Q: Gay dude here. What the fuck is up with monkeypox? Do I need to be worried?

A: Yes, you do. I tried to raise the alarm about monkeypox on the May 24, 2022, episode of the Savage Lovecast, back when there were 100 cases in 15 countries, all of them among gay and bi men. Now there are more than 5,000 cases all over the world, and almost all of them—more than 99 percent of cases—are among gay and bi men.

“Right now, it’s behaving very much like an STI—and almost all of the cases have been among men who have sex with men,” said Dr. Ina Park, a professor at the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine and medical consultant at the Centers for Disease Control Division of STD Prevention.

Monkeypox, Dr. Park explains, is the milder, gentler cousin to smallpox, and is spread by skin-to-skin contact or through respiratory droplets.

“But anyone who comes into close contact with someone who has monkeypox could catch it,” said Dr. Park. “And unlike other STIs which don’t live for very long outside the body, monkeypox can live for weeks on infected clothing, bedding, and other surfaces—think dildos, slings, fetish gear—and barriers such as condoms worn over the penis or inside the rectum will protect those areas, but they don’t prevent transmission to other exposed parts of the body. If you notice red painful bumps anywhere on you or your partner’s body—especially the genital/anal area—or if you are exposed to monkeypox, get checked out right away. The sooner you get vaccinated, the better. Check out some resources for monkeypox here.” (And follow Dr. Park on Twitter @InaParkMd.)

Q: How soon is too soon to say “I love you” for the first time? 

A: On your first date, right after a stranger from an app shows up at your door, during your first threesome with that hot couple you just met at a bar—too soon. Even if you’re already feeling it, even if you’re crazy enough to think they might be feeling it already too, you should wait at least six months to say it. But you know what? Once you’ve said it—once you’ve said “I love you” for the first time—feel free to backdate that shit. Go ahead and say, “I wanted to say it before the entrée even came on our first date,” or, “I wanted to say it when you showed up looking better than your pics,” or, “I wanted to say it when you both came inside me simultaneously.”

Q: Is it an overreaction for me, a cis woman who lives in Wisconsin and doesn’t want kids, to not want to have sex with my fiancé since the ruling on abortion? I’ve tried to explain to him that it’s a lot to come to terms with.

A: Each of us grieves in our own way, and at our own pace. If you’re not feeling sexy right now because of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade—if the chance of an unplanned pregnancy in Wisconsin, where a law from 1849 banning abortion can now be enforced, dries you up—that’s totally understandable. And if your fiancé is anxious to get back to penetrative sex, well, pegging counts.

Q: A submissive guy reached out to me via my pretty tame Instagram and wants to send me money and wants nothing in return. Should I say no to this?

A: In this economy?

Q: New to weed. Best edible for sex?

A: Ass.

Q: What is it called when a guy jacks off into his own mouth while he’s upside down? Is there a term for that?

A: I don’t think that has a name. Any suggestions, class?

The full version of Savage Love is now exclusively available on Dan’s website Savage.Love.  To continue reading this week’s column, go to savage.love/savagelove.

Read More

“In a good play every speech should be as fully flavoured as a nut or apple,” wrote Irish playwright John Millington Synge in the preface to his 1907 comedy The Playboy of the Western World. By that standard, Playboy is a very good play—indeed, one of the greatest and most entertaining works in 20th-century English-language drama. And, happily, it is served up “fully flavoured” in City Lit Theater’s boisterous, intimate production.

The Playboy of the Western World Through 8/14: Fri-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 3 PM; also Mon 8/1 and 8/8 7:30 PM, City Lit Theater, 1020 W. Bryn Mawr, 773-293-3682, citylit.org, $34 (seniors $29/students and military $12)

The story’s setting is a country pub on the northwest coast of Ireland—then still under British rule. Into the tavern one night wanders a road-weary young stranger—Christy Mahon, the “playboy” of the title—who fearfully confesses that he has committed a terrible crime: he killed his abusive, overbearing farmer father with a single blow of an iron spade to the head. Briefly and improbably, Christy’s tale—which grows more and more epic with every retelling—makes him a folk hero to the close-knit community of peasants who frequent the inn. The innkeeper’s strong-willed daughter, “Pegeen Mike” Flaherty, falls in love with this bold outsider and his gift of gab—until, that is, the supposedly dead father walks in, with a bandaged bloody head and a very, very bad temper . . .

Director Brian Pastor’s vigorous, imaginative staging features a fine 12-member cast who revel in the rhythmic, richly accented language through which Synge spins his hilarious yet poignant tale. Joshua Servantez is quite wonderful as Christy—mercurially antic and romantic as he blossoms under the affection that Michaela Voit’s Pegeen bestows upon him. Adam Bitterman is a hoot as the hardy father who refuses to die, and Brenda Wlazlo is a touching Widow Quin, Pegeen’s rival for Christy’s attentions. The rest of the ensemble is excellent, and their collective mastery of the script’s Hiberno-English idiom is awesome (a word I seldom use). Kudos to dialect coach Carrie Hardin—and to musician Richard Menges, who provides evocative harp accompaniment to the bursts of folk singing that the company has interpolated into the classic script.

Read More

Since 2004 Plastic Crimewave (aka Steve Krakow) has used the Secret History of Chicago Music to shine a light on worthy artists with Chicago ties who’ve been forgotten, underrated, or never noticed in the first place.

Paul Cotton, best known as a crucial member of country rockers Poco, died a year ago this month, and it was easy to miss the news amid all the chaos in the world—to say nothing of all the other celebrity deaths taking up bandwidth. (His Poco comrade Rusty Young, for instance, had passed in April.) Poco don’t seem to have much cool cachet either, and these days their records usually get relegated to dollar bins. They’re due a serious reappraisal, though, and I think it should place them (and Cotton) firmly in the front ranks of the classic-rock pantheon. 

Poco’s sound places them in the vicinity of Neil Young, Stephen Stills, and Joe Walsh, and Cotton wrote some of their most beloved tunes—but he doesn’t enjoy anything like the name recognition of those artists. In an August 2021 interview with online publication Rock & Roll Globe, Poco cofounder Richie Furay eulogized his friend. “Musically, Paul was the complete package,” he said. “Great singer, exceptional songwriter and what a guitar player.” 

Norman Paul Cotton was born on February 26, 1943, in Fort Rucker, Alabama, but he considered Illinois his home. Cotton was the eldest of five children; his father owned a chain of grocery stores, and his mother kept the books. Still known as Norm, he began playing guitar at age 13. When he was 16, the Cotton family moved to Harvey, Illinois, where he attended Thornton Township High School. 

“I’m from a town of 5,000 people in Illinois,” he told New Times Broward-Palm Beach in 2015. Ten years earlier, he’d moved to Key West. “So this town is just right for me.” 

At Thornton Township, Cotton soon started his first instrumental band, the Capitols (not the Capitols famous for “Cool Jerk”). In 1961 the group became the Mus-Twangs, who released a couple surfy singles that got picked up for national distribution by Mercury subsidiary Smash Records. Cotton then jammed with the Starfires (not the better-known Starfires from Los Angeles or Cleveland, obviously), the Carol Vega Trio, and the Gentrys (not the Gentrys of “Keep on Dancing” fame). 

Paul Cotton’s high school band the Mus-Twangs released “Marie” in 1961.

In addition to Cotton on guitar and vocals, the Gentrys featured Kal David on guitar and Fred Page on drums. David and Page had played in popular local band the Exceptions with a young Peter Cetera on vocals. After becoming aware of the other Gentrys, they changed their name to the Rovin’ Kind, and in the mid-60s they released several excellent singles on the Contrapoint, Roulette, and Dunwich labels. 

The hardworking band played five nights a week at Buster’s, at one point alternating bookings with soul god Baby Huey. They won a local battle of the bands officiated by Dick Clark, which earned them an August 1966 spot on American Bandstand—and James Brown appeared on the same episode. Having traveled to Los Angeles to shoot the show, the band stayed out west for a spell, gigging up and down the coast. When they returned home in 1967, they opened for artists as diverse as Paul Revere & the Raiders and Little Richard. 

Paul Cotton wrote the Rovin’ Kind’s 1966 single “Right on Time.”

Bassist Frank Bartell quit the Rovin’ Kind shortly thereafter, replaced by Keith Anderson, who’d begun playing with Cotton in the Capitols days. The new lineup played an important gig in ’68 at Chicago’s outpost of the Whiskey A-Go-Go club franchise. In the audience was producer James William Guercio, who promptly signed the Rovin’ Kind to Columbia Records. 

Guercio advised the band to move to Los Angeles and change their name, so they became the Illinois Speed Press (and Cotton began going by “Paul,” not “Norm”). At around the same time, Columbia started working with several other bands from Chicago, marketing them together as “the Chicago Sound.” They included psychedelic group Aorta, horn rockers the Flock, and a little ol’ band called Chicago Transit Authority that had also moved west. (They were formerly called the Big Thing, and later became simply “Chicago.”)

The Paul Cotton song “Get in the Wind” was the only single from the Illinois Speed Press’s 1969 debut LP.

The Illinois Speed Press became an outlet for Cotton’s original and even groundbreaking tunes. “Get in the Wind,” the only single off their self-titled debut LP from 1969, is a fiery rocker with dual leads to be reckoned with, and it got some national airplay. The track contrasts nicely with another Cotton composition on the album, “Here Today,” a mellow earworm that shows off his twangy baritone voice and acoustic guitar chops.

Lore has it that a nascent Lynyrd Skynyrd loved the soul, blues-rock, and country elements on that first Illinois Speed Press LP so much that they memorized the entire record and could play every song. This gives ISP some claim to having originated what would be eventually called “southern rock.” The album reached number 144 on the charts, and it clearly made an impact. Before its recording, though, Guercio had fired Anderson, and before it came out he canned everyone else in the band except Cotton and David.

The second ISP album, released in 1970, was appropriately titled Duet, with Cotton and David aided by studio musicians. Cotton’s songwriting and chops evolved even further, showcased in the mournful harmonies of “Sadly Out of Place,” the blistering Americana trudge of “Seventeen Days,” and the ambitious strings-adorned four-part suite “Dearly.” Before the end of that year, though, David quit the Illinois Speed Press to join kinda-supergroup the Fabulous Rhinestones, and Cotton joined Poco. 

As Cotton tells it, the Illinois Speed Press had a gig with Poco near Disneyland, and he made an impression. “We were both stripped down to four-piece bands at the time, like we were both on our last legs, you might say,” he told the New Times Broward-Palm Beach. “Something about me stuck with them, and a month later, Richie Furay gave me a call and said, ‘Why not come over to the house?’ So I not only came over, but I brought my guitar, and we just clicked. The next thing I knew, there we were, playing in front of Neil Young at the Fillmore West.”

Poco had just lost guitarist and founding member Jim Messina, so Cotton had the opportunity to help them reshape their sound. “They had always been labeled too country for rock and too rock for country, so we were always trying to find that happy medium,” he said. “They definitely wanted to rock more, and I definitely brought that energy to them.” 

Cotton first appears on the third Poco album, 1971’s From the Inside, where he contributed a few tunes. They include the roots rock of “Railroad Days” and the pedal-steel country of “Bad Weather.” 

Paul Cotton says Poco impressed Jimi Hendrix with his song “Bad Weather,” from the 1971 album From the Inside.

“I did ‘Bad Weather’ with the band at the Whiskey in LA, and after our set, I came walking down the steps on the way to our dressing room and Jimi Hendrix nabbed me on the dance floor and gave me a big bear hug,” Cotton told New Times Broward-Palm Beach. “He said, ‘Paul, don’t ever stop writing songs like that one.’ That was big!”

Poco’s fourth studio album, the 1972 release It’s a Good Feelin’ to Know, is where I think Cotton might’ve reached his zenith as a songwriter and a player. He spreads out on the grooving, six-plus-minute “Ride the Country,” and I’m absolutely obsessed with his loping, melancholy tune “Early Times.” This shoulda-been-massive song gives me shivers, and its emotive dirge surpasses anything by Poco’s main country-rock competition, the Eagles (to whom Poco contributed members Randy Meisner and later Timothy B. Schmit).

“Early Times” came out in 1972 on Poco’s fourth album.

Cotton became increasingly essential to Poco, writing the western shuffle “Blue Water” and the blistering blooze “A Right Along” for 1973’s Crazy Eyes as well as the Neil Young-ish “Western Waterloo” for 1974’s Cantamos. The prolific band was entering a relatively commercial period, and Cotton stayed aboard: he wrote classics for the LPs Poco 7 (1974), Head Over Heels (’75), Rose of Cimarron (’76), Indian Summer (’77), and Legend (’78). His song “Heart of the Night,” from the last of those albums, charted at number 20.

The band took a brief hiatus in the late 70s, but Cotton stuck around to have songs on every 80s studio Poco LP, starting with the title track (and three other tunes) on 1980’s Under the Gun and ending some four albums later with five cuts on 1984’s Inamorata. Cotton left Poco in 1987, rejoined in the early 90s, then split again to enter semi-retirement in 2010. 

Cotton had begun a solo career in 1990 with the album Changing Horses, and he released several more solo LPs throughout the 2000s while gigging on and off with the Paul Cotton Band. In 2009, a few years after Cotton moved to Key West, he and David reunited for some shows as the Illinois Speed Press—I sure wish I could’ve seen that.

Cotton passed suddenly at his summer home near Eugene, Oregon, on July 31, 2021, at age 78. He left behind a giant musical legacy, as well as his wife, Caroline; his sons, Chris and James; two brothers, David and Robert; two sisters, Carol and Colleen; and a grandson.

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Q: Gay dude here. What the fuck is up with monkeypox? Do I need to be worried?

A: Yes, you do. I tried to raise the alarm about monkeypox on the May 24, 2022, episode of the Savage Lovecast, back when there were 100 cases in 15 countries, all of them among gay and bi men. Now there are more than 5,000 cases all over the world, and almost all of them—more than 99 percent of cases—are among gay and bi men.

“Right now, it’s behaving very much like an STI—and almost all of the cases have been among men who have sex with men,” said Dr. Ina Park, a professor at the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine and medical consultant at the Centers for Disease Control Division of STD Prevention.

Monkeypox, Dr. Park explains, is the milder, gentler cousin to smallpox, and is spread by skin-to-skin contact or through respiratory droplets.

“But anyone who comes into close contact with someone who has monkeypox could catch it,” said Dr. Park. “And unlike other STIs which don’t live for very long outside the body, monkeypox can live for weeks on infected clothing, bedding, and other surfaces—think dildos, slings, fetish gear—and barriers such as condoms worn over the penis or inside the rectum will protect those areas, but they don’t prevent transmission to other exposed parts of the body. If you notice red painful bumps anywhere on you or your partner’s body—especially the genital/anal area—or if you are exposed to monkeypox, get checked out right away. The sooner you get vaccinated, the better. Check out some resources for monkeypox here.” (And follow Dr. Park on Twitter @InaParkMd.)

Q: How soon is too soon to say “I love you” for the first time? 

A: On your first date, right after a stranger from an app shows up at your door, during your first threesome with that hot couple you just met at a bar—too soon. Even if you’re already feeling it, even if you’re crazy enough to think they might be feeling it already too, you should wait at least six months to say it. But you know what? Once you’ve said it—once you’ve said “I love you” for the first time—feel free to backdate that shit. Go ahead and say, “I wanted to say it before the entrée even came on our first date,” or, “I wanted to say it when you showed up looking better than your pics,” or, “I wanted to say it when you both came inside me simultaneously.”

Q: Is it an overreaction for me, a cis woman who lives in Wisconsin and doesn’t want kids, to not want to have sex with my fiancé since the ruling on abortion? I’ve tried to explain to him that it’s a lot to come to terms with.

A: Each of us grieves in our own way, and at our own pace. If you’re not feeling sexy right now because of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade—if the chance of an unplanned pregnancy in Wisconsin, where a law from 1849 banning abortion can now be enforced, dries you up—that’s totally understandable. And if your fiancé is anxious to get back to penetrative sex, well, pegging counts.

Q: A submissive guy reached out to me via my pretty tame Instagram and wants to send me money and wants nothing in return. Should I say no to this?

A: In this economy?

Q: New to weed. Best edible for sex?

A: Ass.

Q: What is it called when a guy jacks off into his own mouth while he’s upside down? Is there a term for that?

A: I don’t think that has a name. Any suggestions, class?

The full version of Savage Love is now exclusively available on Dan’s website Savage.Love.  To continue reading this week’s column, go to savage.love/savagelove.

Read More

“In a good play every speech should be as fully flavoured as a nut or apple,” wrote Irish playwright John Millington Synge in the preface to his 1907 comedy The Playboy of the Western World. By that standard, Playboy is a very good play—indeed, one of the greatest and most entertaining works in 20th-century English-language drama. And, happily, it is served up “fully flavoured” in City Lit Theater’s boisterous, intimate production.

The Playboy of the Western World Through 8/14: Fri-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 3 PM; also Mon 8/1 and 8/8 7:30 PM, City Lit Theater, 1020 W. Bryn Mawr, 773-293-3682, citylit.org, $34 (seniors $29/students and military $12)

The story’s setting is a country pub on the northwest coast of Ireland—then still under British rule. Into the tavern one night wanders a road-weary young stranger—Christy Mahon, the “playboy” of the title—who fearfully confesses that he has committed a terrible crime: he killed his abusive, overbearing farmer father with a single blow of an iron spade to the head. Briefly and improbably, Christy’s tale—which grows more and more epic with every retelling—makes him a folk hero to the close-knit community of peasants who frequent the inn. The innkeeper’s strong-willed daughter, “Pegeen Mike” Flaherty, falls in love with this bold outsider and his gift of gab—until, that is, the supposedly dead father walks in, with a bandaged bloody head and a very, very bad temper . . .

Director Brian Pastor’s vigorous, imaginative staging features a fine 12-member cast who revel in the rhythmic, richly accented language through which Synge spins his hilarious yet poignant tale. Joshua Servantez is quite wonderful as Christy—mercurially antic and romantic as he blossoms under the affection that Michaela Voit’s Pegeen bestows upon him. Adam Bitterman is a hoot as the hardy father who refuses to die, and Brenda Wlazlo is a touching Widow Quin, Pegeen’s rival for Christy’s attentions. The rest of the ensemble is excellent, and their collective mastery of the script’s Hiberno-English idiom is awesome (a word I seldom use). Kudos to dialect coach Carrie Hardin—and to musician Richard Menges, who provides evocative harp accompaniment to the bursts of folk singing that the company has interpolated into the classic script.

Read More

Since 2004 Plastic Crimewave (aka Steve Krakow) has used the Secret History of Chicago Music to shine a light on worthy artists with Chicago ties who’ve been forgotten, underrated, or never noticed in the first place.

Paul Cotton, best known as a crucial member of country rockers Poco, died a year ago this month, and it was easy to miss the news amid all the chaos in the world—to say nothing of all the other celebrity deaths taking up bandwidth. (His Poco comrade Rusty Young, for instance, had passed in April.) Poco don’t seem to have much cool cachet either, and these days their records usually get relegated to dollar bins. They’re due a serious reappraisal, though, and I think it should place them (and Cotton) firmly in the front ranks of the classic-rock pantheon. 

Poco’s sound places them in the vicinity of Neil Young, Stephen Stills, and Joe Walsh, and Cotton wrote some of their most beloved tunes—but he doesn’t enjoy anything like the name recognition of those artists. In an August 2021 interview with online publication Rock & Roll Globe, Poco cofounder Richie Furay eulogized his friend. “Musically, Paul was the complete package,” he said. “Great singer, exceptional songwriter and what a guitar player.” 

Norman Paul Cotton was born on February 26, 1943, in Fort Rucker, Alabama, but he considered Illinois his home. Cotton was the eldest of five children; his father owned a chain of grocery stores, and his mother kept the books. Still known as Norm, he began playing guitar at age 13. When he was 16, the Cotton family moved to Harvey, Illinois, where he attended Thornton Township High School. 

“I’m from a town of 5,000 people in Illinois,” he told New Times Broward-Palm Beach in 2015. Ten years earlier, he’d moved to Key West. “So this town is just right for me.” 

At Thornton Township, Cotton soon started his first instrumental band, the Capitols (not the Capitols famous for “Cool Jerk”). In 1961 the group became the Mus-Twangs, who released a couple surfy singles that got picked up for national distribution by Mercury subsidiary Smash Records. Cotton then jammed with the Starfires (not the better-known Starfires from Los Angeles or Cleveland, obviously), the Carol Vega Trio, and the Gentrys (not the Gentrys of “Keep on Dancing” fame). 

Paul Cotton’s high school band the Mus-Twangs released “Marie” in 1961.

In addition to Cotton on guitar and vocals, the Gentrys featured Kal David on guitar and Fred Page on drums. David and Page had played in popular local band the Exceptions with a young Peter Cetera on vocals. After becoming aware of the other Gentrys, they changed their name to the Rovin’ Kind, and in the mid-60s they released several excellent singles on the Contrapoint, Roulette, and Dunwich labels. 

The hardworking band played five nights a week at Buster’s, at one point alternating bookings with soul god Baby Huey. They won a local battle of the bands officiated by Dick Clark, which earned them an August 1966 spot on American Bandstand—and James Brown appeared on the same episode. Having traveled to Los Angeles to shoot the show, the band stayed out west for a spell, gigging up and down the coast. When they returned home in 1967, they opened for artists as diverse as Paul Revere & the Raiders and Little Richard. 

Paul Cotton wrote the Rovin’ Kind’s 1966 single “Right on Time.”

Bassist Frank Bartell quit the Rovin’ Kind shortly thereafter, replaced by Keith Anderson, who’d begun playing with Cotton in the Capitols days. The new lineup played an important gig in ’68 at Chicago’s outpost of the Whiskey A-Go-Go club franchise. In the audience was producer James William Guercio, who promptly signed the Rovin’ Kind to Columbia Records. 

Guercio advised the band to move to Los Angeles and change their name, so they became the Illinois Speed Press (and Cotton began going by “Paul,” not “Norm”). At around the same time, Columbia started working with several other bands from Chicago, marketing them together as “the Chicago Sound.” They included psychedelic group Aorta, horn rockers the Flock, and a little ol’ band called Chicago Transit Authority that had also moved west. (They were formerly called the Big Thing, and later became simply “Chicago.”)

The Paul Cotton song “Get in the Wind” was the only single from the Illinois Speed Press’s 1969 debut LP.

The Illinois Speed Press became an outlet for Cotton’s original and even groundbreaking tunes. “Get in the Wind,” the only single off their self-titled debut LP from 1969, is a fiery rocker with dual leads to be reckoned with, and it got some national airplay. The track contrasts nicely with another Cotton composition on the album, “Here Today,” a mellow earworm that shows off his twangy baritone voice and acoustic guitar chops.

Lore has it that a nascent Lynyrd Skynyrd loved the soul, blues-rock, and country elements on that first Illinois Speed Press LP so much that they memorized the entire record and could play every song. This gives ISP some claim to having originated what would be eventually called “southern rock.” The album reached number 144 on the charts, and it clearly made an impact. Before its recording, though, Guercio had fired Anderson, and before it came out he canned everyone else in the band except Cotton and David.

The second ISP album, released in 1970, was appropriately titled Duet, with Cotton and David aided by studio musicians. Cotton’s songwriting and chops evolved even further, showcased in the mournful harmonies of “Sadly Out of Place,” the blistering Americana trudge of “Seventeen Days,” and the ambitious strings-adorned four-part suite “Dearly.” Before the end of that year, though, David quit the Illinois Speed Press to join kinda-supergroup the Fabulous Rhinestones, and Cotton joined Poco. 

As Cotton tells it, the Illinois Speed Press had a gig with Poco near Disneyland, and he made an impression. “We were both stripped down to four-piece bands at the time, like we were both on our last legs, you might say,” he told the New Times Broward-Palm Beach. “Something about me stuck with them, and a month later, Richie Furay gave me a call and said, ‘Why not come over to the house?’ So I not only came over, but I brought my guitar, and we just clicked. The next thing I knew, there we were, playing in front of Neil Young at the Fillmore West.”

Poco had just lost guitarist and founding member Jim Messina, so Cotton had the opportunity to help them reshape their sound. “They had always been labeled too country for rock and too rock for country, so we were always trying to find that happy medium,” he said. “They definitely wanted to rock more, and I definitely brought that energy to them.” 

Cotton first appears on the third Poco album, 1971’s From the Inside, where he contributed a few tunes. They include the roots rock of “Railroad Days” and the pedal-steel country of “Bad Weather.” 

Paul Cotton says Poco impressed Jimi Hendrix with his song “Bad Weather,” from the 1971 album From the Inside.

“I did ‘Bad Weather’ with the band at the Whiskey in LA, and after our set, I came walking down the steps on the way to our dressing room and Jimi Hendrix nabbed me on the dance floor and gave me a big bear hug,” Cotton told New Times Broward-Palm Beach. “He said, ‘Paul, don’t ever stop writing songs like that one.’ That was big!”

Poco’s fourth studio album, the 1972 release It’s a Good Feelin’ to Know, is where I think Cotton might’ve reached his zenith as a songwriter and a player. He spreads out on the grooving, six-plus-minute “Ride the Country,” and I’m absolutely obsessed with his loping, melancholy tune “Early Times.” This shoulda-been-massive song gives me shivers, and its emotive dirge surpasses anything by Poco’s main country-rock competition, the Eagles (to whom Poco contributed members Randy Meisner and later Timothy B. Schmit).

“Early Times” came out in 1972 on Poco’s fourth album.

Cotton became increasingly essential to Poco, writing the western shuffle “Blue Water” and the blistering blooze “A Right Along” for 1973’s Crazy Eyes as well as the Neil Young-ish “Western Waterloo” for 1974’s Cantamos. The prolific band was entering a relatively commercial period, and Cotton stayed aboard: he wrote classics for the LPs Poco 7 (1974), Head Over Heels (’75), Rose of Cimarron (’76), Indian Summer (’77), and Legend (’78). His song “Heart of the Night,” from the last of those albums, charted at number 20.

The band took a brief hiatus in the late 70s, but Cotton stuck around to have songs on every 80s studio Poco LP, starting with the title track (and three other tunes) on 1980’s Under the Gun and ending some four albums later with five cuts on 1984’s Inamorata. Cotton left Poco in 1987, rejoined in the early 90s, then split again to enter semi-retirement in 2010. 

Cotton had begun a solo career in 1990 with the album Changing Horses, and he released several more solo LPs throughout the 2000s while gigging on and off with the Paul Cotton Band. In 2009, a few years after Cotton moved to Key West, he and David reunited for some shows as the Illinois Speed Press—I sure wish I could’ve seen that.

Cotton passed suddenly at his summer home near Eugene, Oregon, on July 31, 2021, at age 78. He left behind a giant musical legacy, as well as his wife, Caroline; his sons, Chris and James; two brothers, David and Robert; two sisters, Carol and Colleen; and a grandson.

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There are a lot of things happening around the National Hockey League right now. Wednesday begins the start of free agency around the league so a lot of faces will be in new places. However, the Chicago Blackhawks are rebuilding so they won’t be participating as much.

The big rumor surrounding this team right now revolves around Patrick Kane. He is someone that makes a lot of sense to trade as he can still land the team some really nice assets. A contender would be smart to consider him.

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When it took the Tony triumvirate of best musical, original score, and original book in 2004, Avenue Q (music and lyrics by Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx, book by Jeff Whitty, and based on an original concept by Lopez and Marx) had a satirical edge that seemed sharp enough to slice floating silk. That’s no longer the case in the musical famously featuring puppets that look like they belong on Sesame Street but talk in a profane vernacular and have vigorously noisy puppet sex on occasion.

Avenue QThrough 8/7: Fri-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 2 PM, Skokie Theatre, 7924 N. Lincoln, Skokie, 847-677-7761, skokietheatre.org, $45 ($38 students/seniors)

The show’s edge has dulled over the years. In an era where violent white supremacists have been emboldened by the highest levels of government, tunes such as “Everyone’s A Little Bit Racist” no longer feel shocking so much as quaint—at best. And given the increasing attacks on people of Asian descent, the character of Christmas Eve—who the script has speaking with an accent straight out of a Charlie Chan movie—simply isn’t funny anymore (if it ever was). 

That said, veteran director-choreographer Ty Perry’s ensemble for MadKap Productions sells the material with charm, comic panache, and an impressive ability to create a seemingly seamless whole from a great many puppet/human moving parts. The plot follows 23-year-old Princeton (Zach Moore, brandishing a tenor that makes the ears sit up and pay attention) as he moves to Avenue Q and joins a diverse building that includes Lucy the Slut and Kate Monster, (both played by Natalie Rae) and the Ernie-and-Bert-like roommates Rod (Moore) and Nicky (Rami Halabi). The trash-talking Trekkie Monster (Halabi) is the monstrous curmudgeon upstairs. The building’s landlords are humans Christmas Eve (Shea Lee) and her husband Brian (Dennis Schnell). The (human) super is Gary Coleman (Sabrina Edwards, whose down-to-earth charisma makes her an ideal Coleman)

The cast’s amiable vocals are backed by conductor Sachio Nang’s seven-person live chamber orchestra, an ensemble meshed as tightly as the performers onstage. It’s not enough to redeem the show’s dated elements. And while a kumbaya happy-ending where monsters and humans learn to live together in peace feels good, it’s also condescending and simplistic. 

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It is a truth universally acknowledged that it’s actually harder to write a rave review than it is to write a pan. How to communicate the thrill of seeing a show that’s just exactly what it should be without simply saying GO SEE THIS SHOW?

Fences Through 8/6: Thu-Fri 7:30 PM, Sat 2:30 and 7:30 PM, Sun 2:30 PM; Sat 8/6, 2:30 PM only, Theater Wit, 1229 W. Belmont, 773-975-8150, americanbluestheater.com, $25-$45

This is my happy dilemma in reviewing Monty Cole’s stellar production of August Wilson’s Fences at American Blues Theater. With the brilliant Kamal Angelo Bolden in the lead as Troy Maxon, an embittered man determined to keep his sons from outshining him, Fences manages to portray both universal father-son tension and the specifics of that tension as enacted in the Black community of Pittsburgh in the early 1950s. Bolden toggles effortlessly among Troy’s constantly changing moods, capturing in full the terror of his unpredictability.

The play also sketches out the tension between notions of masculine freedom and the requirements of a stable family, as it pivots sharply in act two to examine Troy’s relationship with his second wife Rose (the excellent Shanésia Davis, holding up more than her half of the sky). The pivot works because Cory, whose struggles to emulate his father and secure his approval occupy most of act one, is Rose’s son. As he learns of his father’s betrayal of his mother, boyish disappointment (“How come you don’t like me?”) becomes implacable rage, a transition Ajax Dontavius handles with a combination of actor’s aplomb and son’s fury.

Each of the performances is given the opportunity to blossom through Cole’s staging device of placing all the actors onstage even when they’re offstage. Seated at the side of the playing area, they continue to perform and deepen their characters, consoling each other sometimes, giggling and exchanging nudges at others—commenting on the action in the very best sense of that word. The only exception to this is Rose, as director Cole and scenic designer Yeaji Kim keep the only woman in the play apart from (and perhaps above) the man’s world in which she is compelled to operate. And her meltdown when informed of her husband’s infidelity is sufficient unto itself, no commentary required.

One of the wonderful things about Fences—perhaps Wilson’s most tightly-constructed play—is the way it riffs on Death of a Salesman. The final scenes are deliberately parallel, as Rose insists that Cory pay respect to Troy, for all his failings, just as Linda Loman insists, “Attention must be paid!” There could be families less similar on the surface than the Lomans and the Maxons (as their equal-and-opposite names suggest); but if all happy families are alike, so are all families whose sons break down when they discover that Dad is not a hero after all but just someone struggling to get by. The stories seem to be about the rise and fall of the father, but they’re just as much about the coming of age of the son—learning not to worship or reject but just to accept.

The men who surround Troy—his feckless elder son Lyons (William Anthony Sebastian Rose II), his best friend Jim Bono (Martel Manning), and his brother Gabriel (Manny Buckley, in a performance of remarkable delicacy and power)—give the production its verisimilitude while maintaining its almost mythic account of humankind battling with the impenetrable gods. As I say: SEE THIS PLAY.

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“When people die, they move from the first person to the third person. They also move from the present tense to the past tense.” These words are spoken by Christine (Kendra Thulin), who opens Simon Stephens’s Light Falls, directed by Robin Witt, by narrating her own death—sudden, solitary, and mundane in a liquor store in the north of England in the act of lapsing from nine months of sobriety—in exquisite detail. These words are also spoken about Christine, who in their speaking transforms from an anxious overdressed impolite alcoholic to a form of omniscience, a type of weather, and an actor under a special speaking a monologue on a stage set with armoires and lamps and curling leaves of sheet music suspended from the walls and in the air (designed by Sotirios Livaditis). “Time does not move forward . . . Everything we have ever done we are doing now” applies as well to the general dimension of our existence as it does to addiction.

Light FallsThrough 8/14: Thu-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 3 PM; audio description and touch tour Sun 7/24, open captioning Sun 7/31, Theater Wit, 1229 W. Belmont, 773-975-8150, steeptheatre.com, $30 general admission ($40 reserved, $10 access tickets)

In the long moment of her death, her family is scattered in mind and space, getting and rejecting other loves. Her daughter Jess (Stephanie Mattos) wakes from a blackout drunk night next to Michael (Nate Faust), a man she does not yet know. Her husband, Bernard (Peter Moore), is embroiled in an infidelity no one seems to enjoy, symbolically buttressed by the awkward consumption of excessive amounts of food. Her son, Steven (Brandon Rivera), is flunking his law degree and clinging to his dashing and immensely understanding boyfriend, Andy (Omer Abbas Salem). And her other daughter, Ashe (Ashlyn Lozano), is recovering from a suicide attempt and a relationship with another addict, Joe (Debo Balogun), deadbeat dad to her son Leighon. 

Light Falls, on the imperfection of the living and the idealization of the dead, is rambling, sentimental, and laden with wish fulfillment: our desire to love our mothers, our desire, despite our worst failures, to be loved, and our desire to speak with those who have departed. In the role of Ashe, Lozano is especially effective, a living conduit of a grief others lack the courage to express.

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