The premise of the 2009 film, The Hurt Locker, is that “war is a drug.”
The protagonist of the film, SFC William James, is serving in Iraq. His job is to disarm improvised explosive devices or IEDs. Obviously not everybody assigned to this specialty survives a tour of duty. But James does and so he returns to the United States and civilian life.
But civilian life does not agree with him. One day he is shopping in the supermarket. He stands in the cereal aisle. “Muzak” plays over the loudspeaker. He is bored. He decides to return to Iraq.
I think something similar happens with trial lawyers. We talk about seeking justice for our clients and there may be some truth to that. But trials are also a rush. Trials are a battle. Trials are war.
By the time a plaintiff’s lawyer takes a case to trial, he has invested at least tens of thousands of dollars into the litigation expenses: filing fees, depositions, transcripts, experts. And if it’s a medical malpractice case, the chances of obtaining a plaintiff’s verdict, of any size, is only about 25%. The odds are better playing blackjack. Many trial lawyers tap huge credit lines in order to fund their cases. Sleepless nights are the rule rather than the exception. To non-lawyers, this may not make a lot of sense.
And so, a trial lawyer may reach a point in his or her 50’s or 60’s where retirement looks attractive. There is money in the bank, the kids are through with college, the house is paid off and there is no credit card or other debt.
“Why risk putting money into a trial?” the lawyer may ask. “At this stage in my life I will have a hard time earning it back.”
Why? Because retirement is boring and trials are in the blood
Trials are a drug.
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
An Older Person's Film
Last Sunday night was the Academy Awards. There were ten best picture nominations, but everybody knew that it was really going to be a two-horse race. The winner was either going to be (a) The King’s Speech or (b) The Social Network. Both were based upon true stories. Both were excellent films.
After The King’s Speech won the academy award for best picture, I received a Facebook post. The person making the post described The King’s Speech as being “an older person’s film.” An older person’s film? What’s that?
The more I thought about this quote, the more I became disturbed by it. I felt that The King’s Speech had a universal appeal. It was about a good, but insecure man struggling to overcome a stutter. And because of his social position as a member of the British royal family, he could not withdraw or hide from his problem. He had to confront this adversity and either defeat it or be defeated by it.
The Social Network, on the other hand, was about America’s youngest billionaire. There really was not a likable character in the film. But the story, about an individual who amassed an incredible fortune while stabbing both his friends and enemies in the back, was nonetheless fascinating.
And so, if The King's Speech was an "older person's film" was The Social Network a “younger person’s film?”
Was this year's Academy Awards a vicarious contest between generations?
Just sayin'
After The King’s Speech won the academy award for best picture, I received a Facebook post. The person making the post described The King’s Speech as being “an older person’s film.” An older person’s film? What’s that?
The more I thought about this quote, the more I became disturbed by it. I felt that The King’s Speech had a universal appeal. It was about a good, but insecure man struggling to overcome a stutter. And because of his social position as a member of the British royal family, he could not withdraw or hide from his problem. He had to confront this adversity and either defeat it or be defeated by it.
The Social Network, on the other hand, was about America’s youngest billionaire. There really was not a likable character in the film. But the story, about an individual who amassed an incredible fortune while stabbing both his friends and enemies in the back, was nonetheless fascinating.
And so, if The King's Speech was an "older person's film" was The Social Network a “younger person’s film?”
Was this year's Academy Awards a vicarious contest between generations?
Just sayin'
Friday, October 15, 2010
THE BEGINNING OF THE WORLD
When I was a brand new lawyer, in the 1970's, personal injury cases would settle with the plaintiff signing a release. This was before computer generated documents, and so the release typically consisted of a one-page "fill in the blank" form. One would insert the plaintiff's name, the name of the person being released, the date and location of the accident. The plaintiff would then sign the release, the insurance company would issue it's check and that would be that.
But times have changed and life is no longer so simple. Now when a plaintiff settles a personal injury claim, he typically receives a ten or twenty page release, carefully prepared by an insurance company attorney who apparently has a lot of time on his hands. The release is broken up into different sections and subsections and even subsections to the subsections. Everything is organized using a sequence of carefully numbered paragraphs that all look very official.
But for me the most interesting change in this new generation of releases is that the plaintiff no longer simply discharges the defendant for injuries caused in a specific accident. Now there is typically an additional paragraph in which the plaintiff releases the defendant from any and all causes of action he might have against the defendant "from the beginning of the world."
Yes, that's right. The beginning of the world. Not wrongs committed within the last ten years or fifty years or one hundred years, but going back all the way to "the beginning of the world."
I don't know when the world began, but I suspect that none of my clients were alive back then, let alone the defendants that they are suing. Yet these new releases allow for the possibility that the plaintiff and the defendant walked with dinosaurs during the Mesozoic age. And not only that, but that the defendant did the plaintiff some wrong way back then, so that now a historic cause of action needs to be released in this, the 21st century.
Is this ridiculous? Absolutely.
No wonder lawyers are so disliked
But times have changed and life is no longer so simple. Now when a plaintiff settles a personal injury claim, he typically receives a ten or twenty page release, carefully prepared by an insurance company attorney who apparently has a lot of time on his hands. The release is broken up into different sections and subsections and even subsections to the subsections. Everything is organized using a sequence of carefully numbered paragraphs that all look very official.
But for me the most interesting change in this new generation of releases is that the plaintiff no longer simply discharges the defendant for injuries caused in a specific accident. Now there is typically an additional paragraph in which the plaintiff releases the defendant from any and all causes of action he might have against the defendant "from the beginning of the world."
Yes, that's right. The beginning of the world. Not wrongs committed within the last ten years or fifty years or one hundred years, but going back all the way to "the beginning of the world."
I don't know when the world began, but I suspect that none of my clients were alive back then, let alone the defendants that they are suing. Yet these new releases allow for the possibility that the plaintiff and the defendant walked with dinosaurs during the Mesozoic age. And not only that, but that the defendant did the plaintiff some wrong way back then, so that now a historic cause of action needs to be released in this, the 21st century.
Is this ridiculous? Absolutely.
No wonder lawyers are so disliked
Saturday, July 10, 2010
I WAS NOT TRANSFORMED
When I came to my office in downtown Chicago this morning, there was a lot going on. As it turns out, the film Transformers 3 was being shot here.
If what I saw was any indication, it appears that Chicago will suffer much damage because of these transformers. The streets were full of “craters” which looked like bombs had fallen on LaSalle and Washington Streets. Some craters contained parts of cars or bicycles. In the meantime, twenty year-old kids, wearing baseball hats, were telling the passers by that they could not take photographs. The rebels among us took pictures anyway. But most people submitted to this pretentious display of authority and put their cameras away.
Helicopters flew overhead, presumably taking some shots of my destroyed city. Motor vehicles moved very s-l-o-w-l-y around the craters, but no doubt they will appear to be moving at forty or fifty miles per hour when the film is finally released. A forklift pushed a van sideways on its tires. I can only guess that in the movie this van will have first been hit by something or other.
A lot of people seemed to be working on this film. Trailers were everywhere, but alas, no stars. Perhaps they were sleeping in at The Four Seasons while lesser beings completed the grunt work. And transformers? Not a single one in sight.
I did not see Transformers, or for that matter, Transformers 2. I do not expect that I will see Transformers 3 either. Or maybe curiousity will get the best of me because of what I observed this morning. Maybe Transformers 3 will even be in 3-D; God knows everything else is.
I love movies, but unfortunately cannot find anything to see. Everything at the theater has a 2, 3 or 4 tagged onto the title. Or the film is about vampires. They call these “popcorn” movies. That means you don’t have to think as the reel unspools; you just have to eat.
Somewhere in this great country a man or woman is shooting a full-length feature film with an HD digital camera. But downtown Chicago has not been blocked off for the effort, nor has traffic been redirected. No permit has been secured, and if the police ask what’s going on, the canned response is that they are shooting a wedding video. The film may or may not be autobiographical, but at the very least it will be deeply personal. It will be character driven and will most likely deal with a major change in somebody’s life, or maybe even redemption. The entire cost of he film will be less than one of those “craters” I saw this morning.
Sorry Transformers, but that’s the film I want to see.
If what I saw was any indication, it appears that Chicago will suffer much damage because of these transformers. The streets were full of “craters” which looked like bombs had fallen on LaSalle and Washington Streets. Some craters contained parts of cars or bicycles. In the meantime, twenty year-old kids, wearing baseball hats, were telling the passers by that they could not take photographs. The rebels among us took pictures anyway. But most people submitted to this pretentious display of authority and put their cameras away.
Helicopters flew overhead, presumably taking some shots of my destroyed city. Motor vehicles moved very s-l-o-w-l-y around the craters, but no doubt they will appear to be moving at forty or fifty miles per hour when the film is finally released. A forklift pushed a van sideways on its tires. I can only guess that in the movie this van will have first been hit by something or other.
A lot of people seemed to be working on this film. Trailers were everywhere, but alas, no stars. Perhaps they were sleeping in at The Four Seasons while lesser beings completed the grunt work. And transformers? Not a single one in sight.
I did not see Transformers, or for that matter, Transformers 2. I do not expect that I will see Transformers 3 either. Or maybe curiousity will get the best of me because of what I observed this morning. Maybe Transformers 3 will even be in 3-D; God knows everything else is.
I love movies, but unfortunately cannot find anything to see. Everything at the theater has a 2, 3 or 4 tagged onto the title. Or the film is about vampires. They call these “popcorn” movies. That means you don’t have to think as the reel unspools; you just have to eat.
Somewhere in this great country a man or woman is shooting a full-length feature film with an HD digital camera. But downtown Chicago has not been blocked off for the effort, nor has traffic been redirected. No permit has been secured, and if the police ask what’s going on, the canned response is that they are shooting a wedding video. The film may or may not be autobiographical, but at the very least it will be deeply personal. It will be character driven and will most likely deal with a major change in somebody’s life, or maybe even redemption. The entire cost of he film will be less than one of those “craters” I saw this morning.
Sorry Transformers, but that’s the film I want to see.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Herman's Hermits
In the 1960’s there was a “British invasion” of music into the United States.
It started with the Beatles of course, followed by other talented performers that included The Dave Clark Five, Gerry & the Pacemakers, Freddy and the Dreamers and of course, Herman’s Hermits.
The lead singer of Herman’s Hermits was then a teenager by the name of Peter Noone. Peter is now 62 years of age, but he still tours with a band that continues to be called Herman’s Hermits. Last night he performed in a small park adjacent to the Village Hall in the suburb in which I live, Elk Grove Village, Illinois.
The park was also next to the public library. Before the show I was killing some time in there. At one point I was in the same room as an Asian man of about 40, who looked out the windows and wondered about the commotion outside. He asked me what was going on. I told him that Herman’s Hermits were about to perform.
“Who?” he asked?
“Herman’s Hermits.”
“Who are they?”
“You know. Sixties band. They sung songs like Mrs. Brown You Have a Lovely Daughter.”
He had never heard of that song.
It was to be a free concert, but the weather did not cooperate. It rained. And when the band started to perform about half an hour late, it was on a small, portable, covered stage with the Union Jack serving as a backdrop. Peter then began to sing The Ballad of New Orleans, an old Johnny Horton song about the war of 1812.
We fired our guns and the British kept a comin’
There wasn’t quite as many as there was a while ago.
Suddenly Peter quit singing. “I always hated that song,” he declared. But later he would congratulate America on its July 4th birthday. Then he followed this up with a reference to the musical British Invasion of the 1960’s, “which was more successful.”
But here’s the thing: in the 1960’s Peter Noone and Herman’s Hermits were a headline act. In 2010 they were a freebee concert in the park. And yet the show that Peter put on with his current version of the Hermits was as enthusiastic and uncompromising as any performance I have ever seen. One sensed that Peter just loved singing the old songs; his and others.
And then the magic occurred. My wife and daughter moved up close to the stage and I followed. They then began to dance, not with each other but by themselves. As I watched my wife move, she did so in the exact same way as when she was a teenager and we were dating. Then Peter encouraged everybody to sing with him and everybody did. All of the hits: Silhouettes, Henry the Eighth, There's a Kind of Hush and more. And for one miraculous instant, time flipped backward.
Yes, we were all young again. In that wonderful, marvelous, magical rain.
It started with the Beatles of course, followed by other talented performers that included The Dave Clark Five, Gerry & the Pacemakers, Freddy and the Dreamers and of course, Herman’s Hermits.
The lead singer of Herman’s Hermits was then a teenager by the name of Peter Noone. Peter is now 62 years of age, but he still tours with a band that continues to be called Herman’s Hermits. Last night he performed in a small park adjacent to the Village Hall in the suburb in which I live, Elk Grove Village, Illinois.
The park was also next to the public library. Before the show I was killing some time in there. At one point I was in the same room as an Asian man of about 40, who looked out the windows and wondered about the commotion outside. He asked me what was going on. I told him that Herman’s Hermits were about to perform.
“Who?” he asked?
“Herman’s Hermits.”
“Who are they?”
“You know. Sixties band. They sung songs like Mrs. Brown You Have a Lovely Daughter.”
He had never heard of that song.
It was to be a free concert, but the weather did not cooperate. It rained. And when the band started to perform about half an hour late, it was on a small, portable, covered stage with the Union Jack serving as a backdrop. Peter then began to sing The Ballad of New Orleans, an old Johnny Horton song about the war of 1812.
We fired our guns and the British kept a comin’
There wasn’t quite as many as there was a while ago.
Suddenly Peter quit singing. “I always hated that song,” he declared. But later he would congratulate America on its July 4th birthday. Then he followed this up with a reference to the musical British Invasion of the 1960’s, “which was more successful.”
But here’s the thing: in the 1960’s Peter Noone and Herman’s Hermits were a headline act. In 2010 they were a freebee concert in the park. And yet the show that Peter put on with his current version of the Hermits was as enthusiastic and uncompromising as any performance I have ever seen. One sensed that Peter just loved singing the old songs; his and others.
And then the magic occurred. My wife and daughter moved up close to the stage and I followed. They then began to dance, not with each other but by themselves. As I watched my wife move, she did so in the exact same way as when she was a teenager and we were dating. Then Peter encouraged everybody to sing with him and everybody did. All of the hits: Silhouettes, Henry the Eighth, There's a Kind of Hush and more. And for one miraculous instant, time flipped backward.
Yes, we were all young again. In that wonderful, marvelous, magical rain.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Bricks and Urns
1. Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door. True or false?
2. No good deed goes unpunished. True or false?
The answer to the first quote is false. As every businessman knows, it isn’t the quality of the product that drives sales but the success of the marketing campaign. Nowhere has this been more evidence than with the Chicago National League Ball Club, LLC, more commonly known as the Chicago Cubs baseball team.
The Cubs have not won a World Series for over 100 years. They have not won the National League pennant for almost 65 years. If they were in the mousetrap business, this would mark an appallingly long time of waiting to catch a mouse. But business is good nonetheless. Indeed, the Cubs have drawn over three million fans into their park for six years in a row. They have not drawn less then two million fans in fourteen years. So powerful is the Cub magnet that even a homeless person in Chicago will scrape up a c-note to watch the lovable “Cubbies” lose in the rain.
The better baseball team is on the south side of Chicago, namely the Chicago White Sox. But even with a more modern ballpark and a winning team, the Sox have struggled to compete with the “Cubbies.” Example: In 2005 the Chicago White Sox won the American League pennant and swept the Houston Astros in the World Series. It was obviously a good year for the southsiders who drew 2,342,834 into their park. But on the north side the “Cubbies” experienced more than 3,100,000 fans moving through the Wrigley Field turnstiles. And this with a team that was fourth in its division, unable to win more games that it had lost.
It was not always this way. For every year from 1953 to 1967, the Cubs failed to draw even a million fans into their park. That was before the marketeers took over.
This year, 2010, we have been told (or sold, depending upon how one looks at it) that being a Cub fan is “a way of life.” This "way of life" does not end with ticket and concession sales. The “Cubbies” now operate “Cub Stores” at which they sell Cub paraphernalia.
Indeed, the marketing of Cub merchandise has become a cradle to grave operation. There are bottles and bibs for newborn Cub fans. And at the other end of life’s spectrum is Cub cremation urns. Holy cow.
The answer to the second quote is true. I am a season ticket holder with the Chicago White Sox – Chicago’s better team. And although the White Sox are winning, it is sometimes difficult to even give Sox tickets away because everybody in Chicago wants to see the “Cubbies” instead. There are three exceptions to this rule, and those are the three games that the Cubs play against the Sox at U.S. Cellular Field each year. One of those games was last night. I gave one of my valued tickets to my wife, a Cub fan, and took her to the game. How nice of me!
But the White Sox beat the “Cubbies” and in the process of doing so extended a winning streak to eleven (11) games. And so by the time the ballpark lights went out, my wife was threatening to place my cremation ashes into one of those Cub urns. In retrospect I clearly should have given my prized ticket to somebody else.
There is only one solution, and that is that I must outlive my wife. This will be difficult because women generally live longer than men and I am already five years older than Ms. Sipsa. So starting tomorrow I am working out every day. I am also reducing red meat and introducing more vegetables and fiber into my diet. A Cub urn to a White Sox fan is akin to a cross being placed before a vampire.
But on the way out of the ballpark I discovered a means of revenge. Surrounding the 2005 World Series statue are a series of bricks, purchased by Sox fans and upon which are inscribed the names of Sox faithful. Thus for a small donation to White Sox Charities, Ms. Sipsa can be permanently enshrined as a fan to Chicago’s better team. Moreover, there are a lot of bricks there. So unless Ms. Sipsa has the patience to visit the park regularly and read each and every one of them, she will never know.
Go Sox!
2. No good deed goes unpunished. True or false?
The answer to the first quote is false. As every businessman knows, it isn’t the quality of the product that drives sales but the success of the marketing campaign. Nowhere has this been more evidence than with the Chicago National League Ball Club, LLC, more commonly known as the Chicago Cubs baseball team.
The Cubs have not won a World Series for over 100 years. They have not won the National League pennant for almost 65 years. If they were in the mousetrap business, this would mark an appallingly long time of waiting to catch a mouse. But business is good nonetheless. Indeed, the Cubs have drawn over three million fans into their park for six years in a row. They have not drawn less then two million fans in fourteen years. So powerful is the Cub magnet that even a homeless person in Chicago will scrape up a c-note to watch the lovable “Cubbies” lose in the rain.
The better baseball team is on the south side of Chicago, namely the Chicago White Sox. But even with a more modern ballpark and a winning team, the Sox have struggled to compete with the “Cubbies.” Example: In 2005 the Chicago White Sox won the American League pennant and swept the Houston Astros in the World Series. It was obviously a good year for the southsiders who drew 2,342,834 into their park. But on the north side the “Cubbies” experienced more than 3,100,000 fans moving through the Wrigley Field turnstiles. And this with a team that was fourth in its division, unable to win more games that it had lost.
It was not always this way. For every year from 1953 to 1967, the Cubs failed to draw even a million fans into their park. That was before the marketeers took over.
This year, 2010, we have been told (or sold, depending upon how one looks at it) that being a Cub fan is “a way of life.” This "way of life" does not end with ticket and concession sales. The “Cubbies” now operate “Cub Stores” at which they sell Cub paraphernalia.
Indeed, the marketing of Cub merchandise has become a cradle to grave operation. There are bottles and bibs for newborn Cub fans. And at the other end of life’s spectrum is Cub cremation urns. Holy cow.
The answer to the second quote is true. I am a season ticket holder with the Chicago White Sox – Chicago’s better team. And although the White Sox are winning, it is sometimes difficult to even give Sox tickets away because everybody in Chicago wants to see the “Cubbies” instead. There are three exceptions to this rule, and those are the three games that the Cubs play against the Sox at U.S. Cellular Field each year. One of those games was last night. I gave one of my valued tickets to my wife, a Cub fan, and took her to the game. How nice of me!
But the White Sox beat the “Cubbies” and in the process of doing so extended a winning streak to eleven (11) games. And so by the time the ballpark lights went out, my wife was threatening to place my cremation ashes into one of those Cub urns. In retrospect I clearly should have given my prized ticket to somebody else.
There is only one solution, and that is that I must outlive my wife. This will be difficult because women generally live longer than men and I am already five years older than Ms. Sipsa. So starting tomorrow I am working out every day. I am also reducing red meat and introducing more vegetables and fiber into my diet. A Cub urn to a White Sox fan is akin to a cross being placed before a vampire.
But on the way out of the ballpark I discovered a means of revenge. Surrounding the 2005 World Series statue are a series of bricks, purchased by Sox fans and upon which are inscribed the names of Sox faithful. Thus for a small donation to White Sox Charities, Ms. Sipsa can be permanently enshrined as a fan to Chicago’s better team. Moreover, there are a lot of bricks there. So unless Ms. Sipsa has the patience to visit the park regularly and read each and every one of them, she will never know.
Go Sox!
Saturday, June 26, 2010
A Wine & Cheese Woodstock
Mapquest declares that the travel time from my house in Elk Grove Village, Illinois to Ravinia Park is 42 minutes. Last night it proved to be about three hours, roughly the time of a flight from Chicago to Las Vegas.
It wasn't pretty. And blame it on the blues, the Moody Blues. To say that traffic congested in Highland Park, home of the Ravinia festival, would be an understatement. The Ravinia parking lots were filled and it seemed as though the police were just looking for some place to put everybody. And so we inched through the village for an hour or more before being directed to the Highland Park High School which was miles away from Ravinia. We left Elk Grove Village at 5:00 p.m. for an 8:00 p.m. concert. We barely arrived in time.
Ravinia Park is kind of a unique place. It consists of a 3,200 seat "pavilion" where the musical performance can be observed in a traditional theater setting. Everybody else brings tables, chairs, picnic baskets and blankets and settles in on the remaining 36 acres of lawn. An upscale crowd is attracted to this venue. The appearance is reminiscent of Woodstock except that nobody is naked, everybody is clean, and wine and cheese are being consumed instead of LSD and marijuana.
By the time we got to Ravinia, we weren't half a million strong. Or maybe we were. God knows it was packed in there and we looked jealously at little patches of grass that were too small to hold our party of four. And so we walked further and further to the outer reaches, near the perimeter fence, where we laid claim to a picnic table and rejoiced in our good fortune. But once the Moody Blues started to play, we realized why the table was available. There were no speakers in this immediate area. The music could be heard from other more distant speakers, but faintly. The Moody Blues were our dinner music
In some sense the Moody Blues seemed out of place at Ravinia. You see Ravinia is the summer home of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, so classical music tends to be the order of the day. On the other hand the music of the Moody Blues has traditionally been a blend of rock and classical orchestration. But when I walked to the Pavilion area to try and get a look at the band, it seemed that the orchestra was probably on tape.
The Moody Blues are old now. And so was their crowd. Their first set lasted about 45 minutes and then they took a break. They probably needed it. Then they played a second set. And about halfway through the second set people started to leave the festival in droves, like they were trying to beat a 10:00 p.m. curfew. This made no sense to me after having battled to get into the concert in the first place. Or maybe these folks wanted to get to their cars to avoid a repeat of the arrival experience.
The music was good, but I noticed something. When the Moody Blues sung their signature song, "Nights in White Satin", they omitted the poetic epilogue which includes the phrase, "Senior citizens wish they were young." Yes, the Moody Blues are senior citizens now.
Incidentally, we were transported to and from the festival by shuttle buses. There were long lines to board these buses and it was almost amusing to watch people, including ourselves, struggle to pack into those buses with tables, chairs, picnic baskets and blankets. The comfort level left much to be desired. I may not be returning to Ravinia Park anytime soon.
It wasn't pretty. And blame it on the blues, the Moody Blues. To say that traffic congested in Highland Park, home of the Ravinia festival, would be an understatement. The Ravinia parking lots were filled and it seemed as though the police were just looking for some place to put everybody. And so we inched through the village for an hour or more before being directed to the Highland Park High School which was miles away from Ravinia. We left Elk Grove Village at 5:00 p.m. for an 8:00 p.m. concert. We barely arrived in time.
Ravinia Park is kind of a unique place. It consists of a 3,200 seat "pavilion" where the musical performance can be observed in a traditional theater setting. Everybody else brings tables, chairs, picnic baskets and blankets and settles in on the remaining 36 acres of lawn. An upscale crowd is attracted to this venue. The appearance is reminiscent of Woodstock except that nobody is naked, everybody is clean, and wine and cheese are being consumed instead of LSD and marijuana.
By the time we got to Ravinia, we weren't half a million strong. Or maybe we were. God knows it was packed in there and we looked jealously at little patches of grass that were too small to hold our party of four. And so we walked further and further to the outer reaches, near the perimeter fence, where we laid claim to a picnic table and rejoiced in our good fortune. But once the Moody Blues started to play, we realized why the table was available. There were no speakers in this immediate area. The music could be heard from other more distant speakers, but faintly. The Moody Blues were our dinner music
In some sense the Moody Blues seemed out of place at Ravinia. You see Ravinia is the summer home of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, so classical music tends to be the order of the day. On the other hand the music of the Moody Blues has traditionally been a blend of rock and classical orchestration. But when I walked to the Pavilion area to try and get a look at the band, it seemed that the orchestra was probably on tape.
The Moody Blues are old now. And so was their crowd. Their first set lasted about 45 minutes and then they took a break. They probably needed it. Then they played a second set. And about halfway through the second set people started to leave the festival in droves, like they were trying to beat a 10:00 p.m. curfew. This made no sense to me after having battled to get into the concert in the first place. Or maybe these folks wanted to get to their cars to avoid a repeat of the arrival experience.
The music was good, but I noticed something. When the Moody Blues sung their signature song, "Nights in White Satin", they omitted the poetic epilogue which includes the phrase, "Senior citizens wish they were young." Yes, the Moody Blues are senior citizens now.
Incidentally, we were transported to and from the festival by shuttle buses. There were long lines to board these buses and it was almost amusing to watch people, including ourselves, struggle to pack into those buses with tables, chairs, picnic baskets and blankets. The comfort level left much to be desired. I may not be returning to Ravinia Park anytime soon.
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