I love Chicago. I do. I think most people spend their lives looking for three major things: what they're meant to do with those lives, who they're meant to spend them with, and where they're meant to spend them. The first one has always escaped me and the second...well, I don't believe in the 'soul mate' theory and choose instead to believe there are many people in the world with whom I could be perfectly happy. Who and where the fuck they are, I have no idea. But that last one? That one, I've managed to find. For me, home isn't where the heart is but where the heart grows and thrives. Some places just feel like home and for me, it's here.
One of the best things about it is that my parents and I are close enough and they're at the age where it's more financially doable than it was in years past to come visit. Although he grew up in a tiny-ass town in the Adirondacks, my father has always been a city lover. When I was little, I was in my parents' room and found a paper bag full of money from all over the world that he had saved from the time he spent in the Navy. He never wanted to be a career military man but he did want to get the hell out of Small Town, USA and joining the Navy was his way of doing that. I love asking him just one small question about that time in his life because he'll go on and on and on about the places and things he saw and how lucky he was to be able to do that. My mother, on the other hand, was never a lover of city life until I moved to Chicago but she's grown to really love experiencing some of the things she never before had a chance to experience. It's been brought up several times how awesome it would be if they moved out here after they retire. A year ago, she wasn't at all ready to sell their house but when she was here in August, she told me she really thinks she could do it and be happy here. If they'll ever really make that big leap, I don't know. But it also wouldn't surprise me if they one day seriously consider it.
They'll be coming out again for Thanksgiving this year and this morning as I flipped through the craptastic free newspaper on my way to its crossword puzzle, I saw this ad for a concert on December 4th:
My parents love smooth jazz. My dad always says, "the stuff will just clear your head," which is the part that usually trips me up because even though I spend far too much time in there already, the entire point of music for me is to *keep* me in my head. I like my tunes to leave me wondering about things and remembering times gone by and questioning where I'm heading. I like my music to leave my head a jumbled up mess of thoughts whereas my parents like it to just mellow them out. For the most part, I divide the smooth jazz genre into two sub-genres:
1. Elevator muzak
2. What I like to call, "music for makin' love, Wonder Bead style"
I certainly don't think there's a single thing wrong with makin' sweet, sweet love but most of the tunes I put in that category simply put in my head images of John & Jane Doe frolicking around a Sybaris-esque love den, complete with candles and bearskin rugs and rose petals on the bed; all of which, to me, are uber cheesy. Thoughtful, genuinely caring gestures that may lead to activities of a carnal nature, I quite enjoy. Cliché romantic ones, not so much. Songs in the elevator muzak category just leave me stuck between wanting to shake my ass just a tiny bit and wanting to fall right asleep.
However, I *do* have somewhat of a musical thing for Brian Culbertson, who also happens to be my parents' favourite artist. And also happens to be the blonde guy in the above concert ad. I'm adding this photo soley because my musical 'thing' for him ain't just musical.
I dig him. I dig him mucho. I love that he started playing piano at the age of eight, I love that his jazz band-leading father encouraged a love of music, I love the originality of most of his stuff, I love that it's not just a dude and his piano but a dude and his piano rockin' out with other dudes and their instruments of choice, I love the fact he's a little contemporary and a little old school and a little jazzy and a little R&B. And anyone who my mother says broke his keyboard during a concert because he was just banging the living hell out of the thing during the entire show, I imagine is one hell of an entertainer. Really, I just love me a skilled musician whose passion is playing the keys.
So, after they head back to New York the Monday after Thanksgiving, they'll be turning around and flying back out that weekend for a concert at one of the most stunningly beautiful, historic theatres in the city.
I love so very many things about Chicago. But these experiences...the ones that because I'm lucky enough to live here, I get to show people and and share with them...those are the absolute best.
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