Danke Schoen Chicago!

After my last post, I received quite a bit of flak from Chicagoland natives (Isn’t that such a stupid name for the region? It makes the city and surrounding suburbs sound like a 3rd rate amusement park, just slightly more entertaining than Rye Playland but not nearly as fun as the life-threatening features of the now defunct Action Park) for my cantankerous appraisal of the city’s dining options. As a result, I’ve decided to make a concerted effort to not focus so much on the negatives and to try to embrace my adopted city. With this newfound optimism, I’ve found that there is an aspect to this city that far outweighs its lack of fine Italian cuisine: despite the fact that it is indeed a sprawling metropolis, Chicago is actually no more than an enormous small town. I say this because each distinct neighborhood has the feel of a quaint town, filled with the quirky, provincial characters that you’d expect to find in such a place (When I say “quaint town”, I’m picturing Stars Hollow, the fictional New England setting for Gilmore Girls with its colorful cast of offbeat characters like Patty, the mischievous dance instructor, and Gypsy, the ill-tempered and ambiguously ethnic auto mechanic. In case you’re keeping score at home that was indeed the second Gilmore Girls reference in as many months).
And in this city of millions, no one is folksier than the lead singer/accordion player of the brass band that plays at the German restaurant around the corner from my place. Last Saturday we had the opportunity to see this guy in action, and it was certainly a sight to behold. To begin with, he looks like a cross between Rod Stewart and Larry Bird. As absurd as it is to see a man with spiky blond hair and a creepy Larry Legend mustache circa 1986 don lederhosen , it’s even weirder to see said man lead a conga line through a restaurant in the middle of a city.
However this conga line was only the tip of the ice berg. After a jubilant lap around the place, Larry arranged the dancers in two lines across from each other on the dance floor. I thought we were about to be treated to some sort of traditional German folk dance; after all Nyack grads can confirm that the Virginia Reel starts with a similar configuration. I expected Larry to instruct the men to promenade their partners, but instead he produced a wooden pole about as long and wide as a rolling pin. We were all a bit bewildered, but this initial confusion quickly turned to astonishment when Larry proceeded to stick the pole between his thighs and hop gingerly across the dance floor. With a furrowed brow, Larry focused intently on his target: the crotch of the unsuspecting young women standing across from him. Clearly this woman was not familiar with this particular perverse German ritual as she stood dumbfounded, the pole now hanging flaccidly between her legs. She thought she’d signed on for an innocuous conga line and suddenly found herself in the starring role of some sick German’s fantasy.
It took Larry a moment to coerce her to hop across the floor and return the favor to the next man in line. This process continued for five minutes as each dancer got the opportunity to be violated in the middle of a restaurant by a complete stranger. I thought I couldn’t be any more scandalized, but somewhere down the line some joker decided to turn around and accept the delivery in the rear. This posed a problem in that to pass it on to the dancer opposite him this man had to provocatively shimmy the pole, with a sly twinkle in his eye, from back to front, giving the illusion that…well you get the idea.
So although I can’t indulge in the food I’d grown accustomed to having in New York, I am thankful that on any given night I could be treated to a rousing rendition of the wooden dick game. I take pleasure in knowing that somewhere Larry is concocting some other twisted ritual, like some kind of modern day Dr. Mengele. And for this perverted zeal, I raise my boot to toast him.

Video Pick of the Week

Video Pick of the Week