Adventures in Chi-town, Part II
From 7/12/05-
Okay okay, due to practically no demand whatsoever, I'm going to attempt to complete the daring tale of my tradeshow-related adventures in that toddlin' town, one Chicago, Illinois. Really, I kinda feel like I'm obligated to get this over with, out of the way, feh, before I can move on to making the kind of blogs I really want to make, the experimental, less commercial kind. Oh sure, there will be those who will say I've been out of the writer's chair too long, that I've lost my touch, that Part II isn't as good as the first trilogy, and that it's all about special effects and merchandising rather than character relationships and love of the craft. Well, I say that Part II is 100 percent digital, so all you haters can kiss my ass, dammit!
ADVENTURES IN CHI-TOWN, PART II
A New Flight
It is a period of civil transportation unrest. John and Eric, special envoys of the Well-Pict alliance, have been repeatedly thwarted in their attempts to reach the great city of Chi Cago. Held against their will in the evil aerodrome at D'En Ver, time running out, the two await word of their fate.......
(Scroll out to blank grey sky, snow swirling about. Pan down to aerial shot of Denver Airport, revealing somewhat swastika-shaped runway configuration. Seriously, it kinda does look like one. It's one of the "clues" that cause die-hard conspiracy nutjob types to claim it's the sinister base of the New World Order. For those of you with Keyhole- okay, Google Earth now, and they've taken all the fun out of it- check out the swastika. Anyway- a United Airlines jet enters from above and behind camera, screen R. Somehow we know it's the plane to which our heroes have been reassigned.) Cut to:
INT. AIRPORT, DAY
JOHN and ERIC sit glumly in a soulless terminal waiting area.
Okay, enough of the screenplay bullshit. On with the blog, and I warn you, it is long, but hey, I tell it like it was, baby. To recap, Eric and I are in Evil Masonic International Airport in Denver, our flight from Fresno had to turn around, we've been bumped twice to later flights, been given $9 meal vouchers, and are now waiting for our reassigned flight to Chicago. I've had my turkey sandwich from Wolfgang Puck's, Eric's had a quick beer and smoke in the lounge with a MickeyD chaser,
and I'm still finding the whole ridiculous experience amusing. I'm also wondering if I have time to go look for some of the supposed Masonic/demonic/psychotronic symbology I've seen on the "DIA is Evil" websites, which aren't nearly as funny as the "Bert is Evil" site, but that's neither here nor there.
I wander idly to the window and look at the majestic vessel I assume will be our sky chariot to Chicago, seeing as how it's like 45 minutes before the flight and it's parked at our gate. I watch with scorn the alien drones posing as "baggage handlers", doing the bidding of their evil masters.
Eventually, as such things do, boarding time arrives. We settle comfily in our seats. This flight is packed, and everyone has now boarded. I fish my headphones from the seat pocket and scan the audio channels for some appropriate amusement. Hmm, a salute to Disney music narrated by somebody trying desperately to not sound gay. This should be good. But wait, what's this? A barely audible announcement.... from a crew member....holy shit... an ANNOUNCEMENT FROM A CREW MEMBER......
They're very sorry, but there's some sort of "problem" with the plane..hee hee...this is getting too...ha!...fucking ABSURD NOW!... heh... and everyone...yes, EVERYONE.... is going to have to disembark....good word, disembark....and they have to get ANOTHER PLANE. What, from Plane Mart? They have to get another goddamn plane, and we'll have to wait for however long it takes to GET that other plane! Oh, this is beyond absurd now. I hope- we never did find out for sure- but I hope it was a problem with the air pressurization system, just like the first flight from Fresno. That would have been too sweet, and what are the odds? I should have bought a Lotto ticket that day.
So, off the plane, back to the terminal. Hello, terminal. It's been so long, and I've missed you. "Please stay in this area until we announce the next flight time." You got it. Nice, womb-like terminal. Terrrmminnnalllll........
15 minutes or so of limbo, then we find out it will be another hour. Fine. The hour passes, we board the new Plane Mart plane, an exact duplicate of the first. All the same people in the same seats. Maybe it was the same plane. Eerie. Got to watch a de-icing procedure for the first time. Interesting. Find not-gay Disney guy. Fly to Chicago without incident.
We land in Chicago, about 4 1/2 hours late, which is not that bad, considering that we've been rescheduled three times for a two-flight trip. It's only about 8:30 PM, but we still have to get downtown to the hotel. Everything is still funny to me.... as long as we get our luggage..... Naaah! That's not going to be a problem!!!!!!
Do you think luggage has fun riding on the carousel? It sure looks fun. Round and round it goes, as everyone happily claims their bags with a sigh of relief. Round and round.... getting kind of picked-over, isn't it? Oh well, I guess they're not done unloading yet.... round and round... there's not much left, is there?..... Round...um, it's empty now. Um...... fuck. Fuck! What the.... who the.... BOTH of our bags are nowhere to be seen. Okay, THIS is not funny anymore.
So, what now? Who do we talk to? There seems to be a podium of some sort nearby, with harried-looking employees and annoyed-looking passengers. That's the place! We wait our turn and speak to a 50-ish gentleman with a mustache that was fashionable circa 1892. He punches our info into a keyboard, looks quizzical for a moment, then says offhandedly, "Oh, your bags are in the cage." Wha-? Have they been bad? Did they go on a cross-country crime spree? Fast zippers, leather moisturizer, picking up some cheap pink handbags for a quick good time- my luggage leads a more exciting life than me. Well, it seems our bags got put on some other flight, an earlier one. When people get rescheduled, their luggage will sometimes be put on the earliest flight to their destination to make sure, blah blah blah. I'm quite sure the airline has a good reason for all this, but my feeling is, you place that much trust in the system that's already screwed me over? I'd just as soon that my bags be on the same plane as me, just as God intended, so that when we have to stay overnight in Minneapolis because of the airplane equivalent of a hangnail, I'll be able to change my chonies! Ah well, all is now as it should be....
Off to the shuttle. These things crack me up. You will ALWAYS be lulled into the sense that you'll get a private ride downtown, but they will eventually pack as many passengers as physically possible. The ride is uneventful. We chat a bit with a somewhat mousey woman who's staying in our hotel and going to some other conference. One of the last passengers to get on berates some unfortunate underling on the cell phone the entire time, in some amusing Southern accent. We laugh unobtrusively.
Get to the hotel. It's about 10:00 on a Thursday night. Check in at the less-used desk, the one in the "other" tower, which is where our room turns out to be anyway. Say goodbye to mousey woman. She doesn't even acknowledge me. Fine. The night desk girl chats amiably with us, we find the room, it's okay except the beds are doubles instead of queen size and my feet stick off the end. Damn my freakish height! Call night girl, no other rooms, okay fine. Hungry. So hungry. Go down to see night girl, and ask what there is around there that's good, close, and open.
A couple of suggestions. The Billy Goat Tavern sounds interesting. For those of you that remember such things, it's the place that inspired the old "cheezborger, cheezborger" sketches on Saturday Night Live when it was still good. Well, that sounds like fun, and we're starving anyway, so we'll take anything.
Try to follow the directions Night Girl gave us, and BAM! We're in the scary subterranean lair of the Morlocks. If you don't know, downtown Chicago has a few double-decker streets, where the "ground floors" of the buildings are actually significantly above ground. You've seen the lower levels of these streets in many movies, from "The Fugitive" to "The Blues Brothers": "This is definitely Lower Wacker Drive." Well, it IS definitely Lower Wacker Drive, and even after recent improvements and lots of lighting, it's still a surreal place to be, and a scary one after dark when you're lost. We scamper like roaches back to the surface, find a friendly security guard with better directions, and off we go to the Billy Goat.
This photo was taken in the middle of the afternoon. Yes, the Billy Goat is on the lower level, Morlock land, perpetual night. One floor up is a Walgreen's on Michigan Ave., one of the busiest streets in Chicago. Weird. This is what it looks like right above:
Inside, we don't get a lot of the SNL vibe, but we do get a history-soaked piece of Chicago. The guy behind the bar looks like he was born there and has never left for fifty years. The walls are covered with yellowed pictures of long-dead local celebrities and barely readable sports clippings. The 70s-era TV is showing the NBA playoffs. There's not many people in there, but they range from the old guys to the young couple to the two tired travelers from Fresno to the guy...in the suit? As we munch our cheezborgers (they weren't that great, but oh man did they hit the spot right then) and down our beers, Suit starts chatting with us. It turns out that in Chicago, people actually want to talk to you. Now I admit I'm not much for the chatting myself, but luckily I've got Eric to handle that, which will come in handy numerous times on the trip. Suit is an ad executive for Fox. Suit buys us drinks. Suit recommends restaurants in Chicago. Suit sets us up right, and doesn't even ask us to put out.
Fat and happy, Eric and John say goodbye to Suit and the Billy Goat, off to the Hyatt to dream little dreams of the Windy City. Awwwwwww........
Next: pathetic old guys in bars, the Shrine of Improv, Red Bull, and the swinger couple.
Okay okay, due to practically no demand whatsoever, I'm going to attempt to complete the daring tale of my tradeshow-related adventures in that toddlin' town, one Chicago, Illinois. Really, I kinda feel like I'm obligated to get this over with, out of the way, feh, before I can move on to making the kind of blogs I really want to make, the experimental, less commercial kind. Oh sure, there will be those who will say I've been out of the writer's chair too long, that I've lost my touch, that Part II isn't as good as the first trilogy, and that it's all about special effects and merchandising rather than character relationships and love of the craft. Well, I say that Part II is 100 percent digital, so all you haters can kiss my ass, dammit!
ADVENTURES IN CHI-TOWN, PART II
A New Flight
It is a period of civil transportation unrest. John and Eric, special envoys of the Well-Pict alliance, have been repeatedly thwarted in their attempts to reach the great city of Chi Cago. Held against their will in the evil aerodrome at D'En Ver, time running out, the two await word of their fate.......
(Scroll out to blank grey sky, snow swirling about. Pan down to aerial shot of Denver Airport, revealing somewhat swastika-shaped runway configuration. Seriously, it kinda does look like one. It's one of the "clues" that cause die-hard conspiracy nutjob types to claim it's the sinister base of the New World Order. For those of you with Keyhole- okay, Google Earth now, and they've taken all the fun out of it- check out the swastika. Anyway- a United Airlines jet enters from above and behind camera, screen R. Somehow we know it's the plane to which our heroes have been reassigned.) Cut to:
INT. AIRPORT, DAY
JOHN and ERIC sit glumly in a soulless terminal waiting area.
Okay, enough of the screenplay bullshit. On with the blog, and I warn you, it is long, but hey, I tell it like it was, baby. To recap, Eric and I are in Evil Masonic International Airport in Denver, our flight from Fresno had to turn around, we've been bumped twice to later flights, been given $9 meal vouchers, and are now waiting for our reassigned flight to Chicago. I've had my turkey sandwich from Wolfgang Puck's, Eric's had a quick beer and smoke in the lounge with a MickeyD chaser,
and I'm still finding the whole ridiculous experience amusing. I'm also wondering if I have time to go look for some of the supposed Masonic/demonic/psychotronic symbology I've seen on the "DIA is Evil" websites, which aren't nearly as funny as the "Bert is Evil" site, but that's neither here nor there.
I wander idly to the window and look at the majestic vessel I assume will be our sky chariot to Chicago, seeing as how it's like 45 minutes before the flight and it's parked at our gate. I watch with scorn the alien drones posing as "baggage handlers", doing the bidding of their evil masters.
Eventually, as such things do, boarding time arrives. We settle comfily in our seats. This flight is packed, and everyone has now boarded. I fish my headphones from the seat pocket and scan the audio channels for some appropriate amusement. Hmm, a salute to Disney music narrated by somebody trying desperately to not sound gay. This should be good. But wait, what's this? A barely audible announcement.... from a crew member....holy shit... an ANNOUNCEMENT FROM A CREW MEMBER......
They're very sorry, but there's some sort of "problem" with the plane..hee hee...this is getting too...ha!...fucking ABSURD NOW!... heh... and everyone...yes, EVERYONE.... is going to have to disembark....good word, disembark....and they have to get ANOTHER PLANE. What, from Plane Mart? They have to get another goddamn plane, and we'll have to wait for however long it takes to GET that other plane! Oh, this is beyond absurd now. I hope- we never did find out for sure- but I hope it was a problem with the air pressurization system, just like the first flight from Fresno. That would have been too sweet, and what are the odds? I should have bought a Lotto ticket that day.
So, off the plane, back to the terminal. Hello, terminal. It's been so long, and I've missed you. "Please stay in this area until we announce the next flight time." You got it. Nice, womb-like terminal. Terrrmminnnalllll........
15 minutes or so of limbo, then we find out it will be another hour. Fine. The hour passes, we board the new Plane Mart plane, an exact duplicate of the first. All the same people in the same seats. Maybe it was the same plane. Eerie. Got to watch a de-icing procedure for the first time. Interesting. Find not-gay Disney guy. Fly to Chicago without incident.
We land in Chicago, about 4 1/2 hours late, which is not that bad, considering that we've been rescheduled three times for a two-flight trip. It's only about 8:30 PM, but we still have to get downtown to the hotel. Everything is still funny to me.... as long as we get our luggage..... Naaah! That's not going to be a problem!!!!!!
Do you think luggage has fun riding on the carousel? It sure looks fun. Round and round it goes, as everyone happily claims their bags with a sigh of relief. Round and round.... getting kind of picked-over, isn't it? Oh well, I guess they're not done unloading yet.... round and round... there's not much left, is there?..... Round...um, it's empty now. Um...... fuck. Fuck! What the.... who the.... BOTH of our bags are nowhere to be seen. Okay, THIS is not funny anymore.
So, what now? Who do we talk to? There seems to be a podium of some sort nearby, with harried-looking employees and annoyed-looking passengers. That's the place! We wait our turn and speak to a 50-ish gentleman with a mustache that was fashionable circa 1892. He punches our info into a keyboard, looks quizzical for a moment, then says offhandedly, "Oh, your bags are in the cage." Wha-? Have they been bad? Did they go on a cross-country crime spree? Fast zippers, leather moisturizer, picking up some cheap pink handbags for a quick good time- my luggage leads a more exciting life than me. Well, it seems our bags got put on some other flight, an earlier one. When people get rescheduled, their luggage will sometimes be put on the earliest flight to their destination to make sure, blah blah blah. I'm quite sure the airline has a good reason for all this, but my feeling is, you place that much trust in the system that's already screwed me over? I'd just as soon that my bags be on the same plane as me, just as God intended, so that when we have to stay overnight in Minneapolis because of the airplane equivalent of a hangnail, I'll be able to change my chonies! Ah well, all is now as it should be....
Off to the shuttle. These things crack me up. You will ALWAYS be lulled into the sense that you'll get a private ride downtown, but they will eventually pack as many passengers as physically possible. The ride is uneventful. We chat a bit with a somewhat mousey woman who's staying in our hotel and going to some other conference. One of the last passengers to get on berates some unfortunate underling on the cell phone the entire time, in some amusing Southern accent. We laugh unobtrusively.
Get to the hotel. It's about 10:00 on a Thursday night. Check in at the less-used desk, the one in the "other" tower, which is where our room turns out to be anyway. Say goodbye to mousey woman. She doesn't even acknowledge me. Fine. The night desk girl chats amiably with us, we find the room, it's okay except the beds are doubles instead of queen size and my feet stick off the end. Damn my freakish height! Call night girl, no other rooms, okay fine. Hungry. So hungry. Go down to see night girl, and ask what there is around there that's good, close, and open.
A couple of suggestions. The Billy Goat Tavern sounds interesting. For those of you that remember such things, it's the place that inspired the old "cheezborger, cheezborger" sketches on Saturday Night Live when it was still good. Well, that sounds like fun, and we're starving anyway, so we'll take anything.
Try to follow the directions Night Girl gave us, and BAM! We're in the scary subterranean lair of the Morlocks. If you don't know, downtown Chicago has a few double-decker streets, where the "ground floors" of the buildings are actually significantly above ground. You've seen the lower levels of these streets in many movies, from "The Fugitive" to "The Blues Brothers": "This is definitely Lower Wacker Drive." Well, it IS definitely Lower Wacker Drive, and even after recent improvements and lots of lighting, it's still a surreal place to be, and a scary one after dark when you're lost. We scamper like roaches back to the surface, find a friendly security guard with better directions, and off we go to the Billy Goat.
This photo was taken in the middle of the afternoon. Yes, the Billy Goat is on the lower level, Morlock land, perpetual night. One floor up is a Walgreen's on Michigan Ave., one of the busiest streets in Chicago. Weird. This is what it looks like right above:
Inside, we don't get a lot of the SNL vibe, but we do get a history-soaked piece of Chicago. The guy behind the bar looks like he was born there and has never left for fifty years. The walls are covered with yellowed pictures of long-dead local celebrities and barely readable sports clippings. The 70s-era TV is showing the NBA playoffs. There's not many people in there, but they range from the old guys to the young couple to the two tired travelers from Fresno to the guy...in the suit? As we munch our cheezborgers (they weren't that great, but oh man did they hit the spot right then) and down our beers, Suit starts chatting with us. It turns out that in Chicago, people actually want to talk to you. Now I admit I'm not much for the chatting myself, but luckily I've got Eric to handle that, which will come in handy numerous times on the trip. Suit is an ad executive for Fox. Suit buys us drinks. Suit recommends restaurants in Chicago. Suit sets us up right, and doesn't even ask us to put out.
Fat and happy, Eric and John say goodbye to Suit and the Billy Goat, off to the Hyatt to dream little dreams of the Windy City. Awwwwwww........
Next: pathetic old guys in bars, the Shrine of Improv, Red Bull, and the swinger couple.
posted by Zonthar at
2:36 PM
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