—for about nine months. connection feels emotionally healthy. I just ConversationsHe’s 36 and was married for ten years chicagoreader.com/joravsky know he is bound to be at a huge risk for C and due to that experience he’s been a bit emotionally “boundaried” but he’s still exposure and since he’s not a committed M really sweet and a good communicator. partner and we don’t live together, I don’t

Y I’m in grad school doing a double masters, know if he falls within or outside of my Cannabis so the small amount of time we’ve been physical distancing boundary. It seems CM Conversations spending together has worked well for me. like the best thing to do from a logistical MY Here’s the issue: he’s also an ER doctor. Do perspective is hole up with my cat and not I keep seeing him during this pandemic? CY Ketamine Sessions chicagoreader.com/ see another soul in person until a vaccine is invented or something, but I don’t CMY joravsky Medical Cannabis know when that will happen. —P K D DAD’ 180 N. Michigan Ave. Chicago, Ill 60601 A: “This is really a matter of a personal 833-226-6362 risk/beneﬁ t calculation,” said Dr. Daniel Summers, a pediatrician who lives and works www.rosecenterforintegrativehealth.com near Boston (@WFKARS on Twitter). “What PDDAD is willing to accept as a risk may be diﬀ erent from what someone else would.” To advertise, call And there’s definitely a health benefit to 312-392-2934 getting together—we are social animals and Chicago’s friendliest REAL PEOPLE isolation is bad for us—but your lover is at cannabis shop or email REAL DESIRE high risk of infection. And when front-line [email protected] REAL FUN. health care providers get infected, they tend to get sicker than the average person who gets infected, according to CNN, which Try FREE: 773-867-1235 is something else you need to factor into More Local Numbers: 1-800-926-6000 your risk/benefit calculation. Additionally, does your boyfriend’s workplace—I’m going Ahora español to call him your boyfriend for clarity’s sake— nuMed.com | 1308 W. North Ave Livelinks.com 18+ have the protective gear he needs to mini-

36 CHICA OREADER - MARCH ll OPINION

mize his risk of exposure? of your apartments to hole up in together “We’re all doing our best to take as many for the duration. preventive steps to lower our risk of being RealReal Men.Men. exposed,” said Dr. Summers, “but there’s still : I’m pro sex workers, and believe adults a maddeningly unacceptable shortage of should do whatever they consent to, but I’m personal protective equipment like masks, Real Hookups. curious if that applies during the current Real Hookups. gowns, and gloves nationwide. I hope he pandemic. I know of a sex worker who’s has sufficient access to these things. But VISIT WWW.SQUIRT.ORG AND is there a risk he could get exposed to the still off ering himself to clients, who are virus at work? Definitely.” apparently still hiring him. (He regularly CHECK OUT OUR NEW FEATURES: Dr. Summers lives with his husband and posts of his exploits on certain social media four children and in addition to the precau- sites.) Should the authorities be made Video tions he takes at work—where he may be aware of this? —J C Video seeing patients with coronavirus (he doesn’t Push Notifications know for sure because tests still aren’t avail- A: If the authorities want to start rounding able)—Dr. Summers strips down to his under- up reckless idiots who are endangering wear on his front porch of his home when Search Filters he gets home from work. His clothes go others, JC, the beaches of Florida might straight into the washing machine, he goes be a good place to start. Or the Oval … and more! straight into the shower. Offi ce. And if your fi rst impulse is to involve “I’m still afraid of bringing it home,” said the authorities then you aren’t “pro sex Dr. Summers. “But with four kids home from workers,” JC, because the authorities— school, my husband’s sanity depends on my particularly the police—are a danger to being present as much as I can. So for me, sex workers. Instead of calling the cops, staying away isn’t an option. That’s not the reach out to this guy on those social media case for PDDAD. She has to decide whether sites and encourage him to see his clients the undefinable risk of exposure isn’t worth it. Or, alternatively, she can decide the virtually, i.e. instead of face-to-face (or face- connection she has with him is important to-whatever) meetings, he should go full enough to her own well-being that the risk camwhore for the time being. So if you want Chicago's is worth it. But only she can make that deci- to help, JC, and not just police or shame, sion for herself.” you should hire this guy to do an online If you decide the risk of infection is too session. (And everyone should bear in mind Free Weekly great—or if your boyfriend decides the risk that sex workers are suff ering right now of infecting you is too great—you can still too because most are being responsible be there for each other. You can Skype and and not seeing clients. Their incomes have Zoom, you can text and sext, you can leave Since 1971 groceries on his porch and wave to him from plummeted to zero and they aren’t eligible the sidewalk. But if you decide to keep con- for unemployment benefi ts.) v We Couldn't Be Free Without You— necting with each other in person, PDDAD, Support Community Journalism you should minimize the amount of time you Send letters to [email protected]. spend moving through the city to get to Download the Savage Lovecast Tuesdays at each other’s places. And that means—emo- savagelovecast.com. tional boundaries be damned—picking one @fakedansavage We are still here for your sex toy needs... Order online for shipping or pick up

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