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Liveblog: The Chicago Thanksgiving Day Parade
By briantologist | November 27, 2008
People, I don’t have the space or time to properly list what I love about this city. But one of them is that we’ve got our own goddamn Thanksgiving Day Parade, and it’s a magnificent mix of big-city production values, local-news dorkiness, and genuine small-down WTF. I’m starting late, but this is our day morning, people.
- Started strong with a high school marching band whose name I didn’t catch, but who bring back dear memories of the T Connection from my alma mater, Dear Booker T. Washington High School, the Pride of the Great Southwest.
- Dude, a Puerto Rican civic group just marched down State Street led by a guy wearing one of those dip bowl-shaped Island hats, screaming emphatically, and waving two machetes in the air, clashing them together, and screaming some more. I love this town.
- OMG, I have so much to catch up on. There’s a Chuck Wagon with a shriner on it pulled by tiny ponies, designed to tell us the story of modern food production. There’s a Bob the Builder balloon, who is apparently the only balloon in the parade. There’s the Harlem Globetrotters. There’s the longest marching band in the universe (400 members! Which doesn’t seem like that much). Bartlett, Springwood, Elgin and South Elgin High schools combined to create this band. I think it was the addition of South Elgin that put them over the top.
- The McNulty Irish Dancers! They’re lookin’ Irish all right.
- Grand Marshal … Jennie Finch? Who plays for the Chicago Bandits? Which I guess is a pro softball team. God, I have no civic pride whatsoever. Also my GLBT cred just went down the shitter. Ooo, a Paddington float!
- Dude, earlier there was this group of fire-twirling Hawaiian dudes wearing only wrap skirts and tattoos, and they were not fucking around. Even the clearly white Hawaiians. Especially the clearly white Hawaiians.
- A float of Flamenco-based people.
- Fuck, the Red Hat ladies have ponies! “Red Hats and Purple Chaps.” Wow, the lead Red Hat lady has an incisor missing. She wears it well.
- “The Happiness Club,” ladies and gentlemen. They sing, dance, rap, and instill positive values into other members of the community. Announcers: “D’ya have to be happy to join?” “You know, that’s a good question.” Fred Willard made these people real, ladies and gentlemen.
- As the Garfield float goes by, the announcer explains that he eats and sleeps a lot, and considers himself smarter than other people. Good thing we cleared that up.
- There’s a group of MB Financial-branded Mini Coopers, and god help me, an updated instrumental version of “Life is a Highway” in the background. So many questions.
- The Top Hat Marching Band of Ontario! They’re like a regular marching band, except they’re old, and wearing top hats! And there’s an old dude with a top hat dancing strangely in front of them.
- Ah, the Orpheus Hellenic Folk group, representing Greece! With “Celebration” by Kool and the Gang.
- MEDIEVAL TIMES TOTALLY HAS A PARADE FACTION. It seems lame to say, but these are some of the best-appointed entrants in this entire parade.
- Holy shit. “The Jesse White Tumblers”? Am I correct in assuming this is Secretary of State Jesse L. White, whose face I am eerily familiar with from my trips to the DMV website? Oh hell yes it is. Wow. Apparently he created this organization in 1959 to foster … tumbling. Wow. This is fucking fascinating. Among other things, I had no idea Secretary of State Jesse L. White was so old. Oh look, Super Grover!
- More ponies! Good god, this year’s parade has more ponies than ever before! 22 inches tall, these poines! We need like eight of them for around the house.
- It is truly amazing to me that every marching band everywhere manages to be preceded by a cadre of loafish girls in tights tossing batons in the air and/or whirling long banners around.
- ANNOUNCER (to second announcer): “‘Nother band comin’ atcha, Stan!” That pretty much sums up about two-thirds of this parade. Any parade, really.
- Curious George floats by. His hands and feet are deflated. I think that’s the parade float equivalent of hypothermia. Or impotence.
- AmeriCheer and AmeriDance! Representing … cheering. And dancing. Glad we got that settled.
- A nice looking older lady riding in a carriage, holding a small dog. No explanation. Awesome.
- Very small mules wearing very, very small Santa hats. There’s a lotta cute here.
- Dude! The Windy City Rollers! Fuck yeah!
- Bottom of the screen: “UP NEXT: More balloons.”
- Okay, Ronald McDonald just implored a small child to shake a snow globe. He then tossed some fake snow up in the air. The camera then panned to a giant plastic bubble with a live ice skater inside on a tiny circular rink, with a McDonald’s sign behind her. In other news, Erin just informed me she put peyote in my coffee this morning.
- A marching self-defense group! They’re performing basic punches as they march! One of them is pushing a baby in a stroller. Happy Thanksgiving, kid. Bundle up.
- Oh Christ. It’s the Dick’s Last Resort fire truck. The Holni Polish Dancers should not be made to walk behind these people. Among other things, they’ve got much better hats.
- “UP NEXT: Cloggin’ Kids!”
- BAGPIPERS BITCHES
- The “EXTREME OUTLAWZ” Cheerleading Corps! I think at this point they’re only “Outlawz” if being really orange is “Outlawd.”
- Ah, the Chicago cast of “Jersey Boys.” They’re from Oregon.
- I can hear the fatigue dripping from the announcer’s voice as he tells us about the Arthur float. Apparently he’s seen the show.
- There’s a 140-person marching band here from a town of 7,000. Fully two percent of that town’s population are members of the marching band. Math, people. Fascinating.
- OK, there’s a catering truck from a pizza restaurant, just kind of driving down the street slowly and honking. This is by far the least worthy parade entry I’ve seen thus far. They could at least be slinging pieces of hot pizza into the crowd (“OW! MY FACE!” “IT BUUUUUURNS!!!”).
- The Cookie Monster float. ANNOUNCERS: “This guy likes to eat cookies.” “Yeah. Yeah he does.”
- Earlier we saw a float from the Michigan Apple Committee, featuring several ladies in pageant gowns. I like to imagine that A) that’s the committee (probably is), and B) they have a committee meeting immediately after the parade. “God, look, can we do this some other time? I’ve been up since five.” “WE ARE MEETING TODAY, PHYLLIS.”
- Gigantic tractor called “MAGNUM” and covered with American flags. Staple some disembodied breast implants to that fucker and there it is, our great nation, rolled into one magnificent float.
- Ah, the Animal float. “Animal, with his unrestrained style, is a popular favorite.” His drumsticks look like plastic spoons.
- Boliviamanta! Promoting Bolivian dance and culture! Bolivia is apparently known for large amounts of green eyeshadow.
- Dude, there are more tiny, tiny ponies in the Chicagoland area than any of us had ever imagined.
- “The Spirit of Worthington Trojan Marching Band.” Clearly removing nicknames like “Redskins” and “Redmen” and “Indians” and the like should remain a top priority in the sports naming community, but after that, could we start work on getting rid of “Trojans” nationwide? The condom jokes are not gonna go away, people. Just something to consider.
- … Aaaaand there goes Satan. Santa. The announcer has gotten down from the booth to shriek at Santa for a solid 30 seconds, then harass him for a Wii. Wackiness ensues. There’s your parade, ladies and gentlemen. I hope it read as surreal as it looked.
Topics: Chicago, Fucking Awesome, NaBloPoMo | 7 Comments »
November 27th, 2008 at 11:36 am
My god, I feel as though I were there! This totally makes up for me sleeping in and missing all the Macy’s corporate primping.
November 27th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
See, that Macy’s stuff is for dilettantes. The low-rent beauty of the Chicago parade, now that’s where it’s at.
November 27th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
I was so sad not to be with my girls in the parade (we’re in DC with fambly). But I’m glad you got to see them! It makes my heart warm!
November 27th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
I was totally looking for you! Evidently the girl I thought might have been you was not. So, glad we got that cleared up. Happy Thanksgiving!
November 27th, 2008 at 9:43 pm
When do you start training your ponies for next year’s parade? If you could get them working as an ethnic-celebrating cheer team on skates, they’d probably get a really good spot in the parade lineup.
I was thinking that matching hats would be cute, too, but that would be too much. Really.
November 27th, 2008 at 11:28 pm
The children’s book publisher I work for did a book years ago called “I am a Jesse White Tumbler.” Sadly, it is out of print.
I still can’t believe JW is Secretary of State… in my mind he will always be Patron of Tumblers.
January 3rd, 2010 at 11:09 am
I have been in this parade for the last 4 years and i think it is wonderful. My cheerleaders are with the Americheer All American Spirit Team. We are glad to represent our group from Michigan in this wonderful parade