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2004-06-14 - 8:27 p.m.
is Chicago, is not Chicago
The Nine Greatest Songs of All Time (Right Now)
1. Jonathan Richman
"Let Her Go Into The Darkness"2. Lloyd Banks f/ Eminem, 50 Cent and Nate Dogg
"Warrior" (remix) 3. Guy
"Groove Me" 4. Soul Coughing
"Is Chicago, Is Not Chicago" 5. Graham Nash
"Chicago" 6. Common f/ Kanye West
"The Food" 7. The Beach Boys
"Vegetables" 8. Beauty Pill
"Such Large Portions!" 9. Bobbie Gentry
"Reunion" |
I just spent this past weekend in Chicago, and it was my first real visit to the city of Balki Bartokomous, Ferris Beuller, R. Kelly, Kanye West, and Jake & Elwood Blues. The occasion was the college graduation of my dad’s girlfriend Linda’s daughter Danielle. But it was also exciting because my bro Zac, who’s been living in Wisconsin for the past year, drove the couple hours down from Madison to meet up with us in Chicago. Our flight was Friday afternoon, and inconveniently there happened to be a big setup at my dayjob, so I told them I’d come in for a couple hours but I’d have to leave early. Of course, I was up late the night before packing and everything, and I did what I always do when it’s important for me to be up early the next morning. I was so tired by the time I went to bed that I guess I set the alarm wrong or something, and it never got me up. And for some reason work never called, and I wish they had because the phone was right by my bed and it would’ve woken me up, but oh well. I called and told them that I was sorry but if I came in I’d only be able to help for a half hour, and they said don’t bother. I felt bad, but those guys flake out on busy days all the time, and things like that always blow over, so I’m not too worried about it. Dad told me a day or so earlier to pack my finest suit, which I remembered to do, except I realized that I’d forgotten to pack dress shoes until I was already on my way to his house. Fortunately, he had a nice loose pair of loafers that fit on my size 13 feets. We caught our cab to BWI and made good time getting through check-in and everything without incident. But stormy weather was brewing in Baltimore, and so our take-off was delayed about an hour. Once we got in the plane, though, everything went smoothly. The flight was only about 2 hours long, and with the changeover into Central time zone, we got one of those hours back. I brought David Foster Wallace’s new short fiction collection Oblivion, which just came out last week, but between the flight there and back I only got through the first story. After the crummy weather in Baltimore, we landed in Chicago under clear skies. I know the Windy City has a reputation for unwelcoming weather, so I’m glad my introduction was on a warm June day. Our hotel was pretty close to the Midway airport and so we could take a free shuttle there, but traffic was real real ugly and it took a while. Because of the flight delay, we were way behind schedule anyway and were supposed to have met Zac at the hotel by then, and attempts to call his cell were unsuccessful. When we got the lobby and checked in, there was a note from him waiting for us, but as I opened it up to read it, he snuck up on us in the lobby. Turns out he didn’t have to wait long for us anyway. After settling in, we went out to a steakhouse for dinner and then retired to the hotel to watch cable and play Gameboy. In the morning, we got dressed up and piled into Zac’s car to drive to the other end of the city to find the Lyric Opera House, where the DePaul University graduation ceremony was being held. Zac had just been down in the city a couple weeks early and kind of knew his way around the area, so we found the place and nearby parking without incident. We waited outside to be let in for the ceremony, and eventually found all of the family that had also come out to see Danielle, her dad and brother and Linda’s parents. Dad and Linda have been a couple for about 5 years now, and have lived together most of that time, but Dad had never met Linda’s parents until this weekend at the graduation. They’re from Germany, and Linda’s father was a member of the Hitler youth and she’s got all sorts of horror stories about them. But they were on their best behavior, they were nice to all of us and came off as any other couple of sweet old immigrant grandparents. Not that I don’t believe Linda’s account of them, but I am glad they were nice folks on at least a surface level. It was cool to sit in the Lyric and see all the amazing architecture and decoration. Aside from that, it was like any other graduation ceremony, we waited to hear Danielle’s name, and when she walked across the stage we all stood and went apeshit. Afterwards we went out to dinner at a German restaurant and all 10 of us sat around a big round table and it was an enjoyable family get-together, considering that most of the people pleasant weren’t my blood relatives. Then we walked around a bit more and stumbled into the Chicago Blues Festival, which happened to be that weekend. On Sunday morning we got up and saw John off at O’Hare, and then went into the city and had brunch and got an eyeful of the view. Chicago really is a breathtaking city, in some ways much more impressive than NYC, maybe it’s just that the tall buildings are all more recent and so uniformly immaculate. I didn’t even know that the river ran right through the city like that, it was a trip to see draw bridges come up to let sailboats through and hold up street traffic in the middle of the city. I hope someday I have more time to expore Chi-town. We walked around the city a bit more after brunch, but I think we were all a bit worn down, so catching a matinee of Troy was a good excuse to sit in a dark air conditioned room for a couple hours. Afterwards, we parted ways with Danielle, and had a nice dinner in a tavern that had a bunch of autographed pictures of celebrity customers adorning the walls, including one of Schwarzenegger with an autograph that said “great food, good place for bodybuilding”. Our flight home was at 6am, so we had to get up mega early, and Zac was nice enough to get up with us and give us a ride to airport and see us off. It was good to catch up with the dude, he’s my brother for life but since he moved out to Madison a year ago Christmas was the only other time I’ve seen him in the flesh. Recently it looked like he might be coming back east at the end of the summer and we even talked about him moving into my apartment and I was excited about that possibility. But he decided he’s gonna stay and keep making a go of it, and that’s probably for the best, he’s got a girl out there now and aside from problems with his roommate I think he’s happy out there. I’m gonna see if I can fly out and see him this summer, maybe in August before I go back to school. -al
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