The hands rounded past midnight on the clock hanging above the stage at the No Exit Cafe in Rodgers Park. The odd clock had a strange carved ear on the front of the housing with little else in explanation. That ear had caught decades of sound ranging from the soft warmth of a nine-string guitar to strident piano cords delivered by a one-armed remnant of the Lincoln Brigade. Songs and stories of youth and devotion set against the motion of those ever rotating hands. Emotions and memories that took another bow despite the indifference of time. That's where I learned my love of ghosts, humor and a good story. I was just a sleepy-eyed child in the back booth as Dad (Art Thieme) tuned the double peg set on that nine-string claiming that "it was more treble than it was worth," but I knew different. Outside the Chicago tension was palpable. The Howard Street L-Train screamed in steel cacophonies mixing in with the high cry of the espresso steam. Drug deals could be seen through the high glass windows of the Exit, and Dad was always watching his back when returning to the car. However, right there, in that place, for that time, a pocket of protection seemed to envelope us and keep out the lesser atrocities of city life. I had my own inner movie for every song and story of Dad's. The characters breathed and lived. Some lived short and tragic like lovesick shanty boys who's long forgotten graves I could visualize in a Wisconsin field of hops. Some just got up and ate the rest of the cottage cheese. These stories and songs taught me how to see with other eyes; hundreds of them still coming up on a daily basis and finding respite in my own tales and scribblings. Now Dad only wrote two of his own songs as I recall. A good portion of the songs he sang came from research and friends. The song which holds the most succinct explanation of his legacy to me is Jerry's "Handful of Songs." There's no need for a will as that's all he need leave me. I'll still never forget the last time I saw him perform. He played that song, and I remember thinking, though I've never said so aloud, "This may be the last time...remember."

I'm just an heir with a lot less years and a lot less miles under the belt than most of you folks. And I sincerely apologize for taking up such a large amount of space for a thread I've got little right to except by relation. As Dad mentioned, I provide for myself and my family doing something I could frankly care less about. But all that's fine as long as for a few hours a night I can write and let the words hold reign and tap back into that spirit I felt long before the No Exit was white washed into a Starbuck's replica. A dozen other places I remember as well like The Green Dragon Inn and Charlotte's Web. Now these are not much more than a dusty memory from a pre-occupied child who didn't follow in his father's footsteps. But there is a thread. I don't know how far back it stretches and there's no assurance as to how far it'll go on. But somewhere it started. A soul made music and words that touched another. This next soul took the thread, maybe changed the color, maybe changed the weave and even the fiber, but the thread went on, going though each soul in it's journey. It's hard to pay the rent with thread, and I doubt few of the folks in this long lineage ever did. You could all write songs for Britney Spears, and I could follow a formula like Danielle Steele, and we could all attain spectacular heights of a type of success. And for those that do, as Dad always said, "more power to them." There's a skill and reward just the same. But for all you musicians who made the quiet vinyl LP that played for a decade and maybe made it to CD you have my sincerest and most appreciative admiration and thanks. It's hard to sing strong when surrounded by silence and indifference. Please remember, it is the silence between diamonds that regulates their worth.

Well, that's more than long enough I suppose, and I promise not to clutter like this again. I hear the baby on the monitor, and it sounds like she might start to fuss. So I'll say goodnight. I'll pop in one of her Grandpa's CD's and let him sing her to sleep. And who knows "what dreams may come."

C.T. Thieme (a.k.a. Art's son)