A Hostel is a Hostel is a hostel. . . .

To begin with, I found a place to live with a really cool dude in a fabulous apartment in a black neighborhood. I am beginning to become a WB sitcom.

But let us start with Hostel-ity.

There are two basic kind of hostels. The Serious Traveler and the Serious Partier.

That is also a lie, for there are never just ‘two basic’ anythings.

Not even gender.

But, it comes close sometimes.

The first Chicago hostel I patronized was a Serious Traveler. No drinking, guests are kicked out in the middle of the day, and the commons rooms are more like study halls. My current hostel is of the other type. Booze is allowed and drinking tours of the neighborhood bars are conducted regularly. The crowd at the Party Hostels are generally younger. Or is that too obvious?

Whatever kind of hostel it is there are some things they all have in common. And the international clientele sets the tone for every decision. Despite this, you must resist the urge to compare them to the United Nations or even The European Union. Practicality reigns at the hostel, and the gilded and carpeted halls where Earth’s diplomats eat gold and screw interns are on the other side of the mind entirely.

Picture it, bathrooms, showers, beds, toilets and kitchens must be accessible to Vietnamese, Austrians, Venezuelans, Japanese, Russians, Greenlanders and even Texans. And when you walk into a hostel at dinner high tide there is a euphony of dinner smells pouring forth from dozens of cooks from all other the planet. Especially in Chicago, as these guys can get a hold of their native cuisine with one train ride. And no, this ain’t just Ramen from around the world. A group of students from Viet Nam had come prepared, and every evening
we witnessed family style dinner with a line of bowls filled with beautiful food.

An odd thing about the smell. I have always been repulsed the odor if the combined KFC Taco Bell places. And once, when I went into a place that served both Mexican and Chinese food, I almost threw up from the violent riot of scents in my nose. These hostels doesn’t have that. Somehow the smells all work, they get along in a way that multiple foreign objects rarely do. Which takes us back the UN and all that is ‘other’ to it.

People here HAVE to get along. There are too busy, too poor and too alone to do otherwise. There are exceptions, but exceptions are exceptional ( Yes, the redundancy is important
here) and they are quickly ostracized or ignored. I don’t think I need to speak on this subject anymore to Chicago people. Here, elegant plumes of common sense in the shape of buildings, roads, trains and people fill the eye and mind.

So what is the difference between the UN and the hostel? Why are these two places so different? The UN exists to celebrate and defend the differences between people, the hostel forces you to find the commonality.

The last night I was in the hostel, I was up until 4am talking with a Chinese national, a Taiwanese and VietNamese and the occasional Brazilian about nothing BUT important topics. Can you imagine that? No small talk whatsoever, for even the most casual observances where lessons of English for them, and discoveries of knowledge for me. It was the kind of talk that makes you stronger, full of hope and less tolerant of the mean side of yourself.

Now it has to be said, communal living can suck due to sleep talkers, excessive drinkers and the strange smells that can come from the orifices of some folk of which good taste prevents description. However, I always feel like a better man every time I leave a hostel. And today, in a world of retail jobs and Republican debates, that’s a feeling more precious that Lady Gaga’s next hairdo.

NEXT WEEK:
ADVENTURE ON THE GREEN LINE! OR I HAVE MY FIRST REAL CITY DAY.

Chicago Prodigal

CHICAGO PRODIGAL

I am returned to Chicago, this City. A place I don’t want to gush about, like the better men and writers before me. I don’t want to sequalize either, sucking on the necks and hearts of the stories and legends of my culture. It is a shallow brew, a thin mixture to sip. We should be creating culture. Not squeezing its remains into a glass held by the shaking hand of man whose only identity is that tremor.


We are our own disease. We have been infested by the bacteria that once only polluted our veins. It is now all we are, how we refer and separate ourselves. It’s all about the support group. The cache of suffering. The celebrity of pain.


This is the land I tread, trod and jog on.

But this is not the city of Chicago.

I don’t know much about her yet. Hell, I just now saw here as a “ her”.

And you may disagree.



I came back to Chicago on Jan 31st. I left when I was a baby, so you can give me some credit for leaving against my will. I found it strange to discover that within a couple years of my birth, all of my family had moved from Chicago. And after about twenty years it is safe to say that any friends or acquaintences would be faded, dead or too different to deal with. As I sit here, I have not a single friend or family in the City of my birth. The hospital I was born in moved. I even looked up my parent’s old address, 922 West Montana. It no longer exists. There’s a newish looking building there now, and it bares the addresses of 920 and 924. 922 is gone.


So, as it is just lying around, I ‘ll go ahead and use it for a title.
Chicago had always been like OZ, I told myself when I was a kid. But I tended to make up most of the stuff I claimed to believe about myself. And no, that is not
healthy. It led to an Identity Crisis, a lot of wasted time and I wound hurting a lot of people who didn’t deserve it and almost destroyed myself.
It is accurate to say that i scaped myself down to one friend away from the grave or to the corner with a cup in my hand.


And look, I’m not going to lie here. I’ll tell the truth as it comes and takes the hits when y’all prove me wrong. All this stuff happened, and I really think this way. I’ll tell you what I think about this City, as I figure it out and try to resurrect my own life with it’s noble pulse.

My lie to myself about Chicago as Oz blistered up in my head when I walked past
the Oz Park tonight. And entire park dedicated to a movie. Not a General ,a
president or a benevolent rich bastard from the past, but a piece of entertainment. I stared at the statues of Dorothy and The Tinman, they were gravely captured, stentorian, jealous of those Generals they weren’t. But the point was valid. What if the park was dedicated to A Midsummer’s Night Dream by Shakespeare? I wouldn’t even have a glimmer of a snotty thought about it. I would be all gushy and how wonderful and how appropriate. But which work has
pleased people more? Has made more happiness?

Then in the middle of the playground I saw some teen boys filming themselves in
various death defying leaps. Jumping, bouncing and throwing themselves about and then rushing around the tiny little screen to see what it looked like. . . .for real.
Right next to them there was a basketball game going on in the dim light. Being from a small town,a big city basketball game has quite the cinematic flavor to it, it’s an icon, a sure sign of CITY. They were playing hard, swearing and boasting like I’ve read about in other guy’s stories about cities. That’s been a lot of my feelings lately. I am constantly turning the corner and seeing something beautiful, like in the movies, like on TV, but different as I am
choosing to be here, to live here. I seek to claim this city as mine, as it was when I came screaming into this world.

I won’t take the right to claim this place as my Hometown for granted. I am a writer, playwright and Improvisor, hence all these weird squiggles you are reading, and I want to show y’all. . .youse guys. . .what I can do. I feel childish, despite my 41 years, and enthusiastic beyond what my salt and pepper hair tells me to feel. And despite the lie my life was, I do like Mike Royko, red hots, having four seasons in a year. Not sure about the Cubs or White Sox issue yet, but the Blackhawks are my new team.


Can’t wait to meet you.

NEXT WEEK: ADVENTURES IN A CHICAGO HOSTEL!