Asshole of the Century

Saturday, February 28, 2009

I Hate My Cat

I openly admit that I’m a dog person, that I probably never should have saddled myself with a creature that offers so few pleasures for me as a cat. A good defense attorney would quickly submit this as evidence that my cat may be largely guiltless in the matter, and that I only have myself to blame. Point taken. My counterargument is that, while I did choose to bring this beast into our home of my own free will, this was a will twisted by the twin demands of guilt and courtship, the sad sirens responsible for the flotsam of many a man’s freedom.

I should probably introduce the subject of my diatribe. Our cat’s name is Delwood. She is most likely 13 years old. We’ve had her for over 12 years now. We found her one early autumn evening living under a dumpster for a restaurant in Andersonville, my wife’s old neighborhood, called the Delwood Pickle. Melissa and I were dating at the time. She had just lost her own cat, Courgette, and we had begun nightly searches of the neighborhood for him. While combing the area for Courgette, we found Delwood, meowing crazily for food, half-wild. We felt sorry for her and, after a lot of coaxing, managed to scoop her into a blanket and take her back to Melissa’s apartment.

That would be my first lesson from this story: be careful who and what you save, because you then become responsible for that life. Actually, that’s probably the second lesson. The first is that, at some point, there is a usually a price to be paid for extraordinary kindnesses made during the hot flame of courtship.

When Melissa and I began dating, I pretended that I didn’t hate cats. In fact, in order to pass muster, I almost convinced myself that I actually liked them a little. I can still remember when Courgette and I first came to terms with one another, after it became clear to both cat and man that I wasn’t just another brief romance in Melissa’s life and that the two of us would have to find some kind of arrangement. Courgette and I would eye one another. I would diligently feed him, pet him, let him in and out during the night. We’d negotiate for the good spot in the bed next to our mutual beloved. Then, one day, we both looked at each other and seemed to say, “You know what: You’re O.K.” After that, I was in.

Soon after taking in Delwood, Courgette returned home. Courgette was a typical tom, a wanderer, and I guess a gay couple down the block had locked him in their apartment, as Courgette looked a lot like a cat they had recently lost themselves. Fortunately, a neighbor recognized Courgette from the fliers we had plastered around the neighborhood. She literally stood there arguing with one of the guys in their doorway until Courgette had a chance to scoot through their legs and make his escape. It was a sweet homecoming. Unfortunately, Courgette had feline leukemia and had to be euthanized less than a year after his return.

Meanwhile, we’ve been stuck with Delwood for the past dozen years. Here are the particulars: Delwood is a long-haired cat, which I’ve never liked. Long-hairs can’t seem to take care of themselves, and Delwood is no exception. She barely even tries to groom herself, and her own crap sometimes hangs off the back of her ass fur, like a merry dingleberry tree. She is also dumb as a box of rocks and pretty uncoordinated for a cat, but with an odd defiance I particularly hate that is totally cat-like.

I should probably break my hatred of my cat Delwood into two categories.

Here are some of the things that I hate about all cats: they don’t really care about you; they can’t be trusted; they aren’t loyal, at least by any human standard of the word; they won’t protect your home; they won’t protect your person; they won’t’ protect anything that you value in your life, in fact they destroy your personal property and are secretly proud of it, even when they get caught; they kill cool animals like birds, lizards, rabbits and other wild things that should be left alone; you have to clean up their litter box, and both their piss and shit are among the most foul-smelling compounds on the planet; they spend most of their day just sitting around like a hairy flesh lump, offering the planet nothing but carbon dioxide; they have an unjustified arrogance that is absolutely infuriating; and I’m allergic.

And here are some of the things I hate that are particular to Delwood herself: she can’t groom herself; she prefers to spend much of the day in low, dirty places, in fact, if you allow her outside, she will look for someplace dark and ugly to go, like the crawl space under our breakfast nook, where her long fur will gather dirt and spider webs; she insists on scratching up our couch as soon as we leave the house, even though she has a scratching board; she is lethargic, even for a cat; she will let our dog Ahab manhandle her for long periods of time, but then in a random moment will strike out, aiming to scratch out his eyes; she is affectionate in a demanding sort of way that means nothing other than being an unfulfilled need of the organism; and we repeatedly have to clean her upchuck off the basement floor.

One of the problems that I never realized about cats until owning one is that cats seem to take forever to die. They just sit there, immobile most of the day, like some kind of monk, as if the continuance of a drab, minimal existence is a perverse type of triumph. In fact, if cats were people, they’d probably be monks, doing nothing other than making an occasional pronouncement about the Immaculate Conception or the Noble Eightfold Path, imagining that for some reason this puts them closer to God. Or cats would be members of an anarchist collective, debating how to fix the state of the world over coffee and then doing nothing about it other than casting their languid contempt towards the folks who actually work for a living.

As there is no one else to speak up for her, I will note that Delwood is relatively tolerant for a cat, and she has a relatively kind disposition (again, at least compared with the standards of her species). Considering how much we have neglected her, it is kind of amazing that Delwood has done none of the standard cat antics that tend to happen when they get ignored, pissing on the bed and that kind of thing. And she seems to be pretty chill in dealing with our baby, Milo, although I don’t trust her enough to give her the chance to do otherwise.

To paraphrase Charles Bukowski’s thoughts on humanity, maybe I don’t exactly hate my cat, I’ll just feel a lot better when she’s not around. And I guess that’s my cat’s biggest failing right now, that she just won’t fucking die.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

The Long Slow Decline of the Northwest Side

The following is my favorite obituary, which I copied into an old notebook back in 2003. It is from the March 27, 2003 edition of the Portage Park Times:

His day would begin the same way every day. Wake up at five, take a “constitutional” and grab an “el muncho” at Central Market. Then he’d stroll over to the record store.

Michael Gaines, owner of Interval Records, 5905 W. Irving Park Road, died March 4. He was 53.

Mr. Gaines lived a quiet and fulfilling life, residing in the small apartment above his store. A staple in the neighborhood, everybody knew him, from the shoemaker who worked next door to his landlady he shared Christmas and Thanksgiving with.

Yet he died alone.

He had a tendency to Spanishize his speech, using words like “el muncho” for food and “el stiffo” for bad music.

He didn’t know many of his friends’ last names. “What’s the need?” he’d ask. No last names are necessary in a friendly record store.

His friends came to know one another as “Pool Hall Victor”, “Bum Knees John”, and “Classical Ted”. The youngest was dubbed “Pete the Pup”.

“If you had your nickname, you’d be in,” recalled Mike Bratta, better known as Bookshelf Mike.

Mr. Gaines’ illness, and the quickness in which it defeated him, took his friends by surprise.

Mike Kessler, also known as “Promo Mike”, said he realized Mr. Gaines was sick after he went in one time and saw that Mr. Gaines wasn’t in his usual spot behind the drum set, or bending over a guitar.

“I’d see him sitting in a corner with a sweater, looking a little cold and a little scared,” Kessler said
_________________________________________________________

I never met Michael Gaines before he died, nor did I ever frequent his record store. But his story reminds me of many of the shop owners in the neighborhood. I have a particular soft spot for these, the very smallest of petite bourgeoisie. There’s the yarn store with the dusty tam-o-shanter in the window, a store whose clientele is definitely more housewife than hipster and that has been around for decades, packed with big, dusty boxes full of spools of pastel yarn. There is We Are Music, which gives music lessons and sells musical instruments on the side, owned by an aging folk chick, a place that seems to have had the same stock of amps and guitars on sale for the past several years and where I recently bought a bass amp (they let me have the dog hair that covered the amp, courtesy of the occasional shop visit by the owner’s Lab, for free). There is Karl’s Barber Shop, which is owned and operated by a 72-year old German refugee from the former Yugoslavia who, besides giving a great haircut and telling tales of a childhood spent in a refugee camp, always has a chess puzzle to solve and sometimes even offers you a piece of his wife’s strudel.

Melissa and I have lived in Portage Park for eight years now, and while we miss the microbrews and food options of Andersonville, where we used to live, I have developed an affinity for the quirky, down-home nature of the Northwest Side. Besides the fact that I know almost all of my neighbors and can count on them to plow my sidewalk or watch out for my dog if I happen to be out of town or otherwise predisposed, I have a leisurely, convivial relationship with my doctor, my dentist, my optometrist, and my tax accountant, all of whom have offices in the neighborhood and any of which I might end up talking with for 20 minutes about tennis or the markets before even getting to the business at hand.

It being winter and my mind tending to dwell on uplifting topics like death and decay, I’ve been thinking about how the commercial landscape of our neighborhood is slowly changing, storefronts and bars being the landmarks in which an urban community defines itself, so I’ve listed some of the one-time establishments in Portage Park that are no more (in explanation for the geographical stickler: Irving Park Road and Central Avenue being the bull’s eye, the community of Portage Park extends approximately a mile in all directions, running from Belmont to Lawrence Avenues south to north and from Cicero to Narragansett east to west):

Joe Dano’s Bucket O’ Suds: Joe Dano was an old jazz dude who back in the day hung out with some of the major bopsters around town. His bar, Bucket O’ Suds, garnered a sizable following among indy music hipsters and the occasional traveling troubadour, who would venture west among us, the unwashed, to take in the vibe, eat some of the grub (which was cooked by Joe’s sister in the kitchen behind the bar), and down some Lucifer’s Elixir, Joe’s officially contraband hooch, based on a secret recipe that he claimed to have learned from an old moonshiner. Sometimes, the bar would seem to be locked up, and you’d have to knock on the door to be let in. The Bucket O’ Suds also figures at least peripherally in my courtship of my wife, as Melissa was at the BOS one Friday night when a guy who was sitting on the next stool over from her quietly leaned over, set his head on the bar, and kicked the bucket right then and there. This rather creepy experience was followed by a car ride home with the radio tuned in to WZRD, where I was playing a set of off-kilter, disturbing music, further freaking them out but also forming an odd bond between the DJ and his listeners (at least that is Melissa’s retelling of the evening). Joe must have been 80 and barely functional when he finally shut the doors of his bar for good, and he reportedly then moved somewhere out in the desert and has since passed away (located at Cicero and Belmont).

The Emperor’s Headquarters: By the time that I moved into the neighborhood in 2001, the Emperor’s Headquarters had already been shuttered, but it still cast an intriguing shadow looking down on Irving Park Road, as if Napoleon III was about to open the French colonial windows on the 3rd floor and make a decree. Eventually, Karl the Barber filled me in on the details. Apparently, the Emperor’s Headquarters was a meeting place for fantasy and war game geeks, where they could plot world conquest in an appropriate setting, and it has sat vacant ever since its demise somewhere around the beginning of the new millennium, a victim of declining sales and the growing popularity of computer games (Irving Park and Menard)

Circuits: A punk rock dance club without the frills or even a hint of pretension, a crew of us would occasionally be lured from our apartments near the lakefront to the club by their drink specials and the opportunity to dance to “White Riot” or “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” one more time. Circuits shut down suddenly and without ceremony at some point in the early 1990’s (Cicero and Montrose)

Club Stodola: A neighborhood Polish bar turned music club, it would occasionally host local punk bands, including Rugburn, a WZRD-based group that I briefly played in during a last gasp of delayed adolescence the year before I became a teacher. I remember watching a very memorable fight there one night during a set by a local punk group (I think it might have been the Defoliants). Four guys, each of them quite drunk and at least 250 pounds, had started a mosh pit. They were careening from one table into the next, sending beer flying. At one point, a jockish-looking guy took offense. He started swinging at the drunk who had knocked beer into his lap, but the offender’s belly was too big for the jock to reach his face. Eventually, the big drunk kind of stumbled backwards onto the stage in an attempt to avoid these punches, and the jock then tried kicking him in the stomach. I can still picture his sneaker as it was entirely absorbed by the drunk’s beer belly. The drunk then reached out, grabbed the jock, and bum rushed him right onto another table, at which time the drunk began pummeling him. I don’t think either guy really got hurt, but it took a good minute before the bouncers put a stop to that one. Oh, and Club Stodola has another distinction: it was the only club ever to officially ban Rugburn from the premises. As I recall, one of our friends started mouthing off at the owner, who then fired back, “Alright fine, your friend’s band will never play here again.” (Belmont and Central)

Empire Records: Never went there, but it was a small independent record store during the 80’s and 90’s which published an occasional music fanzine that had a fair amount of street cred. (Cicero and Montrose)

Mr. Steer: You could eat third-rate steak and down first-rate drinks (I particularly liked their Tom Collins, made the right way, with superfine sugar, so that it really fizzes) in the red naugahyde booths while being served by waitresses in beehive hairdos. The salad bar featured “bread pudding”, which literally had small pieces of Wonder Bread stuck into vanilla pudding, all of which was topped with a thin layer of pink icing. (Milwaukee Avenue, just north of Six Corners)

The Vienna Bakery: Just a decade ago, there were still a slew of these independent bakeries on the Northwest side, all serving a similar menu of cakes, cookies, breads and Danishes. Having attended culinary school and then worked as a baker, it took a couple of years for Melissa to warm-up to the idea of this bakery. She would complain that it used “packaged ingredients”, meaning that they made a lot of their stuff out of pre-made mixes that featured vegetable shortening as the basic fat ingredient rather than butter. However, everything was made hot each morning, their pastries tasted a whole lot better than the lard-based ones at the Mexican bakery down the road (fat being the flavor vehicle of all bakery goods, with butter being the best option, then vegetable shortening, and lastly lard) and the consistent freshness eventually won her over. As far as I was concerned, it reminded me of the Cupcake Bakery back in California as a kid, which my Dad would drive to every Saturday for bear claws and lemon Danishes. I used to love grabbing the neat wax paper bag from my Dad, opening it up, and then breathing in those sugary flavors, and I would do the same thing with the pastries that I’d get at the Vienna Bakery. Like a lot of the old school neighborhood bakeries, the Vienna Bakery was run by a family and, also following the typical pattern, the kids did not want to follow in the footsteps of their parents, getting up at 4AM every morning to make bread for the neighbors, so the family sold out to a developer, who promptly tore down the building and replaced it with condos. (Addison and Long)

The Patio Theatre: Originally one of the grander of the old school movie houses, the Patio had been kept intact as a single large theatre showing 2nd run movies for $3 until just before we moved into the neighborhood in 2001. Unfortunately, time got the best of the cavernous building, which has been “closed for renovation”, according to the marquee, for the past eight years. (Irving Park and Austin)

Mike’s Alehouse: This place opened right before we moved into the neighborhood, serving a variety of first-rate microbrews from many of the Midwest’s finest, including Summit and Three Floyds, two of my personal favorites, and the bar food, while typical, was good and cheap, particularly the daily specials. I remember having many a fun night there during our first couple of years in the neighborhood. In particular, I remember one night with the Portage Park tennis team where we managed to round up most of the tickets for a raffle and ended up going home with three cases of craft beer, along with a couple of bar glasses and a hat. Sadly, the owner and the manager decided to go their separate ways, the owner fired his two best waitresses to cut back on expenses, and Mike’s eventually merged with another restaurant several blocks down the road, which featured bad food and worse service. It wasn’t long after that they closed their doors for good. (originally at Irving Park and Menard)

The Red Frog: Another restaurant/bar, located catty-corner from the park, the Red Frog opened not long before we moved into the neighborhood. Run by a youngish Mexican-American woman who grew up in Chicago and her Mexican husband, it was trying in its awkward way to bring something a little hipper to Portage Park. They had great drink specials, good burgers, tasty quesadillas, and I liked their juke box, which featured a mixture of alternative rock, house music, and comparatively melodic hip hop. Unfortunately, the owner began to get more and more bitter, I think at least in part due to the shaky finances of the place. She began watching her favorite television programs, which tended towards reality shows along with the occasional drama like “Sex and the City”, on the bar TV, and she would blast these shows so loud through the stereo speakers that you couldn’t hold a conversation. The last straw was one night when she sneezed all over our food just before serving it to us. “I’m never going back there if that bitch makes me sick,” Melissa noted. Melissa did indeed catch a cold a few days later, and we never returned (I had to talk her down from taking more drastic action in retribution for the offending sneeze). Suffice it to say that no tears were shed when we drove by and noticed that the front door had been padlocked and that a disconnection notice from the gas company had been plastered on the front window. Years later, the sign above the bar still reads “Beer of the Month: Erlinger Oktoberfest.” (Irving Park and Long)

Manee Thai: Although technically just outside of Portage Park, this one was particularly close to my heart. It was one of the best Thai restaurants in the city, and one of the cheapest. Great avocado bubble drinks, along with the usual array of Thai dishes and curries, made fresh and well, without a lot of fuss. A favorite of the Thai consulate. Unfortunately, it burnt to the ground about a year ago. (Pulaski and Addison)

Toots: A classic ice cream joint on Central Avenue that had been family-run for 40 years, featuring outdoor tables that on most summer nights were packed with teenage kids. Torn down to make room for condos, an idea that was jettisoned with the recent collapse of the real estate market, and instead of condos the developer built… an ice cream parlor. (Central and Montrose)

Super Cup: A solid, prototypical diner, run by an old, chain-smoking Greek guy. Featured decent food at reasonable prices, the highlight of which was the homemade soup. The owner sold out literally the day the city changed the smoking laws, and the food went straight downhill. None of the regulars I know will eat there anymore, and it is rumored to be closing down. (Central and Lawrence)

Johnny’s Uncle Jim’s: A real dive of a diner, this was an institution that I never got to visit but which had a reputation for serving copious amounts of food at reasonable prices. According to neighborhood lore, Johnny died in some horrific and violent way, and his Uncle Jim then took over the diner, keeping the Johnny’s part of Johnny’s Diner as a way to pay him his respects. Johnny’s Uncle Jim’s was recently torn down, I assume to make room for condos. (Central and Montrose)

Jack Robbins Clothes of Distinction: Offering a range of men’s dress clothes, from dark Italian suits to a bright, pimped-out zoot suit, this clothier tried to appeal to a diverse demographic. I personally bought a fine, powder blue summer suit here on clearance that makes me look like a preacher from Alabama about to rain down fire and brimstone on your ass. Unfortunately, most men don’t wear suits much anymore, and this store shut its doors for good about a year ago. (Central and Belmont)

Metro Golden Memories: Owned and operated by Stan Freberg, an oldies radio DJ and archivist of radio dramas and soap operas, this store featured a huge collection of old records, movie memorabilia, and general nostalgia for everything from the 1920’s through the 1970’s. The store smelled like old sweat and was frequented mostly by the kind of overweight mouthbreather who probably hadn’t been on a date in at least a decade. The wonder was not that it shut down but that it had managed to remain in business for over 20 years. (Addison and Linder)

Baltika: A crafts store run by a Polish woman, it was a great place to go whenever you needed a quirky Christmas present, a religious icon, or a hand-painted teapot. We were on their mailing list, and last summer she mailed us a post card that read, “On second thought, I think I’ll quit…. Thank you for your support through the years.” (Milwaukee Avenue just south of Lawrence)

Paprikash: A Hungarian restaurant that served traditional, hearty, stick-to-the-ribs food that was a must for us at least once each winter. The owner would generally make an appearance, coming by your table and then buying everyone a shot of traditional liquor. He eventually sold out and moved to the suburbs, and the place was never the same, closing for good not long after his exit. (Belmont and Long)

Elisa’s: A small restaurant run by a Bosnian woman, featuring a mix of Balkan and American staples, Melissa and I would sometimes meet there after work, when she would reminisce about Croatia with the owner. While it was more of a place for lunch, we were sometimes her only dinner customers, and so it did not surprise me when this place closed. (Irving Park just west of Milwaukee Avenue)

And here are a few of the institutions that still stand:

Alexandra Foods: Pretty good pierogies made on the premises at cheap prices, something like $4/dozen, this place is a taste of the Eastern Bloc right in Chicago. This store sells one thing and one thing only: pierogies. You walk into the small storefront and there is a large, gleaming, stainless steel counter that comes up past your shoulder, with large freezers full of pierogies across the entire back wall. Polish girls in white butcher outfits fill your order. (Central and Roscoe)

City Newsstand: Claims to either have or be able to acquire any periodical. I will occasionally drop in to peruse the music zines and financial journals, but it seems like half their business is done selling adult material to lonely men. (Cicero and Irving Park)

Hagen’s: A fixture in the neighborhood for something like 50 years, this is one of the great proletarian fishmongers. You can buy an assortment of raw fish and cook it yourself, but I generally prefer to have them deep fry it for me, usually opting for either lake perch or cod sticks, with side orders of hush puppies and spicy cocktail sauce, both of which they make on the premises. The store also has a good selection of Swedish delicacies, and they will smoke any fish you catch for you, which my neighbor Mike has them do each summer during the Lake Michigan salmon runs. (Montrose and Menard)

Marie’s: Technically in Mayfair, just east of Portage Park, this was my first introduction to the fine dining establishments of the Northwest side, as I’ve been going there since soon after moving to Chicago. Most of the frontage on Lawrence Avenue is taken up by the adjoining liquor store, so if you’ve never been there, the size of the restaurant catches you by surprise, with a bar and small dining area in front leading to the main room, with its red naugahyde booths, gold leaf tables, and frosted mirrors on the wall depicting the Chicago skyline, circa 1980. It is very old school in that the main room has no windows and is temperature controlled all year, making it is a great place to down a pitcher of Leinie’s during an August heatwave or a January snow storm. The original owner passed away about a decade ago, and the place is now run by his daughter Nadine, a tough Greek broad with a wide ass and an even bigger attitude. Look at the place the wrong way and you’re likely to be asked to take your business elsewhere, but she treats her regular customers well. They serve top-rate thin crust pizza, in a very old school kind of way. If you’re looking for a pepperoni pizza with a nice crispy crust, an iceberg lettuce salad with Thousand Island dressing, and a cold pitcher of beer, this is your place. As an added bonus, the Christmas decorations they hang from the ceiling during the holidays are a sight to behold, like you’ve just entered a low-hanging cave of silver and gold stalactites. (Lawrence just west of Pulaski)

Porretta’s: There are several good pizza joints in Portage Park, but this is the closest and one of the best. While their thin crust is pretty generic, their pan pizza is first rate, with superior sauce, a flavorful crust, and not too much cheese. (Central and Waveland)

Portage Theatre: This old-time cinema was kind of a dump when I used to see movies there back in the early 90’s. The main theatre had been divided into three separate little cubby holes in an attempt to compete with the cineplexes. But after years of renovation and I assume millions in public financing, the new owners reopened the theatre a couple of years ago to great fanfare, and while still underutilized, staging only a half dozen or so events a month, with the most consistent user being a silent film society, it is by all accounts beautifully remodeled, as both the spacious lobby and the theatre proper have been restored to their former glory. (Milwaukee Avenue just north of Six Corners)

Smoque: A little outside Portage Park proper, I had to mention it because the barbeque here is awesome, as are the sides (baked beans, peach cobbler, etc). I personally recommend the shredded brisket sandwich. It opened a couple of years ago and is run by two younger guys who toured all the great barbeque towns, from Kansas City to Memphis and points further south, looking for the tastiest recipes, and their research has certainly paid off. (Pulaski between Addison and Irving Park)

Hot dog stands: The neighborhood remains littered with independent hot dog joints. Each has subtle differences that define their character. These are my three faves:
1) Dog Stop (Belmont and Menard): Serves a good, inexpensive burger. The lettuce and tomato are always fresh and the condiments are put on right. I also like the premade crinkle fries.
2) Bubs (Irving Park and Menard): This used to be run by these two old Hindu guys who would sit on upside-down plastic barrels and wait for customers to come in, and it was so filthy that is was pretty rare that anyone did, but about three years ago the place got taken over by a couple of typical Northwest side dudes, who hired a Polish woman to be their chef, and things have improved greatly. They grind the chuck for their burgers themselves, they serve good pierogies, I like their Philly cheese steak sandwich, and they also serve homemade desserts, including pretty awesome lemon bars.
3) Bowser Dog (Irving Park and Kilbourn): This place dares to mess with the standard Chicago style hot dog by using shredded lettuce as one of the toppings, which I actually like, but it drives Melissa crazy because “that’s not how you make a hot dog,” so we don’t go there that often, although it also has an outdoor patio with elbow room, which is an added bonus in the summer.

As you can see, a lot of the institutions that I value in my neighborhood have recently met their demise. In part, this is a result of demographics, as many of the kids of the blue collar, white ethnic families that made up the bulk of the community went on to college and then to trendier climes, be it Lincoln Park, Schaumburg, or Boulder, leaving a smaller base of folks willing to work long hours for little pay in the pursuit of some idiosyncratic mercantile dream.

But I also blame the government, in particular Mayor Daley and the Democratic machine, for much of the problem, as they have taxed and regulated a lot of these mom and pop stores to death, government being the parasite of all creative enterprise. Clean water, clean air, safe streets, and reliable public transportation: these are the mandates of government. After that, their only duty is to stay out of our way. An amusement tax, a fee to play live music, a fee to put a couple of tables out on the sidewalk in the summer, not to mention the grease that must cross the palms of the inspectors and regulators who periodically snoop around to exact their pound of flesh. For almost any business, it adds up to thousands of dollars per year, while the tax dollars of the neighborhood are siphoned off into increment finance districts and other shell games designed to keep all the well-connected developers and their sundry yes men in the pink. The only surprising thing is that more independent operators, the kind that give this town character, have not yet bitten the dust.

So I salute the virtues of the small-time entrepreneur, salt of the earth, the cream in our collective coffee cup.

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