Chi City. Chi City.

Yesterday morning we went to Chicago.

The intent was to go see a concert that Brian had intended on taking a girl to. Seeing as how when he made the decision to take her when they were dating and she now has a new boyfriend (according to facebook), he decided not to take her. So, being the good friends we are, Pat and I toughed out a six hour ride in a car through three states to see Copeland, I Can Make A Mess Like Nobody's Business, and Deas Vail.

We made it to the hotel and went down to a park and ride and figured out the Subway System. We were standing on the platform at Rosemont when Patrick observed that we had left the tickets to the concert in the glove box of the car. The walk down the stairs and thirty feet into the parking lot just didn't seem worth the effort. After a (very) brief cost-benefit analysis, we decided that there were many things in life better than Copeland's farewell tour (which none of us really cared about anyway) and they were probably located in Chicago's Inner-city.

Copeland would have come on around 8:45. At that point, instead of standing in the Metro under a wash of light, listening to Aaron Marsh pour his guts out about how sad he was that Copeland was coming to an end just before singing "Control Freak" to a room full of heart-broken girls, I was sitting on the lower west side of Chicago in a pizzeria called Coal Fire, eating my portion of a White Pizza and a Meat Pizza while I listened to Metallica, AC/DC, and Ted Nugent drift ambiently down through the mood lighting. We had a waitress who was cute, and nice, but nervous. She looked like she had a black eye, and liked to fix Patrick's hoodie and whisper things to him about how much our check was going to be. We figured she was in her mid-twenties. She was closer to forty, apparently.

It was a relief to find out I wasn't the only one who didn't care about Copeland that much. I would have wanted to leave half way through the show, no doubt, if I were expected to stand there. With a table, chairs, and drinks, I could have been reasoned with, but not going was probably the best thing we could have done. We had an absurd amount of fun.

They call it "The Windy City"