Standing at the corner - but can you really call it a corner if three streets converge there? - of North and East Streets downtown, an angle that Mass Ave smashes through on its way around toward the old Coke bottling plant, the highway overpass, and 10th Street, I saw a guy run himself into the light pole across the way. It looked like he did it on purpose, just sort of went - bam! - right into it, leading with his forehead. He walked away rubbing his head, and he appeared to be cursing himself, though I could not hear for sure. There was no way he could have just not seen it, though; and he wasn’t blind, because he did not have a cane. He went on down Mass Ave, crossed the street a bit later, and went into Three Dog Bakery.
Seen on another light pole, this one on the sidewalk on the east side of Pennsylvania Street, I think between New York and Ohio as you are going south (should have written it down - I saw it hours ago, now): one of those Hello, my name is stickers. Written on it? “Wuz up, mofo.” In caps.
Down around Union Station, and this one is sort of old news, but I thought I would throw it out there anyway: El Sol de Tala has closed. This may mean a bit more to you if you have ever lived on the east side. El Sol de Tala - which was, once upon a time, generally regarded as the finest Mexican restaurant in town - originally existed on the east side, though I do not at the moment recall its exact address. It opened in 1979, and the owner did some major renovation of the first restaurant many years ago, and more recently opened a location on the first floor of Union Station.
He may have been moving a bit too fast, or else the idea just didn’t work inside of Union Station. He eventually closed the east side location, and has more recently shuttered the Union Station restaurant, too. If it was in the Star or NUVO, I missed it - though it surely had to be the exorbitant rent he had to pay to be in Union Station (especially with street-level entrances). It’s kind of a shame, although I was of the opinion that the food quality had dropped somewhat since he opened at Union Station. Plus, I heard through the grapevine that the gato who owned the place is like a Mexican Don Corleone around Indianapolis. I’m sure that kind of thing goes on around here, but it sort of ruins your idea of the self-made man running an independent restaurant - or at least ruined my idea of it. I’ll miss that table-side guacamole, though.
And one last thing from today’s downtown walkabout - the Simon & Garfunkel song “The Boxer” was playing inside the Starbucks at Conseco Fieldhouse this afternoon. I don’t go to that Starbucks very often (and go to Lazy Daze in Irvington more than Starbucks now, anyway), but it’s nice to pop in every now and then. Conseco Fieldhouse is a really, really neat building. Too bad the building’s main tenants aren’t respectable enough to watch anymore. Also too bad that the bands I like to see in concert don’t play there when they tour. I’d much prefer to catch Rush at the Fieldhouse than way the hell up at Deer Creek - and it’s not like Rush would sell out at the Fieldhouse.
Blast from the past: March 26, 1994. That was the only time I saw Rush play indoors. It was the Indianapolis stop on the Counterparts tour, and there was actually a lottery to get tickets for the show. My buddy Jason Fisk stood on line for that lottery, and his number came up first. We got seats on the floor, nineteen rows from the front - best concert I ever saw.
The opening sequence was this: the video screen shows a nut and a bolt moving slowly toward one another in outer space, to the theme music from 2001: A Space Odyssey. The nut and the bolt thread together, and at the moment when they come all the way together, the screen flashes bright white and the band launches into “Dreamline.” That isn’t going to mean anything to you unless you know Rush well enough to know the song “Dreamline,” of course - but some of you do know the song, and everybody knows the theme music to 2001. And it was a most impressive start to an amazing show.
This blog post brought to you by the letters G and L, and the number 3.
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