Jolanda, the Racing Turtles, and Taco Hell

Every now and then it is my wonderful privilege to break the cycle of my life, scatter the routine with a trip outside the confinements of my everyday regimen. This escape being embodied by an atypical trip to an unfamiliar place to practice in my favorite and most venerated pastime – binge drinking. A debauch, if you will. And what better city to embark on a jag than the colorful city of Chicago?

The night I chose to chronicle of the extended weekend, was the night spent at Big Joe’s. Aside from a typical Chicago corner bar, Big Joe’s offered something unusual to the patrons tipping back the usual. Big Joe’s on Friday nights features Turtle Racing (See Fig. 1). As strange as it may sound, the bar has an incredible system worked out to, not only benefit the customer, but the bar itself. When you purchase a drink you get a few tickets, all bearing a number on them, raffle tickets, so to speak. The announcer then draws numbers to see who will partake in the next turtle race, drawing yet another number from a hat determining which racer (turtle) will be theirs to cheer for. The first place turtle earning the lucky drinker a t-shirt, the last place turtle earning you a free beer.

(Fig. 1)

So in order to get a better chance of winning a t-shirt, you must drink more. Each turtle has a name, and Jolanda was the “Slowest fucking turtle in the world” as emphatically chanted by the regulars every time her number was drawn.

I immediately fell in love with this place. So much so that i befriended the announcer, turtle race caller for the past four years. I had so many raffle tickets by the end of the night that i couldn’t check them all for numbers quick enough. Not to mention all of the side bets I made and lost resulted in my having to take gross shots as a punishment. The only souvenir I got from Big Joe’s that evening was the Chicago Yellow Pages, which, apparently, I swiped in my drunken stupor as I staggered from the bar.

Perhaps even more entertaining than the turtle racing, however, was the Taco Bell we stopped by on the way home. Situated in the heart of Boy’s Town, Chicago’s gay district, it was truly a site to behold.

I want to first preface my experience at this fast food joint with my personal annotations regarding Taco Bell. I believe, in my heart, that Taco Bell is the most American fast food restaurant in this great nation. The first and simplest argument might be that it is mexican food. This, I can assure you, cannot be further from the truth. The food served at Taco Bell (if you want to call it ‘food’ – apparently the USDA says no, but my taste buds and ravenous desire for Cheesy Fiesta Potatoes say otherwise) is a flagrant oversimplification of anything that can be deemed authentic. What is America other than a fluffed up, fatter, greasier, cheesier, cheaper version of many other cultures?They could be shredding brown paper bags and soaking them in meat water, but I wouldn’t give a shit because its not in my nature to question something that tastes so god damn yummy.

Amassed at this Taco Bell was every stereotype I could rattle off at the top of my head. Asians snapping photographs, Hispanics wearing fitted flat bills conversing in head-spinngingly-fast Spanish. A woman of the African American persuasion was shouting about how much she distrusted Caucasians (to put it very lightly). White middle aged girls lumbering through the line, heads buried in their iPhones, obliviously bouncing off people as they texted a million miles per hour. I sat and chewed on my Beefy 5 Layer Burrito and just soaked in all the sights and sounds. How many people can crowd around a soda machine before a fight breaks out?

I tipped the cashier more than I tipped any bartender that night, because she worked in Taco Hell. The look on her face described the indescribable. She was a warrior, hardened by reality. I didn’t want to leave that place, but the food coma set in like ton of bricks. Coupled with a day’s worth of boozing, I was down and out in Chicago. But I can still see the face of that cashier, as vivid as it were yesterday. Make no mistake people, the Taco Bell in Boy’s Town, after midnight, should be ranked in the top ten things to do nestled among Navy Pier and The Magnificent Mile. Check it out during your next visit, alcohol will help.

Tags: America, Asians, Beefy Five Layer Burrito, Big Tom's, Boy's Town, Cheesy Fiesta Potatoes, Chicago, Debauch, iPhone, Mexican, Taco Bell, Turtle Racing, USDA, Yolando