Day 4: Crushing the Chicago Tourism Scene

After a few hours of hanging with the hipsters at Starbies I had heard enough faux-revolutionary liberal musings (makes sense in my head) for a couple of months and headed back, reenergized, to wake Fran and start the day. My first plan of action was out of desperation and represented what I believed to be a pragmatic measure to prevent another sleepless night in Chicago. In simpler terms, I attacked my favorite website, TripAdvisor, with a vengeance looking for a hotel for our second night in the city. My indecisive nature is glaringly obvious when I peruse TripAdvisor and its internet brethren such as Groupon and LivingSocial, as my mind tends to wander from the task at hand when searching for hotels and potential vacation spots. I tend to confuse the appropriate choice with the most opulent choice--who doesn't dream big...right? After about two hours Fran finally gave me the ultimatum: choose a hotel right now or suffer the consequences of another insufferable night of 90 degree heat. With lightning speed I made my decision: the James Hotel. As it would turn out, my imprudence or perhaps lack of frugality in managing our budget would be temporarily overshadowed by the pure awesomeness of this hotel. Anyways, with that thoroughly difficult decision out of the way, I turned my focus to another one of my self-described strengths--impulsive adventure planning. As with everything in life, there was not nearly enough time to do everything we hoped, so instead we focused on hitting some of Chicago's most iconic sites. Upon leaving Kat's apartment, I stepped out onto the street and did a double-take--my dream car sat in front of me, gleaming in the morning sun and beckoning me towards it:

Unfortunately, this mid-70s Corvette Stingray was not on sale, nor did I have even a 10th of its likely offering price to my name. Regardless, this thing was HOT and I smiled, knowing that one day, this 8MPG bull of a whip would be part of my lineup. After checking into the hotel and falling into a sweet, sweet slumber for about an hour, we headed out to meet Kat for lunch and tackle the day. After lunch we cruised the streets for a few hours, doing nothing in particular but soaking it all up. I was amazed at how beautiful Chicago's skyline was, marked by pleasantly nouveau architecture, incredibly clean streets, and skyscraper's whose million-dollar view overlooked the pristine Lake Michigan. With that out of the way, let's get to the most important point; the women (and less importantly the men in Fran's view) walking around the city's main drag, the Loop, were consistently and legitimately beautiful. I was amazed. I love Boston with a burning passion but without a doubt, the dames mingling in the Loop that day were of a different level. Not only was everyone attractive, but more importantly, everyone seemed to be in excellent physical shape--a lovely characteristic that reminded me of Denver's "fitness buff" demographic. The combination of tasteful architecture, overall cleanliness and attractive, physically fit citizens impressed me greatly and spoke volumes to a city I really knew nothing about, as well as augmenting my opinion of a region of America I had previously thought of as conservative, religious and for the most part, a hotbed of widespread ennui. Despite its awkward pronunciation and rare usage, I love the term ennui and imagine the midwest as a prevalent, large-scale catalyst of the term's general feeling of soporific listlessness, or in its most extreme form, the "Beatnik" nihilism of the early-Cold War era. My love of Jack Kerouac and Henry David Thoreau often leads me to subconscious outbursts of superfluous description out of homage to my favorite writers. It just happens and I can't do away with it so just bear with me--hopefully the verbose language teases your imagination. Don't worry, I got the florid language out of my system--at least for the rest of the post. Next on our list for the day was something I had always wanted to do before I die, which is hopefully in the distant future. Before 2004, I had felt a link to the common suffering between Red Sox and Cubs fans for their lack of success in the previous century. Our time in Chicago afforded us ample opportunity to go see a Cubby's (spelling?) game so we took the train northbound to the Lincoln Park/Lake View area to see a game. To my surprise, we found really good tickets in the lower section down the right field line for 25 bucks a pop (I guess it makes sense because the Cubs are a perennial loser in the NL Central). The stadium was sweet, reminding me of my beloved Fenway Park and the fans were perhaps the most optimistic I had ever seen considering the Cubs hadn't been above .500 for maybe the past 50 years. Going to Wrigley is definitely an activity that any outsider should make time for when in Chicago, as the energy and scenic layout of vine-covered walls made for a memorable afternoon:

In classic Cubs fashion, they were stuck with the likely possibility of being left without a hit until the bottom of the 8th when someone got a measly single. Instead of the tepid response that normally comes with a hit when a team is down by an insurmountable number of runs, the Wrigley faithful erupted in cheers which probably lasted for an entire inning--that simple gesture made me happy and continued to strengthen my overall impression of Chicago. After a tasty dinner at PF Changs, the best Americanized-Chinese joint out there, we went to indulge in another one of my favorite activities--live music. It goes without saying that Chicago, historically up to present times is perhaps the most prolific center of Blues in the country. After studying the great migration of blacks and their music from the South to the North and specifically Chicago starting around 1920, I had always been fascinated with the incredible music pouring out of Chicago's Blues and Motown scenes. This night finally gave me the opportunity to enjoy the music firsthand, and I was not disappointed. We decided to hit up Buddy Guy's Legends Bar right in the Loop and home to one of the blues genre's greatest guitar players. If you love live music as much as I do, this joint is a must see while in Chicago. Even though it was an off-night, a Monday or a Tuesday I think, the house band was incredible and made up of mostly 60+ dudes that I imagined had been ripping up the Chicago scene for their entire lives. The beauty of Buddy Guys was that despite the Applebees-esque decor of vintage paraphernalia harkening back to Chicago's golden age of blues stardom, the band was strictly business and played their hearts out for the meager crowd of 20 or so folks. The best part of the night was simply watching the enormously wide guitar player/vocalist make nimble moves despite his hulking frame and bellow outrageous lines in his raspy baritone voice, like- "It's cheaper to keep her. You didn't pay but two dollars to bring the little girl home, I know you think the grass is greener way over on the other side. When that judge gives you that dirty look you may as well put your money in mama's pocketbook," all the while sending out sexy winks to every lady in the crowd. We found out from the bouncer as we stepped into a cab that Buddy Guy would be making an appearance an hour later and although the opportunity to meet one of the greatest bluesman of all time had just presented itself, I knew in my heart that I would most definitely be back to see Mr. Guy tear it up in the near future. What a day, what a day; I leave you with the Bluesy Mt. Rushmore: