February 21st, 2011:

I was visiting my parents a few weeks ago. My Dad was looking for his favorite movie, “Gaily, Gaily”, on the new Netflix streaming service. Unfortunately, they had it. He was trying to convince me to watch it. “Your grandparents used to hang out with the writers of the movie at the Dil Pickle Club.” I remembered the facebook invitation that I had recently received.

“I was invited to the Dil Pickle Club!”

The Dil Pickle Club was a bar located in an alley during the early part of the twentieth century. This new Dil Pickle Club I was invited to is a reading series and more that honors the original’s legacy by keeping things laid back and intelligent.

I was definitely going. Not just to have a good time, but to somehow honor the legacy of my grandparents who I have never met. They’re still alive. They just want nothing to do with me. Joke. They died before I was born. I know them from stories, writings, and photographs. My grandmother was really hot.  No joke.

So we showed up to the Hideout, which is a groovy bar with an awesome, little stage area. The sign told us to go around back. There we  were met by a guy dressed as a 20’s gangster and holding a prop tommy gun. He checked our IDs. When he checked my youthful looking friends ID, he said, “The picture looks just like you.” I thought that was funny. So we entered through the alley like the original Dil Pickle Club. Nice touch.

Before the show an infomercial played on the screen onstage. It was for swords. It consisted of a portly man with a mustache chopping random objects (pigs, garbage cans full of water) with various swords. It was one of the coolest things I had ever seen. (Ed. Note, he speaks of Cold Steel.)

A slam poet named George Decelles started the show. Her poem was well written and emotional. Pop culture writer Jenny Benevento was the next presenter. She gave a slide show presentation on Precious Moments figurines and their inventor. What started out as a snarky and funny piece about a ranch and church in Missouri dedicated to the cute, big-eyed, angelic, child-like figurines became a solemn piece on how people find love and deal with death. As the band that played between acts (Honey and the Buffalo) stated, it was a tough act to follow.

Next up was poet and painter Ned Broderick. His painting were hung around the room. His artwork blew away the audience. His poems were so moving that no one clapped after the first one. The words were raw and powerful like the paintings.

Before intermission the stunning mathematician Emily Reihl explained an algorithm she invented to pair up couples. I’m no good at math, and I was a little drunk, so it made little sense, but I liked it.

Sayward Schoonmaker did a piece on how she likes things that swoon and swell. In it she quoted a Frank Zappa song, so she’s awesome in my book. The last act was Richard Lindberg.  He’s a local historian. He kept us all entertained with his tales of Mid-Western serial killers, and his thick, Chicago accent.

After the show there was great soul music spun by the Windy City Soul Club. They mostly spun tracks I’d never heard before plus “Soul Finger” which I can’t hear enough.