By Mike Danahey
August is almost over. Summer blazed by, and boy was it a busy month for me.
At least by my sometimes slothful standards. Which is to say, on occasion I double nap. When I get so tired from a nap I take another one.
This usually happens in the fall, during football season, with the Chicago Bears on in the background.
Milwaukee mirth
Anyway, it wouldn’t be August without a trip to the Milwaukee Irish Fest.
On my recent journey north, I met a guy who provides journeys for others. Paul Ward is the W part of G & W Irish Tours. The County Clare native started the travel business a few years ago with his buddy from Belfast, musician Ian Gould.
These days, Paul’s also a bartender up in the Milwaukee area, alternating between three Draft & Vessel locations. He was nice enough to leave tickets for me and my pals at the pub in Shorewood.
Paul was on Summerfest/Irish Fest grounds before the gates opened that Friday, in part to ready some cocktails for a presentation early that evening.
I met up with Paul before that at his Irish Fest booth. He was pitching trips to Ireland and Scotland in 2026 – and sharing talk about planning a trip to Dublin in August, 2027 when the Wisconsin Badgers will be playing the Pitt Panthers at Aviva Stadium.
I have been to a Wisconsin Badgers hockey game at Soldier Field. The stereotypes are true. Those fans really drink. I hope they have enough beer at the game in Dublin for them.
That Friday, though, Paul wasn’t pouring pints for Bucky Badgers, but would be talking about mildly potent potables made with Bunratty Meade. One was with pear juice and seltzer. The other was with lemon juice and seltzer. What refreshing ways to get your vitamins!
During his talk, Paul mentioned that the Lisdoonvarna Matchmaking Festival is coming up in County Clare, for singles from all over the world to mingle.
According to the event website, “legend has it that if you touch Willie’s ‘lucky book’ with both hands, you’ll be married in six months.” That scared Best Fest Buddy Tom and his brother. They’ve been there. Done that. Marriage, not the fest. Me. I wondered if “lucky book” is a euphemism.
Speaking of scares, there was a tent at the fest promoting Halloween/Samhain time events in Derry and the rest of Ireland. I’d go, but I would miss tossing candy off my balcony to the trick-or-treaters down below.
Bunratty, of course, is home to the famous castle within walking distance to Durty Nelly’s pub and Blarney Woolen Mills, making it a big bus tour stop. Bunratty Meade, in fact, is served during the castle’s medieval dinner experiences. I think medieval dinner experiences are where Jimi Hendrix got the idea for his band and its wardrobe.
Bunratty Meade is imported into New Jersey, and currently not available to buy in Illinois. So that makes it the New Glarus Spotted Cow of meade.
Believe it or not, Mr. Ripley, aside from the meade, I only had one beer and one cider the rest of my Irish Fest visit. And I only ate one Scotch egg. My friends most likely have been putting their Ozempic in my juice boxes.
Old guys like us have taken to keeping track of our steps. Ambling along in Milwaukee we trekked about 3 miles – stopping, obviously, to take in some music, including the Red Hot Chili Pipers.
With their dancers and wall of hot piping sound, RHCP should probably be a house band somewhere in Vegas.
Prior to the Pipers set, the sound system played Celtic cover versions of 80s indie rock, including Peter Gabriel’s Solsbury Hill and Sledgehammer. The Pipers oddest cover was Coldplay’s 2005 wimpy ballad, Fix You.
Thankfully there was no Jumbotron scandal. No big screen to out none-too-clandestine adulterous couple here. Still, I had to hear Coldplay, the Barry Manilow of what (barely) passed for alt rock back in the early 2000s.
Yet, I did buy RHCP’s latest disc, in part because they said they don’t do streaming. Good for them. I also bought a disc from another band, Radiation, just because.
Turns out Radiation is a trio from Milwaukee that combines rock, punk and Celtic sounds. They cover Metallica on YouTube!
Impulse buying was easy. Unlike pubs in Ireland, this fest was (Johnny) cashless.
Come to think of it, Guinness Open Gate in Chicago is cashless, too.
An odyssey to the MSI
For more August fun, the Tuesday prior to Irish Fest, Best Fest Buddy Tom and I took his grandkids to the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. Ancients have taken to calling it The Merv.
I was not looking forward to the trip. The drive from where we live to anywhere deep in Chicago can take two hours or so. We had to use my old beater of a car as Tom’s SUV is on the fritz. Three little kids packed into my sedan for that long. Ugh.
Plus, I frequently grumble before I go on longer trips, even some shorter ones. Maybe I like to have diminished expectations. Then I am pleasantly surprised and have a good time.
I don’t know why. I talk my way out of going places way too often. I’m the Snuffleupagus from Sesame Street, only way less furry.
The trek to MSI did take almost two hours. On the way there, something flew off a truck or a car and almost hit us, too. But the kids were pretty well behaved. We even played old school car games, like “I spy out of the corner of my eye.”
Once we finally arrived, it turned out to be one of my favorite days of the summer.
See, this was these kids’ first trip to a big city museum. I felt good about myself for arranging the visit. I loved going to museums when I was a kid. Sharing is caring.
The kids mostly wanted to go to see the Spider-Man exhibit, and they dressed for the occasion.
When they got there though, it was sensory overload, in a good way.
They played on an old train or two. Donning his floppy hat, the youngest of the three wandered down the halls. Intent on taking pictures of anything and everything, he looked like a mini version of a tourist on a field trip from a senior center.
I bought everyone a different Mold-A-Rama. Even skibidi-generation kids like this trio were impressed by the old school plastic souvenirs.
We hit all three floors of the MSI and ate in the cafeteria.
The oldest ordered mac and cheese, then wandered off to get something else. She came back with what she thought was brisket.
That’s salmon, I told her. Well I like salmon, too, she said. She and her brothers ate the fish. I finished the salad and corn bread that came with the salmon.
Aside from Spider-Man, they really enjoyed playing in a hall of mirrors. To my relief, nobody broke anything.
Inside the commercial airliner hanging from the ceiling, the youngest had me make my way to the front cabin. Once there, he told me I couldn’t go any further because I wasn’t allowed in first class. So true!
Another favorite of theirs was a hamster wheel for humans, on the top floor near a section on human health and anatomy.
Yes, they still have the human steaks, some of the plastinated Body Worlds-ish displays of various anatomical systems and such. Luckily, we hit all that after lunch.
As a surprise for the kids, we drove home through the Loop. Bad weather prevented us from getting out of the car to look at the Bean or Buckingham Fountain. Some whining ensued, alleviated by a stop at a drive-thru for soft drinks.
As we headed back to the Kennedy, I noticed a billboard with an odd Irish twist.
“What’s Ulysses all about?” asks the ad for Visual Intelligence on the iPhone 16. This was not far from the Rock and Roll McDonald’s and the Ohio feeder ramp, mind you. I was curious who the target market stuck in traffic might be. Wouldn’t people in River North think Ulysses is a new cologne?
Are there a lot of lit majors living and working around there? Who in that neighborhood would be wondering about the Dublin-based James Joyce novel?
Alas, we were on our own odyssey, trying to beat the storms back to the northwest suburbs. A deluge hit somewhere around Lawrence. By Bryn Mawr, the boys had to take a leak ASAP. So Tom pulled off the Kennedy. No gas station was seen in time.
I suggested a nearby set of trees. The rain pouring down, the two boys peed quickly, inspiring Grandpa Tom to go. And go, And go. And go. And get soaked – by the rain.
Everybody had a laugh about that.
After we finally made it home, I took the middle kid to see a late matinee of the middling movie, The Bad Guys 2. It turned out the lad needed a nap. Those theater recliners do the trick.
A moist Celtic Fest
Without the kids, the August Saturday prior to the museum trip, after checking out some disc golf courses that muggy morning, and grabbing some Red Robin to get a base down, Tom and I donned our kilts to hit the Northwest Celtic Fest in Hoffman Estates.
It was hot and humid. Wearing our kilts the proper way, we probably left a trail of sweat trickling down from underneath us. Talk about shenanigans on the green!
We attended this fest mainly for the whiskey/whisky tasting. I stashed away my program once I found out you didn’t get a prize for checking off the ones you tried. I do remember one was really expensive. Another was a rye aged in a special way.
And I remember friends I hadn’t seen in more than a year spotting me. Unfazed by my garb, they even stopped to talk for a bit.
As for the tasting, tickets were only $30 each. Guinness out this way cost $10 or so when you include a tip, sampling fine spirits was a bit of a deal.
We went out to eat afterward at a place we frequent. They are used to us wearing kilts there. Ledershosen. Santa and elf suits. Halloween onesies. Whatever suits our appetites.
A trek to Indianapolis
Speaking of onesies, quite a few groups taking part in the Drum Corps International Championship held the first weekend of August in Indianapolis were wearing such. Onesies made out of revealing stretch material, no less. Some less than others, so way too much more. Random thought. Do they still make floppy discs?
Like jazz, but not, Drum Corps is hard to explain to those who haven’t seen or heard it. Tom’s two brothers were involved in it decades ago. All three still follow it. In fact, I traveled to Indianapolis this time with Tom’s oldest brother for the first day of the three-day finals.
Along with young people marching, playing music, dancing and twirling objects, Drum Corps shows feature props. Lots of props.
I kept a list. The items included kaleidoscopes, bells, clock parts, umbrellas, crosswalks, tree roots, snakes, strands of DNA, Keith Haring art, a John Lennon portrait, rockets, sewer pipes, gold nuggets, a coffin, shower curtains, really big chairs, atoms and big, colorful, translucent plexiglass cubes.
A faux retro Mid-Century Modern orange chair at the Holiday Inn Express where we stayed would have fit right in with some of the aforementioned scenery.
There were at least two corps that had members playing shrouded, reaper creatures. Another had people playing ravens, which is probably something you don’t see on too many resumes.
One corps had all its members wearing veils or balaklavas, A lot of them had head bands, with haircuts that made them look like Moe Howard from The Three Stooges.
Another corps wore rust colored jumpers emblazoned with pipes in a show that may or may not have been a tribute to public works departments.
Still, nothing was as jarring as the statue of John Wooden we saw walking back to Lucas Oil Stadium after having a tasty lunch at Harry & Izzy’s. (The spot’s rightfully known for its shrimp cocktail.) The statue has the iconic basketball coach surrounded by five sets of legs. No torsos. Just legs.
Back at the arena, I didn’t recognize most of the snippets of music that made up the performances. One had a voiceover reciting the lyrics from “The Sound of Silence” with a proper British accent.
Still, I love the wall of brass blasting at you that a Drum Corps show still provides. And, as it wasn’t full the first day, it was fun moving about to different unoccupied seats to see and hear from slightly different perspectives.
The concession stands were close by, too, and manned by volunteers from local schools and nonprofits who apparently got a cut of the sales.
I desperately needed CliffsNotes to follow along. It was as if someone with a double major in music and philosophy convinced a professor to let them present their thesis on a football field.
In fact, Tom’s brother thinks one of the categories by which drum corps should be judged is pretension.
For instance, the show from the defending champion Bluecoats out of Canton, Ohio was called the “The Observer Effect.” According to the internet, it was about “a quantum physics phenomenon where the presence of an observer influences the behavior of particles in an experiment, such as the double-slit experiment.” That’s not as naughty as it sounds. But I bet it’s something you might have to pay to see on OnlyFans.
Not to be outdone, the eventual best in show was the Boston Crusader’s “Boom.” According to the Crusaders’ website, “inspired by pioneers, inventors, architects and artists, this retro-futuristic production finds great emotion in the conflict between ‘innovative’ optimism and ‘atomic-age’ fear.”
Thus, there were a lot of particles on the field. I hope nobody got radiation sickness from seeing this. Or fell into a black hole.
All this meant there was a lot to digest over breakfast the next morning at Waffle House. I had never been to one. It seemed a very Indiana thing to do.
We made our way back home through the Hoosier State and stopping for gas further north on Merrillville. I spotted a place called Jerk-N-Go. Not a massage parlor. it turned out to be a Jamaican carryout place.
A sign we were in Indiana: A stranger handed us a pamphlet. He invited us to attend his church that Sunday. We must have looked lost.
When Waze routed us through Griffith, I noticed an intriguing eatery there named China Koon. The internet told me Koon is a common last name, and it has multiple meanings.
That’s what’s nice about how these map apps divert you. You get to drive through towns you might not otherwise have visited. From the passenger’s seat, Griffith seemed like a semi-artsy small town. You learn things.
Back close to my small town, I had to pee. At the gas station where we stopped, the door was locked. Some old guy wearing a safety vest finally exited. My guess is he clogs a lot of pipes.
That brought the trip full circle, reminding me of the Drum Corps show that may have been about sanitation systems.
A Mega Movie
My final August reminiscence is about driving to the Hollywood Boulevard Cinema in Woodridge for a screening of the documentary Making Megaforce.
A friend of mine is friends with the film’s maker, Bob Lindenmayer.
Megaforce came out in 1982. It got panned by the critics. The film faded over time, overshadowed by like-minded works of its sorts from that era. Flicks like Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, The Empire Strikes Back, The Return of the Jedi and Flash Gordon.
Lindenmayer was just a 10-year-old kid when he saw Megaforce. It hit all the right notes for him.
As the Film Threat website says, “the most awesome battle in 80s cinema was captured by Hal Needham and his crew using over 30 tanks, a dozen or more armored troop carriers, Hercules aircraft and 100 men.”
Lindenmayer bills his movie as “the documentary nobody asked for about a movie no one remembers.” That sounds a lot like writing for a hometown newspaper these days, which would be a different documentary.
As such, the movie maintains a good-natured, self-effacing sense of humor about itself. Lindenmayer tracks down everyone he can who was involved with making the movie. The movie incorporates theme music from Megaforce, too, which is in and of itself so ultimately 80s light metal silly, it’s funny.
Lindemayer buys a lot of its props. Some were kept in a decrepit building. One important item was being stored in a woodsy compound overseen by a surly scavenger.
Over the course of making making Making Megaforce, Lindenmayer becomes friends with its star, Barry Bostwick, of “Rocky Horror,” Broadway and “Spin City” fame.
The affable, quick-witted Bostwick even agrees to reenact Megaforce’s big battle scene in the Nevada Salt Flats with Lindemayer.
Lindenmayer and Bostwick’s relationship provides the heart of the movie, which Lindenmayer has been entering in film festivals. (Lindenmayer & Bostwick would be a good name for a law firm, too.)
The movie left me wondering about moviemaking back in that era. It seemed more seat of the pants crazy than today. Not a lot of CGI yet, but cocaine and booze aplenty. Plus, it had characters like former stuntman Hal Needham who directed the likes of “Smokey and the Bandit” and Megaforce.
The macho director/writer/producer du jour is Taylor Sheridan of Yellowstone fame. His stuff is brutal. If he directed a remake of Smokey and the Bandit, lots of people would end up dying violently over the course of a well-made but over-earnest, convoluted, multipart streamer.
Anyway, to learn more about Needham, I’ve added the 2016 documentary “The Bandit” to my watchlist.
Now though, as I approach/pass 3,000 words, I’ll wrap up meandering about my August adventures. We’ll soon be slip-sliding into September.
I present this Aug Blog to you in advance of Labor Day weekend. It could make for good beach or rainy day reading material. Or help you sleep.
If you made it this far, let me know. I will buy you a drink or some pizza. Or give you one of my Popeyes coupons.
Another Great Read from Mr. Danahey !! I Laughed more than Multiple Times !! Thanks Mike !!
Always a pleasure, Mike!