This snapshot by Rob Mendel (above) appears to have been taken at The John Lennon Auditorium at 703 Howard Street in Evanston, Illinois on what looks to be New Year’s Day 1982. (Note my Beggars’ Holiday hair and beard.) My 18-month old daughter Maura appears to be grasping a champagne bottle in her right hand, the stage looks as though it’s set up for a Rockme gig, and the numerous empty beverage containers and crumpled gift-wrapping all suggest a big holiday party the night before. (Maura certainly didn’t close the party, so this must be the day after.) Of course, I’m on clean-up duty. (I trust the amazing Rush Pearson will let us know if my photo analysis is correct.)
30 years after this picture was taken — and just one year ago — I started this blog.
So far, it’s been a fine voyage.
As of this writing, Paul’s Voyage of Discovery & Etc. has attracted over 22,250 views. I’ve made 73 posts and readers have contributed 565 comments. That’s a pretty healthy start — and I’m grateful for everyone’s interest, enthusiasm, and participation in this admittedly idiosyncratic forum.
This is not the real subscription sign up box. The real one is further to the right. And up a little...
I’m especially gratified by the 63 subscribers who have signed on to have my posts automatically delivered to them via e-mail. (And when Mark Lancaster gets his e-mail address straightened out, we’ll be back to 64.) Are you a subscriber? If not — just look to your right at the photo of the saluting Matey, then look below the photo and follow the simple instructions to “Hop Aboard!” I know most of us just can’t get enough e-mails stuffed into our inboxes, but I promise my posts will be at least marginally more entertaining than the daily onslaught of Viagra ads, MoveOn broadsides, replica watch ads, and assorted unrelenting spam you’re already inundated with.
My posts on this blog largely stuck to the main topics I established at the outset: history, adventure, politics and rock & roll — including a four-part history of The Practical Theatre Company. And to what type of posts were readers of this blog most attracted? What follows is a list of The Top 12 Posts of 2010, listed in order of the most views. Taken as a whole, they represent a sort of oddball Year-in-Review.
THE TOP TEN POSTS OF 2010
Note: Just click on each the title of each post to access the original article.
1. The Saints Come Marching In…
The New Orleans Saints got 2010 off to a great start by winning the Super Bowl. So, why does a man who was born in Cleveland, went to college and met his wife in Chicago, and moved to Los Angeles twenty years ago care if the New Orleans Saints finally won a Super Bowl after decades of epic gridiron failure? Simple: my daddy was New Orleans born and raised. Who dat say what about dem Saints?
2. All About The Rockme Foundation
It’s not possible to write everything about Riffmaster & The Rockme Foundation in one article, but I tried my best in this post to tell the basics of the band’s ongoing legend. A spring reunion gig at SPACE in Evanston was the catalyst for telling the story. The band is making plans to play SPACE again this year. Rockme-mania lives.
3. The Practical Theatre Co. Part 1
One of my goals this past year was to tell the story of The Practical Theatre from start to finish. (Is it ever really finished?) This first chapter covered the period from the company’s founding and the establishment of The John Lennon Auditorium — to just before our 1982 comedy revue, The Golden 50th Anniversary Jubilee, brought the PTC to SNL.
4. Baseball Season Opens: Of Mud Hens & More…
Readers loved those Mud Hens. What was written as a tribute to The Practical Theatre Company’s contribution to the Chicago Theatre 16-inch Softball League became a post that hundreds of Toledo Mud Hens fans found online, attracted to the info and photos of Toledo Mud Hens history — especially that picture of Jamie Farr. Go figure. Cluck! Cluck! Cluck!
5. History & Honeymoon: Part Three
20 years ago, my wife Victoria and I went to Gettysburg and other Civil War battlefields on our honeymoon! It’s true. I needed no other assurance that I had married the perfect woman. On our 20th anniversary we returned to Gettysburg. Now both students of the battle, we walked the battlefield on July 1, 2 and 3, 2010 on the 147th anniversary of that critical conflict. My four-part account of our battlefield tramping became one of the most popular items on the blog.
6. The Vic & Paul Show
After more than two decades off the stage, Victoria and I once again wrote and performed in an original musical comedy review, The Vic & Paul Show, in June at PUSH Lounge in Woodland Hills. It was the most fun we’ve had in years. We hope to bring the show to Chicago sometime in 2011. If you’re curious about what the show looked like — there are a series of clips on my YouTube channel. Click here to get there.
7. “I have not yet begun to fight!”
History and politics are two of my greatest passions — and this article combined the two. I’m gratified that so many people have continued to find it and read it since it was first posted on January 20, 2010 at the time of President Obama’s first State of the Union Address.
8. Le Salon de Crawford
I wrote this tribute to the incredible Crawford family early in the year — and I feel as though I must already write another. Ron and Sydney Crawford and their fabulous children are a gift that keeps on giving. I cannot imagine what this blog would have looked like in 2010 without all those wonderful Ron Crawford drawings lifting each post into the realm of true art. We love Ron & Syd. And we can’t say it enough.
9. Will California Buy a Used CEO this Election Year?
In an otherwise bleak mid-term election for progressives, California turned back the conservative tide by rejecting the self-funding, millionaire ex-CEO candidates, Meg Whitman for Governor and Carly Fiorina for Senator. Instead, liberal Democrat Barbara Boxer was returned to the U.S. Senate — and former “Governor Moonbeam” Jerry Brown was sent back to the California governor’s mansion (where he refused to live back in the 70’s). Maybe Jerry will pass on the mansion again. But thank goodness California passed on Meg and Carly.
10. The Practical Theatre Co. Part 3
This installment of my Practical Theatre history covered the insanely creative and productive period from the aftermath of the PTC’s headline-making success in 1982-83 to the closing of The John Lennon Auditorium in 1985. Looking back, it’s hard to believe a bunch of inexperienced, counterculturally-inclined twenty-somethings accomplished so much in so little time. That Practical spirit lives on today — and I hope this blog has helped in some small way to keep it alive.
11. The Matey’s Log: Sailing Season Begins
This blog has a nautical theme for one reason: Captain George Moll, who invited me to sail with him some years back, and instilled in me a love of the sea that had first been aroused by my reading of the entire Patrick O’Brian canon. I am grateful to Captain George for allowing me to serve as a crewman aboard his fleet of racing sailboats — and my accounts of several of our races proved to me among the most popular series of posts on the blog this year. And did I mention we won this year’s TGIS Series Championship? Hats off to Captain George!
12. A New Day of Glory for the Great (you heard me right) Cleveland Browns!
Great football teams bookend this list. When my beloved Cleveland Browns upset the defending Super Bowl Champion New Orleans Saints in the early part of the 2010 NFL season, I was moved to write this remembrance of the Browns’ glorious past. Otto Graham, Jim Brown, Leroy Kelly, Brian Sipe and Bernie Kosar are just a handful of the memorable stars that made history with the Cleveland Browns. Now, it’s up to Colt McCoy and Peyton Hillis to write the next glorious chapter.
So, that’s the best of 2010. Stay tuned. Subscribe. Post those replies!
Here’s to another fine voyage in 2011!
Holy cry-eye! Come here, take a look once! We’re takin’ our message to the Capitol Dome…
Wisconsin native, Practical Theatre veteran, and musical genius Steve Rashid’s pro-union marching song for the Cheddar Revolution was recently played on Thom Hartmann’s national radio show. But more people need to hear it. And the folks on the front lines in Madison could use a good laugh.
The Northwestern University Dance Marathon will be held this weekend, and my daughter Emilia is one of the emcees for the event. She and her fellow emcee, Jesse Swedlund, shot this bit of video fun in preparation for the Big Event.
Paul's Voyage of Discovery & Etc. 
A Wild Winter Weekend in the Windy City!
These pictures don’t quite capture the wondrous sight we beheld – but they’ll have to do.
This video was taken at the corner of Central Street and Central Park.
And BTW – these are not rolling hills dusted with snow. This is a flat parking lot on which they just dumped these man-made mountains of snow. The Evanston kids were loving it! King of the hill!
Brad and I had been on campus for the great Blizzard of ’79, so this fabulous frosting brought back many snowed-under undergraduate memories.
We left Chicago on Monday, February 7th – and it was snowing again. Here’s Steve’s neighborhood on Hartzell, just before the flakes began to fall…
In this video, shot in front of Steve’s house, you can see the big flakes falling. It was time for Steve’s industrious neighbor to get his snow blower out again – and time for Brad and me to get out of town while we still could.
Getting back to the relative warmth of a February night in Los Angeles, I hurried to the Terminal 4 parking garage and found that my car battery was dead. As I waited for AAA to arrive, I was comforted by the thought that at least I wasn’t waiting while stuck in a three-foot drift on a slushy road in Chicago. And that I didn’t end up like one of those unfortunates snowbound on Lake Shore Drive.
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Tagged as Blizzard of '79, Brad Hall, Chicago, Emilia Barrosse, Evanston, Northwestern, O'Hare Airport, Paul Barrosse, Rock Me, snow, snow storm, Steve Rashid, thundersnow