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As much as I love busking down in the subway, I hardly feel as authentic and entitled as some of the other guys who play down there.

Phil, Norm & Joe are some great guys who play down there seemingly at all hours. Indeed, someone saw fit to give them their rightful place on the YouTube stage.

You guys are awesome. But lord, find a new band name.

Millennium Park at night.

This place is down the street from us, on a particularly inauspicious stretch of Irving Park Road. But we went there recently with the grandparents and found it utterly charming and unique. Like going to the home of a friend you wish could come out from the kitchen and chat more about life in his homeland of Egypt or the culinary inspirations that lead him to carefully source the freshest and most environmentally-sound ingredients, but instead you let him remain at work back there making delicious dips to order, generous sandwiches on fresh bread, and stunning salads with locally-sourced greens.

Please go and keep them in business.

Finally got back down to the Monroe Street subway station on my lunch hour to play some tunes and make a little cash… and after three songs was brusquely forced to stop playing by a CTA employee. The only stations allowing performers — even those with their $10 performers’ permit — are Jackson and Washington.

I’ve heard this spiel before. The Washington stop is closed and has been for ages. Jackson is always taken, and even if it weren’t, I think there’s some kind of unspoken rule that only black rappers under the age of 18 are allowed to perform there anyway.

It’s a classically idiotic restriction. The rule was probably written years ago with sufficient reason, but now that one of the designated stations is closed and meanwhile the neighboring Lake station has been renovated, the rule clearly needs to be updated. And I can’t imagine these restrictions are security-based: for instance, Jackson has several huge stairways interrupting the platform, allowing no safe place for people to gather and no easy means for authorities to patrol.

Grrrr…

Last night, after another volunteering stint at Obama HQ in downtown Chicago, K and I thought we deserved a treat for all of our pro bono… So we stopped into Shikago, a new restaurant by one of our favorite local chefs.

We just sat in the bar area and had a drink and some appetizers (they call them “tastes” here, a fitting homage to the eponymous city’s most popular summer festival). But it’s worth mentioning that the lobster dumplings on the bar menu were insanely good. Like, best thing I’ve had in a restaurant in years good. Good enough that I’m blogging for the first time in 17 years good. That good.