Has any other sitting president generated this much bad thrift store art? I looked around to see if I could find anything similar for George W. Bush, and: nada...bupkis. I felt a little sorry for him, actually. You'd think Bill Kristol could of done a quick pencil sketch or something. Anyway, there are still some "Laughing Bush" posters left at Dan Lacey's website.
Bad Paintings of Obama [Link
Change. I was telling a younger friend about my memories of 1968. I was only 10 years old, but I knew what was going on. Every night, I prayed to Jesus that my brother wouldn't be drafted and sent to Vietnam. In April, Martin Luther King was assassinated. Cities exploded--blocks and blocks of Detroit, Chicago, Washington, Baltimore and more burned during the riots that followed. In June, Bobby Kennedy was assassinated. The United States of America was coming apart at the seams. Culture wars raged, even within my own family. I remember my mother, watching a news report about feminists and saying, her voice clotted with anger, "What do these women want?"
I called my mom the night Barack Obama became the President-elect. She's seen a lot--the Great Depression ("I thought it would never end") and World War II. She also remembers well the northern version of Jim Crow. Some time in the 1950s, while collecting donations for a club, she stopped in a sandwich shop in our little Ohio town. An African American man walked in. He wasn't from around there, but route 41, which connected Cleveland to Columbus ran right through Main Street. The man wanted to buy some food for his wife and young daughter, who waited in the car. The shop owner refused to serve him. Could his little girl at least use the rest room? He was denied that courtesy, as well. My mom said she always regretted not offering to let his family stop at our home. She was a newcomer in town, and was afraid of how she would be viewed. I can't honestly say I would have done any different in that time, or that place.
"I never believed I would see this in my lifetime," she said, through tears of joy.
Just think of a political figure. Now think of him or her with a pancake on their head. Doesn't the world feel like a safer place?
Dan Lacey, Painter of Pancakes [Link]
An acquaintance recently asked if I had any new CTA stories. I wish. Riding on the train in the 2000s is just another quotidian event. The Blue Line is packed like a cattle car, and my fellow commuters are mostly dull young professionals. I can tick off the mildly interesting experiences of the last year on one hand and still have some fingers left over.
On a steaming hot Saturday afternoon, I am trapped on a train stalled between Division and Damen. The air conditioning is out. Across the aisle from me are two Hasidic men wearing hats and heavy wool coats. They have luggage with them, and are probably riding all the way to O'Hare. Watching them melt distracts me from my own misery. There are tiny drops of moisture gathering on their beards. Finally, one of them asks, with a surprising Yiddish accent "So, are trains in Chicago usually not air-conditioned?" 
I walk into the Logan Square station to commute to work. The ticket agent is standing in the middle of the entry, shouting "No Trains Today!" over and over. Why? I ask. She shrugs and continues her message loop. I go above ground and cross the street to wait for the Milwaukee bus with...oh about 50 other people. One man says that he heard that there's been a fire in the tunnel. (As we later discover, a train derailed and a major evacuation fiasco ensued. On the Chicago Tribune website I see a photo of my friend Annie clambering out of some grungy Capone-era emergency hatch.)
A Milwaukee bus arrives, subtly rocking back and forth with the enormous weight of too many people. For some insane reason, I fight my way on. At each stop, more people irrationally squeeze on to the bus. I can't breath. Someone's armpit is close to knocking my glasses off. I realize that I am going to throw up/faint/scream. I begin the lengthy process of fighting my way off the bus. My fellow commuters are not going down easy. Usually, people step off to allow others to leave. Riders on the Bus of the Damned are glassy-eyed, refusing to budge. "Let me out!" I shout. "I'm gonna be sick!" I am nearly ejected on to the sidewalk.
On the evening of November 4, I enter the subway station, on my way to watch the election results at a friend's house. Four men are clustered together talking excitedly: two Puerto Rican guys wearing athletic jerseys with enormous portraits of Obama printed on the front and lots of bling, an older white guy with a ponytail (they don't call it the People's Republic of Logan Square for nothing), and a young white hipster. The boys are all pumped about Obama's chances. The hipster and I discuss Nate Silver's very encouraging electoral projections on FiveThirtyEight.com. He tells me, "He (Silver) lives right here in Chicago, in Wicker Park." We both marvel at being in Chicago right now, witnesses to History. When I get off at my stop, the guys wave and wish me a good night.
That's all the recent news from Chicago, the Mild, Mild West. Next time I promise to go back 15 years or so.
HAPPY BLACK PRESIDENT DAY!!!
I'm proud to be an American, again.
President-elect Obama gave a graceful victory speech, but I don't have to be nearly as sanguine. Conservatives have had eight years to run this country into the ground. God help us and our new President.
