Tag Archives: Travel

Chicago Calling part two- Back in Black/New York State of Mind

8 Nov

from July 14, 2006

Chicago is being taken over by New Yorkers. The hotel is full of Mets fans, and so is the next hotel. And the next. Weber Grill, a very good BBQ place, was full of Mets fans. This is not good. Yes, I wrote not. For the most part, they are obnoxious. The Cubs fans, for the most part, are very friendly, despite the fact that their team sucks and they are 21 games under .500 and their manager is killing his pitchers and Wood and Prior are doomed to never be any good and- whew! See? It’s rubbing off on me. Anyway, you can easily tell the mid-westerners from the New Yorkers. The people from NYC are always yelling. METS! NEW YORK! YEAH!!!!!!! And of course wearing Mets gear to the game we get dragged into it. I like talking with the Illinois people, and the people from the rest of this part of the country because they all seem A- friendly B-naïve, in a good way, and C- genuinely open. DISCLAIMER- I spend most of my time around tourists, so I am missing the average Chicago scumbag.

Last night I went to a nice restaurant for dinner, Weber Grill. Its dressy casual, at best. (It gets Barrys four-star thumbs up!) I wore my black jeans and a nice black button-down black shirt, and my black sneakers. My black shoes did not make the trip. They hate to fly. Anyway, I firmly believe that what I am about to say is true. Ready? I was the only person in the Chicago Metro/Navy Pier Area wearing black. Sure, there were some black shorts and some black tank tops, but no one wore all black but me. Im from NYC, dammit! Everyone stared. I was a hit! Or and oddity. Lots of white, pink, khaki, pastels, red, but little black. BTW- all the women, from 6 to 60 are wearing tanks. Upper Mid-west strikes again. I was a tough guy. They were all afraid of me. I pushed them around and strutted like I owned the city. No I didnt. I felt strange and wondered where all of these people came from. (Mostly the mid-west, it turns out.)

Later, I’ll tell you about the Mississippi Basin Regional Convention in my hotel, the homeless, and the Gay Games take to the streets!

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Chicago Calling (sorry Clash!) part one

8 Nov

from July 13, 2006

Here I am in Chicago, the Windy City. The flight was pretty good and we got in early. In fact, the only problem was the guy sitting next to me.
He wasn’t annoying, and he wasn’t bothering me. If he didn’t SMELL LIKE A SEWER RAT I probably wouldn’t have noticed him.
Strangely, Stinky McStinkson was dressed in a fancy business suit. Oh, did I mention that he was an asshole too? He took off his jacket and wedged it, neatly, between his tray and the seat so that it was hanging neatly. Neatly, except that at least six inches of it dragged on the floor. It got stepped on by everyone walking through the aisle and every time, he brushed it off and put it neatly back down, then the merry-go-round would start again. A couple of times it fell on the floor and he put it back the same stupid way.
He had two books. One was Maverick Real Estate Investing. He never looked at that one. He spent the whole two hour flight reading- intently! – Father to Daughter. It was a fat book with huge print, fitting about 12 words on a page. 12 were too many. It was all Zen-like BS aphorisms like “She may be cute, but not too cute to throw food.” And “Take her for a walk in the woods. She may get a splinter, but youll get a tree of love.” I couldn’t stop peeking at it. People get paid to write that shit? And what kind of tools would read it? Isn’t that like a gag gift from Spencers?

The people in Chicago are really nice. When I got off the plane, a gentleman came up to me and offered to exchange all of my NY money for Chicago currency. He must have really taken me for a fool. He only offered two Capones for one dollar. I wasnt born yesterday. I haggled and got him up to four Capones. So I now have 1,000 Capones, which the nice man assures me are accepted all over Chicago. Heh, I really played him for a sucker.

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