Chicago

Chicago
Chicago has always had a speacal place in my heart. Ever since I was a kid, Chicago along with NYC has always been a mini obsession for me.

As a kid of 8 I wanted to be like Bo Jackson and Michael Jordan and play baseball for the white sox and basketball for the bulls. During my dream of being indiana jones , I wanted to study archiology at the university of Chicago. And briefly as a child I wanted to be a gangster like Al Capone and run the Chicago mob.

I don't know what it is but it's been a place that's just felt like the capital of America. We all know about my love for New York. But New York is the capital of the world. Chicago is just so American. It's given us great comedians, great theatre, amazing politicians both good and bad. Sports fans who are passionate but not violent like those nut jobs in the northeast. Yes the place is corrupt. Only city in America with billboards telling you where to report political corruption too.

You get out at union station or the greyhound station and boom their you are in downtown. The wind hits you off the lake and depending if its summer or winter, it either hits you like an I've storm from hell or a cool breeze you need as your underwear sticks to your body.

You make your way across the river into the loop that is downtown. It looks like something out of all of the movies you've ever seen. I guess most great cities look like a movie set. Unlike NYC which has this intensity of everyone and everything going a million miles a second, Chicago is a little slower, a little less intense. But probably just as passionate.

Chicago is a tough town. It's given us Capone and the outfit, the only mafia organization that hasn't been destroyed by the Feds. It's given us corruption that's bad, but unlike jersey and NYC where our corrupt politicians don't seem to get anything done, at least in Chicago they seem to get things accomplished. Yes the Daleys where tyrannical and who knows how many bodies lie at the bottom of Lake Michigan because of them, they still kept the city from becoming like Detroit or Cleveland.

The Chicago sports fan hasn't gone out and burned down a rivals house like the Red Sox or Yankees fan has. They haven't thrown batteries or snowballs like a nutty Philly fan would. But every year those sad bastard cubs fans show up and fill the stands at wriggly field and those white sox fans have stayed loyal throughout just as much misery as the cubs or Red Sox have had. The streets of Chicago has given us the amazing basketball talents of Dwayne wade , Isaiah "tuss" Thomas, Derek rose and that epic movie hoop dreams. And how could I forget those blackhawk fans. But of course their is the almighty bears fan, with their worship of Mike Ditka, love of sweetness, their tears for Brian piccolo. Hell, these guys go to a staduim that's on Lake Michigan in the winter when it's -10, just to watch their guys lose to the packers!

Chicago blues and soul has been a music that has helped define a style, a people. When I think of the blues I think of John Lee Hooker playing on maxwell street in the blues brothers, Muddy walkers screaming mannish boy at the top of his lungs, or Elizabeth shoe singing her heart out in adventures in babysitting. It's that heart pounding, sweaty, passionate, sexual , high energy, electric music.

Chicago with its sears tower, skyscrapers climbing towards the sky. Chicago smack in the middle of America. Chicago with its tough west and south side, Gold Coast on the north side . High flying Michael Jordan highlight reels. Chicago with your Sam giancana, Al Capone, Latin kings. Chicago with your secound city greats , bill Murray, Catherine o hara, Harold Ramis and that great funny man John Belushi. Chicago with your steponwolf, goodman theatre , where broadway goes to see if the plays any good . Chicago home to greatest politicians we have ever seen. People who have helped change America in such a way, to not have them would be unthinkable. Chicago you are Americana.