We Can't Buy Back Those Brain Cells

P.F. Diehl of dport7 fame just headed out for O'Hare and Brooklyn, NY. Hedonism is only a vague and, ultimately, inaccurate way to describe what was experienced in Chicago this weekend. Details follow, I cannot corroborate the accuracy of these events and, yes, my head is killing me, that's simply the price you pay for fun.

Weekend Rundown

Friday:

11:00 am. Paul arrives. We go to Threadless, where I copped the freshest tee I've bought in years. Let me also give a shout out to the gorgeous sales girl. "Stalking" is such an ugly term, I like to think of what we have as a one-sided and persistent fondness.

12:30 pm. Hot Doug's where we gorged on the most delicious sausages available - no homo! I went with the succulent pheasant sausage with cheese-stuffed sweet peppers. Paul nabbed the BLT sausage. It looked good.

1:30 pm. Let the drinking commence! Strut into the Bob Inn and after four hours, indeterminate amount of beers, and eight? [Presumably eight, we're not entirely sure.-Ed.] shots later, strut on out. Seriously, we were the only customers the bartender, Kristen had for the first hour and a half. Her to us, "If I'm getting drunk at my job, you guys are getting drunk with me." Malort, Jaeger, Beam all shot down and all gratis. Thanks!

5:30 pm. New bar. Somehow we're still up and able to ride our bikes. Bike lock "somehow" got "broken" between bars. Transsexual bartender graciously allows us to bring bikes in bar. More beers, more shots. Paul burned his finger playing with matches and a nurse next us at the bar wrapped some ice in a bag and, in general, was far too concerned with his pinky's well-being. I suggested that he "clean the sand out" and continue on with the drinking. The nurse felt otherwise.

-Time Indeterminate- Taqueria on Kimball and Armitage. Dinner/Burrito fight.

Burrito fight? Heed the advice of a foppish, pink mountain lion and exit post haste.


-Time Indeterminate- At the suggestion of a fellow sot we, after, "Exit, Stage Left." from the taqueria went to his house and indulged in other substances. Paul then passed out at friends house for the next 13 hours.

-Time Indeterminate- With Paul passed out, the remaining members of our adventursome burrito dinner and I marched to one of the many Logan Square speakeasies. I, in my altered state of mind, felt that the best course of action was to act like I was deaf around some awful women, who were waaaay to fucking adamant about me dancing with them. And as an aside, why is it that only the nastiest women ever have the gall to actually approach a dude about dancing? or doing shots? or ... it boggles the mind. In any case the "Plan: Act Deaf!" worked for about five minutes. [Ed. You can't actually listen to what they're saying. You're supposed to be deaf! Imbecile!] Brain ceased to function shortly after that exchange.

Mind still reeling from Saturday ... Pumpkins were carved. Beer, shots, going to sleep at six am. Taqueria without burrito fights. That sounds about right.

You Might Already be a Winner!

I know it's only Tuesday, but on the same half-block stretch of California Ave. I saw two very strong contenders for Jackass of the Week Honors. Our first entrant was some hipster chump sporting those tapered Levi's that are all the rage this year along with a zipped up pleather jacket in sunny 84 degree weather with a humidity of around 90%. Normally, this would be enough but to aid in his nomination he was also like 6'6 and was wearing doofus hipster glasses. On any given week, I would've given this fella the trophy (punch to the solar plexus) on the spot. BUT right down the road was an equally ambitious go-getter of all things jackassery entails. Yep, some jerk ass was taking a piss on the side of the road in plain day light behind only a recycling bin and there was a mom with a stroller like ten feet in front of him. I need to get another digicam and a plaque for these "awesome competitors" ASAP.

Cubano Challenge

I like Logan Square, it's a nice neighborhood in my favorite city, sure, it has it's problems with car alarms or noisy neighbors or that damn jackass on the bike with the clown horn. BUT for the most part it's a great hood and it definitely affords me the opportunity to sample as much Mexican, Cuban and Puerto Rican food as I want. With that in mind, I've begun a new foray within the culinary realm: namely, I'm going to start comparing and reviewing cubanos. This is the first of such posts. For those of you not in the know, cubanos are an amazing Cuban, duh, specialty sandwich with ham, roasted pork, cheese and mustard on a french roll. Logan Square has a plethora of joints that offer this on the menu and some are amazing, while others are dismal.


Today's Entrant: El Rinconcito Cubano. Located a scant four blocks from my house on the 3200 block of Fullerton, El Rinconcito is a few doors down from one of the better LS bars, The Whirlaway. Now, if the proprietors wanted, I suspect, they could make like gangbusters with the drunk hipster crowd filtering out of Whirlaway at bar time, alas, they as of now, have not gone with this plan and are only open til 8 p.m. The interior is predictably "ethnic" in the fashion that any authentic Mexicano or Cubano restarante. Tons of bric a brac adorn the walls, chintzy table cloths and of course, a voluptuous hostess accompanied by a crone who's responsibility is to harangue the kitchen staff in her native tongue. The sandwich is slightly overpriced for what you get, but was-it seemed-brushed with butter which is certainly a unique wrinkle to the bread. The pork was thinly sliced and not of any real merit. Not awful by any stretch, just not great. Too much mayonaise and the brushed on butter contributed to make the sandwich too greasy for my tastes, but it was ok. I give it 2.5 outta five stars.