Obama's Election Day Ritual in Chicago

If you're Barack Obama, today is a pretty stressful day. Will I be president for another four years, or won't I? He has decided to stick to close to his Chicago home, play basketball in the 'hood, and maybe get a haircut to take his mind off the matter.

His barber, Zariff, at the Hyde Park Hair Salon was coy when asked by local news reporters whether Obama would be dropping by. The prez would, presumably, get the "Obama Cut" ($21, as per the price list), though he won't be able to sit in the original presidential barber chair, which is now encased in bulletproof glass.

It's one more thing to add to the day's drama: if Obama stops by, and if he wins office again, perhaps we'll have a second enshrined barber chair....

Elegy for the Baseball Season

If nothing else it's historic: two 100-loss teams playing a baseball game against each other. The Chicago Cubs and Houston Astros will have piled up 207 losses between them when they meet today for the season finale at Wrigley Field. That's 101 losses for the Cubs vs. 106 losses for the Astros. The last time such crappiness collided was in 1962, when the NY Mets - with a still-standing MLB record of 120 losses - whiffed against the, er, Cubs (103 losses). Attendance for the game was 595 fans.

On a related note: remember Adam Greenberg, the Cubs rookie who got hit on the head by the first - and only - pitch he ever saw? The concussion he suffered in his first at-bat derailed his career. That was 2005. Flash-forward to Oct. 2, 2012. Greenberg returns to the majors. Steps to the plate. Squares off against RA Dickey, the Mets' 20-win knuckle-baller. And this is the subsequent headline: Greenberg Strikes Out 7 Years After Beaning. And this: He's Back... And He Whiffs.

A white-haired gentleman named Fred van Dusen watched from the stands and felt the pain. Greenberg, you see, wasn't the only player to have his career halted by one hit-by-pitch plate appearance. Van Dusen is the other member of the dubious club, after he got nailed as a Philadelphia Philly in 1955.

Museum Day Outcast No. 1: Ventriloquist Museum

Kenny Talk

Jacko

September 29 is National Museum Day (sponsored by Smithsonian Magazine). In the run-up to the big event, I'm going to pay homage to some institutions you won't see on the list.

First up: the Vent Haven Ventriloquist Museum in Fort Mitchell, Kentucky (just outside Cincinnati, Ohio). Jeepers creepers! When you first glimpse the roomful of goggle-eyed wooden heads staring mutely into space, I dare you not to run screaming for the door. (If you’ve seen Magic, you know what dummies are capable of.)

Woody DeForest

Local William Shakespeare Berger started the museum after amassing a collection of some 700 dolls. Today Jacko the red-fezzed monkey, white-turtleneck-clad Woody DeForest and the rest of the crew sit silently throughout three buildings. Lest you think the entertainment form is history, stop by in July, when the annual conVENTion takes place and 400 ventriloquists arrive with their talkative wooden pals.

Mathematical Reason for Pie

As if you need an excuse to fork into a tender slice of pie, along comes March 14 - aka 3.14 in date form. That's pi, if you’ve forgotten your geometry: the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. Actually, the number is 3.14159265358, plus another trillion or so digits (see the first million in order here). 

Random facts abound for pie, as well:

•    Kansas once had a law making it a crime to serve ice cream on cherry pie.

•    Pie preference links to personality. Pumpkin pie eaters tend to be funny and independent. Apple pie people are realistic and compassionate, while pecan pie fans are thoughtful and analytical. And chocolate pie lovers? They're loving (duh).

•    Indiana is the only state to have legislation on both pi and pie. The Indiana Pi Bill of 1897 defies easy explanation. Best to read the wiki. Easier to digest is 2009's Senate Resolution No. 5, making sugar cream pie the official pie.

Whether a fan of pi or pie, you can now face the day with confidence.

Sweet Pork Magic: Spam Turns 75

2012 is shaping up to be a helluva year for anniversaries: Charles Dickens' 200th, Chicago's 175th, the Titanic's 100th, and the reason we're gathered here today: Spam turns 75.

Ah, the peculiar meat - Spiced Ham, so they say. The blue tins have fed armies, become a Hawaiian food staple and inspired legions of haiku writers. Our favorite:

Spam volcano blows.
Stratosphere laden with pork.
Gorgeous pink sunset.

Even slack key guitar great Keola Beamer (recent strummer on The Descendants soundtrack) collects Spam haiku.

The best place to get in on the gelatinous pink action is MOMA. No, not the one in New York City. We're talking the Museum of Meat-Themed Awesomeness - aka Spam Museum - in Austin, Minn. Here, at Spam's birthplace, you can indulge in free samples (with bacon!) and try your hand at canning the porktastic slabs. The town's Spam Jam over July 4th weekend will host the big birthday blowout.

Happy 175th Birthday to Chicago

On March 4, Chicago will blow out 175 candles on its fiery-cow-bedecked birthday cake.

It all began on March 4, 1837, when Chicago incorporated as a city. Population: 4170. Only 340 people lived in the onion-y patch four years prior, so clearly the place had its mojo from the get-go. William B. Ogden - a wealthy, politically connected Democrat - took the reigns as mayor, setting the iron-fist precedent for City Hall.

Aside from the aforementioned cake, which the Chicago History Museum cuts on Sunday, the birthday parties are pretty tame. Mayne Stage hosts concerts of Windy City music throughout the weekend. The tourism office releases its guide of celebrations during the year. The Sun-Times lists 175 reasons to celebrate.

Whatever you do on the occasion, remember Ferris Bueller's wise words: "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."

New Websites for Gloves, Dibs, Fedoras

Looking for your lost glove? Want to see poll workers filing petitions? These offbeat blogs and websites bring it:

•    Looking for Glove - Helps Chicagoans find lost handwear via photos and descriptions.

•    Chicago Dibs - Check out photos showing the Chicago custom of dibs - holding a shoveled-out parking space after a snowstorm using chairs, boards and other street "art."

•    Wisconsin Government Accountability Board - Watch workers counting Gov. Walker recall petitions via webcam. Woo!

•    To Be Demolished - Gapers Block has a great section with pics and details of Chicago architecture on the hit list.

•    Chicago Shovels - Let it snow, bitches. This portal has the lowdown on plow locations, parking bans, adopt-a-sidewalk and more.

•    Chicago Past - Posts two big-ass photos daily of historic Chicago; lots of horses, buggies and guys in fedoras.

Brains in Jars

Brain tourism: it's a travel trend, in case you didn't know.

I first came across brains in jars a few months ago at the forlorn, barbed-wire-enclosed Indiana Medical History Museum, located in the state's old insane asylum. Tours roam the former pathology lab and show how early medicine was practiced, from the cold-slabbed autopsy room to the eerie specimen room. Pickled brains fill the shelves of the latter. Each is tagged with its defect: hydrocephalus, kicked by a horse, syphilis...

Unique? Not really. Lima, Peru, has a Brain Museum with over 3000 brains in jars. Philadelphia's Mutter Museum boasts Einstein's brain (in slices). Yale has 650 brains on display. Cornell has lots of lobes, too - though it says "brain collecting has dimmed" since the 1970s.

Tell that to Washington DC's National Zoo. It has whole cabinets of brains in jars, from pygmy hippos to blue whales, white-tailed deer to red foxes. Because nothing says "fun!" to kids like a roomful of dead animal organs.

Presidential Haircut and Pancakes

President Obama is returning home to Chicago today for a trio of fundraisers. It's a whirlwind visit - 6 hours in all - which leaves little time for him to get a haircut or pancakes in his old 'hood.

You can both, however. All it takes is a quick trip to Hyde Park. Get buzzed by Obama's barber Zariff at the Hyde Park Hair Salon and pay your respects to the bulletproof-glass-encased presidential barber chair. Then walk around the corner to Valois Cafeteria and fork into the pancakes and eggs special, one of the "President's Favorites." Valois is a real-deal, stand-in-line-with-your-tray cafeteria, and a great place to listen in on Chicago gossip. The socio-economically diverse clientele is so renowned that there's a book about it, called Slim's Table. So grab a piece of chocolate pie and stay for a while.

A Christmas Story Story

Now that it's cold enough outside to stick a tongue to a flagpole, I always think of Cleveland, Ohio. You probably do, too, without realizing it. Because the city holds the house from A Christmas Story, the 1983 film in which Ralphie yearns for a Red Ryder BB gun.

It's a big tourist attraction. In 2004, a fan named Brian Jones bought the private residence on eBay for $150,000 and replicated the interior to match the movie set (only the home's exterior had been used for filming). Jones' job, by the way: manufacturing leg lamps.

When I visited, there was a line to get in. Fans swarmed the place, snapping pix by the Christmas tree, at the mailbox (where Ralphie waited for his decoder pin) and - most popularly - huddled around the leg lamp. This was April, mind you. In December there's the added bonus of having Randy (aka the now-36-year-old actor who played the little bro) on site to show you around. Afterward everyone crosses the street to the gift shop to buy - that's right - a leg lamp! (We prefer the key chain version, as well as a bar of Lifebuoy Soap to wash out dirty mouths).

Vonnegut Library/Museum Opens

The new Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library has opened in downtown Indianapolis. Why Indy? Because Vonnegut was born and raised there, of course.

“All my jokes are Indianapolis. All my attitudes are Indianapolis. My adenoids are Indianapolis. If I ever severed myself from Indianapolis, I'd be out of business," Vonnegut once said.

The library/museum is currently open Fridays and Saturdays. After the official kickoff party on January 29, it'll extend hours to weekdays. Other quotes to tide you over until then:

•    Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God. Cat's Cradle
•    All persons, living and dead, are purely coincidental. Timequake
•    Why don't you take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut? Slapstick
•    So it goes. Slaughterhouse Five

Time to Get Cheesy in Madison

Another springtime rite is here: the Dane County Farmers' Market, which overtakes Madison, Wisconsin's Capitol Square every Saturday from 6am to 2pm through early November.

It's the USA's largest producer-only market, which means the 150 vendors have personally grown or made the goods they're selling. Cheese and fresh vegetables are the most plentiful wares, but meats (bison and free-range emu, among others), flowers, maple syrup, and eggs also fill the stalls.

Keep your eyes peeled for one man in particular: Willi Lehner of Bleu Mont Dairy, who makes fantastic cheeses in his wind- and solar-powered cheese bunker, but in limited quantities. The farmers' market is your best chance to get your hands on his creations. If you miss him though, you can fill in the dairy gaps at Fromagination, just around the corner at 12 S Carroll St in Madison. It carries small-batch and hard-to-find local artisanal cheeses, as well as loads of information on wine and cheese (and beer and cheese) pairings.

Dark Lord Day

Are you prepared to meet the Dark Lord on April 25? You'll need a Golden Ticket to do so and to imbibe his black elixir.

We're talking, of course, about Three Floyd's Brewery's par-tee when they release their limited batch Dark Lord beer, a Russian imperial stout with 13% alcohol, a motor oil consistency, and hints of bourbon, chocolate, and black licorice.

Fans in the past have so overwhelmed the small Munster, Indiana brewery on the one day per year they offer Dark Lord, that Three Floyd's this year instituted its Willy Wonka policy. It put around 2000 Golden Tickets for sale on its website in March. Fan who got them are guaranteed to chance to buy a few Dark Lord bottles at Saturday's event. The tickets sold out in four hours.

Even without a Golden Ticket, you can still attend the festival, which features bands, barbecue, and plenty of other craft brews. The suds swirl from 11am to 11pm.