Hawks win!

©2013 Meg McCart

So last night I was strolling down Hubbard near LaSalle, saw some folks sitting outside and watching the game through the windows of a bar. I asked how the Hawks were doing, they were down 2-1. I said, "For now." The guy was nervous that there were only 2 minutes left. I told him that was plenty of time.

Before I reached the end of the block, all the bars near me erupted in cheers. I stood on the corner, waiting for the light. By the time the light changed, another cheer went up, much louder. Cars honked and cabbies waved to each other as I crossed the street. "Go Hawks!" echoed up and down the street. I turned south on LaSalle, and two blocks away the whole city erupted around me. Horns, cheers, and (almost immediately) sirens rang out in the night. Our boys did it again.

I moseyed back to the subway. A guy with a British accent asked directions to Union Station. He was distracted with texting someone and seemed confused about the honking and shouting. I told him "our team won the hockey championship." He said, "Already? Good on them. Go Hawks." A crowd of revelers lurched by. "They went, man! They already went!" someone called to the lost Brit.

All the way back to the subway, there was honking and cheering. Cabbies and bicyclists high-fiving each other at red lights. Rich white people returning calls of "Go Hawks!" to homeless people. Everyone was beaming. That walk last night will be, by far, one of my favorite city memories of all time.

©2013 Meg McCart

Green Home Experts

There's a new place in Oak Park that's opening tomorrow called Green Home Experts. They have all the stuff you need for living a greener life. Their website is here, and their store is over on Oak Park Ave right by the Ale House.

The lady who runs the place is very nice (I've spoken to her a few times), and her dog is adorable. But that's not the point of the story.

The point is we all know Spring is coming, and with it Spring cleaning and Spring projects and all that fun stuff. Since I know a fair number of you are Greenies, roll over and check out the new place on Saturday between 10 and 4.

They don't just have cleaning stuff and furniture, they also have cloth bags and other environmentally friendly day-to-day stuff. Bonus: it's a local small business, so you're keeping your money in the community instead of sending it off to Arkansas for the Walton clan to add to their pile.

Extra bonus: If you go to the opening on Saturday, they're raffling off a bag of goodies.

And...they have cookies.

Chicago/Art Institute pics

More pics of Chicago, added to the Chicago collection:

Ironically, we were coming from the Museum of Modern Ice when we came upon this installment of frozen cubism:



They apparently have a gallery inside that's open for free when there's anything to show. I had no idea. The story they had posted of the haunted water tower was a lot more interesting than the exhibit they had on display:



We were just strolling down the street when this caught my eye. I like how the lamp lines up with the overhead light. I think it was a design gallery or something:



This looks like if Tom Waits and Charles Bukowski had a party and invited all of their friends, this would be ground zero for the ruckus that would ensue:



I coulnd't get a shot without the flag. It's Chicago, can't do anything about the wind. *shrug*



And pics from the Art Institute:

Museum of Modern Ice

There's a sculpture at the Millennium Park called Museum of Modern Ice I heard about it and expected it to be sculptures of people, animals, castles, etc. My neighbor and I showed up and it looked like this:



And basically it looked dumb. But we figured, what the hell, take a few shots of some colored ice and go get some lunch. As we were taking our shots, we started to get kind of excited because the longer you stood and looked at it, the more there was to see. Other peoples' comments ("Look, Mama, it looks like the blue and red from the police," and "Is that supposed to be the skyline? That's a very interesting take on it.") made me see it in a different way. There were guides leading people around the exhibit, explaining little bits of it andthat helped, too.

The slabs of ice are expected and, indeed, intended to melt. As they melt, more colors and textures are shown. When one piece melts completely, it's replaced by a new block of ice. The fact that it changes color as it melts and sometimes reveals swriled textures is what really appealed to me.

I guess it didn't appeal so much to this kid who walked up and just shoved one of the blocks over. I didn't get a shot of it, but we were laughing about it all the way to Potbelly's.

More (non-ice-sculpture) pics to follow.

And the beat goes on...

Suntimes headline:

Man wins $2 mil. for false arrest
'THEY RUINED MY WHOLE LIFE' | Chicago Police allegedly framed suspect in case

Former Marine disarmed a drunken, belligerent, off-duty Chicago cop. Suddenly, he's up on attempted kidnapping charges. The court says he was framed by the cops, so he gets $2 million in Chicago tax dollars.

The part of this article that needs a little more explanation is this:

"Tuesday's verdict comes a week after another jury found other Chicago Police officers guilty of assaulting a teen with a screwdriver, resulting in a $4 million settlement against the Chicago Police Department. The teen was represented by the same firm."

Sounds kind of scary, eh? Like they were smacking this kid with a screwdriver, or maybe even stabbing him.

Yeah...no. That was sodomy. $4,000,000 worth of sodomy, courtesy of Chicago's finest.

So $6 million just this week has gone to cleaning up the messes made by our boys in blue. While one of my favorite blogs certainly makes a good point about people filing false complaints against the CPD, the fact is that there are probably more than a few completely power-crazed, insane, violent people on the force.

By "more than a few" I mean more than you would find in your average group of non-cops. Every group of people has a population percent that includes power-hungry, crazy jackasses. The CPD seems to just have more than its fair share.

If Daley is really going to turn this mess around, the discipline has to start now. And yes, bring in someone from the outside. Don't put someone who already owes favors all over town in the top spot of a corrupt system.

Relax, Daley - I meant the new chief, not you.

CTA Credit Card Theft

One of the many Chicago-centric blogs that I persue on a regular basis has spilled the beans on a little CTA-related scandal. This is from Second City Cop:

"From the comments - shouldn't this be front page news?

* OFF TOPIC: On Thursday a CTA employee was in Area 4 under arrest for identity theft. She was charged Friday with felony identity theft for stealing the credit card numbers of riders paying for their monthly fare card with credit cards. Gave the numbers to her boyfriend and they then went and bought all kinds of nice things for themselves. While she was up in Area 4, we had a "reverend" arrive and demand to speak to her. The bosses told him no, so he then pulls out his CTA identification. He's a CTA board member, and he got her the job. The best part, Huberman himself called Area 4 and asked that this be handled quietly. Did not want any bad publicity since he's now asking for more money for the CTA from riders and taxpayers. After the holy man/CTA board member started making more waves about talking with his wayward subject phone calls were made to the CTA bigshots by Area 4 bosses. They told the CTA to get this guy out of Area 4 or this arrest was going on the 24 log and there would be a press conference. He walked out shortly after that and it was not put on the 24 log which is for 'newsworthy events". A CTA employee stealing from riders gets charged with a felony while the CTA is asking for more tax money and that's not newsworthy?

Hey media? We could use a break from our scandals. How about picking on CTA for a bit? Of course, if this is true, we'd have another scandal on our hands for not putting noteworthy news on the 24 hour report and covering for the west side reverend association.

Seems like the reverends are at the forefront of a number of scandals. Hmmmm."

---

Basically, this is why I don't sign up to give the CTA my credit card number. Why give information like that to a company that's basically about to have to file bankruptcy? Sheesh.

3 hours a day makes me a professional's professional

Strolling down Jackson in the bowels of Oak Park, I can hear the roar of the airplane overhead and the roar of the blue line behind me. To the untrained ear it's the same noise, the same roar, the same swift, onward motion.

There are subtle differences. The airplane soars over, going somewhere - running away and leaving it all behind. Just like your daydreams, or the latest love of your life. Full of escape and possibility and perky attendants, the plane has had enough and is leaving for better climes.

The el clatters along, rattling, jarring you to the bone like roller skates on old sidewalks or the fathomless pit of your soul when you realize you've made the biggest mistake of your life. The el, cranky and ornery and mean, rumbles through the night. Staying its ground. Getting the last word in.

Grand & Milwaulkee

There's a strange blue building on the corner of Grand & Milwaukee that seems to attract some interesting graffiti. I took some pics of it & the surrounding area. I have a whole thing here that I wrote to go with it, but it'll have to wait til tomorrow:







Here's the flash thing:

Fraggle lady

Riding the el to and from work is, if nothing else, the best cross-section of humanity available in any one place or time. This is what happened last night:

This lady gets on the el over by County Hospital. She has blond hair, curly, with hot pink stripes it in. She hasn't brushed it today, she looks like a Fraggle. She's on her cell phone. Apparently she'd been sitting at County all day in the hard, straight-back chairs and she was in pain. They had been giving her a hard time. She'd been waiting 13 hours. On the phone, she wails things like:

"They keep running these TESTS. They can't see the problem with TESTS. They have to see INSIDE MY BODY."

And I smirk because it's funny to see a Fraggle talking about people having to see inside her body. Next to where she's sitting, there's a jittery man standing in dirty jeans and a torn t-shirt. The shirt used to be white but now it's covered in the grime and grit of life on the street. He's either jacking off or peeing on himself, which is better than my first thought, which was he was cracked out. Having a grown man pee himself while a Fraggle says things like "I'm going to go home and self-medicate. I will medicate myself. Today is Wednesday, right? Thursday? What the FUCK happened to Wednesday?" is funnier than you'd think.

The man sits down, squeezes his knees together but the telltale smell of piss fills the train car. The lady is saying, "I can't...no...I can't use the phone during the day when I'm not in Texas." Does she realize she's in Chicago? And these are daytime minutes? The fact that she could mistake this blue line train for the Lone Star State makes me giggle quietly to myself, my face turned toward the window, hoping she can't see.

There's a mom and two little kids - one maybe 2 years old, and the other an infant - and the 2-year old is looking at the Fraggle with wide eyes. The Fraggle says, "They run tests but they won't get them back for a week and after a week I'll be gone - gone!"

The man with the wet crotch and jittery hands gets up and exits the train. It's been raining hard for about five stops now. The Fraggle is saying, "I'll just go home tonight and I think I should be blond again. I'll go get some hair dye on the way home, wherever. Whatever."

As if dying her hair will cure all of her medical woes. I have my face buried in my satchel, trying not to laugh out loud because you don't want to laugh at the crazies when you're on the train. There's nowhere to run when they come after you.

The mom and the two kids exit the train, holding up newspapers to protect themselves from the wind and the rain. The little girl shows no signs of fear as she and her mom and sibling march into the night. The storm swallows them up as our train abandons them to the lightening and thunder that are infesting the sky.

Fraggle ends her call, walks up and down the train once, twice. Halfway through the third lap she stops and her head whips around to the windows and the weather outside. "OH MY GOD!" she wails. "OH MY GOD! I DON'T EVEN HAVE AN UMBRELLA OR ANYTHING! OH GOD! OH GOD!"

She leaps off the train at the next stop, presumably to color her hair or trek back to Fraggle Rock, or maybe to melt as the rain touches her skin. After the doors close, my eyes are wet from giggling and the prospect of walking home in the rain and wind doesn't seem so bad; the giggling keeps the gloom at bay. It's a miniature euphoria that keeps me grinning all the way home.

Is there nothing those Fraggles can't do?

CTA Rally

One of my favorite blogs, The CTA Tattler, mentioned that there's a rally at the Thompson Center on the 28th. It's at 11:30. That's 11:30 a.m., on a Tuesday.

I don't understand. Do people not have jobs? Who the hell can just roll out to the Thompson center at 11:30? Maybe if you work near there, you can take your lunch really early and go down there, but you'll only be there about 15 minutes before you have to go back to work.

Hold a rally when the people who are affected the most by the service cuts can be there. People with no alternate transportation, people who rely on the CTA to put food on the table or pay a family member's medical bills. People who work 10, 12, 14 hours a day and can't afford a car because they're working 14 hours doing all the dirty jobs that you don't want to do, and they're doing them for minimum wage.

Damn. Use some sense when you're putting together a rally, for fuck's sake. Get together a 24-hour rally, where people can come before or after work, or on their way to school. Make a rally that everybody can participate in, not just the lucky few who have dwaddling time around 11:30 every day, or who have enough sick days that they can call in. It's our CTA, too. Our designated driver on those late nights, our carpool to and from work. Let us rally around her success, too.

Early Morning Blues n Greens

I took some pictures this morning. Well, from like 1 to 6 a.m. Here are some of them. Imma go hop on the el and take some more.







I am flashing you!

Brown Line

I took some pics from the Brown Line today on my way home from the Cubs game. Stupid Cubs.

I put them in with my regular "Chicago" set of pictures, but these are the ones I just took today:

Uke Fest

Most of the videos are up from the uke fest. See them here.

Here are some pictures that I'm putting here because I know you lazy people like to have pretty and/or interesting things to look at.

The fest was held at Legal Grounds Coffee House in Maywood. If you've ever heard of Legal Grounds, likely you've been over to that courthouse on First Avenue, which means that you and I should probably party some time. Or not, depending on whether you left a free person or all shackled up. I digress:



And two pretty shots of the river:





I had more to say, but it's time to go drink at Ed's so I'll babble at you later.

Pride Parade

I went to the Pride Parade Sunday, along with a couple thousand other people. The place was too crowded to get really good artsy shots, so I just went for things that caught my eye.

Before you start to tell me how dumb it is to take (and post) pictures of hot gay guys that I can never have because they're gay, I should point out that I can't have hot straight guys either, but I doubt any of you would berate me for posting a picture of, say, Luke Wilson.

Favorite pic:



More can be found here.

Slide show (the small pics are actually videos. Click to view)

Flickr: Photos from spudart

Flickr: Photos from spudart





Matt Maldre has a fantastic collection of Chicago photos here - I could browse for hours. Go check 'em out yourself, or get to know the man behind the camera.

Gotham!

I went downtown on Saturday to watch them film the new Batman movie, but they were done filming for the day. There's a post office that straddles one of the main arteries into the city, I-290, and the north face of the post office had been changed to Gotham National Bank. I got an okay picture of it, but there's a short video pan of it on my twango account. We walked around afterwards and got some great shots of the city, including some good ones from the top of the Hancock building. Here's the Gotham National Bank picture:



And my favorite shot of the day: