Days Three & Four  December 2000 Merchandise Mart, Improv Comedy, Theatre Saturday & Sunday Saturday was our day to walk, so we first stopped by the Merchandise Mart, then headed into the loop. We skipped the museums, as Dave had already visited them all, and Lyn and Jesse would be using them for day-trip destinations while Dave worked next week. It was brutally cold, but at least no snow or rain. We showed Jesse the interior of the historic Chicago Hilton hotel on Michigan Ave, and Dave gave a long historic dissertation about the early years of travel, and architecture before air conditioning. This trip was a great learning experience for Jesse. A small Christmas fest was going on in the plaza outside the city and state buildings (Dave talked about the famous / infamous Picasso sculpture). We passed on the opprotunity to go ice skating, but enjoyed hot cider, and a nice mix of deep fried dough products that are not on anybody's diet but taste so good when its cold outside. The place was packed with carolers, shoppers, political protestors, tourists and ... To our surpise, we saw a table with nearly a dozen of full-dress Santa's taking a break and enjoying a warm brew. Ho-Ho-Ho! Snoopy enjoying the decorations Lyn by the warm food and drink kiosks Ho! Ho! Ho! We picked up several tickets at the cheap booth, and headed down to ComedySportz. This is an improv show done in the form two competing teams of 3 artists with a referee wearing the zebra stripes and blowing a whistle to award points and call penalties. When asking for audience volunteers, we sat quietnly and learned about a little known house rule: "When you volunteer your friend, you volunteer YOURSELF!" But we weren't done at 11pm. We took the red line back to the hotel and instead walked the two blocks over to the "Blue Chicago" jazz club. They have a basement show every Saturday night that is open for families. They offer standard Chicago jazz fare, but sell no alcohol and allow no smoking on the week-ends. Family with kids, or folks that prefer the music without all that ambiance, can go down to the basement den and enjoy themselves. We had a ball, asking for songs, and enjoyed ourselves right up until 1am closing! When the band went on break, several of the teen-aged audience members were invited up to jam with the pros, and we were surprised and amazed by their skills. Mozart is alive and well in Chicago, be he plays the bass or drums. Blue Chicago was a basement jazz club Family fare: no booze, no smoking, great music! Sunday morning we almost got up for church, but instead enjoyed the Embassy Suites made-to-order breakfast. Although the hotel is about six blocks from Dave's office, everybody quickly understood why it was his favorite hotel in Chicago. We had tickets to the Sunday matinee performance of "Early and Often" a stage play comedy with a plot surrounding the historic racket of Chicago politics. As we were being seated we were surprised to be greeted by the show's main star, remaining in character and pretending that the garthering was actually a political rally. We quickly learned why, as in the first 5 minutes of the show his character drops dead and his lifeless body is dragged from place to place in the madcap hilarity reminiscent of "Weekend at Bernies". Of course, he won the seat. This is Chicago and he was a Democrate afterall. We stopped at another coffee shop and again enjoyed drizzley on-and-off rain as we walked the six blocks to and from the train. Dave refused to let us use a taxi, as we were supposed to get the 'feel' of living in Chicago in December. We got the feel, all right, right down to our bones. Note: It was fun to recieve an e-mail about six months after publishing Jesse's story from star of the play. He had been searching google and ran across our page. Best wishes to Steve Rose and good luck in your future roles, we had a great time. We headed back to the hotel (for dry clothes) then in the evening headed out to ImprovOlympics. They present "long from" improv, with three teams of six to eight artists each appearning once for a period of twenty to thirty minutes. A single suggestion is taken at the start of the prefromance, and it just goes and goes (and goes) from there. When a troop is firing on all cylindar the laughter is non-stop to the point of pain. Unfortunately, if it is a dry night for one of the teams, the long-form duration is actually painful to sit through. We were becoming connoisseurs! Before the show, we stopped for dinner in the nearby "Wrigleyville" neighborhood, and settled on Etiopian cuisine. It was an experience for Jesse, and set the tone that a big city like Chicago has something for everybody. If you want it and you look for it, you will find it in Chicago. The rain had stopped, and at temperature was balmy in the mid 20's. We all took off our hats, but slipped about on the black ice that intermittantly covered the sidewalks. Original Web Upload December 2000 Last Update: January 29, 2003