New Neighborhood Merits: Music and Vegetables

Today is a lazy Sunday. It's one of those overcast days when the thought of laying on my couch and listening to old blues music seems so much more appealing than doing one of the hundreds of little boring things that I should be doing, like re-registering to vote in Illinois and hanging the medicine cabinet I bought for my bathroom. I can do those tomorrow.

However, on this lazy Sunday I have been thinking about one of the many merits of my new neighborhood: the record store down the street. Reckless Records is fantastic. I was a little skeptical when I first went in after reading some reviews on the internet that the guys who work there are, "music snobs." However, I have spoken to several of the guys there one multiple occasions, and they could not have been nicer. I don't think they are snobs; I think they just have good taste (and firm opinions) in music. The store sells CD's and a small selection of DVD's at the back, but the middle of the store (and the most floor space) is devoted to vinyl. They have an awesome selection of blues and old rock n' roll, as well as a great variety of new music, including a lot of albums on smaller labels. (I found the Jason Molina's album Pyramid Electric Company that was only put out on vinyl, and unavailable on Amazon or any other internet site I checked.)





So on this lazy Sunday, I am appreciating one of my newest finds at Reckless: an LP of America's Roots Musical. It is a fantastic compilation of old blues singers including Little Walker, Bo Diddley, Howlin' Wolf, Chuck Berry, Elmore James, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Memphis Slim, and Sonny Boy Williamson. It is awesome. The best $3.99 I have spent in a long time.

So why I am talking about music and record stores as opposed to food? (There is a connection I tell you.) Another merit of my new neighborhood is being very close to the famous Chicago Green City Farmer's Market. This market is Chicago's equivalent of San Francisco's Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market--its trendy and the who's-who of Chicago yuppies all shop there and start off conversations with, "Yes, I only buy my produce from Green City Market." On Saturday morning around 11:00 am the place is jam packed full of Lincoln Park thirty-something mom's in Lululemon yoga gear, holding a Starbuck's non-fat sugar-free pumpkin spiced latte, and pushing their two-year old child in a Bugaboo stroller. (Sorry, they only kind of annoy me. The strollers seriously get way and take up all the room in front of the booths.) Therefore, the key to Green City farmers' market is to get there at 7:00 am when it starts.




So here is the connection between the record store in my neighborhood and the farmers' market. Both Reckless Records and Green City farmers' market have been railed in online reviews for being full of "music snobs," or "food snobs," or "hipsters" (in the case of Reckless) or "yuppies" (in the case of Green City). Now, while in Reckless I did have to elbow my way past several nineteen year old guys wearing tighter jeans that I, Ray Ban style sunglasses with florescent pink sides, and their fixed gear bikes chained up outside (aka, the hipsters), but these guys were not the ones working at Reckless. They were merely the patrons of the store. At the farmers' market I had to nudge my way past the hoards of strollers, but once again the yuppies were not selling the produce, they were just the patrons of the market. The farmers at Green City are so incredible friendly, helpful, and down to earth. They are not "food snobs," they just have good taste, and firm opinions on food.

Both farmers' markets and independent music stores are super trendy at the moment. They are both "cool" places to be, be seen, and talk about going to. Whenever the coolness factor comes into play, you start to get cynics railing against the trend, and I can be guilty of this. Yes, the yuppies in the strollers are annoying, but if they are shopping at the market and supporting local farmers and learning by proxy about seasonal eating and organic/pesticide free small scale farming, isn't that good? The same with the hipsters. Yes, they are annoying, and I wish that they would take a shower and wear pants that left a little more to the imagination, but if they are in great record stores speaking to a knowledgeable staff and expanding their horizons on some amazing music, isn't that better than them blindly listening the vast amounts of terrible hip-hop and rap that is clogging up the radio? I think so.

As I alluded to in my post earlier on Gardening for Yuppies, I tend to find myself forming harsh opinions of those blindly following a new trend. However, if that trend is a good one--good for the earth, good for workers, good for artists, good the population as a whole--why should I be complaining? I really shouldn't. If hybrid cars became far more trendy than SUV's everywhere across America, we would be far more along in reducing our dependency on fossil fuels. If stores like Reckless and farmers' markets continue to become the norm rather than the exception, I think that our neighborhoods will be much more friendly places. I have to not be selfish and keep great things like farmers' markets and local record stores to myself--I just have to get there early, before the yuppies and hipsters arrive.