Lena Blackburne Baseball Rubbing Mud

Eddie Collins left, Lena Blackburne center, Ty Cobb right 

Yep. It’s a real product. And the only product used by all thirty Major League Baseball clubs to break in balls. All minor league teams too. Give it that non sheened scuff, without scratching the leather of the hardball. Wear it in, without marring the beauty of the white leather and red stitching. Lena Blackburne, a Philadelphia A’s third base coach, discovered the product after listening to the complaints of an umpire concerning the usual ball weathering products. Tobacco juice. Infield dirt. Shoe polish. Schmutz, glop, and other unspeakables from under the bleachers. All of which left the balls in garbled disrepair, and, moreover, the performance of the balls became as capricious as all those products, and all the variables of whoever is applying those products are wont to do. Baseball wouldn’t want to seem capricious.

The one thing that baseball does better than seem capricious, is inculcate a sense of legend and mystery. Lena Blackburne Baseball Rubbing Mud does just that. Legend has that Lena began scouting the brackish banks of the Delaware River in Southern New Jersey in 1938, and came upon a “secret location” rife with the perfect admixture of mud suited for, you know, rubbing baseballs. God Himself had beset the banks of a river with some divine ingredient. Sounds almost biblical.

 

Jim Blintiff runs the company now, and is purported to be the only person who knows the real location of Blackburne’s “secret spot”. He culls the mud himself, and cures it behind his house before jarring and shipping the product across the nation. The Baseball Rubbing Mud is sold in 32 ounce jars. No doubt, paleontologists of the future will puzzle over dirt native to the Delaware River found in trace amounts on the surface of baseballs, under the thin swath of inked autographs, entombed in glass spheres, and buried under rubble of shelving and books all over the globe.

ICEE

This beacon of summer has been around since 1958. That red and blue emblazoned logo, draped with jagged icicles, and familiar polar bear mascot somewhere within the state of affairs of the machine has become an almost expected aspect of walking into gas stations and convenience stores across the nation. Like many deep rooted American traditions, the ICEE was discovered, at least in part, by accident.

Omar Knedlik, a Kansas Dairy Queen proprietor, had been placing soda bottles in his freezer because he lacked a soda fountain. The semi frozen, carbonated concoction became a hit with customers. Five years later, the first ICEE machine was constructed and patented. Distributorships and licensures ensued, including but not limited to Slurpee of 7-11 fame, and Circle-K’s ThirstFreezer. ICEE Company is now based in Ontario, California, and sells its product to a wide array of well known establishments, department stores, restaurants and enterprises.

Vivid reds and blues of the slush bulging into the clear domed lid of the ICEE still elicit a pavlovian response. The red straw-spoon is waiting. A big pull of the semi frozen beverage into the mouth is a multisensory experience. The condensation of the humidity beading on the wax exterior of the red and blue paneled cup. The subtle tingle of the carbonation. The soft, slow melt of the slush. The slight tinge of the flavor: maybe a blue raspberry, or cherry. A frozen headache might follow. It’s probably worth it though.

The Underwood Typewriter

Alfred Hitchcock with his Underwood Portable

Recently I stumbled across a photo on a social media site. The image was of a home telephone, not the old rotary dial, but the art deco style with bulky neon buttons; cutting edge stuff for 1987. The poster of this photo was a 20 year old girl and the caption read: “I must have one of these antique phones.”

I died a little bit inside, my silent weeping an ode to the hourglass of life’s refusal to pause.

As I type on a magical electronic square that transmits my thoughts to the world in a nanosecond, I cannot help but imagine how fast the rotations must be as generations of writers are undoubtedly rolling over in their clichéd graves. The mere notion that the current mode of crafting the next great American novel requires a battery would surely not sit well with the Hemingway’s of the world. Though tragically hip in the same fashion that vinyl is still the preferred medium of sound to die-hards, the typewriter has effectively met its demise in writer heaven. But once upon a time, a word technician was required to be a mechanic. Mistakes came with no backspace button and spell check was a tattered dictionary next to a glass of Scotch. The stroke of a key was followed by a triumphant clack, as ink met paper in a beautiful crash.

The Underwood Typewriter was the glorious vehicle that drove the words from the recess of the mind to their physical enshrinement.

Upton Sinclair, who TIME Magazine called “A man with every gift except humor and silence”, wrote his culture shifting The Jungle on an Underwood. William Faulkner employed his trusty metal companion as he was shaping the Southern Literature movement; following him on an Underwood (as well as the genre) was To Kill a Mockingbird scribe Harper Lee ( who incidentally included a character named "Mr. Underwood" who is known to type on a typewriter all day long). And the brash, lovable “Laureate of American lowlife” Charles Bukowski was well known to fire away on his Underwood Standard when not preoccupied with his cats or bottles of vino.

“The Buyer takes on an ominous grey-green color. Fact is his body is making its own junk or equivalent. The Buyer has a steady connection. A Man Within you might say. Or so he thinks. 'I'll just set in my room,' he says. 'F**k 'em all. Squares on both sides. I am the only complete man in the industry.”

- Naked Lunch

William S. Burroughs, the enigmatic Beat wordsmith, was known as a repeat pawn customer, going through a myriad of typewriters to support his lifestyle. The preceding excerpt from his seminal Naked Lunch was written on a borrowed Underwood from fellow Beat iconoclast Jack Kerouac. Kerouac used his Underwood Portable to pen a little piece known as On The Road.

From Douglas Fairbanks to John F. Kennedy, the New York based Underwood Typewriter Company has, for over 100 years, manufactured the strictly utilitarian machines that compute the emotional narrative of our lives. In modern times the contraption has emerged as poetic as the prose it fabricates. Though painful to use the term, for the generations that are not impassioned towards the nostalgic, Underwood has had its share of cameos in pop culture. Film buffs might recognize Leo DiCaprio’s character in Catch Me If You Can as he forged counterfeit checks on a classic Underwood. An Underwood typewriter is used by the main character in the 2001 musical film Moulin Rouge. On the small screen, the clever character in the television show Murder, She Wrote began her writing career using an Underwood Typewriter; on Parks and Recreation, eternally old school man’s man Ron Swanson finds and restores an Underwood No.5. The legendary brand has even appeared in the mind numbing realm of gaming, as Underwood is integral to the plot of a video game entitled BioShock.

But at its heart, Underwood belongs to an era where only the finest Literary Fiction was worthy of our attention. And to many purists, this is the perfect climax. In a saturated world where hormonal teenaged vampires outsell Dickens, perhaps the prestige of an Underwood Typewriter should only be paired to literature of merit. To envision the iconic device being used to produce grocery aisle romance camp is more excruciating than watching the aforementioned Alexander Graham Bell masterpiece become relegated to a curious relic.

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote it best. And he wrote it on an Underwood.

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

–The Great Gatsby

The Honest Company

Jessica Alba has been one of the glamorous faces of Hollywood for over a decade. The Golden Globe nominated actress is a stalwart of television and film, a respected voice in activism and a mother. And now she has a new bullet point to her polished life’s resume-CEO.

It was motherhood, her most important role to date, that spurred Alba to found The Honest Company. While pregnant she began to research the relationship between chemicals and consumer products; what she unveiled shocked and horrified her. Essentially she discovered that not only were the products that are commonplace in our daily lives (diapers, household cleaners, baby shampoo) toxic and untested, but that a flimsy regulation system gave the manufacturers of these products carte blanche to operate in this manner. The only solution seemed to be spending endless hours roaming from store to store for specialty niche items that were branded as “healthy” when the reality was quite different.

The mother of invention is necessity. The health conscious mother of a child was Alba. Together they formed The Honest Company.

The Honest Company is a one stop shop for natural and safe daily essentials that are eco friendly and sans toxins. The affordable roster includes diapers, cleaners, detergents and soaps, to name a few, and are delivered to the customer’s door, allowing hours once spent by a mother chasing such products to be spent with her child. And though The Honest Company is a new venture they have wasted no time following founder Alba’s footsteps; they have partnered with nonprofit Baby2Baby in an effort to provide critical necessities to infants in need. It’s a win-win for the growing base of Honest clients. As if providing the safest and healthiest sustainable products to their own families wasn’t enough to feel great, by simply being a customer they are contributing the same impact to other families.

It was Thomas Jefferson who said “Honesty is the first chapter of the book of wisdom.” And it just might be The Honest Company that is the first step towards a revolution in how we live our lives.

Kayla Harrison

Judo, translating effectively as “the gentle way” has its roots in Jujitsu – the seminal martial art of the samurai of medieval Japan. Jigoro Kano, a lifelong student of various schools of jujitsu formulated his own method of “Kano Jujitsu” in the 1880’s – which we now know as Judo. This art emphasizes throws, joint locks, and chokes, and was established as a physical fitness, competition, and character building activity. It gained a foothold in Japan, and was first featured in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. In 1992, women were allowed to compete for medals in the Olympic Games.

The competition aspect of Judo, like all duel combative sports, is equal parts chess match and grueling physical action. The match starts with a bow, then competitors jostle for grips on the heavy cotton gis, and establish the push and pull of balance and footwork. This all happens in a blur. Subtle establishments of hand positioning, and seemingly infinitesimal adjustments of balance and center of gravity become crucial and fleeting game changers. A player will attempt a throw or take down. If a full throw is executed, the referee will award the match. If a partial throw – points follow, and the match goes to the ground. From there a battery of chokes, some arm-bar submissions, and pins can end the contest. A stalemate or an out of bounds, and the referee restarts the players. From a western spectator’s perspective, a Judo match might seem analogous to high school or college wrestling.

At age 21, Kayla Harrison, currently ranked second in the world, is in a position to capture the first gold medal (male or female) in Judo for the United States. Competing in the 78 kilogram weight class, a weight higher than her natural weight, Harrison has captured gold in the 2010 World Judo Championships, 2011 Pan Am Judo Championships, and the 2012 Pan Am Games, and bronze in 2011 World, and 2010 Pan Am. This July, she will step onto the mat in London, representing the United States.

Harrison’s work ethic echoes of storied champions of various combative sports. The legendary shadowboxing neck deep in a swimming pool while wearing full gloves – for hours at a time – by Rocky Marciano. Sugar Ray Robinson’s famous press oriented spectacles of rope skipping, and long speedbag routines evocative of mind altered drum solos. Wrestling legend Dan Gable’s unparalleled, almost obsessive motivation to not waste time – to the point of only justifying TV watching if he were using chest springs or hand grippers while doing so. Things that make up training montages in films like Rocky, Karate Kid, and Vision Quest – all on par with the exhausting regimen Kayla Harrison demands of herself. Plyometrics, kettle bells, explosive strength training – things examined and reexamined by sports medicine and conditioning experts – are all part of her standard routine, not to mention the rigors of Randori (standing throws and take downs) and Newaza (ground grappling) training, and countless technique drills in coach Jimmy Pedro’s Boston area dojo.

This decorated competitor started learning judo at age 6 with Frank Herzog in his Hamilton, Ohio dojo. When asked what drew her to judo at such a young age Harrison stated: “Honestly, I loved the sport aspect of it. I had a lot of fun traveling to local tournaments and hanging out with the team at hotels. But what I also loved was the discipline. I am a strong believer that kids need and want discipline in their life and I accepted it from a young age.”

Such discipline has vaulted Harrison into an elite echelon of competition. Fighting up in the 78kg class, she often faces larger opponents, and describes her favorite throw as Ouchi-gari (major inner reap): a fast, often sudden and jarring inner leg sweep forcing an opponent backward. Youtube clips show Kayla methodically demonstrating the technique of this, and footage of her devastatingly executing Ouchi-gari in matches. In this, “the gentle art”, using the opponent’s force against them, the bigger they are, the harder they do indeed fall.

On the ground, Kayla’s preferred move is Juji-gatame (cross arm lock) – often referred to as the most powerful arm-bar in judo – a submission gaining maneuver with the opponent’s arm stretched and splayed between the legs of the applicant, who applies pressure to the elbow joint. Speaking of her favorite ground technique, Kayla says: “Even though I don’t get it often, it would have to be Juji-gatame. I feel like my coach (Jimmy Pedro) when I win with that.”

Harrison has had to overcome hardships on her path to Olympic gold. At 13 she underwent surgery involving a screw reattaching a thumb ligament to bone. And, at age 16, she moved to Boston in the wake of a longitudinal sexual assault perpetrated by a former coach by the name of Daniel Doyle, who she trained with and competed internationally for as an adolescent. Doyle, nailed on federal charges stemming from the international nature of the crime, is now serving a 10 year sentence, and has been excommunicated for life from USA Judo. The damage felt by such actions doesn’t go away, but Kayla Harrison refuses to let it define her. Narrative television interview packages as part of the two weeks of glory that is the Olympics will undoubtedly discuss the incident and the recovery therein. It will always be part of who she is. But Harrison is much more than that. Taken under the wing of the famed Pedros, Kayla Harrison has transcended this trauma and steps onto the mat with a rare fire only seen in the few warriors whose prowess, with time, becomes the substrate of myth and fable.

Watch her this summer.

Six Eleven Bicycle Company

Most people discard the toys of their youth and never look back. But for Aaron Dykstra, his bicycle was hardly a toy. Tales of his grandparent’s European romance on two wheels was enough to capture his own heart. A stint in the Air Force allowed Dykstra to flirt with much larger modes of transport, but it was when he moved to bike-friendly Brooklyn that he was reunited with his all-terrain passion.

Six Eleven Bicycle Co., named after the regal Great 611 locomotive, is the culmination of entrepreneurial spirit, expert craftsmanship and legacy. And for Aaron Dykstra, it is only natural. Mentored by the great Koichi Yamaguchi, the Roanoke based Dykstra has revved the gears on serious riding. It is his hands that cut and miter each tube to guarantee pristine precision with every frame. With intense DNA blueprinting, a genetic freak is born to the world of cycling. It is a service tailor made to the distinguished rider, beginning as a conversation and culminating with a perfectly married array of materials to meet the client’s requirements. Durability, sensibility, and sleek styles for the treacherous miles.

And who knows, maybe Six Eleven Bicycle Co. will fabricate the bike that takes the next generation of lovestruck grandparents on their own European joyride.

WTF Coffee Lab

The road to dignity has been perilous and long for coffee. Since its inception it has been pigeonholed as a morning pick me up, a cheap and mundane staple to America’s daily (no pun intended) grind. Heck, it has become so desensitized in our routine that it is sold, in some variation at least, in every gas station on every corner.

It was enough to make someone say WTF!

Asio and Angela Highsmith have catapulted the savory nectar to the lofty status it deserves. WTF Coffee Lab in Brooklyn treats their roasts as a sommelier would treat wine, which makes perfect sense. Afterall, each drink has its own unique body and finish. And they don’t treat their brand like table wine, either, because this isn’t your grandmother’s Sanka- WTF employs the finest beans, whether Mexican, Guatamalan or Ugandan Peabody. And if ever there was a debate about the merits of barista as scientist, it ends now. WTF looks like a lab, true to its moniker. Siphon pots, Yama pots, Coava Kone filters, drip cones, sock pots, the French press, and a giant espresso machine are veritable beekers used to make one beverage many different ways.

Another sign that the foundations of java have been rattled in a good way? Traditional cash registers that once sold the high octane fuel for a nickel have been replaced with the next gen in point of sales-an iPad. The overhaul of our caffeinated treasure started with a brick; now comes the entire building.

Let’s get roasted.

The Bob & Brown Talk Show Bonanza

Public access television– the unsung component of the American media landscape– continues to breed talent. Since its inception in the early 1970’s pioneered by George Stoney, professor of film and cinema studies at New York University, public access has provided communities with an alternative to commercial mass media and ordinary citizens’ access to broadcasting opportunities. Such opportunities not only provided a venue to cultivate local community talent, but also served to launch the careers of celebrities like Elvira, Bobby Flay, and Tom Green. Public access shows have also served as the inspiration for commercial media comedy sketches and films that have now become woven into the fabric of American culture. The Saturday Night Live (SNL) skit, “Goth Talk,” a reoccurring sketch in the 1990’s starring Chris Kattan and Molly Shannon was based on a real public access show in Tampa, Florida. Most notably, the reoccurring, now famous, SNL sketch “Wayne’s World” which spawned two films and became a multi-million dollar franchise was based on the idea of public access television as the characters, Wayne and Garth, (Mike Meyers and Dana Carvey) broadcast their weekly public access show out of Wayne’s parent’s basement in Aurora, Illinois.

Creativity, at this grass roots level, continues to be explored and cultivated in these small telecommunications venues across the nation. The Bob & Brown Talk Show Bonanza is an excellent example of such innovative creativity. In the course of a three season run, The Bob & Brown Show has been brilliantly reinventing the norm of a traditional talk show from that very local, very humble, very American facility that is public access. The Bob & Brown show consists of Bob McCoy (Bob), and sidekick Andrew J. Brown (Brown) engaging in standard banter around a desk. Breaching from that traditional talk show premise, of predictable monologues, guests, and interviews, however, the audience sees that Bob and Brown are effectively characters of themselves, and the show is formed around an evolving narrative, as those interactions are further complicated with various segments, and the interactions with DJ TMAC (Tim McDaniel), musical director, and a very unique poet laureate in residence known as Dr. Malcolm Jamal Corner (Brian Brinker).

The Bob & Brown show initially spawned out of a 2009 summer T.V. production class McCoy, McDaniel, and Brown were enrolled in at Northern Kentucky University – an institution gaining regional and national notoriety in the arenas of theater and electronic media broadcasting. McCoy hosted a live talk show a few years prior, and from that experience, the seeds of the Bob & Brown idea were planted.

McCoy recalls how he and the others convinced the teacher to allow the idea they had developed to be the primary project for the course. Four episodes were shot during that summer term. Going beyond the constraints of a college class, the show moved out to the Telecommunications Board of Northern Kentucky, one of those numerous local, grassroots public access forums, and Bob & Brown grew to incorporate Brinker’s Dr. Corner character, which had initially materialized while Brinker hosted a college radio show centered on hip hop, poetry, and talk.

Explaining the format of the show, McCoy notes, “We got the good doctor involved, and devised the show to be part skits, part talk show, part comedy expose… and came up with micro storylines, and ongoing scenarios for our characters.”

Brinker describes his character as a composite; what he calls a mixture of “Kerouac and Lord Buckley.” Add scarf, beard, horn rimmed glasses, and a porkpie hat, and there is Dr. Corner.

“Having his character forced us to do something,” says Brown of Dr. Corner. Brinker agrees, “It made the show a little different.”

Dr. Malcolm Jamal Corner – an obvious riff on the name Malcolm Jamal Warner of Cosby Show fame, and accomplished slam poet in his own right – embodies more of the stuffy, pretentious, take one’s self too seriously archetype of the academic poet. Dr. Corner, a Johns Hopkins University doctorate, and “bestselling author” of a “sci-fi thriller” book ambiguously entitled: Teenage Girls, is in constant conflict with Brown, who calls out Corner’s airs. The “Poetry Corner” segment of the show features the good doctor reading self composed poetry under the isolated glow of a spotlight, while DJ TMAC accompanies mutedly in the background with the keyboard. Dr. Corner then thanks the audience with a deep, self important bow, holding his porkpie hat to his head, and pinning his affected scarf to his jacket. Accolades from Bob, and acrimony from Brown ensue. The deadpan comedic tension of the bit borders on sublime. Such is the nature of art that organically emerges from doing what one loves.

DJ TMAC, played by Tim McDaniel, is the musical accompaniment, playing uncannily out of tune, yet oddly harmonious jingles. His wardrobe garishly appears to have been culled from a Goodwill rack, and his DJ booth area is adorned with a photo of his “family,” that he found on “eHarmony Plus One” which, as the audience sees, is the sample photo insert from a Walmart picture frame. TMAC embodies a somewhat Paul Schaffer-esque role on the show – bantering back and forth with hosts Bob and Brown and the Doctor.

McDaniel explains how he initially got involved with the project. Taking a double major load of classes for both theater and electronic media and broadcasting, he had to take a class in piano, which, he admits, was not really his forte, earning him a grade of a ‘C’. “I took this piano class, and Bob approached me to do the show, thinking I could play piano,” he says with a laugh. His piano playing abilities, however, meld seamlessly with the context of the show. Cacophonous jams introducing segments and breaks. A creative, almost deconstructive reexamination of what makes a late night talk show tick.

Being on public access, Bob and Brown avoids the “cheap” and “shocking” cop-outs seen on reality T.V.; a blandly predictable pabulum arguably blighting the landscape of modern, mainstream T.V. The recurrent threads afforded by natural interactions of Bob, Brown, The Dr., and TMAC; the annoyance had by the repeated “hacking” into the show by masked versions of Brown, McCoy, and McDaniel, known as the “Germans” or “Bruder von Musikzorn” (whose lo-fi “pirating” of the show is a subtle nod to the gritty, real, and sometimes unpolished nature of public access); the absurd physical challenges Brown endures as part of the segment “What Can Andrew Do,” are all byproducts of public access’ liberating nature.

The standalone nature of the work has been compiled on Youtube, while all of the principals are currently pursuing other film, video, and production opportunities. McDaniel has been involved with Extra Life, a local production company, has been working on the feature film Revelation Trail, and is relocating to Los Angeles this June. McCoy has been filming for the Cincinnati Reds, and is forming a production company with a local rapper. Brown has had gigs ranging from Food Network to Spike TV, has been involved with a production company called Piñata Productions, and is working on a feature length film entitled Home. Brinker currently works for radio conglomerate Clear Channel. This burgeoning cohort of talent has, in many ways, utilized Bob & Brown as a training ground – an unmitigated chance to try out new things.

When asked if there will be more Bob and Brown episodes, Brown replied: “If somehow, we were to actually get paid for it, I would feel like I won the lottery.” Brinker and McDaniel nodded in agreement. That’s the litmus of great art: Hope at the possibility of getting paid for a creative endeavor – some comparable living wage, not necessarily a huge salary. The Bob and Brown project embodies pure creativity, and a labor of love – and the resulting product is a well constructed show, with an undeniable comedic edge – and none of it would be possible without public access.

The Bob & Brown Talk Show Bonanza You Tube Channel

Stickball

Basketball is widely regarded as the premier sport in urban scrawls and metropolis’ everywhere for reasons that make much sense-a hoop (home made or playground issued), a ball that bounces, and a few willing bodies are the only prerequisites. Before Dr. Naismith invented round ball, generations of street athletes took the field/concrete pavement of New York City with their own brand of inventive sport.

Long the backdrop for 1950’s period flicks and DeNiro movies, stickball has been as much a part of the Big Apple as Lady Liberty and the Disney-fied Times Square tourist traps. Picture baseball-with some slight adjustments. The bat was a simple broom handle, simultaneously rendering the neighborhood hardware store a sporting goods enterprise. The bases took form in manholes, fire hydrants, and perhaps a Nathan’s hot dog cart, the last one dependant upon the vendor’s temperament. Forget the rawhide baseball, a simple tennis ball or rubber ball would suffice-spaldeen, high bouncer, whatever was around. The rules were…regional. Depending upon the alley or road traffic, homeruns were marked by landmarks, and balls and strikes were judged on a chalk outline, typically on the ground in front of the batter or a wall (if lucky to find one) behind him.

Also contingent upon extenuating circumstances was the style of play. Fungo was entirely up to the batter, who would simply toss the ball and take a whack. Broken windows or rooftops were generally considered to have left the park. More traditionally the pitcher would stand 40 to 50 feet away and toss a one bounce pitch, leaving the batter and his hand/eye coordination the deciding factor as to whether he would wallow in World Series shame like Bill Buckner, or Fall Classic fame like Kirk Gibson.

Beyond the stats was the now lost art of neighborhood unity and family tradition. Stickball did not care whether the player was a shoe shine boy or the borough bigwig with the shiny Lincoln Town Car, as anyone could be a hero. The game was an heirloom that fathers, sons and daughters could share together on a pleasant summer night while the sounds of the city took over the air and the hot asphalt and local pizzeria merged to emit a surprisingly pleasant aroma. The lasting image of the game is its legacy of what America was and could be, an era when everyone banded together to make the best of the situation they were in. The aspiration of many to play baseball, or at least a version of it, regardless of venue or equipment, resulted in a successful strike against the odds, and symbolically showcased American ingenuity.

Beyond the sentiment and nostalgia, any game that can be interrupted by a booming voice proclaiming “Car!” is pretty cool to us.

Ed Debevic’s

Insults hurled at eating patrons are not normally part of a dining experience. Since 1984, this Chicago eatery has been slinging hash and jabs at willing customers at its North Wells Street location. The food is centered on traditional diner fare – burgers, sandwiches, soups, their own brand of chili, fries of various instantiations, sodas – things indigenous to a raucous 1950’s era teen eatery. This homage to that coming of age period of a cohort of Americana is only further mirrored by the brash razzings of the wait staff.

Each waiter and waitress creates their own persona; many are aspiring actors and actresses struggling make a name for themselves in the close knit Chicago theater and improv scene. Those personas, not necessarily adhering strictly to the 1950’s motif, are part of a recurring floor (counter top) musical song and dance act going on throughout overtop the throb of the restaurant. These personally created characters are as unique as the individual, going furlongs beyond the “flair” found ubiquitously in casual dining establishments.

The surliness of the staff strikes a chord with the restaurant goer, by embodying an utter contrast to what “should” take place. And people pay for this. They form lines outside the door. They prepare, and gladly exchange banter with the workers. This deconstruction of dining normativity makes Ed Debevic’s not only a sought after Chicago tourist destination, but also an example of flouting norms, and postmodern performance art. The conflation of the “safe” and “comfortable” nostalgia laden artifacts of the 1950’s, with that of brazen ribbings and rude interactions further complicates the experience. But then, that’s what makes it so appealing.

Images So Very Vicki