While researching an upcoming FrontPage piece on Obama and the surge, I discovered a column by this guy, who writes for something called the Chicago Daily Observer. That fact alone answers my question, I guess, because Roeser writes like a man who suspects nobody is actually reading him, not even his editor (there’s some reason to suspect that’s the case too — his stuff is messy and hyperbolic).
And that’s often a very fine thing indeed…
Now, instead of writing my due-tomorrow article, I’m scrolling through Roeser’s archives:
Why…Would Anyone Want to Go to the Taste of Chicago?
A good number of years ago when I was a regular panelist on the Bruce DuMont radio show, the show would go one night to the Taste of Chicago and broadcast from the WBEZ booth. The first year we were there, I was sickened as we talked of public affairs on the mike, watching the army of vandals chewing, spitting and mulching, here a gross woman in gingham chomping her jaws on something, the juice trickling down her chin; there an oaf pulling on a chicken leg shouting to his fellows with a monotonous, unintelligible chant, now a child being tugged along by a mother unaware that her charge has just emptied her bladder. Following the show, I took a walk around the grounds. It was about 90 degrees with nary a breath of air stirring. What I saw was enough to cause my stomach to recoil. First there was the sight of an overweight chef in a grey undershirt preparing meals supposed to be exotic, bare tattooed arms with huge tufts of sweaty black hairy underarms, perspiration rolling down from his underarms and dripping onto the skillet, while he rubbed his nose to brush away beads of sweat that plopped onto the plate he was holding… the crowd waiting patiently to be served by this performer; a woman, tired and angry at her small child, giving it a demoniacal smack; a central casting rube with a W. Clement Stone mustache carrying a latte with five expresso shots. I asked myself: why? Why?
A nice blend of Ed Anger and James Lileks.
