Local Poll #11 - CHAMPAIGN-URBANA, ILLINOIS!!!!!

sigh. at long last.

What's yer name/nickname yer going with here: Grrr

Where do you live/what city are you e'splainin?: Champaign-Urbana, IL

What neighborhoods or areas around here do you recommend exploring?
Downtown Champaign's good walking around, if you like looking at buildings and thinking about the evolution of several generation's worth of downtown commerce. Campus is really pretty (or at least, some parts of campus are really pretty).

Any good parks round you for sitting in or wandering through?
Meadowbrook Park in south Urbana is the best for wandering around; I particularly like the west side area, off Race, where the community gardens and the stream and the firepit are. There are several entrances to the prairie paths on that side, and those are the best paths for loners; the grass and the flowers and the weeds grow up so tall nobody can see you, so you can walk around scowling or go jogging without feeling like a big sweaty red-faced dork. The prairie paths are a lot less populated than the concrete path, so you're more likely to see deer and crazy birds and things, too. If you're into that sort of thing.

Also, the Busey Woods up the Anita Purvis Nature Center are kind of a hoot. The creek runs through it, which is nice, but you're never out of sight of the road or the fairgrounds, so it's not like you ever get really centered by nature. The area up near the nature center and parking lot are popular with families, and that part has a handicap-accessible boardwalk trail. Further back it turns into kind of a marshy trashy reclaimed dump--which it is--but it's also the best chance for "wilderness" you'll get in town. I've seen deer and a fox back there, but also teenagers and, for lack of a better word, "drifters." (Never too scary, though, as the road is always RIGHT THERE.) Across the road is a big old tiered cemetery, which my friend Katy declared would be a good cemetery to have sex in, and the Urbana Country Club, which would probably not be.

Other local features or beautiful natural spots to take in:
The Urbana Farmer's Market, if you can stand the crowds, is a cool mishmash of farmers and musicians and kettle corn poppers and jewelry makers and townsfolk. (One tip: Go early for the good produce, go late if you want to hear music.) The Arboretum really is quite nice. If you've got a car, though, your best bet is just getting on a road and driving until it's all open space and gravel roads and endless sky. You can take First Street all the way to Tuscola. You can take Springfield or University over to Indiana. It's all a grid, so even though roads kind of end abruptly, you never get too lost--if it's daytime, know that you'll eventually run into one of the state highways and be fine; if it's nighttime, just head for the glow. That'll get you back to town.

Any good festivals? When?
Hmmm. GOOD festivals? There used to be this awesome one called GrrrlFest, but good things can't last forever. Now, go to the Sweetcorn Festival in Urbana or to the OldTimer's birthday celebration in Champaign. OOH--the Labor Day parade and the celebration that follows it. Good, wholesome, American-style fun. The Parade features all the local unions, and Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts, and local politicians, and service trucks of all sorts--city bus, fire truck, electric company cherry picker. Loads of candy. LOADS, they throw. And it all ends up somewhere--last year it was by the county building/softball diamonds/jail--and there's free food and little games and rides for the kids in the cherry picker. It's just so Little House on the Industrial Belt.

Best non-stupid on-line/print source(s) for local entertainment info: Haven't found it yet.

Best place(s) to stop in to see inexpensive local music (particularly those that regularly book bands with females): Until they stop doing it, Café Paradiso is home base of the Women's Booking Collective, and they do all-ages shows. The Independent Media Center is going to get started up again soon in the old Urbana post office; we'll see how that plays out. (Plays out. Get it?) The best spot right now for some really good, really cheap, really friendly local and touring bands is Mike and Molly's in downtown Champaign. I've seen some
fabulous shows there for less than five bucks.

Best place(s) to stop in to dance: Mike and Molly's, if you dare (and depending on the DJ). C-Street SideBar.

Best place(s) to stop in to get a beer without pretention or hoo-haw:
The Brass Rail! Karen'll hook you up with cheep PBR and some advice about your life. Or Mike and Molly's. The RoseBowl is great when you don't really want to talk to anybody, or when you want to hear some good old country.

Best place(s) to stop in to get a drink (ideally also without pretention or hoo-haw):
Like a mixed drink? I'd go to the Esquire, probably, and pick my bartender carefully. Crane Alley, maybe, depending on the feel of the crowd.

Best place(s) to stop in just to stop in while visiting:
Jane Addams Book Shop, which has three stories' worth of books; even if you don’t buy anything, it's easy to spend an afternoon looking at weird etiquette books from 1937 and pulp fiction covers from the fifties. Or the batting cages, which are waaaaaay the hell out in southeast urbana, and sometimes you have to bring your own bat.

Best secret deals:
* The Esquire has free peanuts, and they let you--nay, insist that you--throw the shells right onto the floor. (Unless you're sitting outside in the beer garden, in which case, they contrarily ask that you deposit your goober waste in a refuse bowl. Like a peanut shell spittoon.) Plus, French fries for a buck.

* Free music in the parks all summer long, in different neighborhood parks and different styles. Usually Wednesdays. The Park District should be able to tell you who's playing where:
http://www.cparkdistrict.com/cgi-bin/calendar/calendar.cgi. Also lots of the coffee shops have free music. The RoseBowl has music every night, and it's usually free.

* The Urbana Farmers Market has free coffee and water, and lots of stands give out samples.

* Loads of bars have $1 pint/$1 can nights, usually Monday-Wednesday. Mike and Molly's and Cowboy Monkey for sure. If you're young and wild, or any age and very tolerant, campustown bars often have anything you want insanely cheap. (But be warned: first off, if you don't like drinking with 16-year-olds, stay away. Second, if you pay $1.50 for a Long Island Ice tea, you can be fairly confident they're not using the good stuff.)

* El Torro II has good Mexican food and 99-cent Old Style everyday.

* The Virginia Theatre has "Real Deals" once a month, where they show recent movies for $2-$3 bucks. It's a cool old big-screen, single-theatre theatre, too. http://www.thevirginia.org/reeldealseries.htm

Best jukeboxes: The Brass Rail! Yesterday's top country hits and today's local punk favorites. The only place in town to hear the likes of Conway Twitty and Dolly Parton right alongside the Blackouts and Terminus Victor (not to mention the formerly fantastic Violents and Dead Weight and the Lost Cause.) Mike and Molly's has a surprisingly good jukebox, but most evenings there's a DJ. Jupiter's has an extensive selection of stuff they play on the radio; somebody who hangs out there a lot LOVES Weezer. LOOOOOOVEEEES weezer. Seriously.

Where can you find Galaga in your town? Or Space Invaders. Or Elvis pinball. Or batting cages? Any other favorite play spots to share?:
Hmmm. Galaga: La Bamba on campus. (Also has Ms. Pacman.) Maybe Jupiters? editor's note: "nope."
ELVIS PINBALL at the Esquire. Not as tight as it was when they first got it, but yeeeehaaaw, that's good pinball. (The B-Rail just got a new pinball machine. Haven't tried it yet.)

As previously mentioned, the batting cages at the establishment formerly known as TK Wendl's. Bring a bat if you've got one. There's an indoor driving range on North Market (it's called "Fun Fore All" or something equally pithy.) There's also a driving range and a good par-3 course at Lake of the Woods in Mahomet. The full-size courses around here are all expensive and very flat.

Best public place to nap and/or picnic: Nap? In PUBLIC? That's not even physically possible.
There's a park over on the west side of Springfield, a little past El Torro I. I don't know what it's called, but it's got a little lake where they teach canoeing. (That's got to be kind of funny, because the "lake" is about two canoe-lengths wide.) There's a long, creepy, dusty, gravelly garbage trail that leads to another park up by Parkland, which also has a lake. And a lot of goose poop. They're good parks, though, because there are never a lot of people there, and these parks are sandwiched weirdly between new modern subdivision minimansions and slightly older public-assisted housing apartments. And they're on old farmland. It's all slightly off-kilter and crappy and yet really right when you just want to be left alone.

If you're not antisocial, though, I'd say West Side Park, or the Arboretum.

Best inexpensive way in from the airport for travelers who have no one to pick em up, or who wanna spare their hosts the hassle (public transport options
preferred!):
The bus does go to the airport, but I'm not sure how often or how late it runs out there. If the hours are limited, you could always hike or cab it a mile up the road to SuperWalMart!, and catch the bus there.

Best bets for lodging: Friends and friends of friends. The populace is young and mobile and used to crashing on people's floors.

Is public transport available? Do you recommend it? If so, how much is it? If not, how should a visitor get around?
We've got buses, which actually run pretty frequently and pretty easily--as long as you want to go to campus or downtown. Anyplace else is a little tougher. If you've got a U of IL student, faculty, or staff ID, hop on, my educated friend! You ride for free! If you're just a schmoe riding the bus to your job at Taco Bell, it'll cost you a buck a ride. It takes some time, but you can walk pretty much from one end of town to the other.

Local book store(s)/music shop(s)/co-ops/otha shops to check out (any feminist bookstores left out there?):
Jane Addams Book Shop! Loads of feminist stuff, but loads of everything else, too. Sometimes they even have cookies. Right downtown. Muey bueno--go buy something from them right now. Also downtown Champaign is Old Main Book Shop*, which is the place to go for collectible postcards and sci-fi magazines from the 40s and 50s (but is the place to avoid if you're allergic to cats. And cat pee.) Over in Urbana, Priceless Books on Main St. has the best collection of used trade titles, and might be the only place in town to get used mass-markets. Plus loads of cooking books, classical music CDs, and an extensive women's studies section. For new books, drive or bus on down to Savoy to go to Pages for All Ages, the last of the not-great, but-certainly-serviceable independents. (If you're looking for a particular book, I'd call first.) Also sells coffee and CDs.

Locally-run cheap restaurant(s) you dig (yay to veg-friendly and regional flair ones!):

Thai: Basil Thai on Green St (campus); Siam Terrace on Main St. (U)

Mexican: El Torro & El Torro II for real Mexican (C); Fiesta Café for black beans (C)

Fish/seafood: Yuck.

Breakfast: Sam's café downtown (C)

Diner: See breakfast

Comfort food: Bombay Café, for warm, mushy, spinachy goodness (campus)

Vegan food?: Strawberry Fields forever. (U)

Takeout: Chinese, it's Rainbo Garden on S. Neil. (C) Mmmm. Triple Delights.

Coffee shop with character: Paradiso (betw. Campus and downtown U), which also has good sammies, soups, pasta salads, and regular salads

Regional fare: Like what? Fried twinkies? Fried baloney sandwiches? Fried fries? The Midwest needs to better define itself through food.

Those to avoid cause they treat their workers poorly: I don't know about workers, but I can say that Original Pancake House (C) and the Courier (U) treat single diners like crap. (sorry. another editor's note. Timpone's likes to make their wait staff cry. They are bad.)

Cool local activism to look out for: It's a really media-literate town, I think, which leads not only to a highly active Independent Media
Center, but also to some really cool stuff like MediaGeek (zine, WEFT radio show, and website) and Media Matters (NPR program). Women's Booking Collective is out there to make sure women are involved on all sides of the local music scene. And, although it's not "activism" much at all anymore, we do have a cool music scene.

One road trip outta town you like: You can go anywhere from here. Chicago, Indy, St. Louis, Bloomington Ind. = less than three hours; Iowa City, Cincinatti, Memphis, Nashville, Madison Wis., Milwaukee = five or six hours. Closer in, Springfield's got Lincoln out the wazoo, Terre Haute has Eugene Debs's home and a nice little art museum, Peoria's got minor league baseball and riverboat gambling. You can get to any of them in an hour and a half.

Best/worst time of year to come. Why: Summer's good because the students have largely cleared out, so you've got less traffic, businesses really want you, and you can actually park. Plus, awesome awesome thunderstorms. That's some great free entertainment: East central Illinois and west central Indiana have the highest flash rate in the country (flash meaning lightning flashes). (And don't argue me--Florida has more lightning per year because they have more storms. Our storms are flashier when we do get them.) Be forewarned, though, that summer is horribly hot and humid and winters are shockingly cold, dry, and windy (It generally gets up to 100 and down to 0 over the course of the year, though summer averages are more like 85-90 for highs and winter lows are more like 10-20.)

Shoes you recommend bringing for a good visit: Any kind, you should be fine.

Quirks of yer town we should know about: For a town this small, we've got some big city problems (lack of parking, disproportionately expensive housing, high campus crime rates); for a city this big, we've got some small town problems (lack of things to do, particularly for under-agers; lots of stuff closes up early; can be difficult to get around without a car).

A bit about who you are: Early 30s, work in publishing, semi-attached. I see a fair bit of live music, read a whole lot of anything, and spend probably too much time in bars.