BOOM BOOM - OUT GO THE LIGHTS





The weather was halfway decent this afternoon, so I rode my bicycle to the chiro's and then all the way downtown to teach at the well-designed health club.

On the way up I stopped at H&M and Karyn's Fresh Corner, a raw vegan restaurant / cafe / grocery where a 12" pie goes for $80. I kid you not. The 10-incher is just $65.

(Of course it only thinks it's ten inches; it's actually just 5".

Ba-DUM-dum).

But the food is indeed addictive and the live bar, at $8.99 a pound, is a steal.

I continued north and decided to take Lincoln over to Southport so I could do some people-watching on the last leg of my journey. The street was desolate when I moved into the neighborhood in 1987 but is now crammed with bars and restaurants and cafes and boutiques.

To my surprise, the lights were out on the east side of Southport (north of Addison).

The "Open 24 Hours" CVS (formerly Osco) was dark and shuttered.

My first thought was, "There's your comeuppance, you money-grubbing carpetbaggers!"

My second thought was, "Let's go looting!."

But then I realized they didn't have anything I wanted.

Well, I would have not have refused some Ambien....

The upscale bakery was dark and shuttered.

So was the fair trade third-world shop.

And the sucky sushi place.

All of the fake English pubs that have spread like cancer in recent years were dark.

A small group of disheveled fiftysomething men stood outside of the Music Box Theater, scratching their heads and watching a young lad change the unlit marquee.

No David Lynch for them.

A crowd was dispersing in front of The Mercury Theatre, which is sort of like our off-suburb theater.

The dark marquee said, "The Buddy Holly Story."

"And we had a full house tonight!" one white-haired gent exclaimed to another.

Store after store, business after business -- everything on that side of the street was dark and shuttered.

The medoicre Thai restaurant was dark.

The Thai restarant that truly sucks was also pitch black.

But people stood outside of the Argentinian restaurant, talking in stacatto Spanish and smoking cigaretes and gesticulating.

It goes without saying that they were thin, handsome, and dressed in expensive black.

(I on the other hand was wearing a day-glo orange jacket, black helmet and magenta earmuffs -- which as far as I'm concerned *is* the new black).

I looked past the well-heeled group to see inside the restaurant.

It was lit by candles.

It was full of people.

They were still eating and drinking and talking and nodding emphatically.

They were still wearing their expensive black clothes.

They were still enjoying life without getting fat.

¿Power outage? ¿Qué power outage?

Unlike Americans, they knew how to deal with a crisis: Saquen los candles y uncork el vino tinto.

A mi me encantan a los Argentinos.

Not so much, however, their taste for dead cows.


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Photo by Caca, taken while driving -- fast -- along Elston Avenue.