The Hideout

A Scientist (Dr. Mika Tosca) Walks into a Bar – The Hideout – September 14, 2021

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Professor and climate scientist, Dr. Mika Tosca, walked into the bar (well, really the outdoor patio of the bar) and kept talking as long as it took her to redeem the three drink tickets evidently provided to her by the establishment for her appearance. And they say teachers are underpaid.

A self-described rambler, Tosca, touched upon jet streams, jet travel, polar vortexes, hurricanes, wildfires, the ozone layer, particulates in the troposphere, and the Impossible Whopper, while noting that she prefers the term global warming to climate change because it sounds scarier.

Though Tosca, who works at the School of the Art Institute, optimistically explained how artists can generate a new vision of the future that can inspire change in the face of our present-day challenges, she also threw in the word apocalypse about a dozen times.

And, unfortunately, she didn’t offer any grand solutions, consistent with her suggestion that scientists aren’t very creative. But she did let us know where, online, we could see thermal camera videos of people farting.

Erwin Helfer w/ Devil in a Woodpile – The Hideout (Patio Show) – September 2, 2021

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Halfway through the band’s first set, Rick “Cookin” Sherry, the leader of Devil in a Woodpile, lamented about the omnipresence of the internet, computers, and the binary number system, informing us, as if we hadn’t already figured it out, that their music was from the analog era.

Sherry’s vocal intonations also were decidedly old, unique, and lots of fun. And his fondness of simpler times is reflected by the fact that all the instruments he plays – clarinet, harmonica, kazoo, washboard – are acoustic.

I double-checked, and even the washboard has an electric version. I need to look further into that. It would take up a lot less room than my washing machine, and have fewer moving parts to break down, except my own parts might be more likely to break down from overuse.

Sherry kept mentioning that Helfer was on his way, and, just when we thought it might be a scam, despite the sight of the piano sitting untouched on the patio stage, Erwin appeared, walked past us, and then disappeared inside for another 20 minutes, eventually emerging, and, without a single word, sitting down and leaping, or rather easing, given his 85 years, into a soothing solo.

At an outdoor show where proof of vaccination was required and seating spaced out and limited, the only thing that was contagious was the revelry, the analog version of whoop-de-do.

A Scientist Walks into a Bar – The Hideout – July 13, 2021

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March 10, 2020 was the last time I walked into the bar at The Hideout to hear a scientist. That time the room was jammed and I was attending events at one venue or another a few times a week. This time I sat outside, with a smattering of others, had to show proof of vaccination, and none of those other venues have reopened yet.

So I was excited to hear someone talk about meteorites. You take when you can get.

Maria Valdes has a PhD in Geochemistry and Cosmochemistry, which I didn’t even know existed, and is the Robert A. Pritzker Curator for Meteoritics and Polar Studies at the Filed Museum. We have so much in common. Her earliest ambition was to be a dentist. I have a dentist. As a child, she went to DNA camp. I never went to camp, but I have DNA. Her specialty is calcium isotopes. I drink milk.

She’s going on a trip to Antarctica to search for micrometeorites, because, although they’re all around us, about 5,200 metric tons of them falling to the Earth every year (she says some would probably fall out of your hair if you shook your head), they’re easier to find where they stand out against the ice and snow.

She has held in her hands, to show to bored museum donors, a part of the Black Beauty meteorite, original weight 319.8 grams, found in 2011 in the Sahara Desert, and, as of 2018, having a sales price of $10,000 per gram. I think I’ll go shake my head and see what falls out.

A Scientist Walks into a Bar: Thermodynamics – The Hottest Science – The Hideout – March 10, 2020

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Willetta Greene-Johnson’s Ph.D. thesis was “The effects of the exchange mode dynamics on vibrational phase relaxation at surfaces.” I have no idea what any of that means, but I do know that Greene-Johnson’s colorful slides and good humor while somewhat dumbing down thermodynamics and entropy for the audience at The Hideout, gave off the kind of good vibrations that would have made her fellow Grammy Award winner, Brian Wilson, envious. (She also is a classically-trained pianist, who dabbles with the cello and clarinet.)

The room was packed and it seemed like almost everyone, myself excluded, lined up to ask questions after the presentation, questions that ranged from: Is the expanding universe a manifestation of entropy?, to What are the thermodynamic properties of love?, with a comparison of Greene-Johnson’s renaissance range of talents in science and songwriting to those of Tom Lehrer’s combination of mathematics and music thrown in for good measure.

Having just found out about A Scientist Walks into a Bar, I now am bummed out that I missed recent excursions into string theory, rockin’ around the gymnosperm, and how food works, but the good news is that there are 34 recordings from similar live Science on Tap events in Oregon and Washington available on Apple Podcasts and 44 seasons of PBS episodes available online. Forty-four seasons! I guess I must have been preoccupied. Still, despite the comfort and safety of listening from home, it’s just not the same as the excitement these days of being in a crowded bar, holding your breath for fear that someone near you may sneeze. (No one did.)

Erwin Helfer (piano) – The Hideout – March 5, 2020

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Erwin Helfer is my favorite boogie boogie and blues piano player (and a really nice guy, whom I’ve met a couple times). The last time I saw him was at the 2019 Chicago Blues Festival. Quite by accident, I discovered that he’d be playing at The Hideout, a place I’d never been to before.

The Hideout calls itself “a regular guy bar for irregular folks who just don’t fit in, or just don’t want to fit in.” As such, it’s got my name written all over it. After only one visit, I’d say that it’s my new favorite bar, except I didn’t have an old favorite bar, and I really don’t drink very much. That said, the bar’s Shiner S’more Chocolate & Marshmallow Ale on tap also had my name written all over it, and my name isn’t even Shiner.

Helfer’s trio was to include Rick Sherry on the washboard, which was an added enticement. I don’t know Sherry, but, c’mon, it’s the washboard. I heard my first one in New Orleans thirty years ago, played by a guy who also played the log that night. But Sherry, Helfer told us, had the flu, and was replaced by a drummer who atmospherically wielded a couple drum brushes as if he were Picasso.

Despite the lack of a log or washboard, the ambience I was seeking was maintained by The Hideout’s piano, which, in the true spirit of Helfer’s style and repertoire, is a very old-looking upright, without a top, with the hammers thus revealed.

My next trip to The Hideout will be for A Scientist Walks into a Bar : Thermodynamics – The Hottest Science. (Is this place eclectic or what?) The bar’s monthly interviews are promoted as “Chicago’s premier science-comedy talk show”. Are there others?