things to do in rogers park

[this is an unedited version of a piece that ran in last month's issue of The Machine Media, which can be found online at themachinemedia.com]

It's weird watching the neighborhood you grew up in change, especially when it's changing in a way that doesn't allow room for you to come back. I grew up in Rogers Park back when it was the type of shithole I could brag about. I could go to a roughneck part of the city and when I said I was from Rogers Park, it was okay that I was from the North Side. To some people Rogers Park was all Latin Kings and Blackstones and some poor baby falling out of a window every summer. To others it was hippie heaven, full of cafes full of bearded old kooks who want to tell you about orgies and Abby Hoffman. There was always some kind of détente, where the thugs would ease the hippies' collective white guilt, and the hippies would go to community meetings and fight the aldermen to keep the rents low enough for just about anyone to move in. To my old friend Mike, Rogers Park was the place where his Mom got arrested for selling crack. For Ivan, it was where his parents finally bought a house once they made their money. For my father, it was a place where I would grow up knowing blacks, whites, Hispanics and Asians. I always thought it was a nice place to live, even if I wasn't allowed outside on my own until I was twelve.

Rogers Park isn't really like that now, not anymore. Joe Moore wants to turn the whole place into condos, but hopefully he won't make it past this next election. About half of the old businesses down on Sheridan have been eaten up by banks and chains like Starbux and Chipotle, but not all of the change has been bad and, thankfully, not everything has changed about Rogers Park.

Here's a list of places you can go the next time you find yourself as far North and as far East as you can be without leaving the city.

Albion House – One of the city's first punk clubs was Oz, a gay bar on Greenleaf that had constant run-ins with the police during its short life, but it's been generations since that place came and left its mark. The Adelphi Theater and the Independent Video Alliance are both gone, and the Chicago Punk Shows Collective recently dissolved their relationships with No Exit Café and The Waiting Room. Like the kids from IVA and the Adelphi, they've moved their operations down South, so right now, the Albion House is the only spot in East Rogers where you can regularly catch quality punk and hardcore shows. From the outside, it doesn't look like a punk house, and that's why it works. The cats that live there know their neighbors and pay their bills. They treat everyone who comes in with respect, and because that respect is returned, they're willing to open their basement to local and touring bands such as Fourth Rotor, Sin Orden, Caustic Christ, Bludwulf, and Ohuzaru for cheap, all-ages, BYOB shows.

Alice & Friends – Vegan deserts are yummy.

Armadillo's Pillow – Old books are often cheap because they smell funny.

Bruno's Lounge – Bruno's is a dirty bar filled with creepy old men and savvy Loyola alcoholics. Unlike other neighborhood bars like The Oasis, the creeps aren't trying to fuck the Jesuits here; it's a bar for drunks who want nothing to do with the outside. If the bartender knows you, he's kinda nice, and if he doesn't, he's still pretty funny.

Deluxe Diner – It's been years since The Deluxe changed their menu from what they served when they were called Stacks & Steaks but people still complain about the fact that they don't have waffle fries anymore. The late-night service is usually pretty terrible because the next-closest 24 hour diner is the slightly-more-disgusting Standee's Snack'n Dine in Edgewater. I suggest the mozzarella sticks, they're absolutely disgusting.

Glenwood Mural – One of the best murals in the city runs along the West Side of Glenwood just South of Morse. It's about fifteen years old and starting to fade, but still the brightest, most colorful thing in the hood. A million sets of eyes, belonging to voodoo mutants, jazzbos, and reanimated cartoon skeletons, stare out at you from the wall as you walk down the cobblestone street.

Ennui – The Atomic Café, The Cocoabean, and Honest Don's have gone the way of the dinosaur. Get coffee here. Play board games. Fall in love.

Heartland Café – A great old hippy joint. The waitstaff is all beautiful women with dreadlocks and glasseyed men who may or may not be strung out as they take your order. Buffalo burgers aren't all they're cracked up to be, but their soggy sweet potato fries taste better than they should. There are a lot of obnoxious regulars who want to impress you, but they're harmless and amusing. Also, there's vegetarian food and booze.

Indian Boundary Park – Except for the playground at Loyola Beach, the parks in East Rogers all suck. They're so overrun with gangbangers that some time in the late 80s, the city decided that they would stop fixing them up and let the kids play in the alleys. That decision motivated the community to buildup Indian Boundary Park. The park exists on what was once the boundary between the city of Chicago and Pottawatomie Indian Land, which means that a lot of people died for the fun you're having. There's a fountain and a lagoon, which are both fun-slash-beautiful, a number of tennis courts which are pretty meh, and a small zoo which is equal parts depressing and awesome. What makes the park noteworthy is its playground, a village of wooden castles and houses full of swings and tubes and tunnels made of old tractor tires. This is the only place I have ever successfully played hide-and-seek as a grown man.

In One Ear – You may not hear the city's best poetry at the In One Ear, but you will hear the most earnest. Career poets tend to shun this place, making room for people who need get something off their chest and genuinely want to move you. Founded nearly 20 years ago at No Exit, it takes place every Wednesday night at the Heartland hosted by Pete Wolf and Shahbaz Shah.

The Jackhammer – This leather bar has recently started putting on shows with acts like The Reptoids and Flesh Tones Burlesque. Also, I've heard it's a good place to meet dudes for rough, anonymous sex.

J.B. Alberto's Pizza – You're stoned. Too stoned to move. It's three in the morning. J.B. Alberto's still delivers. They have cheese fries.

Lost Eras - This costume shop keeps shitty hours but it's still a costume shop.

Loyola Beach (and better secret beaches) – People who grew up in Chicago may remember how year-after-year, halfway through summer the beaches would fill up with dead fish. Morbid, five year old Eric lab Rat would carry them home by the pail-full. I remember the feel of their dried scales and their puckered sunken eyes. I don't remember why I would take the time to collect them. Either way, when the corpses started to overwhelm the little beach a few blocks away, my parents would take me to Loyola Beach. Loyola was, and is, the neighborhood's good beach, with its modern playground, its arts wall, and its sculptures, but it's not the best. North of Loyola are a number of small beaches, many of which the cops have a hard time patrolling. Some are isolated by fenced-in private beaches which serve to isolate them more. They are a perfect place to have an intimate evening in private or down forties with friends when there's nowhere else to go.

Midnight Basketball – 24 hours a day, all summer long at the courts just north of Loyola Beach.

Megamall – Yep. There's a Megamall in Rogers Park. It's on Clark Street and is just like the Logan Square Megamall except there aren't enough building code violations for the city to shut it down.

Mess Hall – Mess Hall is an experimental gallery space on Glenwood that tends to focus on political art and interactive events. In 2006 they hosted clothing swaps, brunchlucks and sewing workshops as well as shows like Fresh Cuts (an exhibition of hand-painted signs) and Contested Chicago (an installation documenting the ongoing gentrification of Pilsen). One ongoing series is Hardcore Histories, an open discussion about punk music and politics with topics ranging from "Vegetarianism and Veganism in Punk Rock" and "Herstory of Hardcore" to histories of Swedish and Canadian hardcore music, often ending in YouTube video screenings and Bring Your Own 7" listening parties.

Morse – Morse smells like pee.

Morseland – A bar. With food. You can regularly hear hip-hop acts like Small Change and Copperpot here.

No Exit Café – Unconventional theatre, genderfuck poetry slams, and political burlesque. I'm still kicking myself for missing the John Wayne Gacy play that ran a few months back.

Oasis – The "Hoasis" is a dreadful four am bar full of desperate skanks of all genders aggressively looking for love. Also pool.

Ras Dashen – This is a great first-date restaurant. It's also a great restaurant to go and watch people stumble through first dates, and a fairly good place to take your parents who've never had Ethiopian before. You eat family style on a plate made of spongy injera bread. I've heard it argued that Ethiopian Diamond is better, or has better food with less atmosphere, but I've never been to Ethiopian Diamond, and can only recommend Ras Dashen.

West Rogers Park – West Rogers Park is like a whole different world. Where East Rogers stands as one of Chicago's most diverse neighborhoods, West Rogers is one of its most segregated, with distinct borders between Indians, Pakistanis, Russians, Jews, and Koreans, and that's just Devon. I assure you, I'm leaving some out. Personally, I'd recommend the stretch of Indian restaurants between Western and Rockwell, but I never go to the good ones. My fat ass likes buffets too much.

Waldorf School– If you have children, and you want them to grow up to be confident, sensitive, artistic people who get laid all the time and believe that there is a little bit of magic inherent in their own personal existence, send them to Waldorf. If, however, you prefer that your children grow up able to hold down a job that sustains them, avoid Waldorf like the plague. Waldorf kids dream too much, and are too smart to stop dreaming to do bullshit work. I wish my parents could have afforded to send me to Waldorf as a kid, because every grown-up Waldorf kid I've met has been delightful.

Warren Park –Warren Park houses one of Chicago's only outdoor skate parks, and has ice skating in the winter.

WLUW – Three summers ago, some cops knocked on the door of the old Adelphi movie house and told the kids who lived there that they had been tipped off to a radio signal being broadcast from the building and that if it wasn't terminated, they would have to arrest them. I'm pretty sure that the cops don't have jurisdiction over pirate radio, and that the FCC would have to have intervened themselves, but it was the end of Red Line Radio either way, leaving WLUW (88.7 fm) as Roger Park's only radio station. A common misconception is that WLUW is Loyola's student radio station. Actually, WLUW has a deal with Loyola that they can broadcast from the school's campus but must provide their own funds. Technically, Loyola is a community station, which means that with a little training, anyone in the community can have their own show on WLUW. Currently the station has two punk shows (Underground Communiqué and Reality Radio), a World music show hosted by The Chicago Reader's Peter Margasak, and a bevy of other shows including (shameless, unprofessional plug here) my show, Two Slaps Radio, which focuses on the roots and derivatives of Funk and Soul music, airing Tuesday Mornings from 2 to 4 am.

[currently listening to "Dreams Interrupted" by the Glaxo Babies]