Chicago_Bob

The Civic Opera House, aka the Lyric Opera House, opened in 1929. It's home to the Lyric Opera that's been performing operas there for over 70 years. It is a 45-story, Art Deco skyscraper that's over a million square feet! Why in the hell would any opera house need so much space?! My wife and I went to see "The Daughter of the Regiment" there in November 2023. Opera's not not as fun as a Cub's game because you're not allowed to form a beer snake or throw baseballs on the opera stage, but there's enough demand for opera in Chicago because the auditorium seats over 3500 people.

Cafeteria-style delis were once common in Chicago. Maybe because America is more health conscious (more, not completely), places that serve a ton of meat are becoming endangered species. Manny's Cafeteria & Delicatessen has survived the health scare of recent times. Their "My Four Kinder" sandwich, which I loved, consists of four different meats! It's kind of pricey, but it could feed three people or one of me.

I'm from Milwaukee and never realized I had a Wisconsin accent until someone told me I said the word "bag" funny. I said it like "bay-g" and I discovered I said all "a-g" words like that. Flag, rag, tag, antagonist, dragon, etc. Shrog notices my Wisconsin accent as we exit Walmart and it turns into a big song and dance number...literally.

Cabrini-Green was a low-income housing project that was built between 1942 and 1962. It was named after St Frances Cabrini, the first American canonized a Saint by the Catholic Church (quite an accomplishment considering she was from a city that doesn't produce many saints) and William Green, a labor leader. The city started neglecting Cabrini-Green and the neighborhood started getting really, really scary. SO scary that a 1992 horror film, "Candyman," was filmed there. Despite Norman Lear's attempt to make Cabrini-Green funny with his sitcom "Good Times", the project is synonymous with crime and government failure.

Cabrini-Green was a low-income housing project that was built between 1942 and 1962. It was named after St Frances Cabrini, the first American canonized a Saint by the Catholic Church (quite an accomplishment considering she was from a city that doesn't produce many saints) and William Green, a labor leader. The city started neglecting Cabrini-Green and the neighborhood started getting really, really scary. SO scary that a 1992 horror film, "Candyman," was filmed there. Despite Norman Lear's attempt to make Cabrini-Green funny with his sitcom "Good Times", the project is synonymous with crime and government failure.

When you cross La Salle Street in downtown Chicago you can't help but notice a towering skyscraper with a creepy statue on its top. You can see it all the way from Lincoln Park! This building is the Chicago Board of Trade where "stock", like corn and wheat, were "exchanged" for money...get it? "Stock Exchange"! The creepy, faceless statue is a Roman goddess, but you'll have to watch the video to learn more so I get more views.

The Great Chicago Fire was such a big deal that it became one of the four stars on the Chicago flag. It killed 300 people, destroyed over 3 miles of the city, and left 100,000 people homeless. Shrog and Bob stumble upon the location where the fire presumably started at 137 West DeKoven Street, at Catherine O'Leary's farm after a cow kicked a lantern...or so the story goes. O'Leary was a scapegoat back in the day when people hated the Irish for being drunk and rowdy. Now we all celebrate the drunkenness and rowdiness every March in honor of blessed Saint Patrick.

Walt Disney's father, Elias, moved to Chicago in the late 19th Century to work on the the 1893 Columbian Exhibition (World's Fair). His son Walt was born in Hermosa (one of the 77 Chicago Community Areas on the north side) in 1901. In October 2023 the current owners of Walt Disney's birthplace had an open house. Although Walt Disney's company has been producing nothing but crap since it went woke, it's cool that the founder of a once great and iconic company spent the first few years of his life in Chicago.

One of the most unvisited pieces of public art in Chicago is the Balbo Monument located in Burnham Park, a stone's throw from Soldier Field where the Chicago Bears play football, when they're at home any way...for now any way because they're moving to Arlington Heights in the near future. Any way, the reason why it's unvisited is because it's controversial; it was named after a fascist Italian politician named Italo Balbo. Not only that, the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini donated it to Chicago for the Italian Pavilion used during the 1933 Century of Progress World's Fair. Not only that, Mussolini was an ally of the notorious Adolph Hitler, and I don't need to tell you what that b*stard did.

I'm from Milwaukee and the beer of choice there is/was Miller Lite because Miller is/was headquartered in Milwaukee. When I moved to Chicago it seemed as though every block had a tavern with an Old Style sign above its name so I asked myself "why is that Chicago's beer of choice?" It's not made in Chicago. It's not bottled in Chicago. It's not particularly good. In this Chicago Bob Short, Shrog and Bob delve into this mystery.

One of the happiest years of my life was the year I spent at The Second City in Chicago. I was in their Comedy Writing program and ended up being on a writing team that put together a sketch revue that ran for four weeks in Donny's Skybox. The writers even got to be on stage for the grand finale. Some of the most iconic comedians came from the Second City including Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, John Belushi, and the list goes on and on. Not many iconic comedians are coming from anywhere these days because mainstream comedy is so woke, and the only thin funnier than woke comedy is EVERYTHING!

Lyman Frank Baum moved to Chicago in 1891. Nine years later he published "The Wizard of Oz". It is said that the White City (the nickname given to the 1893 Columbian Exhibition, aka, the Chicago World's Fair) was the inspiration for Emerald City. In 1976 the City of Chicago named a park in Lincoln Park (Lincoln Park was named after Abraham Lincoln) after him. They didn't name it Baum Park because nobody who wrote "The Wizard of Oz", so they named it Oz Park. It was pretty much just a park until 1995 when a statue of the Tin Man was installed. Over the next decade the Cowardly Lion, the Scarecrow, and Dorothy and Toto were added. Oz Park is still just a park with tennis courts and baseball diamonds, but it now has creepy statues.

William Wrigley was a soap salesman at first and started giving away chewing gum with each purchase. The gum became more popular than the soap so he started focusing on that. He got rich I tells ya, RICH! So rich that he bought the Chicago Cubs in 1921 and commissioned the Wrigley Building (on Michigan Ave) the same year. Shrog and Bob discuss this bit of history in front of the Wrigley Building with uproarious results.

The Shedd Aquarium is a popular tourist attraction on Chicago's lakefront. Tickets are kind of expensive, but on certain days Illinois residents get free admission. It has a lot of salt water and fresh water fish and aquatic mammals, but the whole time I was there I kept fantasizing about eating a McDonald's Filet O Fish sandwich.

I'm from Milwaukee but I've never shared the hatred Wisconsin people have for Illinois people. When I was a kid I loved going to Six Flags in Gurnee, IL and, as a comedy fan, had nothing bur reference for the iconic comedians that came from Chicago's Second City (John Belushi, Bill Murray, Gilda Radner, Harold Ramis, Christ Farley, Dan Castellaneta, Jeff Garland, etc., etc., etc.). But the hatred is real...SO real that Wisconsin folks call Illinois folks "F.I.B.s", which does't stand for "friendly Illinois buddies." I'm F.I.B. now and I think I have a good theory on why Wisconsin hates its neighbor-to-the-south so much.

They never show it on TV because it encourages bad behavior; behavior that gets you kicked out of other baseball stadiums... ...But when a visiting team hits a home run at Wrigley Field, which they oftentimes do, it considered poor etiquette to keep the ball. The more refined way of handling the situation is to throw the ball back on the field as people are chanting "Throw it back! Throw it back!" Shrog and Bob were at the Cubs vs. Rockies game in September 2023 and witnessed two home runs from the visiting teams. Shrog learns a valuable lesson on the origin of this tradition and how to catch a ball in the bleachers.

My favorite musician is Herb Alpert. I didn’t say one of my favorites… I said favorite. He created a unique sound in the 1960s with his band the Tijuana Brass. You might recognize some of his songs from game shows. Miles Davis said “You hear three notes and you know it’s Herb Alpert. Herb Alpert’s not from Chicago, he’s from California, but his art lives in Chicago. My wife and I were walking around Museum Campus near Chicago’s lakefront and noticed a statue that stood out like a sore thumb. I said to her “that looks like one of Herb Alpert’s statues.” She googled it and, sure as sh*t, it was! Then my wife told me that I know way too much about Herb Alpert.

Chicago has three major forms of public transportation: the bus, the "L", and the Metra (the double decker trains that hold up traffic). When I first moved to Chicago I was scared of the Metra because I thought my ignorance would hold up the train and the conductor would yell at me and all the passengers would give me dirty looks and make passive aggressive comments about me during the entire train ride. I'm used to dirty looks, passive aggressive comments, and being yelled at, so I figured "what the h*ll, I'll figure the Metra out!" Hopefully this will be of some help to other transplants that are squeamish about using one of the best systems of getting to Union Station without worrying about traffic and parking.

Pullman is one of the 77 Community Areas of Chicago but a hundred years ago it was its own utopian (or dystopian, depending on how you want to look at it) city. It was founded by George Pullman who bought the land for his Luxury Train Car company, which was a big deal at the time. George Pullman wanted to elevate his workers by having them live nearby in nice housing. Alcohol was forbidden in Pullman, which is probably why a lot of people still worked in the Union Stockyards. It was annexed into the city of Chicago in 1889 and has become a dangerous neighborhood since. Chicago Bob visited Pullman and had creepy "Children of the Corn" vibes about it.

The Daley Plaza is no longer safe. The plaza where Pablo Picasso's famous statue (know as "The Picasso") stands in swarming with diseased beggars. Innocent passers-by are attacked by these pests every day. Chicago Bob bravely investigated the Plaza and experienced this crisis first hand.

I listen to a lot of classic rock and one of my favorite songs is Aliotta Haynes Jeremiah's 1971 classic "Lake Shore Drive". It got even more attention in 2017 when it was used in "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2". Maybe I"m stupid, but I never realized that it was about Chicago. I thought was about some road in California because it seems like everyone in the entertainment industry lives in California because they can afford it. When I moved to Chicago and drove on Lake Shore Drive, or "LSD", I noticed that it started up north on Hollywood, not in Hollywood. Any hoo, I like the song even more because it's about my favorite city. SO much that I'm dancing with Shrog as he's singing the song in the middle of the street during Saturday afternoon traffic.

I loved Married With Children when it first came out but the audience starting getting on my nerves towards the end. Seriously, Ed O'Neill would walk in the door and there would be a ten minute standing ovation with hooting, hollering, whistling, and catcalls. Nevertheless, it's an iconic show with America's favorite lovable loser Al Bundy. I recreated the opening of the show by actually going to the locations used. The first is the beautiful Buckingham Fountain in Grant Park. Unfortunately they were setting up for Chicago's Lollapalooza so there was some construction going on. The second is their dumpy house which is right off of the expressway in Deerfield, Illinois. My family graciously agreed to play a roll in this special episode as well.

The Cloud Gate was built in 2006 and, like its name implies, was designed to look like a cloud. Clouds, though, can look like beans and this once certainly does so it got the nickname "The Bean". Its designer, Anish Kapoor, did not like the nickname at first. Who can blame him? But it eventually grew on him. In this Chicago Bob Short, Shrog and Bob are hanging out in Millennium Park discussing one of Chicagos top tourist attractions.

The Merchandise Mart was built by Marshall Field in 1930 and was later purchased by the Kennedy family. Joe Kennedy commissioned the "Merchandise Mart Hall of Fame" and eight creepy busts of great American retailers were created and placed outside this ginormous Art Deco building. It's SO ginormous that it once had its own zip code! The heads are still there but are becoming twisted and decrepit, so thankfully they're facing the building rather than the Chicago River so they don't scare visitors on boat tours.

When it comes to Chicago food, most people think of deep dish pizza or hotdogs sans ketchup, but the Italian Beef sandwich is a huge part of the Chicago palette. Believed to have been invented in the 1930s, poor people would slice less choice cuts of beef (from the Union Stockyards of course) so thin you'd have no idea how un-choice the meat is. They would put it on day-old bread and dunk it in the gravy so you'd have no idea the bread was day-old. This episode is a love letter to all the Italian beef restaurants in Chicagoland.