It’s summertime in Chicago and people go apeshit over the warm weather. Restaurant patios are packed with diners who must sit outside (or they’ll wither and die) and the shore of Lake Michigan is lousy with crispy, pork-skin sun tans and tribal sun tats. It’s also festival season.
Much like dry food goods, I prefer a cool, dry environment so I have not participated in most of these events. I accidentally slept through RibFest and I deeply regret it. Every weekend, there are music festivals, art fests, food fests, and I’m willing to bet that somewhere in the country right now, it’s Lobster Fest. It’s always Lobster Fest.
This evening, I went to the Taste of Randolph Street in the West Loop, motivated by the food offerings as well as to give the me-shaped indent in my bed a chance to fluff back up. It was a $10 suggested donation, so I read that as “pay upon approval.” I went with my neighbor, a horticulturalist who has lived in the city for quite some time and knows it well. We decided to walk the length of the festival from the outside to smell the sights and get a better picture of what was being offered. If you guessed roasted corn and Miller Lite in plastic cups, give yourself one point. As we entered, the ticket-taker asked for our ten dollars, whereupon I mentioned the “suggested“ part of “suggested donation.” She cut me off before I could say anything further and snapped, “No, it’s ten dollars.” Then I punched her in the boob and gave her ten bucks. One of those things didn’t actually happen. Minus one point for me. I’d say I’m too nice because I’m from Arizona, but that just doesn’t sound right.
Still sour from the ten-dollar-donation issue, the food prices added insult to injury. I was expecting modestly priced snacks, but the only foods under $5 were chips and guac, a scoop of sorbet (apparently, boring is a flavor), and bottled water. Sigh. We cruised the length of the festival-this time from within- taking note of the small menus at the restaurant booths. My food requirements were simple- meat and mobility. I ended up paying eight bones for a “gyro cone” and it WASN’T A CONE, WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU?!? Take a point off, middle-eastern restaurant whose name escapes me. Then add a point for being tasty, but take it off again for giving me the vegetable scoop with only onions and no peppers.
The fair was book ended by two music stages. One was occupied by some fusion-funk-jam band that was, when I was listening, in the throes of an extended dopey trombone solo. The other was hosting the 90’s sensation Superchunk. It was this area that seemed to be where Generation-X got put out to pasture. Baby strollers being pushed by glassy-eyed fathers in Yo La Tengo and Pixies t-shirts. Rockabilly tattoos peeking out from Old Navy khakis.
There were really four kinds of people there- those who came to get drunk on light beer and listen to Superchunk, teenagers drinking backwashed booze from discarded cups, people yelling at their kids, and people showing off their dogs. Now, if I still had my sweet Homer, I would fall into the latter group without question (minus one for me being openly gay for dogs)* because he’s fucking adorable (redeem point). But where are my like-minded homegirls who just want to eat some popcorn shrimp under a shady tree and laugh at the new money Indian dudes with faux-hawks and too much Ed Hardy cologne?
Maybe I’m just not Festival People.
*Figure of speech. Sit down.
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