8:45 on a Saturday night Dec 5, 2020…it’s a fuckin ghost town. 
 
Hanna picked up a double cheese burger and fries and a medium Coke from ye’ ol Mc Donald’s…she needed some salt, ketchup and caffeine stat. She was really sick of work and just wanted to go for a drive in her beautiful city and see how it was limping along. She was done, like “stick a fork in me, I’m done,” tired of “the Virus”. People were not at their best…all sense of logic was in the pooper and it was becoming more and more obvious how fragile and yet dangerous human beings could be. 

Stores with butcher paper in the windows, neon signs dark… for lease posters dotted the facades of former “historic” bars, theaters “founded in 1946”… shuttered. Old posters from last St. Patty’s Day falling down haphazardly in random taverns that now were silent and cold in this 30 degree weather. All the good cheer and tinkling glasses was but a ghost in these vacant former bastions of merriment.
 
Ice skating rinks still had their lights all a glow but no skaters. Michigan Avenue, the Magnificent Mile…Gold coast…was now boarded up, vacant, dark or eerily illuminated by all the police SUV’s blue lights. 

People were high on violence…everywhere former church lady grandma’s bragged about going to the gun range and suburban couch potatoes boasted about the heat they were packing. Men in the street were stabbing each other over a “slice” someone was supposed to pop for at the local take out pizza joint…not because they were hungry…they were bored. The drug dealers were busy, busy busy…they worked long hours and took shifts, they came to the street around 2pm and by eight the pockets of addicts roamed like “The Walking Dead.” She never did like zombie movies.

YET, in the sanctity of her toasty warm 2007 FJ Cruiser she road through these once traffic jammed streets and she gazed upon all the champions of industry, large and small that were being crippled by this lethal flu. Some fine feel good jazz moaning low over the radio, carried her past street after street until she looped around the downtown heart of the city. 
 
Father along, heading back north she took a residential street past a house called , “The Gingerbread House,” built in 1884 a beautiful old Victorian with opulent stained glass,  ornate iron work in intricate swirling colorful almost otherworldly motifs. Built in a time when craftsmanship mattered- it was your calling card. Reputation and words like integrity meant something…but she wasn’t a fool…there had always been scoundrels.

Modern bad guys flaunted their arrogance and superiority to the lesser-thans…they had polished fingernails and were playboys living off their daddies legacies. Their father’s knew shame, so they threw some money around to the people they hurt and their guilt was assuaged. Their sons and daughters didn’t know guilt…all those hard luck cases were chumps. It rang from wall to wall at every country club she’d ever been a guest at. They were never her people…but she found them curious. 

For better or worse she was a student of society. All people interested her. She loved Pilsen’s Hispanic community, Chinatown never got old, Bridgeport mirrored Boston’s proud working-class pride, Wicker Park’s polish taverns where on the right night someone’s wife or grandma might honor you with a little polka tune on the concertina, Taylor Street and it’s gelato on a hot day with business meetings in back rooms behind closed doors, the hallowed halls of The Union League where “business” also got done after a round of lunchtime cocktails. Afternoon games in Wrigleyville and Reggie’s Rock and Roll Sox buffet bus and brunch on Sunday game days at Sox Park. Garfield Park was more then it’s botanical garden, it also had a cool old record store called Out of The Past Records where grandma priced the music, grand-daughter ran the register and the son took care of the stock. There was musical treasure in that cluttered trove of heavenly vinyl relics. 

She even loved driving around the industrial sites. Some were closed up and long decaying, housing obsolete machinery to make outdated products and no one could quiet recall the names of what those factories made anymore. They would become lofts someday or at worst a pile of indecipherable rubble. Literally, she had seen cathedrals after the wrecking ball had done it’s job…and all that was left was broken pieces of concrete. Old stone gargoyles…just rocks in a parking lot with some weeds sticking out of it, like bristly whiskers on the chin of a great age demolished. Ashes to ashes they say. 

Things have to move on. They either adapt or are destroyed. No one likes to hear that…it doesn’t sound very bucolic or romantic but that’s why we don’t live forever. Good folks are sentimental creatures. We like to see the past honored and commemorated- we like to see wrongs get righted and broken things fixed…in theory. 
 
​She was done with her burger, and had taken her last hit of the fizzy fountain drink until it gurgled dry. Her street was dappled with Christmas lights in the darkness of the swaying trees. The wind had become blustery and George the cat from across the street came whizzing by from out of nowhere, making a grand and graceful leap right through the wrought iron gate in her backyard…not even getting stuck on the chicken wire hidden around the parameter of the fence so the dogs wouldn’t weasel out and go missing. Everyone had wondered if he was alive since it had been so long since anyone had seen old George, yet there he was patrolling the whiles of our Rogers Park neighborhood like there was no COVID, violence or weird shit going on…he was just doing what he did best. Living in the moment, grooving on one of his nine lives, finding a way through man’s obstacle course and enjoying his life regardless. He’s got it right, Hanna thought as she walked inside her house and locked the door so she could get upstairs and get ready to do “it” all over again.








​

        “This airport smells like my grandmas’s basement” and “these houses sure look run down”, were some of the first thoughts that entered my mind when I hit Hawaii, land of paradise, for the first time. 
         As the taxi took us along rugged, gravelly roads, winding around fields of sharp looking grass, and dense bushes and weeds, I wondered where was the Hawaiii of Don Ho and Paul Page? Not present were, swaying palm trees, gentle blue green oceans, soft warm sand cushioning my pink, pampered Haole feet, these “sure things” I came from Chicago to enjoy, seemed somehow…not here.

       The cab, with a less than talkative, extremely large Samoan guy popped the trunk and nodded, “out”, without saying any words. 
Granted the only reason I was here was my girl friend at the time had won two round trip tickets to anywhere in the US and my cousin Jennifer and Jason were living here, on the island of Oahu. Jason in Kailua and Jennifer was in Hauula. We were staying in Hauula.

        On a tiny inlet, Jennifer’s A-frame styled house was crammed next to two other houses with decks facing the ocean side. Why with all this land and forest did they need to jam 3 residences right next to each other… it was beyond me? BUT when you stood on the deck and saw the unobstructed, view of the limitless ocean you really didn’t care. Mahalo! 

    These three homes were rented out to “high ranking” military folks…Jennifer was a doctor and top of her class so here in one of the “cottages” is where she stayed with two other doctors. I quickly realized things would be pretty quiet out here since these doctors worked all the time and were rarely ever home except to shower, sleep, eat a quick meal and get back to Trippler Military Hospital. The Trip, which I called it, was the largest military hospital in the Asian-Pacific Rim…the medico’s were busy. 

      Jennifer broke away one night to take us to a local hot spot. I tired poi at Ono’s a famous restaurant where many locals came for traditional Hawaiian cuisine, I wanted to like the poi and impress my waitress…but this was not the case.  I had to admit the combo platter with Kalua Pig, Lomi salmon,  and some other stuff in little bowls took a lot of rice and chili sauce for me to really choke it down. Ironically, years later that Kalua Pig on some cheesy nachos is one of my favorite meals…that’s why I’ll never be Ohana…it’s ok, I’ve made peace with the haole status. Just because you fall in love with a place and keep going back doesn’t make you a local. I’ve always been an outsider who loves to be around the insiders. I don’t really mind being the lone wolf. 
       In the Pacific Islands family is everything…your riches are your family- and I love that even thought in that department I’m an outsider too. 

    Chinatown is alway my favorite. Whether Chicago, San Francisco or Honolulu. It is mystical, slightly forbidden, sometimes shadowy and seedy or suddenly opulent and ostentatious. Glamorous, maze like, foreign and fully functional- there always seems to be something cool to look at, eat or be a part of in Chinatown. From Japanese sushi to Chineese Dim Sum, to Bob Chin’s…that’s the fancy stuff. You have to wander and find your spots. You will feel out of place, lost and possibly stupid, but if you can get over yourself…you will get to witness markets and moments that tell you a story of a lifetime in an afternoon, stare into the jade lions eyes…you will find answers.
​ 
        For me it took me many visits to “get Oahu”. It was not the land of false fairy tales even though those stories were lovely and what brought me here originally. If you don’t get the people, you don’t get the island. Once I really listened, slowed down, shut up and allowed the islands to rule the roost and me not be the ugly mainlander with my loud demands and restrictions…it was like a quiet smiling wind took me under its wing and allowed me not to be eaten by a big shark that passed me by twice! We’ll get to that. Fast forward. My brother moves to Oahu and my cousins move back to the mainland.

       My brother is a pop culture vulture like me. Although we compliment one another because he always knows the inside scoop to the part of the story I’m searching for…and…I can fill him in on the other half. His big guy status opens doors for him. He’s 6”7 and charming so folks like him. I have a Midler-esque quality which I have come to accept and appreciate, so islanders find me curious. 

       I love the Hukilau Cafe. It’s not fancy and get your buns though the door before 2p.m. or no macadamia nut pancakes for you! The owner is cool, you can tell she knows everything that’s going on. She’s strong and hard working and her food is great…bacon crispy, no problem. Don’t rush her, you are a visitor and this is her home, so be good, eat and get to the beach. 
      Malaekahana Beach is one of my fav’s. I think it’s gotten more well known since I started going there- pick up some poke at the Kahuku Superette with the other Hawaiian guys for lunch…nice sizes and ready to travel, just bring a cooler. 
      There's a bunch of cool little beaches that from the road don’t look like much but on the weekends everyone goes to these beach’s and pitches a tent, there are public rest rooms and folks park and camp out and have a good time. As one local explained, “we live where you come to vacation, we don’t need to travel.” It’s true, most Hawaiian’s want to stay in Hawaii. Unlike me from Indiana, who couldn’t wait to move to Chicago, the Big City or travel the world…many Hawaiian’s have all they need right on their island, if they’d only be allowed to just have their island.
 
      The longer I studied islands and their cultures, one very similar thread linked all of them. They just wanted to be… to live simply in their own ways and it worked for centuries until the pesky white guys came in and fucked it all up. Stop getting offended…facts are facts. We brought SPAM, disease, inappropriate clothing, forced their religions down the toilet and then wondered why they didn’t thank us. All I can do, being the pale face I am, is try and be thankful and respectful and feel really lucky that they don’t throw me in the ocean and use my body for chum.

        Ok…my shark stories. 
No great shakes except for my psyche when both times I realized I could have been shark sushi. 
      Remember that beautiful little inlet at my cousins. The third day of my visit I woke up early to watch the sun come up, I’d made a pot of delicious Kona coffee, extra strong and it had made me extra hyper even in the blazing hot sun. There was no air conditioning in the house so I hurriedly pulled my bathing suit over my sweaty body and made a run for the ocean. The sweet cool waves bathed me in refreshing kisses and I let myself swim out a little farther then I probably should of, I noticed pretty close by one of those sharp pointy metal things was tethered in the water. I think somewhere I’d heard they were there to protect US shores in WWII from hiding battle ships, that could moor in the little inlet and then sneak attack our ships.
     As I treaded water and watched the sharp edge wander I thought better of swimming that far out and decide to make my way back in for some breakfast.
     I later shared my story with my cousin, finally asking, “do you want to swim out to those tethered pylons with me, I bet there’d be some cool snorkeling out there.”
     She looked at me befuddled, “what pylons? Tethered where? The only thing out that far are sharks, supposedly there’s safety nets, but there’s no way I’m swimming that far out.”
     I gulped, “whaaa?”
“Thank God you didn’t swim out that far…my roomie who’s out of town, sometimes scuba dives out there…he’s got some underwater video. Sharks aren’t just a theory…that’s their stomping grounds.”
   I looked at her thinking she was pulling my leg, “but what about the tethered pylons.”
   “How much did you have to drink the other night?” She raised her eyebrows.
      Yeah, I was pretty tanked.

      In my second brush with the  “mano” or some may call JAWS,  coffee was also part of the story.
     Years later, I was staying in my favorite condo’s on the ocean at Pat’s of Punululu- literally I woke up in bed looking at the ocean unobstructed. It was dreamy. I made my coffee and hustled down to the beach, only two old folks were hanging out the rest of the expanse was deserted, except for one lone snorkeler, who had what I call a Midwest Tan, in other words as pale as milk and ready for a blistering sun burn. He was chubby and his trucks were neon Ocean Pacific circa 1980’s beachwear. All I could do was shake my head at his fashion fax pas.
     I jumped into the on coming wave and wanted to squeal, it was cold! After paddling and breath stroking up and down the beach a bit, the chill came back and I decided to get out.
​    Chattering up to my big beach blanket, I bundled up on a lawn chair next to my stuff and cracked open my travel mug of steaming Big Bruddah’s coffee. Ohhhh so good! Then I saw it, a turtle, finally a turtle! It popped its head out of the water like a submarine's periscope and then as I fumbled to get my phone and take a picture, but before I could get a photo it shot off with such speed it boggled the mind. Until I saw the huge stealth shadow swimming under the water going after the turtle. It was at least eight feet long and before I could yell to the snorkeler it was gone. Now, the water I had been swimming in was only a bit above my boobs and I’m five feet nine inches and I was on my tippie toes. Maybe it wasn’t a shark. They wouldn’t come in that shallow of water…would they?
       That night at dinner I shared my story with my sister-in-law who works for Hawaii’s national parks. “I’m sure it was my imagination,” I laughed, over a big bowl of spaghetti.
     “I’m sure it was,” she replied. “Less than a mile from where you are staying we had to shut down the beach because a dead whale drifted in and got stuck on a reef and there was a shark feeding frenzy. I’m sure your shark got done pigging out and decided he needed some turtle on the half shell for dessert!”
      We all laughed, but I was done swimming at the beach for the rest of my trip.
     You may be wondering what’s the big build up to this story…where’s it going Cally. I’ll tell ya where…to a very quiet place, called my soul. 
        I am by nature restless, loud, funny, hyper and always have something cooking, metaphorically but when I’m in Hawaii I can shut the hell up and just be. I literally can sit for hours and stare out at the endless ocean, the soaring mountains that seem to have a low song that vibrates out to me and holds me captive. I don’t need to clutter up the air with my conversation…all I want to do is just be with this special island that allowed me to come visit and be its friend even if it’s only for a little while. I think this is what heaven must be like, maybe that’s why the Hawaiians are such a happy people.
​

If you’ve ever walked into a record store and had the staff give you “attitude” or just simply ignore you you may appreciate my tale.


It all began at the dark wood paneled, poster covered back room space at Woodmar Records in Hammond Indiana... in the mall. This was a hallowed hall to me. As I quickly hustled down the maze of hallways past jewelry shops and a variety of little boutiques that sold the fashion of the day I could smell the cigarette smoke and incense, it was my guide to the sanctuary of all things cool and music, cave of secrets and a world I wanted to be part of…the music world. 

In Northwest Indiana I felt the edgy rock and roll life was pretty non-existant but here was a special lair of bad ass and I felt part of something just walking through the archway. British music magazines and expensive hard cover coffee table books of Annie Leibovitz photographs, Rolling Stone Magazines (which use to be the must read music mag of its day) CREEM, Hit Parade and Crawdaddy littered the front racks of the store by the counter. I never left without a copy of The Reader, a free weekly newspaper from Chicago, where there were personal columns to meet weird and wild city folk, it gave us lusty teen's something to get excited about in our bedrooms hovering around our Sound Design Stereo’s with duel cassette making mix tapes. 
​The only problem with this club of cool is…they wouldn’t let me join. The guys who work there thought I was too square. It took me a long time and many album and cassette purchases to prove that i knew something about music. 


One afternoon I begged my mom to drop me off at Woodmar Records using the fine art of compromise, “ mom, while I’m at the record store you can check out a dress in Carson's for your big date at The Brass Mug next weekend,” I was ever the little manipulator! 
“Ok, you’ve got thirty minutes she said, “ she was dust in the wind, as I took off, following the usual scent. 

Terry, Mr. Know It All, was working behind the counter chain smoking cigarettes, he nodded, like an emperor granting the plebeian admittance to his hallowed chamber. I entered, his nod was actually somewhat of a compliment for a 14 year old like me. 

I went directly to their imports and rifled though…I was bestowed by the crate digging gods with a really cool British New Wave compilation with horrible pastel graphics and a great mix of groups put out by some distributor I’d never heard of…it’s corner was damaged so it was on sale! Score! I actually really wanted the Prince's- "Purple Rain" soundtrack and Car’s-"Heartbeat City" but I knew Todd would look down on me for these commercial purchases, so I grabbed a 1/2 price Brian Eno to throw into the mix and decide I’d buy "Purple Rain" elsewhere…as I made my way up to the front. Another Senior manager of Woodmar Records,  some tough looking AC/DC t-shirt wearing, Camel smoking, Greek dude started reading Todd the riot act. Todd suddenly looked small and magically he now was obviously just another pimply faced 16 year old trying to play cool. 

AC/DC man sniffed like he had just over used a bottle of Affrin, rubbing his nose violently, “Dump that ash tray, price this stack of albums, quit strutting around here like some useless gash,” he spat at Todd. Wow, that dude was a dick. AC/DC man took off in a storm of sniffs and grunts, with his bad case of post nasal drip and disappeared through the rickety backroom door, with a slam. Todd looked at me sheepishly embarrassed.

It occurred to me, I’d been trying to impress this smug little jerk, not buying the music I wanted because I was afraid of his judgment. Wellll…I turned on my heels and grabbed that Prince cassette, but kept Brian Eno too…”I’ll take it all,” I said shoving the stack at him.
“Lotta good stuff here,” he said, almost like he was attempting for once to be sort of nice. “Ewe, what are you doing with this, he said, wagging the Purple Rain cassette at me.”
    A switch went off, no doofus like Todd was gonna tell me what to buy. “Yea, well I like him.” I stood firmly with my purchase. 
    “Suit yourself,” Todd said jamming my haul into a black and gold plastic bag and sliding it towards me. 
    After that day I vowed no one would ever music shame me again!

As the music years have gone by I have visited every music store I can, collecting all kinds of amazing stock! Very little of it did I sell, I just continued dragging dusty plastic crates of albums and “Case Logic” double sided storage cases and shoe boxes full of cassettes from apartment to apartment. When one of my cassette carriers zipper rusted shut I knew it was time to start burning some of these one of a kind tapes to CD and then into my iTunes library. 
    Rhino had a great bunch of New Wave compilations and unique collections of songs that had not made it to iTunes or CD yet…so slowly, track by track, I burned the flimsy, sun melted cassettes onto a CD via my Crosley Desktop Stereo…not very impressive to look at considering the stereo rigs of yesteryear but it was easy to use and did the trick. Re-listening to all this great music was so soul enriching. Like a warm hug from a giant down comforter when the heat goes out. 

Years later my computer almost crashed during COVID, I raced to buy a new Apple laptop and unfortunately my music collection, all 46,989 items was mostly wiped out from my iTunes. But as luck would have it I learned how to put it back together the long way by reloading all those CD’s yet again…hundred and hundred of CD’s that were Jenga’ed into all over my house. You’d think maybe this would suck…because it was time consuming but actually…who gets a chance to listen to their whole music collection.

Most of the time, if people even have a music collection it’s on the shuffle on their devices. The music goes in one ear and out the other like background noise. But purposefully loading this mountain of music into my computer made me slow down and take stock.

The hours and hours I spent at my kitchen table loading in CD after CD and sometimes renaming, finding art work and relabeling stuff gave me a hemorrhoid but it was worth the incredible time warp of good feels I got being reintroduced to all of these great moments in music!

    My first stop after the quarantine was lifted and shops could be open was Laurie’s Planet of Sounds. I walked in after being a devoted client for at least a good 15 years and a man greeted me by name. He was tall and kind of hippieish with his long graying hair, he had a rock and roll t-shirt on, I, in turn, had on my Laurie’s Planet of Sounds T-shirt with Alf grooving to a tiny record player…I guess Laurie the owner of the shop was a fan of the 80’s TV character. “HI,” I said shocked this guy knew me.
    “H! You said on FB last night Laurie's was going to be your first stop since the stores had been closed.”
    “Yes, I did...here I am...great to be back!!” I smiled.
“I’m John,” he said introducing himself.
I was still confused.  Who was this guy? Was he trying to pick me up? “I’m Cally,” I said with hesitation. 
He could see I was befuddled, “I’m the owner.”
    “OHHHHH,” I laughed. All these years and I had no idea this was THE John Laurie who owned the record store. Then we proceeded to talk music, small business ownership and general stuff. What a sales man too…just as I was checking out with a fat stack of goodness he shows me a 30$ album by my favorite label Numero Group and bam…I’m buying the gold standard of lounge music with the coolest cover and package of my album collection. It gave me a lot of peace of mind and soul every morning with my coffee, to combat the worry about my business and the future of our country in 2020. 
It was the best feeling I’d ever had at a record store…so I proceeded to do my own National Record Store Day once a month, first to my favorite haunts and then later to places I’d never been to. 

    There’s a certain record store that I will continually revisit from time to time because of it's great stock unfortunately it comes with a bunch of  pukey personally ordained elite hipsters behind the counter... who like to look down on you from their perch. To them I say, “ring me up, choad,” and you can keep that smug look on face for the next insecure sap that gives a shit. I will be lavishing in my 20 soundtracks I just got for a few bucks each in your dusty CD bin…you guys were the same jokers who told me vinyl was dead 30 years ago. Now who's the schmo. 
    KEEP YOUR COUNSEL, fellow crate diggers and never let anyone diss your disk selection. Music is sacred no matter what you buy. 
    
​

The radio serenaded us as we drove along Rt 41 in the darkness of a crisp autumn night. The light from the dashboard glowed golden yellow, as the songs washed over me.  I go back to this soft rock memory over and over. I.G.Y by Donald Fagen played along side Gypsy by Fleetwood Mac and Joe Jackson’s, Stepping Out- these songs were perfect soundtrack for our weekly trek to Stained Glass lesson’s, heat on low as we made our way to class.

I could finally wear my monogrammed periwinkle blue sweater that had been tucked inside my dresser drawer where it had sat since August when it was still too warm to wear- and summer was still so fresh in my heart.  Now I looked forward to pumpkins and sleepovers on the weekends…impending Halloween festivities set excited butterflies fluttering in my stomach. New school folders were getting broken in, I’d been decorating them with all my favorite latest bands. Promises of better grades and a new diet, cooler clothes and romance…anything seemed possible. 

What did my step mom and I talk about all the way to Stained Glass class? I was more of a listener, like a therapist. It was hard for me to pay attention as we took our seats and Sherri, my brother’s best friends mom, explained our assignment, she was a good teacher.  I wanted to do the really complicated stuff like she did on her “Wizard with Swirling Tree’s” door, but I could barely cut squares and triangles without lots of slow patience, on my part. My step mom wanted to be creative but her heart wasn’t in it- she preferred to just buy the art.

Such a complicated relationship I had with my step mother…I lived with her, my step…I never called her step mom back then. She explained if she was gonna do the work we should address her as mom, since that would be her role. That seemed fair to a five year old me.  She did the heavy lifting, so to speak…the doctors visits, the grocery shopping, picking up medicine at Ribordy Drugs when we were sick, talks with teachers…tutoring, family vacations, clothes for each season, making dinner and…stained glass lessons this week, until the session ended. 

We drove, on the way, passing A-framed homes some looked like ski chalets, they looked very cozy and posh at the same time, they were very Vail and in fashion.  Sometimes we shopped after our class at some near by interior design stores, the smell of oriental rugs, surrounded by Teak furniture displayed grandly next to bright yellow fireplaces that were made of metal and attached to a wall they looked like a cone,we had one of those.  Art in bamboo frames, wicker fan chairs that seemed tropical and exotic but were uncomfortable to sit in, we had them at home too. Things seemed glamorous, exciting, vast possibilities for the future. Travel, adventure and maybe castles in France or Yacht’s in some East Coast destination. I was reading the Preppy Handbook, Izod, Polo, Oxford…important named brands. Country clubs, sail boats, snow skiing and tennis. 

My folks would go out and my step mom wore a metallic, sequined beret and Halston type clothes, they brought home lobster leftovers that tasted good even cold. 

My brother and I ate cereal on Saturday morning watching Scooby- Doo and eating Cookie Crisp cereal. I remember after cartoons one morning, I was listening to my parents albums on the record player, it was on a jiggly metal rolling cart, where the player was housed  and you could put three or four albums on at a time and they would drop after each side would play, we had another record player that would flip the albums too. I don't know how old I was but pretty little, and I put on Three Dog Night, One Is The Loneliest Number, and I played it over and over…haunted, intrigued…I felt like the singer knew me. I was so touched and I cried, how could he know how lonely and cast out I felt at school with my “special classes”, surrounded by all boys, meeting with a tutor because I couldn’t read or tell time and had dyslexia. But in stained glass class, I was just another student. My project seemed to delight Sherrie, she liked my creativity.

They put me in a different school and all the kids knew each other but I didn’t know a soul. I learned to read and I loved it passionately and my dad let me buy tons of books from Scholastic Book Club. Judy Blume, Beverly Cleary and so many other authors became my favorite.

My teachers Miss Honeycutt and Miss Chizmar were just wonderful and I just loved them. They heard me sing and entered me in a talent show and I sang tomorrow accapella- and I could tell they thought I was really good and not just faking it. Miss Chizmar got transferred after my second grade year and Miss Honeycutt, my main teacher,  got married and quit teaching. I went back to my old school…I was “integrated” now. 

Again I knew no one at the school, two years away makes you a stranger. But I got reacquainted and kids were kind of mean. I thought about these things silently while my step mom talked on our way to Stained Glass. 

We had a lake home in White Pigeon, Michigan, when I went there I was popular with the kids my age and we had fun snowmobiling and water skiing. Bay City Roller’s, “ S.A.T.U.R-D.A.Y, hey!” 

Fast forward, our last stained class lesson, “do you want to re-up for next session,” my step mom asked on the way to Valparaiso where Sherri had her “studio.”
“No I think I want to take piano or voice lessons”, I replied, knowing that was where my future fame would be directed. 
My step moms Farrah Faucett, feathered blond hair nodded in agreement, her face forward, driving into the midwestern darkness, past fields of faded yellow, prickly grass and trees so huge, and dense they were like a wall to another world of distant factories, hidden by highways that made things I didn’t understand, in dreary looking plants. Until we hit city lights, like an escape from the dark vortex…pulling into the parking lot for class.

The only thing I missed about our stained glass classes was that drive, I just love the glow of the dashboard the soothing music and the idea I was going somewhere to create something. My quiet thought time with my step mom. Why that memory stands out so vividly, over and over in my mind 38 years later is beyond me. But I really enjoy recalling it every time I hear I.G.Y…Stepping Out and Gypsy.

By Cally Raduenzel 2016

In case you don’t know who John Hughes is...well, have you seen: Vacation, Sixteen Candles, Weird Science, Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Pretty In Pink, Some Kind of Wonderful, Uncle Buck, Home Alone1&2?

Before you were a jaded, workaholic, aggressive, frustrated adult you were a teenager, and you probably saw most if not all of these movies if you are in your 40’s. These movies and soundtracks defined our 'puberty-years' and gave being a teenager some credit for something more then zit cream, eye rolls and weak upper lip mustaches.

The 80’s were kind of fucked up. There was a lot of money due to free flowing banks and credit cards- the bubble hadn’t burst yet, to remind us all that you did have to pay back those credit cards at some point. When you are a teenager, bills aren’t your problem, your heart, soul and loins are!

Driving in the backseat of my best friends mother’s silver Cadillac Cimarron, heading to godforsaken hicksville Georgia from the cultural armpit of Indiana in the summer of 1986 my soundtrack was all John Hughes inspired. I felt “Left of Center,” and my high school days were going “Round,Round,”...everyday walking down the hallowed halls of Munster High School, constantly nervous about my developing bod, my “look”, my stature in the halls, I was in a state of “Shell Shock”- my pillow knew tears. These were all songs collected for the soundtrack of "Pretty in Pink" by John Hughes.

John Hughes wrote our words, picked the perfect music and gave us a good laugh at ourselves when we so desperately needed one, (ever try to make a teenager laugh, it ain’t easy)!

Fast forward to...my early 20’s.

The 90’s have come and they weren’t all we thought they were gonna be in the 80’s. I’m in the formerly flooded, basement of my pianists apartment trying to put music “act” together. His day job is teaching karate to rich kids and he comes home all depressed because he was at singer Richard Marx’s house and he’s jealous. Richard has the hot wife from "Flash Dance" / "Stayin Alive" Cynthia Rhodes and a great career and he, Ron Blade (stage name) is playing piano for a nobody like me in his moldy hole of a home.
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“We gotta find a way to make it Cal, seriously, I can’t keep living like this,” he power chugs a gatorade with a splash of vodka, “ I guess I could become a solider of fortune?” He said wistfully, he always forgets...he was never in the military, he only went to military school.

Ron went on to explain; the sun was setting, and he saw a man in his bathrobe with what looked to be a cocktail, standing at the edge of his back terrace staring out at the lavish north shore neighborhood he lived in, there was something sad about him. Ron said, “he looked how I felt.”

Next week Ron and I meet up to practice our set for a gig at poetry slam (it was a new trend in Chicago in 2009, and they wanted music to break up the poets...incase folks were falling asleep into their drinks).

After our practice, we were finishing off a bottle of tequila, the basement still smelled like a cave of old cheese, “remember that neighbor of Richard Marx I told you about?”

“Yes Ron, who looked like you felt,” I nodded pouring myself another shot. “It was fuckin John Hughes! The director! Ya, know Molly Ringwald- Judd Nelson...Breakfast Club, St Elmo’s Fire... He just fuckin died!”

I was so in shock, I took another shot and chased it was some flat diet Dr. Pepper. “St. Elmo’s wasn’t his.” I replied in a daze.
Every generation has their stars...for me it was Princes Diana, Jackie Kennedy Onasis, Harold Ramis, people who define an era...and John Hughes was one of these luminaries.

He really was his characters because that’s what happens when you write...you create a person out of thin air and make them real, and some how they are a part of you.

I was such a gaping wound of a teenager...and John Hughes was like a therapist, big brother... or more aptly my Oz. He said, “I listen to kids. I respect them. I don’t discount anything they have to say just because they are only 16 years old.”

I had heard that he didn’t feel his films or his writing was appreciated in the way he thought that they should be and was disgusted at the baby boomer hypocrisy that was culminating from his generation.

He left a legacy that will transcend the pettiness of the 90’s and 2000’s... We all long for our teenage summer, the Say Anything, Shyest Time, I Go Crazy- days and nights of sleepovers, big dreams, long walks across town with no destination but to hope and dream that someday we will be as loved and revered for what we are...what we leave behind...our thumb print on this big blue marble of the world.

The song that John named his movie after- ...”Don’t You Forget About Me,” will live in our forever teenage summer memory of him.

C. Raduenzel 2016

​The first time I read a National Lampoon magazine was in my cousin Jon’s bedroom. It was laying in a pile of dirty laundry I was supposed to retrieve and what a great load I found!

It was comic porn with bad words, dirty pictures, ADULT humor, which I knew must be awesome because all things “off limits” were EXCELLENT...when you are 10. Case in point was my favorite TV show Saturday Night Live and John Belushi and Chevy Chase were my idols. My favorite movies were Animal House and Caddyshack...soon to be followed by Stripes. Harold Ramis and Bill Murray were my other fan favorites.

Being a jokester was my destiny!

I also read a lot MAD, Playboy Joke Books (good for cocktail parties). I begged for a subscription to National Lampoon and my step-mom promptly replied, “absolutely NOT”!

So I tried my dad, “don’t you think that’s a little too adult,” he questioned from his Lazy- Boy recliner, making a squeeze cheese and Ritz cracker for me while I pled my case. “It’s got really good political articles!” He rolled his eyes and handed me back the subscription card, “ask your mother.”

Shit....

I finally had to settle for cousin Jon’s cast off’s...he was only reading it for “the tits”. So he gave me a big bag of MAD, National Lampoon’s and Crawdaddy....ohhhh, Crawdaddy. The now defunct music magazine for people who really knew music, he explained.

It’s amazing to see the writers who began their careers in National Lampoon, such as John Hughes of Breakfast Club and Pretty In Pink fame, or P.J. O Rourke, now famed political author of Parliament of Whores and Eat The Rich. Most of my favorite comic artists, such as Roz Chast and Gahan Wilson also donned the pages of this hallowed relic and now draw for the likes of The New Yorker magazine.

As smutty as National Lampoon was it also was a great place to spread your wings as a writer and comedian. Folks were really taking a chance as the old guard of comedy was fading out...this new breed of aggressive, out spoken alcoholic-drug addicts fueled by Harvard degree’s was blowing my young mind and making me laugh and question society’s hypocrisy.

You couldn’t help but become a critical thinker if you listened to the news and then read these periodicals. Also, growing up in a small Indiana town out side of Chicago, we had this strange melange of urban forward thinking, mixed in with the staid country clubs and small town PTA mentality.

I was going to Brownies, coming home playing with my Wacky Packages (done by some of the greatest underground cartoonists of the 70’s- satirizing popular consumer goods) and reading these alternative publications, but also being influenced by Judy Blume (teen lit author), Dynamite and Banana’s Magazine (John Holstrom of PUNK magazine drew for them from time to time) and RollingStone Magazine...also my step-mom never missed an issue of People Magazine...and I ate that up too!

By the time I hit puberty I was sure that some how, some way music, comedy and writing would be in my future.

Computers and the internet highway have given rise to Vice Magazine- I think it’s probably the most cutting edge/smutty and critical underground information mag there is...they also have morphed into video. They have their own channel on YouTube, and I recommend it....they too focus on the carnival of weird sex that seems to drive we human beings but Vice also is daring to go get the stories you will not see on mainstream TV about war, religion, sex trafficking and any and all things that are going on right here/right now on this planet from Africa to Bosnia- to The Bayou!

So I will forever thank my Aunt Marrianne for asking me to do a load of laundry for cousin Jon, if I hadn’t maybe I would be a good little conformist living back in my hometown, going to the PTA and living an exemplary life instead of being the wild woman I am! 

In the immortal words of David Bowie- "...I am a DJ, I am what I play..."

In this 70’s show about a fictional radio station WKRP the cast is gearing up for their first WKRP hosted rock show. SCUM is the “punk” band from England.

First thing that tickled my fancy about the band is I noticed Michael Des Barres (husband of infamously cool groupie/author Pamela Des Barres) plays Dog, the punk rock hooligan and vocalist for SCUM. Michael was in many real rock bands including Power Station, Silverhead, Detective and Checkered Past. 

The theme’s they touch on in the show are “is this punk rock music”, “is this bad behavior for real”, and “is this what’s popular.” Watch the show which I included a link, and you tell me what you think!

I miss disc jockey’s, radio stations…I liked the early days…the low-fi-ness of it all. I used to read Creem (poorly written, super sexist, but super cool), I had posters of pictures from Rolling Stone Magazine on the back of my bedroom door- went to sleep confiding in David Bowie, Prince, Kajagoogoo…and Peter Gabriel. 

I’m kind of excited about the possibilities about PODCAST’s and I swear if I had some extra time or some help, I’d be right on it. 

I get nostalgic for the past but I have a feeling there is some good stuff on the horizon…I just hope I won’t be too old to partake of it!

We had moved to a “nicer” town according to my step-mom, and in our new den with the yellow enamel mod fireplace, I listened to records. There was an AM/FM radio and the first time I heard “One Is The Loneliest Number,” I was…understood. That is how I felt in my all boy class, like I was all alone, with my eye patch scared to play on the playground trying hard to fit in but I didn’t know anyone but the play ground attendant. 

Then I had a break though…her name was Judy Blume and she was my favorite author. Superfudge, Are You There God It’s Me Margaret…I read them all. I shared my new love of books with my friends that I finally made. 

 I invited my new red headed friend over who resembled Pippi Longstocking. We were going to be famous authors and singers and we watched lots of cartoons. One of my favorites was “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” Halloween special. I was fascinated by the colors and the music. Vince Guaraldi’s theme songs for the Charlie Brown cartoon’s kept me coming back, Lucy was a jerk and I didn’t like the way they treated Charlie Brown but I could identify with being different and I even had my own score…well…Charlie’s Brown's Theme. 
Then puberty hit!  

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