It’s 2pm on Sunday 15th June.. and not quite my birthday yet. Though I managed to party until 5am this morning, dragging hapless 5 string electric bass players along with me. I am beginning to realise an accent and extroversion in this country get you everywhere.. though you do have to sift through the lunatics to find the real gems. Which, I suppose, isn’t far off Melbourne really.
Yesterday I was invited down to Navy Pier to see a free concert by a 11 piece funk/latin/soul band called Power Play (terrible name). The singer had the most enormous boobs I’ve ever seen in my life and the band was very loud, but I enjoyed it immensely. I even took a bus to get there!
The dancing was extraordinary, and I was most impressed by the way these Chicagoans get their groove on, though as a nervous dancer at the best of times I declined to partake, staying safely on a bench with my bucket of Heineken. Which is where I met Crystal and Daniel. This couple – him a native Chicago lad and her a Wyoming native American, were down hanging out – and we got chatting – laughing and had a great old time! They introduced me to the finer elements of Chicago life and accents – which involves turning “th” into “d” and saying Kak instead of cock. I was sent on cigarette bumming duty for Crystal and my opening line was “Hi, I’m Australian and I have a nicotine addiction. May I bum a cigarette from you?” – as long as I followed this with my drivers license to verify my nationality – it worked every time. Crystal was most impressed.
So impressed in fact that they took me out to Due – the best Deep Dish Pizza restaurant in town.. and those babies are HUGE! I have never seen anything like it. They’re about 5 to 8 cm high, with a delicious crust made of cornmeal and are filled with about 4 cms of topping. I managed to squeeze down 2 slices (which I later regretted as they took a LONG time to digest). A table was next to us of (naturally) very hot Italian men, and they really didn’t know what the hell was going on, but agreed the pizzas were good as they staggered out of the restaurant goggle eyed clutching their distended stomachs.
I took a bus back to the hostel (again – kudos to me as I hate buses and they frighten me terribly), and hit the Mylanta to combat the ever expanding cornmeal in my belly – whacked on a pair of jeans and got in a cab to head over to Wicker Park for a party.
Wicker Park / Bucktown is like Brunswick Street I suppose, though way cooler and not as hairy. Tim the 5 String Electric Bass Player I met at The Green Mill the other night dragged me along for his friends birthday party and I was surrounded by very curious 25 year olds who kept saying “oh, so you’re the Australian..” – I’m sure they were thinking snack, but kept that to themselves. They are in a Hip Hop Band or something similar, and sport tattoos, cool clothes, hats, baggy jeans.. all in all looked like they should have been in a hipster music video. One of them was decidedly mental, and kept muttering nonsense under his breath which I attempted to decipher then gave up after about 10 mins. He rolled his eyes and mooched along from one club to the next – and I did question Tim the 5 String Electric bass Player
*being hijacked by germans for breakfast bagels.. must run will continue later*
