[MRM]

I love driving through that part of the country and I can never shake my Blues Brothers visions when I drive through Joliet or the other towns mentioned in The Blues Brothers.

I grew up in rural Wisconsin, just on the edge of the Chicago media market. I was about in junior high when the BB came out. I was transfixed. I saw it for the first time on cable while staying with relatives, which was both the first time I saw cable TV and (later that night) the first time I saw televised nudity. Some of you might be too young to remember, but back then cable was exotic and had such low exposure and ratings that after sundown HBO and Cinnemax were pretty racy.

I can still remember the scene that finally got the older relatives to notice what the kids were watching and order the TV turned off. It was a bar scene with a stripper dancing on a table, fully nude, twisting and turning to give the best full frontal nudity possible (plot line? What plot line?) As much as I remember the scene on the TV, I remember a very pretty 30-ish relative watching the movie even more intently than me as she was supposed to turn the TV off. She was the closest adult when some responsible older adult realised what was on TV and started shouting that there were kids present and someone needed to turn it off. She took as long as she could and really got an eyefull before finally switching it off. I was 15 at the time, I remember because I had a driver's permit but no driver's license.

It was one of those big extended family gatherings kids get dragged to where you have no idea how you are related to anyone there and you never see them again. It made a great impression on me that melded with my love of the Blues Brothers.

A few years later when I was in high school I had to go through Joliet, Skokie, and the rest on a trip somewhere to the south east. I just stared at the exit signs pointing to the towns in the movie. I wasn't sure that they really existed outside of the movie and I couldn't believe no one else in the car thought it was a big deal to see the signs to the towns where the movie too place.

I drive through that area every few years and I still can't shake the feeling that everyone else in the car should notice the signs and feel about them the way I do. And it always reminds me of the first time I saw the Blues Brothers on Cable TV.