Our Cultural Institutions Must Die
This Year of Our Lord, 2020, has revealed quite a few things about us. The recurring theme is that it’s high time our greatest institutions must die. The mighty must fall.
Like every generation before us we Gen Xers are watching those institutions and practices that defined our first and second chapters of life fade to dust or be torn down like old casinos blown to pieces.
Gone are the Blockbuster Videos we flocked to for movies.
Gone are prank calls, Playboy magazines in your stepdad’s sock drawer, and the illusion that in presidential politics, the best man will win.
Gone are the malls we hung out together within, playing Dragon’s Lair in arcades (gone), seeing the latest blockbusters in multiplexes (gone), drinking Orange Julius and eating Sbarro (not gone because that shit has so much preservative the only thing missing from The Planet of the Apes is Chuck Heston gnawing down on a slice of that crummy pizza and washing it down with that odd concoction of Orange and Nuclear Waste).
David Bowie? Dead.
Eddie Van Halen? Deceased.
Keith Richards? Still kicking but soon a young Brendan Fraser will dig him up from a sarcophagus and he’ll open his mouth and scarab beetles will issue forth like a plague.
Ethan Hawke and John Cusack are playing grandfathers now.
Madonna acts like the new stereotypical Karen.
Ferris Bueller is now a representation of white male privilege.
In Chicago, the Second City comedy behemoth is now in a fire sale and I suspect Himmel is right about its fate as well.
The Second City will likely be bought up by an investment firm, similar to Cirque du Soleil. And you know how those investment folks love to shred the arts to bits in the dishonorable pursuit of making more money as fast as possible while squeezing every last ounce of authenticity from long-lauded brands like The Second City.
I came to Chicago in 1989. I auditioned for classes the following year. It was at that Piper’s Alley location that I met Joe Janes, Jeff Hoover, Lori McClain, Kevin Colby, Alina Vitas, Katie Caussin, Jason Meyer, Bob Wilson, and so many others who defined my life in the ‘90s. After two years in classes we branched out to do that thing improv comedians did—start our own group. Like an idiot version of Steppenwolf, we had those big dreams and it was the long legacy of Second City that fueled them.
Across the street where the McDonalds is located was the Stagecoach Diner (we called it the Roachcoach for reasons that seem obvious). It was in that diner, in full view of the famous Second City archway, that we created our live version of Attack of the Fifty-Foot Woman and the earliest versions of WNEP Theater. It was in Donny’s Skybox that Joe and I performed the first of our Locked in a Room with Don Hall and Joe Janes sketch shows as well as productions of Grotesque Lovesongs and Joe’s A Hard Day’s Journey Into Night with a young Jason Sudeikis in the role of Ringo.
I took classes in the Training Center as well as taught them. I saw Chris Farley’s final performance in Chicago there as well as performances by Carrel, Colbert, and Fey. I produced a few weird shows for Kelly Leonard in those hallowed halls and laughed a lifetime’s worth in the theaters.
It is wholly dismissive of the tainted legacy that others bring to the nostalgia table (they certainly have an axe to grind even as it is not mine) but I had a great time at Second City. I figure that some people got really ill eating at the Roachcoach but I never did and my recollection is every bit as valid as theirs.
Yes, our institutions must die in the same way that Kansas farmers burn their fields every few years so that the ash improves the soil. My guess is that the current crop of performers and teachers, so fully in throe of the humorless pursuit of justice and equity, will bury the place rather than regrow. It takes a sense of humor to build a comedy space and, unfortunately, unending outrage burns through humor like a wildfire torches pretty much all of California.
They may try and I wish them well. As a cautionary piece of unsolicited advise I’d tell them to embrace the history of the place rather than erase it. The New Testament only exists in the presence of the Old Testament and all that.
I won’t miss so many of the institutions of my early chapters because some of them have been updated in better ways while others proved to be less necessary than they seemed at the time. Updated and better include gyms, microbreweries, and grocery stores. Less necessary include start-up theaters, coffee shops, and mega-events like EDC in Vegas or Taste of Chicago.
The best and worst part of getting old is that the memories of a life lived are with you until you get COVID, go to Walter Reed, and take a bunch of experimental steroids that make you a drooling idiot. That, and at some point, there are more memories than there is life left to live.
