Oil Paint and Grease

After putting it off for no apparent reason, I paid a visit to the gallery district on Chicago a few blocks west of Michigan today. Some of the galleries are under new management since I was there last, and nearly all of the artwork was brand new, save for a few permanent NFS pieces. The area doesn't get a lot of foot traffic, as it's outside the big retail area. The only reason I know about it is because I'd been there during undergrad. Most of the galleries were open for browsing, with a few locked for private meetings with potential buyers. It looks to be a big year for landscape paintings, the sort of thing that looks good in an office. Trees and hills pay the bills, and that's been the rule for generations of American artists dating back before Thomas Cole.

I saw some great art, though. One extremely prolific painter had a large gallery full of a series of oils of trees that reminded me of Tim Burton or Dave McKean illustrations. Each one was coated with an extra thick layer of clear coat, so they glowed under the lights. The great thing about these galleries is that each one has art from professional artists who have honed their craft for years. I wish more people could see their work- it's a diverse collection with influences from all over the world.

As I was leaving the area to look for coffee, I saw a gallery across the street advertising a show of Bill Maudlin cartoons. I like his war cartoons, so I entered the gallery. There were more than thirty original ink drawings from his time at the Chicago Sun-Times during the 60's and 70's. I had never seen his later career work before. He had a few about middle east terrorism and the fuel crisis that could run again today.

After I left, I walked south and east to a place I would love to avoid if not for my assumed duty as a web culture connoisseur: the Rock and Roll McDonald's. Were it not for Wesley Willis, famed Chicago troubadour and pop culture reactionist, I could have gone my whole life without ingesting their food ever again. If you don't know who or what I'm talking about, Willis wrote a web-famous song called "Rock and Roll McDonald's," where he shouts the name of the establishment a few times for the chorus, then proclaims "McDonald's hamburgers will make you fat." (Incidentally, the song is the first Google result, well before the restaurant.) How could I resist?

It's pretty hard to miss, so I didn't have to search for long before I saw the giant two-story neon monstrosity blotting out the Hard Rock guitar sign. The arches stretch over full-length glass walls and neon lights, like something out of Frtiz Lang's Metropolis. Full size bronze statues of people in various jubilant poses stand near the entrance, presided over by a Pieta-sized Ronald McDonald with a look of fanatical glee on his too-real face. Inside, the counter is wider than any other fast food place in the world. I ordered fries, a couple apple pies, and a small coke from a standard non-rocking employee, then rode up the escalator(!) to the second floor. The standard plastic fixtures are there, along with black leather and chrome lounge chairs and sofas around glass tables in open air booths. One area looks like a conference room. None of this changes the fact that you're eating some of the worst food in the developed world. There are TVs on one wall above the escalators, six of them, alternating three with MSNBC and three with a continuous stream of vintage McDonalds commercials from all over the world. Maybe it was the acoustics in the place, but I could swear I heard Neil Postman saying "I told you so." Elsewhere, there are sections devoted to decades with music from each period. The 90's section had Pearl Jam's song Evenflow playing, and for a moment the novelty of the place felt kind of good. Then the more appropriately commercial Whoomp There It Is came on, and I remembered that I was in a shrine to the death of locally-owned culture.