IN CHICAGO IN THE LAST WEEK

That title might be too grand. I mean, a lot of things happened. Some good, some bad. Nevertheless, both of the items below happened in Chicago in the past week, so there.

Yesterday I went to lunch at the Palm. It is one of these places that has caricatures of the famous (and not so famous) on the walls, so it definitely plays kissy face within anyone famous who comes in. Anyway, we were sitting at the bar for a quick lunch, and we see . . . Dennis Farina further down the bar. As far back as the early 1990's Farina was big on his Chicagoness ("It's our beer and they can't have it.")

So, anyway, I look down at Farina and I swear to God he is wearing these glasses:







I think, man, those are some tough glasses. Then I realize that he is wearing a shirt suspiciously like the Seinfeld Pirate Shirt, although perhaps a tiny bit less puffy. It is open too many buttons, and hangs down long at the waste. He is also wearing a necklace. Not a chain. A necklace. And as I am realizing all of this, he says to the bartender "we didn't do no fencing in my neighborhood." And it was everything I could do not to ask him whether he dressed like that in his neighborhood. So, the long and the short of it? Farina has gone Hollywood and doesn't know it.

Meanwhile, last Friday they had the annual duck race on the river. I have posted about it before. Anyway, I had never seen the ducks go in the water. Look at the pictures below. Tell me if anything looks . . . amiss.











































So, they dumped the ducks about four feet short of the river. The guys at the truck are throwing, shoveling, kicking, and doing whatever else they can to get the ducks in the water. It was hilarious.