Shaw’s Crab House and Andy’s Jazz Club are right next door to each other and five minutes walk from our hotel. This Chicago evening made itself – with a little help from advance booking. This young company is organised through the chaos.
My day started too early, getting up to pack and hauling into a rattling taxi across state lines. But here I am now by the frozen Chicago River. We arrived at lunchtime and priority seemed to point to a deep dish pizza. Last time I was here I went to Steppenwolf matinee. This time it was big deep caramelised dough at Pequods Pizza and then I walked with Benjy to the theatre door and he went in, while I went to pound the snowy streets. Part of me wanted the theatre but this fucked phone was important to me.
A good man stuck a sticker on it for fifteen bucks and now I can write again. My fingertips are slightly shredded but they’ll recover. Fifteen bucks much better than $300 and the damage is cosmetic. Thank you John H! Getting a screen protector sticker was a timely suggestion by a friend who was aware of my plight through these scribblings. Once again I’m very glad I connect with the world this way. Even if I’m actually not sure any of the young whippersnappers I’m touring with have found this yet. I’m not putting it out there. But I could cos I love them so I’m not gonna be bitching about them. But they are all aged between 27 and 31. I thought Benjy was a decade older than he is, but turns out he’s just … lived.
What’s twenty years?
We are all in Andy’s. The crab shack was so completely my jam I was amazed it hadn’t been my idea. Sam booked it. He’s 31, with the same agent as me, kinda looks and sounds like the package I was selling back when I left Guildhall and had a six pack. I had more chin, he has more hair. Both clever dark haired poshywoshies. Both with the confused double standard where we know we had it good and want to have perspective on it but also actually just want to fucking work in this industry that is hard enough before we start sabotaging ourselves out of morals.
I am full of lobster and beef. There is some serious jazz going on very very close to me. All five of us are together, as it should be. We are very bonded, there’s understanding here, and I don’t feel in any way like a fish out of water despite being a frightening twenty years older than them. They are worrying out loud about little chips in their teeth, I’m quietly having entire teeth pulled out of my face and abandoned forever. “And so from hour to hour we ripe and ripe and then from hour to hour we rot and rot, and thereby hangs a tale.”
This jazz band is led by the flautist. I thought I might try to learn the flute once, but the first two lessons were just about how to bring it up and down and honestly I can’t be fucked with technique, I’m not here to be in the orchestra, I want the fastest route to making the most useful dramaturgical noise possible. It’s why I’m thrilled with my purchase of a box of blues harps for this job. I’m getting more use out of them than my accordion and they add tremendous handheld atmosphere. It’s the little things.
I’m gonna plug into this band.
AlBarclay 