it's hard to be emo in a glam rock town
MONKEYS
Those naughty monkeys! Those monkeys are bad! No monkey no!
A HELPFUL GUIDE TO STREET PEOPLE
You know, I've lived in Chicago for a while. I've also worked downtown for a while. You get to see the same people over and over again. Here is a short guide to some of the more colorful citizens that populate the River North/Gold Coast/Loop area.
Señor Mustache: You'd know him if you saw him. Very weird-looking guy with 1970s hair and a big handlebar mustache. He is a pickpocket, mostly preying on tourists and suburban types, and he's been working the downtown for at least 12 years.
The Lady Who Needs $0.50 to Pay For Her Dialysis: Why such a specific amount of money? Why such a specific need? How can you be $0.50 short for a dialysis session, anyway? Whatever, this is her story and she sticks to it.
The Stylish Midget: I can't explain it any better than that. There is this midget, and he is very stylish.
Sandwich Board Stan and His Cavalcade of Conspiracy: The guy who needs you to know that Al Gore is a Chinese robot and that the Communists are controlling the weather. He walks up and down Michigan Avenue wearing a sandwich board covered with his cramped magic-marker theories. A favorite of the tinfoil-hat crowd.
Fakey McCellPhone: This guy I like. He is a crazy homeless filthy dude but he is also a talented performance artist. He rides the El with a small block of wood that he pretends is a cell phone, and has very loud animated conversations on his block of wood that elegantly skewer those of the cell-phone wankers all around us: either inane YEAH I'M GOING TO BE THREE AND A HALF MINUTES LATE type stuff or fake Board of Trade exchanges like IT'S AT TWENTY-NINE? WELL, FUCK, DUMP IT THEN! I haven't seen him in a while, come to think of it. Fakey McCellPhone,