Dispatch, We Have a 911

For those who asked, there is just something about "Telstar," I told Bob its like being Green Lantern or his alter-ego, Hal Jordan, up in the sky, and agreed with Rich that there is no real way to explain it. It just gives you chills from an adrenaline rush or it doesn't. I also thought to look up Mike Post's the from HILL STREET BLUES, not just for the song, but to show off a Chicago long gone. Now the television show went to great lengths to say that Hill Street might be in Baltimore or Chicago, but those are our squads and our sleets and our Old Style signs. The old 7th District station house is still on Maxwell Street, but everything else was demolished, never mind why and what was built. You should know how I feel about this century's Chicago by now. This section of Maxwell Street is also seen in THE BLUES BROTHERS, but in direct sunlight on a crowded day. The scenes from Hill Street Blues' opening credits, which they try to convey in the show but just can't, fake snow is fake snow and guys in sleeveless t-shirts walking by an alleyway doesn't help. The adult walking the two kids, I can see them in my sleep, and, again, the Old Style sign above the door to a nameless tavern. Even the viaduct beneath the Dan Ryan Expressway has changed, its not as desolate because of the newer buildings and street lighting. The show seems dated now, but more than anything, it did two things for me. It taught me how to write about more than one character at a time, and it also told me to never, ever forget that I was writing about Chicago.