Maifest has been an annual festival brought to you by the Maifest Chicago, organized to promote Chicago’s German heritage.
Maifest is the traditional German celebration of the arrival of spring. Maifest is still celebrated throughout Germany with the maypole (maibaum) decorated to show off the history and crafts of the local village or town.
Maifest, like Octoberfest, has now become a popular celebration throughout the world. Chicago’s German community welcomes all to their Maifest in Lincoln Square; the heart of Chicago’s German Community.
I didn’t attend any street fests in 2025 and it really was a bummer to miss MaiFest last year for the first time in years unless it comes when I happen to be camping in Wisconsin. Max and I have been going for as long as we’ve been friends so we decided to make up for it this time. And boy howdy did we ever!
I had an 1115 AM doctors appointment in Bucktown and it went very well so I had an early start on my commute since I was meeting Max at 1 PM at Hansa Clipper. I hadn’t eaten yet so I stopped at a Popeyes along the way and had some chicken in order to have something in me before I started on beer. Max was getting a different kind of head start as he was at his neighborhood dive Sovereign Liquors in Edgewater. Uh oh.
I got to the fest and went directly to my favorite local record store Laurie’s Planet of Sound and for the first time EVER could not find one of the four records I was hoping to find. SHUCKS! Things seemed to have changed in my absence.
I brought along four of the mugs that I have saved from previous years and went to Hansa Clipper to have it filled with some German ale. It was getting near 1 PM and the place hardly had a soul inside. This place used to be jam packed every Saturday by 1 PM. Its no longer been the case after a change in management and staff. Its only a shell (literally) of what it once was. I was sitting at a table by the front windows watching the people walk by and Max arrived and ordered a glass of suds. We sat and enjoyed our drinks as we waited for our friend Trey to arrive with his date. They didn’t come inside so Max and I went and bought tickets we needed to use in exchange for beer and/or food.
On my way home I ran into Jenny Dedes who called out my name as I walked through the crowd at the rock stage where just a few short hours prior had a man yodeling.
KICK THAT DIRTY BITCH OFF THE STAGE!
First beers at Hansa Clipper
ASSMAN WINS A PICKLE
As it was getting later in the afternoon Max was hanging out with a guy doing card tricks and I wandered down to QUAKE Collectibles where I had a brief conversation with the owner David Gutterman. He really knows his product and when its not as busy which is rare I enjoy talking shop with him.
Quake is a store with new & used collectible toys, games, action figures & lunch boxes from many genres.
After Quake I walked into Sojourn Cocktail Lounge for the first time in several years I was under the impression that it had closed but its just a lounge now that also houses the Terror Vision pop up and is adjacent to the historic Davis Theater. Shy the bartender recognized me and I sat for a double Jamo on the rocks and we chatted. I tried texting Max to meet me but he was in his own element by then and not interested. I asked Shy if Courtney still worked there and though she doesn’t but lives next door and drops in often. I also worked on getting Jessica Edwards a late night DJ gig with them. So it looks like that is happening and Jessica was grateful
When I returned to Sojourn for one last drink Courtney popped in to say hello. She hasn’t changed a bit and that’s great. We had some laughs, took some pix and traded contact info and I would be on my way home.
On our way to the train I ran into Jenny and we took the pix above and that’s when Max and I got separated. From the train platform I looked down into the crowd and saw him staring at his phone. Once I got on the Brown Line train I realized I had lost my phone. Did Max have it? OH SHITE and I had a podcast the next morning and needed it to connect the Blue Tooth to the RodeCaster. Where could I have lost it? At the bar perhaps.
I picked up a bottle of Jamo and went home and used my work phone to make a few calls and connect with Max. I wasn’t aware of his state of mind and my only concern was locating my phone. But we agreed worse case scenario we’d use his phone to connect to the RodeCaster and do the podcast as planned. In theory it was the reasonable solution. Well, in a perfect world that is. In the middle of the night Max sent me a message in Facebook that the bartender has messaged him from my phone and that he put it at the lost and found in the Davis Theater.
Hey! So sorry for getting into the this messages but is the bartender from Sojourn, he left his phone here! I’ll give it to the movie theater side they have a lost and found box
Oh what a relief but there would be another obstacle. Max was unable to find his keys. He looked all day and night and only today Monday morning did he locate them. I’m not going to say where. Apparently his head start at Sovereign Liquors in Edgewater the previous morning has him a tad more tipsy than I realized. I biked over to the Davis around noon got my phone, got home and charged it and was able to knock out the planned podcast without a sidekick and hosting 3 guests from 3 different locations. So a great day overall ended up with two misfits both losing something imperative for the next days plan. Fucking aye! THANKS TO GOOD PEOPLE WHO SAVED MY PHONE AND NOT STEALING IT!
IMPRESSIVE
I FINALLY watched this last night and absolutely LOVED the entire film. Very artsy so I guess I understand why so many didn’t get it.
Not a Bright Idea
How long do you think it will be before someone gets beaten with one of these chairs?
The Chicago Park District will debut 100 green metal chairs around Buckingham Fountain Saturday as part of a new pilot program that takes a cue from European cities like Paris and encourages people to socialize in the lakefront park.
But having somewhere to sit comes with a price tag.
The 100 chairs, which were manufactured by the brand Fermob in Paris, cost $54,438 in total, according to a Park District spokesperson. Of that, $24,438 was footed by the city. Lollapalooza, which partnered on the project and will host its 21st festival in Grant Park July 30-Aug. 2, paid the remaining $30,000.
In a statement, the Park District said, “the seating program will transform the space and encourage social gathering.” The movable chairs will be in the park until September, except, the city says, during major events hosted in Grant Park, although it did not specify which events would prompt chair removal.
Unless they’re going to fix these chairs in place with rebar and concrete pads, it’ll be a few days, tops.
Along with the betting on when someone will get beaten with a chair, how long until the first chair:
gets tossed in the fountain?
gets tossed in the lake?
gets tossed in the river?
Our guesses?
a couple hours
a couple days
a week – because they’d have to carry it somewhere
Whom comes up with this nonsense?
Greg Duncan
You know there’s a camera on every light pole in grant park, right? There’s a fine line between precaution and cynicism
Joe Smokes
Greg Duncan the neighbors do not care about cameras. They are not afraid of no camera.
Greg Duncan
Joe Smokes maybe you’re right.Marc Brown
I give it a week and they all gone
Alex Zander
The lakeshore on the east wall of The Montrose Harbor bird sanctuary is full of Divvy Bike which are all stolen and are all trackable. Delivery robots are already being robbed. The city is currently very very soft on crime. Wrong place. Wrong time
Scarlett Shalimar
It’ll be like a Slayer show at the Aragon in the 80’s in no time!!
Jim Mikolas
They buy them from a Paris company. That’s F.U., as we can manufacture them in Chicago. Give the neighbors something to do
I bet somebody on the city council gets to go to Paris to check them out. Then they buy them some hookers, and they sign the deal.
Alex Zander
Jim Mikolas I thought the same thing about the chair manufacturer. I’m betting there’s a company in Chicago that could do it or at let here in IL. And if not so there is surely a factory in Gary.
Jim Mikolas
Alex Zander ya it a simple thing to make and also them Glass bus shelters are also made in Paris. I worked in Manufacturing for the Germans and know about entertaining potential customers
Alex Zander
Jim Mikolas Chairs can be bolted to the cement also. But someone will cry about that too.
Alex Zander
MAYOR JOHNSON. The white supremacists of Chicago with deep roots tied to slavery have had the chairs in Grant Park bolted down to the crowd so the non demonized silly decision making youths cannot steal them, y’all. As a black mayor with a black wife and 3 black children living on the west side of Chicago I will not stand for such injustice
Adam Becvar
Love the idea.
Of all of it
Deborah Connolly
Unless things have changed, they need to have accessible bathrooms available too.
Damon Bernklau
Drop a pallet of Tide pods in the center and at least the lovely children from lovely families with fathers will get washed clean at their next “large gathering”…BJ can market it as a Large Lathering.
Alex Zander
Damon Bernklau MAN, That’s really fucking funny! Don’t demonize they make silly decisions.
Danielle Williams
Id assume they will be anchored, no?
Alex Zander
Danielle Williams That’d be racist
Danielle Williams
Alex Zander why?
Alex Zander
Danielle Williams because it keeps them from being stolen
Danielle Williams
Alex Zander I said to anchor them. I didn’t accuse anyone of theft, much less anyone of specific skin colors. Tf are you on?
Alex Zander
Danielle Williams the mayor would call it racist. He says arresting felons is racist. His words not mine. Read this thread.
El Taco Toro W Irving Park Rd Chicago: It’s too bad that the food isn’t as good as the artwork
Had to have a very dirty martini at Tac Quick as a nightcap to wrap up a fun weekend
Sad doesn’t even begin to explain how it feels. I will miss El Palmar as I miss Ranalli’s On Clark
Loot-N-Shoot Anniversary
2020 Mostly Peaceful Riots Six years ago this weekend, everything went to shit. After the smoke cleared and the goods were fenced, the city saw a total of 32 killed and 88 more shot and wounded. Sunday, May 31, 2020, alone tallied 19 homicides, to our knowledge the highest single-day total in city history. Like so much else from that period, it was quickly forgotten. Our 9 hour YouTube live stream that captured all the nonsense in real time.
5/31/2026 Final Demonized Tally: 4 killed, 17 wounded
Hiking Garden of the. Gods in Colorado Springs CO 2000 It took me almost a week to find this photo
Airport Mesa Vortex Sedona AZ 2007
Airport Mesa is a scenic overlook and hiking trail in Sedona, Arizona, United States. The overlook is located around 300 yards to the northeast of Sedona Airport. Two hiking trails converge at the mesa: the 1.5-mile Brewer Trail and the 3.2-mile Airport Loop Trail
Hiking up behind the Slide Rock Lodge in Sedona AZ 2005
Bike O Negative at the tomb of Potter Palmer (1826-1902) Bertha Honoré Palmer (1850-1918). Erected 1921.
Potter Palmer was responsible for much of the development of State Street. He operated an extremely successful dry-goods store in partnership with Marshall Field and Levi Leiter. In the 1860s he withdrew from this business (leasing the building to Field and Leiter for $50,000 a year). He owned 3/4 mile of State street and constructed a number of buildings, including the Palmer House Hotel. In 1871 he married the young and beautiful Bertha Honoré, daughter of Henry Hamilton Honoré.
The Palmer House Hotel was newly completed in 1871 when the Great Chicago Fire struck. In a single night, all of Palmer’s State Street properties were destroyed. He borrowed $2 million from an insurance company, up to then the largest amount ever loaned to a private citizen, and immediately began rebuilding State Street and the new Palmer House Hotel.
Bertha Palmer was considered the queen of Chicago high society, and was a patron of Impressionist artists. The Palmers lived in a Gothic castle at 1350 North Lake Shore Drive, built in 1885. Before the construction of the Palmer home, south-side Prairie Avenue had been the most desirable residential real-estate for the rich, but following Palmer’s lead they began building on the “Gold Coast”. Mrs. Palmer created a 75-foot picture gallery in her richly ornamented home, collecting the work of French Impressionist painters such as Claude Monet. She frequently entertained such guests as President McKinley.
When Mrs. Palmer died in Florida in 1918, her body was returned to her castle beneath a blanket of orchids. Potter and Bertha Palmer now lie within the two large granite sarcophagi, with the inverted torches on the sides symbolic of death. Three generations of their descendants lie beneath the floor around them. McKim, Mead & White designed their tomb the style of a Greek temple, the largest and most magnificent in Graceland.
The burial scene in the movie Damien: Omen II takes place just north of the Palmer monument.
Many years ago Jared Louche of Chemlab sent this photo to me. Its nice to know he thinks of me from time to time. I found it while searching for the Garden of the Gods photo.