Rhythm and Gravy

Turns out the weather sucks, everywhere, for the time being. Specifically, everywhere I want to drive (i.e. Denver). So I’m just a-hang in Chicago. Sabrina and I went to Second City to see the latest show called “War! Now in it’s 4th smash year!”, in which my contribution was to loudly proclaim that the acronym LM stood for “lefthanded masturbation.” Then we went to the Green Mill, which I was told was Al Capone’s old hangout. In truth, Al Capone equals Vince Vaughn, who monopolized the waiter while I was trying to get my Laphroig converted via strainer from rocks to neat. It was the waiter’s fault, not Vince’s, for the record. Celebrity interference aside, I managed to get drunk, and remain so as I post this. It was Tom’s birthday, and Tom turned out to be a nice dude, so I snapped a photo with him and and some random woman who I seemed to be friends with:

I like Chicago. It remains firmly connected to its roots. So I’m going to leave you with Carl Sandburg’s poem while I go sleep off the booze:

Hog Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation’s Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders:
They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have seen your painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of women and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the little soft cities;
Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning as a savage pitted against the wilderness,
Bareheaded,
Shoveling,
Wrecking,
Planning,
Building, breaking, rebuilding,
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young man laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has never lost a battle,
Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse, and under his ribs the heart of the people, Laughing!
Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 12th, 2007 at 3:21 am and is filed under Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.