My kind of town, Chicago is

Dispatch from the 16th floor somewhere downtown Chicago. Just got back from the sun deck on the 21st floor where I had my morning smoke and coffee and now sit listening to the brakes from the cars far below squeal by and that beautiful white noise of city life. Much needed after so long in the middle of nowhere with no noises save far-off trains.

We had to leave Cincinnati after a few days because the camp site was $35 a night, too rich for our blood so we headed West again into Indiana. As we’re on our way out battling driving rain and ominous thunder Steph suggests we stop and get groceries, but if we do we’ll have to run the fridge for the next 4 hours we’re driving, and I’m sure we can find a grocery store somewhere near our next campsite so we head into Indiana again. Fields, farms and nothing much worth mentioning as we stop off in the little town where the campsite is and go into the grocery store. After a few days without wine we both wanted a good $5 bottle for the night but lo, the wine section is about 6 bottles wide and 5 bottles tall, with top shelf stuff like Mad Dog 20/20 and Franzia. So instead we decide to get a bottle of vodka and some tonic water to keep around the lolli for times like this when there’s no decent wine to be found. But as the pale midwestern farm boy is checking us out he grabs the vodka bottle and says “I can’t sell this to you, it’s Sunday.” The wind is knocked out of me and then shock turns to rage. No liquor sales on Sunday? Really Indiana? What century are we living in? What kind of backwards hillbilly morality is this? Apparently you can buy it at restaurants and bars, and you can buy it any other day of the week, and you can drink it on Sunday but you can’t buy it at the store on Sunday. Great job guys. I’m not sure what you’re trying to accomplish, but when we were denied at the grocery store it’s not like I decided to change my ways and head to church instead. Even Jesus couldn’t live in Indiana. He certainly couldn’t break bread and turn water into wine on Sunday. Well, I guess he could turn water into wine, he just couldn’t sell it to a couple progressive travelers on their way to a campsite in the sticks. The campsite didn’t have laundry or decent bathrooms but did have a guy with a mullet, mustache and t-shirt tucked into acid-wash denim shorts on the playground. So after they denied us our half off discount we decide to leave and go to another park, but not before I showed the bumpkin who ran the place how to do a refund on a credit card machine (“I can’t give ya a refund, I don’t know how.”). So we drive North through farmlands and through “towns” which consist usually of a gas station, scrap metal yard and a someone doing tax services out of their house and I’m asking Steph how and why people would choose to live like this when all of a sudden we get to a stop light with a sushi restaurant. What? There are actual Japanese kids standing outside of it too. Then an Indian food restaurant with Indian guys hanging out waiting for tables. I’m thinking that the lack of wine and all the driving has finally snapped my fragile mind like so much kindling when we drive past Purdue University and it all makes sense. Then Lafayette, Axl Rose’s hometown. Finally we hit the Caboose Lake campground in Remington, Indiana and set up camp. Good spot with nice showers, laundry and a little lake so we stay for three nights and four days. On day two we walk over the freeway to the series of truck stops about 3/4 of a mile away figuring there has to be wine or beer or something there and as we walk into the largest one and scan the cold cases……nothing. So I ask the toothless lady sweeping up where the wine and beer is and she tells us the nearest drop of hooch is 4 miles away in town. So now it’s a matter of principle and I will not lose to Indiana’s backward ways. Back to the Lolli we pack everything up, drive the 4 miles to the liquor store where we buy two bottles of wine and a bottle of vodka like free people and head back triumphant and arrogant. Completely worth it. Hey Indiana, how about catching up to the 1940s with your liquor laws and if you’re really concerned about the well being of your citizens, start by getting rid of those KFC Buffets I see everywhere. Your pal, Joel.

After a few relaxing days in the boonies it’s time for the city and back to the flux and flow of life. As we get into Chicago the smells of the city smoke food spices all flood over the highway as we sit in traffic on a series of bridges and I know if I could just peel back the highway that under us would be a rich nougat center of kebabs, bodegas, cafes, bikes, bums, old neons, flowers, girls on phones, businessmen, crumbling brick, cigarette butts, antique theaters, skyscrapers praising Yahweh with angry spires, windows filled with goodies and people all waiting for us to arrive. We drive to my sisters apartment downtown and start unloading all of our worldly possessions that we don’t want stolen since we’re taking the Lolli to a storage unit for the foreseeable future. I put some miles on the freight elevator with instruments and clothes. We park it in a lot across the street for the night until the next day when we’re driving it 30 minutes outside the city to the storage lot. Starving, we head with Shanna down Michigan Ave. then West to a soup shop and with beef stew breadbowl sit on the street watching all the people pour past in the sun and 70 degree Chicago Spring afternoon. Stop at the Lavassa cafe for some Italian espresso then up to the roof deck for wine and sun. Wake up at daybreak with wrap around windows making the sun a home through the skyscrapers and then it’s off to move the Lolli to the ‘burbs for storage, train back to the city and 3 mile walk back to the pad past Top Chef event on the street and pasta lunch. Back home for a nap then it’s out again to Michigan Ave., back for vegan chili with Shanna’s law school chums who had just finished their finals and were all adequately smashed from being on a booze cruise but there’s a city waiting outside so we cab it to Wicker Park and end up at a speakeasy with no visible door or signs from outside, “Hidden in plain sight” the doorman across the street tells me. But we get inside and it’s all chandeliers and violet curtains and they’re playing The Kinks, Rolling Stones, John Lennon and other goodies, then on our way back we wander into a French Vietnamese place that actually has pho so the night ends on a great note. Then yesterday there’s much morning lounging and finally we get ourselves together and head to Lincoln Park for fireside Irish pub drinks, wander into a market and get a small bottle of vodka and tonic water, mix up bus juice and take the bus to the Empty Bottle to see the Annuals play. They put on a great show as always and we plaster the walls with The Duke Wants Me Dead stickers and get home around 1:30 in the morning. Today I get out the electric guitar for the first time in weeks and there’s much music and city wandering in our foreseeable future. As always, some photos:

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