Saturday, October 22, 2005
One Down, Three More To Go "Houston U Have a Problem" at Huck Finn Donuts, corner of Damen and Archer, Bridgeport, Chicago. Sox Park is on 35th, about a mile east and one block south of this place. Across the street from Huck Finn's were sidewalk vendors selling Sox merchandise, like special edition World Series hats for $40, tees for $25, satin jackets, and woobies (wool hats). I was down in Bridgeport today and stopped to take a picture of this sign and pick up a tee for S. One of the special hats was tan with this pseudo-authentic, 'old-fashioned' design on the front. One of the guys shopping next to me said "That hat is fricking ugly" and it was! Everything's at a premium because of the rareness of this whole thing. Luis' brother was at the game tonight. He tried to get another ticket for Luis, but the going rate now (all scalped of course) is $1400 a piece and that's for the upper deck. Insanity!! Driving through Bridgeport today I was thinking that perhaps one of the reasons I like it and its hum drum diners is that it reminds me of my far north side neighborhood: solidly working class and always immigrant. Bridgeport has changed over the years just as our neighborhood has. Both are battling the same-as-all-the-others condo developments that seem to take over neighborhoods block by block and suddenly make the place unrecognizable. But they both remain traditional Chicago neighborhoods with people from all over the world living next to each other trying to make their way in this workaholic city. Down the street from my house there are a string of furniture shops hawking $199 bedroom sets and dining room tables in Roccoco white with gold trim. In the window of the one closest to us is a sign that reads "Going Out For (sic) Business." That sign has been there since we moved into our place six years ago, just underneath the Help Wanted sign that's written in English, Polish, and Spanish. Across the street is a do-it-yourself car wash that's busy even in the dead of winter. Last year they spruced the place up with 20-feet high plastic, neon palm trees with blinking yellow coconuts. They don't sway much in the wind, but that's okay. They bring a bit of the tropics to cold and dreary Chicago. I watched the first 6 innings of the game, most at the little piano bar on the second floor of the movie theater in Evanston, then went to see Wallace and Gromit and the Curse of the Were-Rabbit. We had three previews: one for a Kurt Russell flick about a dad and his daughter and a horse (the daughter/horse combination is common...curious); one for Steve Martin's newest, "Cheaper by the Dozen 2" about a family with 12 kids; and one for a new Rene Russo/Dennis Quaid picture about a second marriage between two parents of eight kids each. Quaid is the stern military father with the perfect "J. Crew" kids and Russo is the artsy type with the multi-cultural, messy messy kids. Gosh, I wonder what will happen when they throw them all into the same house. Somehow I don't think I'll ever find out. Two films about massive families out of three previews. Is it a not-so-subtle urging to have bundles and bundles of children? A family of twelve, a family of sixteen? Be fruitful and multiply, right? Very, very curious. The Sox won, by the way. 
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Last update: 11/1/05; 5:28:19 PM .
