I was wandering around the neighborhood this morning taking care of some business when I saw a middle-aged man peeking into the old Villa May Pizzaria that’s been empty for almost two years. My neighbors and I have been wondering what would eventually occupy the incredibly-convenient-for-us space.
Me: Is someone finally doing something with this place? Man: Yeah… It’s going to be a Middle-Eastern restaurant. Me: Great! I live across the street. Man: I’m Gene Shulter, your alderman. I’m just checking in on our little projects. Me: Oh! Hi. Gene: Let’s see how the other ones are coming along.
And with that he lumbered off down Montrose — to check in on the construction at Damen, I presume.
My neighbor was out of the country for a few weeks and asked me to move his cars when the streets were being cleaned to keep him from getting a ticket.
Done.
Today, for some reason, I decided to check on the cars to make sure they were okay. They were not okay. They were gone. Panic. I started calculating the cost if they were towed. What is it, $100/day? 10 days? 2 cars? Oy. Well, maybe they were stolen. Is that better?
I called 311 (useless), the impound lot (mostly useless) and my alderman’s office (very helpful!) before finally realizing I needed to e-mail my neighbor, tell him the bad news, and get the license plate numbers so I could figure out what actually happened. My e-mail began, “I hope your trip was going well because I’m going to ruin it…”
A few minutes later I received a response.
I am sooo sorry. We got home Sun. and I found the cars safe and sound. I’ve been using them and completely forgot to give you a huge thank you. I’m sorry to have put you through the last few hours of misery. I owe you big time.
Phew. Problem solved.
Oh wait. Not yet. First I need to make an awkward call to the alderman’s office and explain the situation to the nice man who was gonna “help me out of my pickle.”
Journey to the End of the Night 2009 has come and gone and no one could have asked for better weather… unless you were sprinting as fast as you could wearing a gorilla suit. In that case you might have preferred it a bit cooler.
I think my favorite part of the whole night might have been the bus ride home with blue and pink ribboned Chicagoans boarding and disembarking, all sharing stories of their adventures that night.
Other fond memories:
Accidentally chasing three dudes who weren’t actually playing the game — possibly freaking them out a little bit.
A cop yelling out his car at me… only to ask me where my gorilla mask was. (I would have worn it but I couldn’t see anything out of it. Also, it smelled weird.)
Chasing people through Bridgeport where it was nice to see that kids still actually play outside in their neighborhood. They loved the idea of our game so I gave them the few blue armbands I had collected and told them if they wore them they might get chased by people with pink armbands. They ended up just running from anyone who came by.
Below is a map of the checkpoints for anyone who might be interested. As a “staff chaser” my job was to patrol certain choke points and make people run.
I was worried when Dax moved away from Chicago he’d leave behind a bunch of people who still wanted to play the crazy games he organized with no one to run them.
Luckily, Dax decided to come back to Chicago this weekend and run his game, “Journey to the End of the Night.” I’ll be helping him out by chasing people around. I may or may not be dressed in a ridiculous costume which may or may not resemble food.
The game involves running through the city to different checkpoints without getting tagged by a chaser. If you do, you become a chaser yourself, and the beat goes on.
The game will start Saturday, May 2nd at 6.30 PM at 280 S. Columbus. Just show up and be prepared to run. You’ll be given maps and other information at the starting line.
What’s that you say? You’re not in Chicago? You live in DC? Well, there’s a simultaneous game in Washington on May 2nd as well!
In the London tube stations there were a bunch of travel ads for Chicago. I didn’t see many ads for other places — maybe one or two for Aruba — but maybe I just didn’t notice the other places.
The ads weren’t very good, but everytime I saw one I felt the need to point it out. Look! It’s Chicago! I think it made Shama a little homesick. It made me a little homesick too even though I’d only been gone for a couple weeks.
With admission you can attend unlimited sky shows, which is great unless you get stuck in One Sky: Big Bird’s Adventure for a half-hour. Can Big Bird sing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” in Chinese anyslower?
A few weeks ago, there was a discussion at work regarding the best cupcakes in Chicago. Most of us in the office, myself included, are big Sweet Mandy B’s fans but Kurt sent an impassioned e-mail singing the praises of a cupcake-only bakery called Swirlz.
Time for a cupcake-off.
Turns out the company is very opinionated when it comes to desserts.
Anna (via E-mail): Seriously? 22 emails about cupcakes? Seriously? Tiffany: I think you just made it 23, Anna.
In fact, there were about 40 e-mails on the subject. Despite all the chatter, a clear victor emerged: Sweet Mandy B’s.
Every player is given a nametag that they keep on their right wrist. The goal of the game is to collect as many nametags as possible. Nametags are collected by taggin players on other teams.
There are three teams, Orange, Purple, and Yellow, each identified by a colored armband. The Orange team can tag people on the Yellow team, the Yellow team can tag people on the Purple team and the Purple team can tag people on the Orange team.
Each player is given a map with 12 locations on it. At each location is a stamp. You need at least 9 stamps to cross the finish line.
Only travel by foot or on CTA trains is allowed.
Shama and I were on the Orange team and we gathered the mysterious Kevin into our cohort as his friend didn’t show up. We all decided we wanted to try and get the award for getting all 12 stamps as quickly as possible. We figured most people would start south and work their way north towards the finish line. Our plan was to take a train north and then do a big loop.
Here’s the route we ended up taking, complete with checkpoints and annotations. Click on “view larger map” to see the details:
When we finally huffed into the finish line, we were told we were the 7th, 8th, and 9th to finish with all 12 stamps. Not to bad for over 100 players. I also won second in the “best photo” contest for this shot of Shama jumping a fence:
Last night Dax had a practice session to help him work out some of the kinks. A bunch of people met on the steps of the Art Institute and played some tag, sardines, and other games white people like. I’ve always loved sardines. We only played one round beacuse the hider did such a good job — lying in tall grass of the garden outside the Art Institute. It took over an hour for everyone to find him. I was in the middle of the pack, but Shama was one of the first, using a tried and true tactic that my friend Eddie used to use when we played as kids: act like a weirdo and listen for snickers.
Hiding in the garden
I think my favorite moment of the evening was when two people in our group played rock-paper-scissors to decide who would hide first. After a decisive victory, a stranger ran across Michigan Ave.
Stranger: Who won? Winner: I did. Stranger (holding out his hand to play): Let’s go.
The mysterious stranger won three straight games, pumped his fist (rock?) and then walked off down the street. When you’ve got it, flaunt it… I guess.
I live on a resiliant little street. Well, not the street itself — it’s as frail as a lactose-intolerant octogenerian — but the businesses around it manage to keep going despite multiple floods, a ridiculous sinkhole, a year-long train station construction project, and now… emergency sewer repair. Here’s the news we all received:
Repeated partial collapses during cleaning and inspection operation have persuaded the Department of Water Management that a full sewer replacement between Damen and Hermitage is necessary.
Repeated partial collapses? That explains why the neighborhood smells like a toilet. Still, Roong Petch, Glenn’s Diner, Lather, Subway, Scot’s, Beans and Bagels and my friends at the convenience store keep on truckin’. Even El Torito has signs that they’ll be reopening soon. El Torito, which looked like this only a couple months ago:
There are film writers who can do a better job reviewing The Dark Knight than I — here’s a good one — but, like everyone else, I sure dug it. As advertised, Heath Ledger steals the show, but I was even more impressed with the performance of our fair city. Chicago wore very little makeup in its portrayal of Gotham, and the city looks gorgeous. I was particularly excited when Batman threw the Joker into a limestone wall that I’m pretty sure was my bank. My bank! A big movie star! I can say I withdrew from it way back when.
I suspect The Dark Knight will join The Blues Brothers and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off as one of the all-time best Chicago movies. High Fidelity did pretty good too. Oh, and Stranger Than Fiction. And don’t even get me started on John Hughes. What are your favorites?
If you live in Chicago you have to weather the weather, as it were. I actually appreciate the variety. Blizzards, thunderstorms, sweltering days and freezing nights are all par for the course. Then again, sometimes you go out on your porch and there’s a rainbow. Take it, Dean!
Nancy, one of the engineers on the Guatemala trip, qualified for the “Seniors Ride Free” program offered by the CTA. Perhaps it’s rude to mention a friend’s age online like this, but I don’t think she’d mind because every time I see her she manages to steer the conversation to free transit, often producing her pass and rubbing it in my face.
One of the nice things about being a student was getting a U-Pass from the CTA that offered me the fun and freedom of being 65 and older, transit-wise. Unfortunately, that freedom ended in the middle of June and now I’m paying for the train again like a sucker.
If I managed to ride the CTA 1,371 times I could have totally paid my tuition with free fares. I didn’t.
Yesterday I filled in on bass with Aric’s band, Divebar (minus Aric, who was in Washington.) The show was outside of Cellular Field playing for White Sox Fans as they came to the ballpark. Despite having to kill 2 hours with 90 minutes worth of material and my lackluster bass skills, we had a good time and the show went pretty well.
Our sound guy — a friend from another band — said when they played the same stage, Ronnie Woo Woo showed up. Sure enough, about halfway through our set he showed up for us too. He was probably our best fan, singing along with songs he didn’t know and dancing around. Ladies would dance with him briefly while their boyfriends took pictures. Guys in Sox gear would pose giving his Cubs outfit the thumbs-down while their girlfriends took pictures.
As we were packing up, the lady who booked the show came by to say thanks.
PROMOTIONS LADY: I just wanted to let you know that you were really well-received. KELLY: Ronnie Woo-Woo seemed to like us. PROMOTIONS LADY: (A little upset) Oh, he was here again? He comes here a lot.
I don’t know if the Sox folks don’t like Ronnie coming around because he’s so associated with the Cubs (and came dressed in a full Cubs uniform) or just because he can be a little annoying.
PROMOTIONS LADY: I guess he just really likes baseball.
On the way home Kelly asked if Ronnie Woo Woo has a Wikipedia entry. He does.
When I lived in New York, I wasn’t so into the music scene. I wasn’t really a musician back then, so that probably explains some of it, but I never really went to shows either. Music in Chicago is much better. So is small independent theater.
City Hall has a new ordinance in the works that would make it more difficult for independent promoters to put on shows at small venues. This is all in response to the H2 nightmare a couple years back when 20 people were trampled to death after a fight broke out at a concert, but I suspect it will do more to hurt small, honest promoters than it will to stop any future disasters. Most promoters I’ve worked with don’t get rich off of small shows or festivals. They put shows together because it’s fun and they like the music. A $1000 fee and required background check would probably be enough to persuade many of them to quit putting up shows. That would be bad for musicians and bad for Chicago.
UPDATE: Chicago Promoter’s Ordinance to be reworked. Hooray! Hopefully the new version will address the actual problem without killing Chicago’s honest music, theater and comedy promoters. I have to say, I’m impressed with Chicago’s artistic community. Way to go everyone.
