Moving To Wordpress

I like Blogger personally, but I am uncomfortable with the same company owning the servers I publish on and then indexing that. That is on par with Stalin saying something along the lines of "He who casts the votes decides nothing; he who counts the votes decides everything." --Stalin.

I am moving to http://chicagowithdrawal.wordpress.com

Message to Google

Hey,

How does it happen that my site my, posted on Digg at http://digg.com/travel_places/Chicago_Withdrawal

Can be listed as number 1 one day and non-existent the next? Could it be that I posted the previous post entitled, "Beating Google Index." I know you own the blogger servers but this isn't Google China. This is America and in America we index sites, even if its your second rate blog search. I submitted my sitemap, and even analytics so you can track me even more. INDEX MY BLOG!!!!

Thank you,
J.R.

P.S. Third party readers I'm not making this up, that is scary.

Beating the Google Index

I'm still waiting for Google to index this site, at least in their blog search. I believe my words are truthful and powerful enough to spread by word of mouth and from my readers. I did manage to get Chicago Withdrawal #1 on Google if you simply type in "Chicago Withdrawal" despite their algorithms and neglect of their Blogger clients like me. I even consider moving this to Wordpress.com. All of this is just motivating me to write more bold and comprehensive articles about Chicago. Thank you for reading.
Here is The Talking Heads preforming "Cities" live.

"I'm checking em' out."

Chicago Myth #2: Public Transportation

"You can throw your car away and live in Chicago and live happily ever after."-- Not the case. Seeing that I did this throughout my high school and lived in the city without a car for the last year, I know, believe me. I would like to believe that for a city the size of Chicago this was case. The fact is Chicago transportation, in short, does not move.


Let's say you want to take the train, it moves slow. Let's say you want to drive, you are stuck in traffic. Let's say you want to take the bus, you are again stuck in traffic. The Metra system is decent but like the CTA, it is really meant to get you downtown and thats it. The CTA is stuck in the 1920s, it moves ridiculously slow, goes to downtown and back to you neighborhood. If you want to get to another neighborhood you have to transfer somewhere then transfer somewhere else. Do you want to transfer train lines? Too bad, you have to go all the way downtown wait and then transfer again to go all the way back out to the neighborhoods. If you live in the suburbs, and don't live off a Metra stop, its like having to drive out to the cornfields everyday, while stuck in traffic.



Logic would tell you that people would stop expanding or demand better public transportation. But this is Chicago and everyone is an idiot. Everyone is happy commuting 45 minutes or more everyday. This is the new Chicago culture: being stuck in traffic. I'll tell you right now, if you build your house way out in the suburbs without a Metra line and work in the city: you are probably a miserable person or an idiot.


On top of this the problem isn't going to go away. The Federal Government doesn't care about Chicago. You aren't going to get any help from Senator Obama; he is busy trying to get in the White House. Not from Durbin he is an idiot. From Governor Blagoevich? Not a chance. He worked under someone I know, under, when he was just getting his law degree. The person called him, and I quote, "A dildo."


Every month the CTA spends millions on a PR campaign to get its rates raised to tells its riders of "dooms day" for the CTA. And Chicago wants to be on the international scene with NY or London?


The fact is this is America. And Americans love their GD cars. Chicago will never be "European." Chicago will never be a pleasant place to live--it will always be a pain in the ass full of miserable people and weather.

Tribal Chicago

I get comments from outsiders that live in Chicago that Chicago is "racist and segregated." While I agree to some level of this, I think that this issue is too easily passed off with these terms. I want to ask a little bit more of a deeper question: "Why is Chicago this way?" Someone I know, whose Mother is from Texas, told me that Chicago is even more segregated than the South. This makes little sense at first because the South, historically, has been associated with slavery.

The questions that must be asked is: "Who is racist to whom?" and "Who is segregated and who isn't?" The answer, although changing for the better, is everyone. Whites want to live with whites. Blacks want to live with blacks. Hispanics want to live with Hispanics. Asians want to live with Asians. Keep in mind, I'm generalizing: My point is that similar races want to live with similar races and cultures.


Chicago is an ethnic city. Many people are either straight off the boat or only a few generations isolated from their parents' country. They all have racial terms for each other: Mick, Deigo, Spic, pole lock, one for Puerto Ricans a Mexican told me, shovel head, dot head, wanker, niggers, kiks etc... You may be more likely in Chicago, than other places, to hear these terms thrown around like nothing. The reason for this is because these cultures live in such a close proximity, land area wise, that it was probably ingrained in them from birth. Keep in mind these terms are not always said maliciously and I have honestly seen people be called these names and laugh about it. Although this is diminishing, for the better, it still may shock outsiders. Some races and cultures are more compatible than others. For example: Mexicans, Irish, Italians are all, for the most part, Roman Catholics so you will see a more fluent, although not always, merging of these cultures.


So unlike the South, Chicago has many races, cultures and religions in the same place at the same time. This may appear to magnify the racial issues in Chicago, but I believe this still doesn't fully explain Chicago's racism. There just seems to be an overwhelming population of scumbags, across the board, which prevents Chicago from doing anything great to put it on the map with more important cities its size. Perhaps, this is the problem of the schools, but the schools are only a reflection of culture. I look to nature for the answer.


Besides, the summer which I enjoyed, Chicago is a cold, dark cesspool. People need to band together, at least historically, to survive. People will naturally bind with people like them and fight people that don't for resources. This isn't California or the South where people have mild winters; people are on edge for survival. Chicago is a Tribal city in battle for resources.

Uniquely Illinois #2: Drew Peterson

If all the forces of the universe combined into my head at once, I still could not think of a "Chicagoland" character as dynamic as Drew Peterson. I'm going back to an e-mail here, one minute, to get my quote of what I said about silly dilly Drew. "I think Drew Peterson reflects the typical idiot Chicago area person: he can't speak well, he is a scumbag and probably thinks he got away with murder." I'm not mocking people with accents from Chicago, but I also realize it isn't the standard dialect for the rest of the country. I occasionally say an "A" vowel sound, like I'm opening my mouth for the doctor. Take Drew Peterson's accent, creepy smile, demeanor, profession and we have the mixing power for a "Uniquely Illinois" character. Every now and then a character from Chicago comes out the woodwork and into the national spotlight; this is the only way people from the rest of the country can realize these people exist. To recap: Peterson's wife, who is approximately my age, disappeared from the 50 year olds shaky marriage leaving her children behind for "another man," as silly dilly Drew claims. As it turns out, Drew's previous and third wife died from "unknown causes" in the bathroom--It was later discovered that she was murdered. The best part is that he is a cop. If you are interested in being Drew's 5th wife, click here All men are innocent till proven guilty, but not all men are Drew Peterson until proven guilty.

Uniquely Illinois #1: Cubs Vs. White Sox

I was going to call my "Uniquely Illinois" posts "Chicago Idiots" or "Illinois Idiots," although I think this would be too narrow of a range for what I am trying to express. I am a baseball fan. I like almost all professional baseball teams and their players. In professional baseball, players and officials are moved around so often, that it seems the best criteria to judge a team is by the people that don't change that often: their fans. I judge baseball teams by the character of their fans. When I am invariably asked, "Cubs or White Sox?" the answer is more complex for me.


Cubs fans have grown progressively ridiculous over the past few decades. I site one of my recent favorite blogs, "The Stuff White People Like," as one of the most accurate portrayals of Cubs fans and their Cathedral: Wrigley Field. While I always enjoy baseball and if I am asked to go to a Cubs game, I will say yes. I find it hard to become so enthralled with a franchise that has a less than stellar record. I was at a party in Ohio this weekend where I saw a friend of mine who is moving to Chicago. All of a sudden, he had on a flat top Cubs hat. A few drinks in him and he was talking smack to a student with a NY Mets hat on. This is the mentality of a new Cubs fan: wear the hat and immediately pretend you watch every WGN game. I warned my friend of the dangers of Chicago and drinking the "Rah Rah Chicago kool-aid," but it seems he is already on his way to becoming a reason I don't like Cubs fans and, more broadly, Chicago.



I believe, for the most part, White Sox fans understand my opinion of the Cubs fans, but they too have drank the "Rah Rah Chicago kool-aid." While the South side team personally and generally hates the Cubs fans and team, they still think that the South side team is the greatest thing in the world. The White Sox fans site the 2005 World Series Championship as evidence of this. I was in Ohio at this time, celebrating by myself because no one gave a damn in Ohio. While watching on T.V., a White Sox fan told the World that this champioship is bigger than the Bears winning the 85' SuperBowl and the entire 90s' Chicago Bulls. No one cared in Ohio and probably the rest of the nation. No one cares about Chicago teams, outside of Chicagoans who think it is the center of the universe and Midwesterners who have somehow gotten a hold of the "Rah Rah Chicago kool aid."



So when I am asked which team I prefer, I say the Cincinnati Reds. The Reds are the oldest team in professional baseball and have a loyal fan base. No one is a Reds fan because they just recently moved to Cincinnati. I am a Reds fan because I simply can not stand fans that think their city is the center of the universe; Cincinnati fans at least realize Cincinnati is not the center of the universe, nor will it ever be.

Chicago Myth #1: Friendliness

This will be the first in a series of posts called "Chicago myths." Chicago historically has been known as a friendly mid-western city. A.J. Liebling wrote of this is his 1950's area critique of Chicago entitled, The Second City. Sadly, I don't even find this to be the case anymore.


One night, while eating tacos late after work, an attractive college girl about my age sat down next to me at the restaurant bar. The girl began talking to me about how she needed to get out of her apartment immediately or she would "go crazy." I immediately knew she wasn't from Chicago and where she was from. I said, "you aren't from here are you." She looked perplexed, "How could he know I wasn't from here?"--I'll tell you exactly why--



1.) An attractive Chicago college age girl or even older would rarely, if ever, bother talking to someone she didn't know, especially randomly. In fact, most Chicagoans including people from the suburbs would rarely, if ever, bother talking to a random person.



2.) The girl abruptly sat down next to me and started talking to me. I can't think of any other instance where this has happened in Chicago. If someone knows where the hell this happens regularly in the country, let me know. I have heard myths this happens in the South and the West.



3.) As I have said, the only way someone can put up with Chicago is because they don't know how bad it is. A true Chicagoan wouldn't usually publicly complain about sitting in their apartment or they would "go crazy." A true Chicagoan is crazy.



I told the girl that I thought she was from out West, specifically California; She told me to keep guessing. The girl was a Mormon from Salt Lake City, Utah; she worked as a flight attendant. When I told her I knew she wasn't from Chicago because of how friendly she was, among other things, she replied by saying, "I have a real problem with people around here." I wish I could have replied, "No shit, I could write a book about it, literally. Instead, I write a blog about it." This was in late 07', before I was back in college, and before I had the time to formally analyze Chicago. She said something along the lines of the people being uptight and stuffy. I have traditionally heard those terms applied to Eastern cities. I remember someone, who went to college in NY, told me to not go out there because the people were miserable and had a bleak outlook on life; perhaps, this is the case, but I really don't find people from Chicago being particularly friendly or happy. The girl got her take out Mexican food and left. I now understand why someone would raise their kids in the Mormon Church.