Rosanne and Rosie
UPDATE! Our Rosie Show episode airs this Friday the 13th (ooh, scary!) on OWN TV. Check your local time and cable channel line up.
Set your DVR’s and see us in the audience! I’m sure there will be plenty of brilliant close-ups of our fabulous selves. 
Plan a Chicago outing with your tween & up nieces & nephews. Enter to be an audience member of The Rosie Show at www.oprah.com/oprah_tickets.html.
The excitable early 40’s-ish blonde woman a smidge behind us outside Harpo Studios (from now on referred to as Blondie) wanted the entire line to know that She Had Been Here Before. From what I gathered, she’d been to a Rosie Show taping at least twice before and was therefore practically Jesus. She and her apostles were decked in Christmas sweaters—as was a solid portion of our line mates—even though we would learn our show wouldn’t air until sometime in the New Year. I began to feel like Blondie’s friends, along with the rest of us, were going to be thrust onto Rosie’s stage and tattooed with permanent lipstick “V’s.” Blondie walked up and down the line asking if anyone knew who the guest would be. Nobody did. They don’t tell you these things. Oprah didn’t, so why should Rosie? We could’ve known, but didn’t. Ernie and I were in line not because we went through the traditional online ticket registration, but because we’re friends with an associate producer. Ernie was supposed to participate in a game show segment, but that fell through (which is okay since otherwise he would have been sequestered in a green room somewhere in Oprah’s lair and I would’ve been left all alone, which wouldn’t have been as fun.) I liked not knowing the guest—I wanted to be surprised along with everyone else. This woman was starting to spoil Christmas.
When the audience wranglers filed us in, we headed upstairs to a holding room. Upon entering we got cupcakes. Awesome! Double chocolate for me, natch. We were directed to our seats with cupcake, bottle of water, and image release form in hand. Rosie trivia played on the screens throughout the room. Since they were so close to us in line, Blondie, her poor friends, and their sweaters sat face to face across from us in our audience corral. When another wrangler made an announcement, our side of the room couldn’t hear. Blondie was on her feet determined to find out what vital information we had missed. Turns out, the woman told the other side of the room to not take pictures. Calm down, lady. She was nice enough, though, and asked us if we’d been there before, ready to show us The Way. “No, this is our first time.” Please keep your lipstick away from me.
I’ve been a Rosie O’Donnell fan since her early days as a VJ and stand up comedy show host on VH1 back when the “VH” stood for “video hits,” a fact that a whole generation or two is clueless about. Rosie was this sassy big haired laugh riot for me, sitting in the basement of our Detroit house when the city finally got cable in 1988. When her first talk show debuted in 1996, I was home for the summer from college working my first waiter job. She was a balm for sore lunch shift muscles, a glorious distraction from reality between shifts on a double, or a high note to end my afternoon before a dinner shift. When Mom and I went to New York in 1997, we toured Rockefeller Center. Her show wasn’t taping that day, so were allowed to see her studio, even if from behind glass. We could see that her studio butted up against Saturday Night Live’s musical guest & monologue sets. An SNL show was using Rosie’s studio for set storage that day. In between Rosie’s VJ days and her show was of course A League of Their Own, one of my all time faves. We don’t much watch the new show, airing on OWN from Oprah’s studio at 6:00 Chicago time. Not that we don’t enjoy it when we catch it, but it doesn’t exactly fit with our schedules and we have to work to keep up with Top Chef and the rest of our DVR queue as it is. Still, we had a way cool time.
The announcer from downstairs gave a pep talk over the PA system–and then started to call for individual parties who would not be joining the masses in the cattle call back downstairs. We were not called in the first group. Okay, whatever. But when Ernie’s name was called, we leaped up to claim our VIP status. Ernie said Blondie made quite the face of surprise. Ha ha! Our seats were a solid 2nd row, stage right as it curved to the side. There should be plenty of audience shot footage as us, especially as it seems that Rose took a shine to Ernie, particularly during some between segment banter regarding The Biggest Loser. It pays to have friends in high-ish places! Though everyone has a chance of getting a seat on their own. The website will tell you all about it! Meanwhile, we kept a lookout for Blondie. She was let in kinda toward the end, and sat all the way on the edge of stage left, up at the top in the nosebleeds—or what would be considered the nosebleeds in a looks-bigger-on-TV-studio. Still, not prime camera pan positioning.
So there we were in Oprah’s old studio. Not that I was a huge Oprah guru, but I’ve seen my share of episodes and clips and knew the deal like everyone else. My mom was a huge Oprah fan (but what moms aren’t, really?) She had mentioned on occasion wanting to write to Oprah about her own story, though I don’t know if she ever did (to clarify to my readers, Mom passed away in 2002.) Just being there was a connection to something larger than life. Seeing the crew–and our friend–running around and doing their thing, seeing how it was all set up and done was pretty nifty too.
Our episode’s guest was Rosanne Cash, daughter of the amazing Johnny Cash. Exciting enough, though I guess I have more of a connection to Johnny, which started when he appeared on Sesame Street and Oscar called him Johnny Trash. She talked about her life and her family and her album, The List. We all got copies in our swag bag of course. The interview was interesting, though at times it bordered on Lifetime or rather we knew we were on Oprah’s cable network. By the way, I’m relieved we were not stuck on a planned future episode with Suzanne Somers and a menopause therapy discussion. While an important topic for her audience, not our bag, right. Anyway, Rosanne sang a track from the album–twice even as there were technical difficulties with an amp. TV Land is a process! There were also a couple human interest segments. One featured a girl with Cystic Fibrosis who Rosie had met when she was on The View. The final segment was about an 84 year old woman who plays basketball in a senior league in Oklahoma. She was a riot.
In between segment taping while the crew was setting up, Rosie took questions from the audience, possibly recorded for web site content. We didn’t have anything to ask or add, though I guess I could’ve just taken the time to tell her she was awesome. An extra from A League of Their Own said Hello, and we learned that the day before, she taped an episode with Penny Marshall and various folks from the movie. THAT would’ve been way rad. So I’m keeping an eye out for that one along with our episode. We learned more about her Twitter quarrel with Donald Trump. The 13-year-old girl in front of us got shy and didn’t want to sing her Godspell audition song with Rosie and the woman next to me kept saying “This is your one chance!” Alas, the girl blew it. I hope she doesn’t live with regret the rest of her life. We also learned that Rosie gets grumpy with her crew sometimes as during her interview, we could hear the output of the crew’s headphones (aka “cans”) behind us. We also learned that she’s not afraid of dropping a few F-bombs and other niceties, both on and off camera, especially regarding Donald Trump. The youngest audience member that I could tell was an 11-year-old girl. While the language didn’t bother me, Guncles take note that the proceedings are at least a solid PG. One question regarded the existence of Santa, which may have been borderline for said 11-year-old. Hopefully she’s not scarred either.
A quick cell phone snap from my seat.
Kids 18 and under were the only ones allowed onstage afterward to take a photo with her for security and safety reasons. And I think an accompanying adult. So, Guncles take note! I snapped a couple cell phone pix which we were allowed to do afterward. Yay. Before heading out, we lined up in front of the single men’s room with its single toilet, flanked by two spacious women’s rooms. Supply and demand, I guess. 90 % women, 9% gay men and 1% straight guys, thereabouts. We fought the rain as we ran to our car, I clutching all our swag in hand. There were Snuggies under our seats to fend the cold which we could keep. The AC to offset the stage lights in the studio was pretty intense and I’m glad I wore my cute blue cardigan. Ernie had untied his Snuggie to use as a blanket during a segment break. I fought with it to not drag in the West Loop puddles. Our Rosie Show lunch sacks included the Rosanne Cash CD, snacks, and some Oil of Olay pads which we gave to Ernie’s mom over Christmas as payback for all the toilet paper she’s given us over the years. Wasn’t Oprah all about paying it forward?
Go for the fun, the surprises, the cupcakes, the history, the behind-the-scenes view, maybe for a date should you be single and lucky enough to be sitting next to hottie in Rosie T-shirt or Christmas sweater. Take your star-struck young charges and just hope the whole show isn’t about menopause.
Of all the non-Charlie Browns in the world, I'm probably the most Charlie Browniest.
On Thanksgiving, my brother Mark posted on Facebook that Will said he was thankful for “treats, cookies & milk, and Santa Claus.” Not his parents or his little brother–those are given constants, I guess. And Morgan knows that Santa is the one that brings her “lots of presents.” They both squealed when Santa showed up on the Michigan Thanksgiving Day Parade in Detroit. Morgan watched it locally on TV. Will watched the internet stream from North Carolina. At 3 1/2, they know what’s up. We’re in trouble. But damn that’s cute. It definitely upswings my self-diagnosed “Holiday Bipolar Disorder.”
In general, I get grumpy when Christmas decorations and wares first appear–because it’s often before Halloween (don’t mess with my October!) One minute I hate the holidays and can’t be bothered. The next I’m basking in the warm glow of nostalgia, our Christmas tree (always put up Thanksgiving weekend in our house), family, friends. And on the music front all I really need is the first Johnny Mathis Christmas album, Judy Garland’s “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” Barbra Streisand’s “Jingle Bells,” and of course the Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack. Usually I maintain a healthy equilibrium, erring on the side of positive. I’m in tune with my holiday cheer threshold and keep myself in check, genuinely enjoying the season overall despite my funks.
At my worst, the holidays make me hate humanity. Our “Black Friday” adventures found us at the Michigan Avenue Best Buy looking to upgrade our 1990′s monstrosity of a TV. Hot and exhausted, I completely shut down thinking about (like I do) how much stuff we’re glutting the earth with and how our economic stability relies so much on said stuff and how kids shouldn’t expect and demand so much and how they should realize that their families work hard to get all those damn gifts under the tree–yes I was even hating on Santa. And I found myself shouting along with Charlie Brown, Isn’t there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about? On one hand I’m not so much religious these days. On the other I shun the consumerist beast, neither asking for much if anything nor going too crazy with my own shopping. I find myself cozy in the middle as a kind of secular magical-realism traditionalist where each gift I do buy means something.
At my other worst, the holidays make me–frustrated with my immediate family. Because family isn’t always easy. Too often, the holidays are when a year’s worth of drama and disagreements comes to a head. When we have to deal with each other–or choose not to. While respectfully declining to get into details, I’ll say we have our share. It’s not violent or drunken or anti-gay, but it’s ours and it makes me sad. It doesn’t help that my love-hate relationship with the holidays began when my Mom died in August of 2002, less than a year into being with Ernie. That Christmas, I made sure it was the Best Christmas EVER for everyone, going balls out. The next year, all I wanted to do was order pizza and drink several bottles of Chardonnay. It’s been a challenging climb up the icy slope since–both for me and for Ernie. But before you fill the comments section with your shrinks’ cell phone numbers, I am pretty okay, even though Christmas is when I miss Mom most.
Keepin' it real with the basics of life.
Since becoming a guncle, my answer for Charlie Brown would be that Christmas is really about the kids, even if Ernie and I are only going to see them for a little bit or not until the new year. It’s about watching their brains work when you ask them what they’re thankful for. It’s about milk and cookies and warm fires (even if you live in North Carolina), about lights, magic, safety, home, and fun, and making work what you have. And I wouldn’t deny them for one second their surprises under the tree or in the mail. Christmas for the kids is about giving them a solid bedrock for their future adult Christmases. Now, adult Christmases can be just as magical and fun with or without little ones in our lives, but I daresay they are directly connected to our very first memories. Christmas is about evolving traditions, whether that’s a candle lit midnight Mass or a passed down decoration. My mom had a clip-on felt cardinal ornament that only she could put on the tree. If any of us dared do it, she would remove it and put it back on herself. When Ernie and I had our first tree together, I bought a slightly more “fabulous” version of her cardinal–with glass, glitter, and feathers–and it’s lived at the top of our tree ever since.
Sometimes I look at our tree–or at Ernie’s folks’ tree–and all the decorations in sight, and I’m like We do this. Isn’t it kind of weird, all of this? Aren’t humans funny? Someone has to ask these questions. As much as I’d also love to ask the world to just take a year off now and again, what makes the holidays bright for me from day to day throughout, is watching Ernie get excited over the first appearance of decorations in the store, the look in his eyes when we walk through Chicago’s downtown Christ Kindl Market (which we affectionately call the “Oompa Loompa Market” and which is also a solid place to take the kiddies), and his vocal exclamations as we unwrap each ornament. It’s good stuff. It’s almost like having a 3 1/2 year old myself. 
Question Time: What’s your answer for Charlie Brown? How have the holidays changed for you since you’re a grown up now? Any traditions you want to make sure the kiddies hold onto?
Happy Holidays–next post to feature a favorite local store that’s awesome for Christmas–and all year. Cheers!
Not Morgan of course, but a pretty adorable photo.
During Morgan’s recent visit, Ernie and I saw the best side of her in our time together. Mostly. She was smiles and laughter at the Emerald City show (with a couple of fusses and “No’s!” tossed in as is normal for a 3 1/2 year old.) I got to see her run, climb, and pretend at the Children’s Museum on Navy Pier (a place to revisit here and with the kids down the road….) I will say Morgan did not like being contradicted by another slightly older girl when she declared that one of the rooms in the museum was “her house.” She was also very good at dinner afterward, drawing with Ernie and even trying the grilled artichoke.
Later at the hotel, after a full day of fun, we danced to one of her kid-friendly pop songs (which I’m totally blanking on right now, like I do–Ernie’s really the kid-friendly pop song keeper). We drew some more together, and she did a little more treasure hunting. She’d taken over the ice bucket and filled it with various odds and ends–and kept it in the narrow space between the couch and the window, high up, overlooking a tiny Michigan Avenue.
In between, however, was a trip to The Gap. And even that was pretty much drama free. While we did hit the men’s section upstairs (where I wasn’t really inspired this time round), most of our time was spent in the less-traveled kids’ section. Ernie had already taught Morgan the “Cute-Not Cute” game when we were back home in August, thereby swiftly moving her along the road of little diva shopper. She already knows what she likes and what goes with what (I think at that age, I maybe had the choice between red, blue, or green Tough Skins, though my own fashion diva would kick in soon enough….) She loved the dresses and the softball sized pink bouncy ball which she flung into the air without much thought (and thankfully with no damage) and declared, “I want to take this back to the hotel.” (I’ve used the verb declare twice with her–I guess cos that’s what kids that age do.) So of course Uncle Michael bought her the ball.
Morgan's diva shoe selection.
Her favorite section, though, was the shoes. So many options in so many colors–and with or without bows. She tried them on, wanting to walk in them while still conjoined by their little plastic strip. Once she decided on which one she wanted, she put them on and we had a little dance party in front of the tri-fold mirror to the B’52′s “Rock Lobster.” Ernie was like “Kids love this song.” And really, what’s the point of having guncles if you can’t have an impromptu dance party at The Gap?
At one point, Morgan and her mom (Kimberly) headed upstairs to the first floor, while Ernie, my brother, and I were still downstairs. When we made it upstairs ourselves, Morgan was in full blown meltdown mode, complete with stroller struggle. While I didn’t quite get the full play-by-play, apparently Morgan had made a dash for the front revolving door that leads out to Michigan Ave. And that’s no good. So, Kimberly gave her a time out in her stroller, strapping her in. But Morgan is growing fast, and while the stroller is great for walking around the big city (she can’t always sit on her daddy’s lap, riding his wheelchair), it can’t really contain her properly. I mean, I’m sorry, but the image of her walking with the stroller strapped to her like some sort of pink sagging turtle shell is kind of hilarious, bless her heart.
When kids learn to talk back....
My niece has some powerful lungs–and everyone in the store (perhaps on all 3 floors) got to learn this themselves. Her mantra of “Get me out of here!” was mostly directed at us. Her uncles! (Though even mostly to Uncle Ernie–if I’m the fun uncle, he’s the really fun uncle). We were the ones who could save her from the stroller and from Mommy. We were the good cops! We were these adult figures who were weirdly child like somehow sometimes ourselves to whom she could turn for help. Whoa.
We all gathered around to calm her down, speaking in dulcet tones to not add to her cacophony of one. I realized this was our first real public meltdown with one of the kids. Before unclehood, if I witnessed this craziness, I would’ve been like Ugh, how annoying, shut that kid up. But now I’m like (or at least I was in the moment) Step off, we got this, kids cry, get over it. I can’t say that my sympathies and tolerance have done a complete about face (oh no they have not), but they’ve been good and challenged. Kids gotta learn (and so do uncles and parents), and we all have to do our best to make sure they do–and to fix any hurt feelings so they don’t hate us. Right? It’s all a part of my ongoing goal to improve my interaction abilities with kids. Of course, Morgan rebounded as kids do and was her fabulous pixie-happy self soon enough.
Question Time: How did your sympathies and tolerance of public meltdowns or bad behavior change as a parent, aunt, or uncle? Was there a difference between how your folks and aunts-uncles dealt with you when you behaved badly? Comment below!
My nephew Will carries on the family tradition without delay by reading Laura Numeroff's "If You Give a Moose a Muffin" to brother Ben.
Fun fact about me: I am a guy who reads who used to be a boy who reads. It’s true! As an uncle to three kiddies under the age of 4, their progress as readers is a priority. Ernie and I have been buying them books since before they were born, totally skipping those chewable baby board books and building up their picture book collection with brilliance such as Mo Willems‘ Pigeon books (my fave is Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog). But since first coming across the term “boy lit” in Powerless author Matthew Cody’s blog, I’ve had a special eye on my nephews’ literacy journey.
Robert Lipsyte‘s New York Times Book Review essay from August, Boys and Reading: Is There Any Hope?, got me thinking again about my nephews and past as a Boy who Reads. Lipsyte sets his essay at the 2007 American Library Association Conference where he joined a panel of other male writers meant to “demystify to the overwhelmingly female audience the testosterone code that would get teenage boys reading.” The truth is, in the gender divide of reading, boys and young men are behind their female counterparts. Lipsyte explores the circle of life that involves educational mandates, cultural attitudes, and the publishing industry. He eloquently writes about what boys need:
To be approached individually with books about their fears, choices, possibilities and relationships — the kind of reading that will prick their dormant empathy, involve them with fictional characters and lead them into deeper engagement with their own lives. This is what turns boys into readers.
Dad dug the Hardy Boys
He also cites the generation divide. Lipsyte and his son Sam are a little older than my dad and myself, but we probably fall into roughly the same eras of reading. Robert reminds us that in the 1940′s and 50′s, there was no YA genre, but for Sam and me growing up in the 70′s and 80′s, it was the world we knew. To get a further sense of the reading habits of the males in our family, I asked my dad (who turned 64 this year) about his boy-reading and the influence he had growing up. Early in his reading career, he looked for short cuts: In 3rd grade and even into 4th, he chose “easy books” like Dr. Seuss, Curious George, Puff n’ Toot, Stone Soup, and Mother Goose so that he could do “easy book reports.” He hated book reports, and my Grandmother spent many of her precious hours helping him. After a while she was having none of this easy stuff, and passed on to him books from her own collection. She gave him The Secret of the Old Clock, the first collection of Nancy Drew stories. Dad said, “I never looked back; I couldn’t get enough of the mystery book series, even it was for girls.” After Spin & Marty, a series of shorts on the Mickey Mouse Club, did a take off on the first Hardy Boys Book, The Tower Treasure, Dad picked up the comic book version–and then got hooked onto the books. With his new found love of reading, he played catch up with some of classics he should’ve been reading all long: The Wizard of Oz, and Disney’s Snow White and Robin Hood. He tried to read Lewis’ original Alice in Wonderland, but hated it. Eventually he found his way to science fiction and Tolkien.
I am the oldest (at 37) of four boys. My mother was an elementary school teacher, so it was a no-brainer that her sons were going to read, darnit! While my folks were successful with myself and my next younger brother, Steve, they were not as successful with David and Mark (twins, age 30). I guess we had a mini generation gap of our own. A direct quote from Mark from once upon a time: “Why do you guys read so much?!” Talking to David recently, his theory in our divide was basically that he and Mark had more friends and Steve and I were nerds, haha. But also, their friends were…different. Through most of high school, their social life involved more drinking and non-reader friends. Reading was for school anyway, and they had better things to do at home. Their energy was always bigger than mine and Steve’s. David says they were too rambunctious to sit down and read anything.
I read the tales of Peter and his little brother to my own little brother. Steve would in turn spend time reading to our youngest brothers, though it took a while to stick with them....
I recall distinctly the day my reading career “officially” began. My Kindergarten teacher, Ms. Beasley (like the doll in Family Affair) sat me down on a chair in front of her desk, which lived in the far left corner of the room near the coat hooks. She asked me, “Do you want to learn read?” I’m happy to report I answered, “yes.” I never looked back, and eventually began reading Judy Blume books to Steve from my top bunk bed while he listened from his bottom bunk. Other early faves of mine included Trapped in Death Cave, The Westing Game, Bummer Summer, I am the Cheese, Harriet the Spy, The Great Brain, Please Send Junk Food, and more. I also read The Hobbit in 4th grade, but didn’t tackle the LOTR books until my early-20′s. Later, as a young guncle in training, my boy lit also included traditionally girl lit (perhaps even girlier than Dad’s Nancy Drew!) such as Izzy Willy Nilly, Memo To Myself When I have a Teenaged Daughter, and a handful of the Couples series romance books with such titles as Teacher’s Pet and Fire & Ice. (Eek.) Plus Mom’s Sidney Sheldon novels!
To get a further feel for what’s going on in the trenches these days, I thought I’d consult my own resident 5th grade teacher, i.e. my sister-in-law Alison aka Mommy to Will & Ben. With her students–both boys and girls–there are two crucial motivating elements, which echo some of Lipsyte’s thoughts: “Freedom to read whatever they want and matching them with choices that capture their interest.” With the boys, she says, “[The ones] who are reluctant to read have a hard time telling me at first what interests them. So many times when I ask a boy what he likes, he will mutter ‘sports, I guess.’” She hooks them up with Dan Gutman or Mike Lupica “and they will “muddle through, somewhat engaged.” But once Alison gets to know her boys better as the school year progresses, she can “match them with books that have experiences they can relate to.” S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders has been good for her “tough guys” (I admit to only seeing the movie) and Jerry Spinelli’s Wringer does well too. Alison also uses a sort of “book club” approach where she tells her reluctant reader that she’ll try the book out too. She’ll read a few chapters and she and her student can talk about it–with no pressure of a grade–the next day. That’s a pretty rad idea, Alison!
We will continue to buy books for the kids for birthdays and holidays–Uncle Ernie and I will help make sure that the girls and the boys are on equal ground. And we will always have books on our shelves for them to pick out and read when they are able to visit. I look forward to the day I can pull Cody’s Powerless off my shelf to hand to Will–or any of them. By then maybe I’ll be able to pull down a book written by me. A family’s literacy history adds a unique picture beyond just the bare bones facts of births-deaths-marriages. I know I have my eye firmly locked on our past, as well as our future trends.
Question Time: Guys, what were some of your early favorites and How do those choices affect your reading habits now? What “girl lit” made it into your collection? For all, what are some of books your young charges are reading now? Comment below!
More on this topic will be appearing along the way, I’m sure….
Favorite Guncle Place #1: Emerald City Theatre. "If You Give a Cat a Cupcake" is now running through January 7, 2012 @ The Apollo Theatre 2540 N. Lincoln Ave, Chicago. "Pinkalicious" is now running, also through January 7 @ The Broadway Playhouse, 175 E. Chestnut St. at Water Tower Place.
Hey Friends! Uncle Michael and Uncle Ernie love the theatre. We both have undergrad degrees in it (BA Theatre Performance & BFA Musical Theatre, respectively.) Ernie even has has MFA in directing. He also happens to be the current Artistic Director (full disclosure alert!) of Emerald City Theatre Company, whose mission is to “create theatre experiences that inspire early learners through play.”
As part of this project, I aim to share with you guys ideas to entertain your young family members when they come to visit our fine city (a source for Baum in creating the original Emerald City of course). Uncle Ernie’s theatre company is the first stop on our journey together.
Our niece, Morgan, came to visit us last month. Not by herself–not yet, anyway, she’s only 3. Her folks–my brother Steve and sister-in-law Kimberly were also in tow. We all wanted to be sure that Morgan got a chance to see one of Ernie’s shows while here. Luckily, her visit coincided with the opening day of the new season, which starts with If You Give a Cat a Cupcake, Ernie’s stage adaptation of the popular Laura Numeroff book. Their If You Take a Mouse to School ran and toured for so long, it kind of became the *ahem* Cats of Lincoln Avenue. The show is billed for kids 3 and up, and while Morgan may not have caught every word or every plot point, she sure had fun. Her pixie-ish laughter is infectious. Sitting next to her, while I enjoyed the show myself, the real show was watching Morgan experience her first Emerald City production. She’s been to movies and Disney on Ice and Sesame Street Live and other entertainments, but well, this is the theatre! and something created by her Uncle Ernie which hopefully has planted the seeds for future intimate theatrical experiences.
Near the end of the show, Cat invites some of the young audience members to dance on stage with him. He knew he had a special VIP in the house, so of course he invited Morgan. At first she didn’t want to join him but she changed her mind and Kimberly walked her down to the stage. Morgan got into it, and she even kind of bowed at the end. I swear I almost lost it. Seriously, I was welling up most of the time just witnessing her experience it all. But by the time I got into her head a little–into her change of mind process from hesitation to “Let’s Dance and be there and have this moment,” I was uber-softy uncle with a vengeance and I totally get it now.
Morgan with her Guncles in front of the "Pinkalicious" poster down town.
As with all Emerald City Theatre productions, the kids get a chance to do a craft project before the show–a prop that will be incorporated into a participation moment during the production. They also have the chance to meet the cast and get autographs on their very own kid-friendly program (all you guncles can read the actors’ bios and further details in the grown-up program). And if you’re at all worried about length and the attention span of your young charges, each show runs about an hour give or take–a standard Theatre For Young Audiences practice.
I’d like to give a special shout out to Savor the Flavor, the coffee-ice cream-lunch cafe just up Lincoln Avenue from ETC’s home base at the Apollo. The place is roomy, fun, kid-friendly. It’s also adult-friendly, striking the right balance as both a good place to get work done and take the kids before or after a show (or just socializing with your peeps). The grilled cheese is always appreciated. I wish we had some place like it with the same vibe a little closer to us.
An all around fun weekend! We look forward to more visits from Morgan and her cousins. To end this post, I’ve put together a little video with Windows Movie Maker. Nothing fancy, but I’m sure my editing skills will improve along the way….
As a day-creeping waiter and grad student with evening classes I am often home during peak leaf blowing hours, and aside from the garbage trucks starting their barrage on the alley outside our bedroom window promptly at 7AM, my least favorite part of the day is when the kindly Eastern European gentleman who is the core maintenance crew member for our building comes along with his gas powered concentration-killing monstrosity.
It will begin as a distant whirring as he starts at the front gate of our courtyard then makes his way toward the far right corner where we are. As a first floor resident, if the windows are open (or not), our whole apartment will soon smell like a gas station. He will make his way into the alley, then through the gate binding our building to the one next door and into the common area filled with everyone’s back doors. He will blow around a couple of leaves that are not in anyone’s way. If I’m lucky, he will “clean” each three-story set of our wooden steps and landings, bringing him literally at our threshold. He may as well just step inside and blow stray coffee grounds from the kitchen counter and into our bedroom. While I don’t want to disparage our hard working crew leader, I admit to severely flicking him off behind closed blinds and cursing his existence every time I hear his leaf blower’s hum and see him—or any of his posse.
I hadn’t thought about leaf blowers much until my partner Ernie and I moved into our second Chicago apartment together in 2009 after three years of the “country life” in South Bend, Indiana where we and all our neighbors used actual rakes to take care of our leaves. I guess three years of a quasi-rural lifestyle had softened my memory of these mechanical menaces. I was sitting in our new home office when I heard the simple, easy enough to ignore whirring noise in the distance. But as it grew louder, I grew more agitated, and upon peering through our back gate, I discovered a groundskeeper wielding a leaf blower blowing everything but leaves at the gate directly across the alley. Because it’s not just our building—but compounded by all of the surrounding buildings, on our street, across the alley, around the city.
Sometimes I think it takes moments like this of pure selfish agitation to open our minds to the plight of the future and I soon began to formulate for myself why I hate leaf blowers so much—based on both snarky emotional reaction and a common sense application of science, i.e. Shut up and use a broom! and These gas fumes can’t be environmentally healthy, respectively.
Lately I’ve been searching the Net for fellow leaf blower hater travelers to see what kind of facts and opinions they can provide in my move beyond an initial self-centered take on the subject. It seems there are communities everywhere attempting to ban the devices. A group in Connecticut named Greenwich CALM: Greenwich Citizens Against Leafblower Mania has a health hazards page with a comprehensive run down of environmental and human health issues. They include pollution of the air with carcinogens and particles, destruction of gardens and topsoil, disturbance of small animals, and the one that started it for me—noise and mental/emotional distress. Uncle Michael is emotionally distressed!
From a New Yorker article about a California couple’s campaign to ban blowers in their community I learned that “leaf blowers originated in Japan, in the nineteen-sixties, as a tool for dispersing pesticides onto fields and fruit trees.” Pesticides, people, not leaves! While I had no idea, it sure makes sense to me. New Jersey Star Ledger columnist Paul Mulshine takes on leaf blowers’ relationship with liberty. He concludes that if he were king, he would not ban leaf blowers. Instead, he insists that you, his neighbor, have the right to your leaf blower while he has the right to blast you out of bed at 4AM with a comparative decibeled punch. I like him. (Though if I were king, I’d ban the leaf blowers.) As for Chicago, there’s a debate going on at Every Block, where “Neighbor Wrightsfd” said that he’s discovered unverifiable research that leaf blowers were illegal in our city. According to another Every Block thread, there’s a $100 fine for blowing leaves into the street. I’d sure like to see what else is on the books.
So, how can I, as a writer working to find my way in the world, contribute to the literacy legacy of my young family members? I dream of writing a Picture or Middle Grade book which depicts a band of brave young people who gather the world’s leaf blowers, shoot into space, and bury them in an impenetrable land fill on the moon. The book would inspire a world of environmental, political, and sociological consciousness. If I can at least plant the seeds of justice into their young minds with my words, then I’ve done my job. Anything to counter the brain washing of our children via leaf blower toys! The kiddies sure won’t be getting any of those for their birthday from Uncle Michael!
I realize there are many problems in the world and everyone has their passions. Many think the leaf blower issue is in fact a non-issue. I realize I shouldn’t necessarily scorn the crews who use them. Or even the companies who tell the crews to use them. Is it too crass to direct my scorn upon our society for being so stupid and lazy? It’s just that now more than ever, I think about the future we are leaving for our little ones. Ending the reign of leaf blowers will in a small part help clean the air of pollution and emotional distress that Will, his brother, and his cousin will breathe, and that’s nothing but a good thing.
Question Time: What is your take on this debate? What are other ways we can improve the health of our next generation(s)? Comment below!
