Wait For It To Drop

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shhcago-meat.jpgOnce, when I was away from Chicago, I was talking to some people that I thought were from the Chicagoland area.  I got very angry with them when they tried to argue that the best hot dog in Chicago was from Portillos.  It made me angry because what some people from the suburbs don’t realize is that the best hot dog in Chicago doesn’t come from a chain.  It isn’t even from a particular place.  The best hot dog comes from small mom-and-pop grills that have names like “Nicks,” “Clark Dogs,” Niagra” or “Johnny’s Uncle Jims,” and it is because they almost all serve Vienna Hot Dogs.  Most of those places get their meat, fries, etc. from the same places.

That being said, certain places do stand out.  One in particular is Suzies at Montrose and Elston.  There a few things that make this place awesome:

  1. They are open 24 hours.
  2. The amount of options available.  They will pair anything up with anything.  Have you ever thought of having a gyro burger?  They have and put it on the menu.
  3. Milkshakes.  Susies has a shit load of milkshake flavors.  I have never tried any because I promised I would get to the milkshakes after I tried everything on the food portion.  I’ve been going there for years and have not reached that day.
  4.  Edible Cheese Fry Bowls.  You know that bowl that usually holds  a taco salad that you can eat when your done?  Imagine that filled with fries and cheese.  If that isn’t enough, you can add meat like gyro or philly cheese steak with sour cream.
  5. Corn-Pols.  Corndogs with polish sausage instead of hot dog. Once, they tried telling me they didn’t have any ready so I didn’t get one.  Then a friend told me that they were just being lazy and didn’t want to get more out of the freezer; is was supposed to say “I’ll wait for one to drop.”  Sure enough, next time they told me they didn’t have any, I said the magic words and abracadabra, Brian is eating a corn-pol.
  6. This can be good or bad.   I sometimes question how unhealthy the food from Wendys or Taco Bell that is already made by the time I get to the window. Don’t get me wrong, Susies is not healthy food despite the picture of their sign brags about “zero trans-fat oil served here.”  But you know they start making your food when you order it.  It can be frustrating when the drive-thru line is four cars deep yet still takes 30 minutes to get through, but you are hungry for the food when you get it.
  7. The portions.  Last time I ordered a phily cheese steak sandwich, they asked me if I wanted the regular or the baby size.  Not wanting the woman at the window to think I was a pussy, I of course ordered the regular size, which is about the size of 6 month old baby.

I think I know what I am doing for lunch.

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Happy 200th Chuck D!

Chuck

Many have been shaken by the threat that Charles Darwin’s ‘Origin of Species’ poses to certain religious ideologies but, evidently, none so shaken as Darwin himself.  Read the article.

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Baby, You Can Have Whatever You Like

After being called out for liking T.I. songs (which I had coming),  here some things to listen to that Neil and Kevin can enjoy:
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-  a while back I got into a singer/songwriter phase after watching Heartworn Highways and Be Here To Love Me.  Then the other day I came across a singer named after two of my favorites from those movies: Townes Van Zant and Steve Earle.   Justin Townes Earle has the last name Earle because he is the son of Steve, and looks just as messed up as both Steve and TVZ were.  The single off his new album, Yuma, is good along with the few other songs I heard from him.

– as mentioned before, Dan Auerbach, one half of The Black Keys, has a solo disc worth listening to.  You can listen to the whole thing over at his myspace page.

– a charity compilation disc, Dark Was The Night, looks like it could be really cool.  Its bigger name artists doing covers.  But because its for charity, no blogs like to post anything up to listen to (rightly so, probably).  Artists include Spoon, Sharon Jones and the Daptones, My Morning Jacket, Feist with Ben Gibbard, and so on. The myspace showcases a single song a day or you can listen snippets of each song at Amazon.

– another charity disc, War Child: Heroes, is another album of covers that is tough to preview because its for charity.  Songs include Franz Ferdinand doing Blondie’s Call Me, Estelle covering Stevie Wonders Superstition and Lily Allen covering that MIA sample with her godfather Mick Jones of the Clash.

– Starbucks has a compliation disc called Sweathearts 09 with covers (can you tell I like covers) of I Put a Spell On You by She & Him, Black and Gold by Katy Perry and Buddy Holly’s Words of Love done by Jessica Lea Mayfield.

– Legend Booker T. of Booker T. And The M.G.’s is coming out with a solo album, Potato Hole.  His backing band is fucking Neil Young and The Drive By Truckers.  The sound of that Hammond B3 organ is unmistakably awesome.  You can preview a song at Pitchfork.

– Finally, head over to Doctor Mooney to check out a disc from Ike and Tina.  It took me a day to realize that the line from the Hunter, “Got you in the sites of my love gun,” is said in How Many More Times by Led Zeppelin.

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Can I Smell Yo Dick

I already covered what catholic grade schools are listening to.  According to Austin, this is what catholic all-guys high schools are listening to.

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