Journalist, Author & Syndicated Columnist
I lost my headache at Jane’s. Let me explain. The first time I ate at the Bucktown restaurant, I reacted in typical American horror when the waitress seated my friend and me right next to the only other couple in the restaurant. But too embarrassed to ask to be moved farther away, we sat there and made the best of it and ended up having a fabulous time.
Earwax isn’t the most appetizing name for a cafe/record and video store. But it is a pretty darned catchy one.
In a perfect triple bill for a beautiful summer night, the Spin Doctors, Gin Blossoms and Cracker played to a capacity crowd Saturday night at the World Music Theatre, and the band’s diverse musical styles couldn’t have complemented each other better.
Chris Isaak used to joke that he had less screen time in the three films he’s been in so far than in the video for his breakthrough single, “Wicked Game.” Those days are gone. The San Francisco-based singer-actor stars as the father of a young boy believed to be a reincarnated Buddhist teacher in Bernardo Bertolucci’s “Little Buddha” (now playing in Chicago at the Fine Arts). Last year, Isaak took a break from recording for filming in Nepal and Seattle.
Place: No Exit. Time: Just about anytime, but try Sunday afternoons around 4. Why: Because it’s a lot of fun, there’s free jazz music and the coffee is killer.
When the producers started auditions for the film “Backbeat,” they saw more than 100 actors for the role of the “forgotten Beatle” Stuart Sutcliffe, at least 50 actresses for the part of his German girlfriend Astrid Kirchherr and dozens of other actor-musicians for the other members of the Fab Five. But when it came time to cast the role of 19-year-old John Lennon, they saw only one actor – Ian Hart.
I’ll be the first to admit I had a bias about Lulu’s the first time I went there for dim sum, the traditional Chinese brunch where diners sample small portions of many dishes. First of all, there’s nothing traditional about Lulu’s. It’s in Evanston, which doesn’t have a large Chinese population. Second, I didn’t see any Asian chefs. And third, does a place named Lulu’s really sound like it would have good dim sum?
Here’s the story/of a TV sitcom/that just wouldn’t ever really go away/Though folks can see reruns on Channel 50/They still pay big bucks to see the live play. Since Chicago sisters Jill and Faith Soloway staged their first line-for-line recreation of a “Brady Bunch” episode three years ago at the Annoyance Theatre, their production of “The Real Live Brady Bunch” has taken on a life of its own. Running through Monday, the play returned to Chicago Tuesday night to a full house at the Park West.
“You won’t get your money back if you don’t like it,” David Lee Roth said, laughing. “But I think people at my shows enjoy themselves no matter what because they see I’m having a great time.”
My friends used to snicker when I told them about my yearly trips to Idaho’s capital. And to tell you the truth, if I didn’t have family out here, I probably wouldn’t have given the city a second thought as a potential vacation spot. But you know what? All the potato jokes aside, Boise is a fun place to spend a weekend without having to worry about traffic jams or spending a lot of cash.