FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Stuff

A Day at the Ferris Wheel

One day Todd Diederich tracked me down, out of the blue, thinking we might want to work on a story together. That's professional lingo for "let's go cause trouble."

One day Todd Diederich tracked me down, out of the blue, thinking we might want to work on a story together. That’s professional lingo for “let’s go cause trouble.” We’d never met or spoken before. He’s the photographer behind Todd’s People, of which I am a fan, and I’m… well, who knows what my thing is.

We are both from Chicago, and we decided to meet up at the Ferris wheel at Navy Pier, simply because neither one of us had ever been. Stomped around West and South Side Chicago ghettos a bunch looking for beautiful scary freaks? Check and check. Watched a guy vomit literally into someone else's asshole? Yup. Been arrested for armed robbery, gotten beaten up by soccer moms, fucked a stripper with an ear, joined in on a lesbian gang-bang fake porno? Between the two of us, we’ve got all these things and more covered, and anyway that stuff’s boring when you purposely go looking for it. Shouldn’t we try something innocent while also getting to know our hometown a little bit better?

Advertisement

Here’s what we found.

The first time I saw Todd in person was when he was mid-photo shoot with this guy. Those are all 20s in his hand, and there are a lot more of them than you think. Apparently Todd offered to buy this golden docklord a beer in exchange for counting his money for the camera, and the guy was like, “Nah, you don’t gotta buy me a beer! I’ll do it.”

“Zany acts” at tourist traps. Oof. They are always sexually pent-up, weirdly aggressive, and very uncomfortable to watch. When we walked up to this scenario, the performer was asking a nine-year-old boy to hold a pair of underwear onstage. Meanwhile, the performer pulled out a knife and pretended to throw it at a balloon a child was holding about 30 feet away. Several people flinched.

We rode the Ferris wheel together for the first time. In the line, Todd told this soothing story about how when he was a kid riding the Zipper or something, the carnival ride operator was so drunk he fell asleep at the control panel. Around and around they went for like 11 minutes, until… I don’t know what happened, Todd was freaking me out so I tuned him out right then.

I look pretty chill but actually I was terrified. I’m not down with rides anymore, they just seem like a bad idea. Todd was also spooked, but tried to play it off with decapitation jokes.

These kids were mega making out and we were trying not to creep too hard. They were so cute we couldn’t resist. They’re 14, met in junior high just before summer started, and have been dating for two months. They were getting in all the action they could before freshman year started, as they were tragically attending different high schools. Todd and I taught them how to handle the pain with a tutorial on stick-and-poke tattoos.

Advertisement

We got a couple vodka snow cones, and across the way we heard the sweet strains of a woman’s voice singing Steve Miller to a bitchin’ cover band. Up close, it was actually a very muscular man, who Todd correctly commented looked too strong to play the guitar. It was bizarre how high his voice was, but vocal register doesn’t show up in photographs. Sweet hats in the audience do, however.

This lady had some other good stuff going on too.

This guy kinda killed Navy Pier for us. Another “zany act.” How many do they need in one day? And why was he making an “oops, racked my balls” joke in front of children?

So we decided to keep the tourist thing going with a walk to Millennium Park. Along the way I spotted this dude, and by his maniacally jerky motions I could tell he was a tweaker. Todd and I fell silent, watching him methodically spread a perfectly tidy arc of birdseed in a semi-circle of sidewalk. A pigeon approached and the guy lost his mind, kicking and flailing his arms and screaming at the bird to leave. It did. Then the man continued creating his line of seed, and when he finished, he let out a wild whistle. Suddenly a ton of birds came out of nowhere and began to eat. The man seemed satisfied.

The ass on the Marilyn Monroe statue is quite defined, and weirdly actually worth staring at.

We got to Millennium Park and hit up Jazz Fest a bit. Took our shoes off in the garden and dipped our feet in the cold manmade stream zig-zagging throughout. Todd called his mom. I took a moment to contemplate our day, and plus my contacts were really hurting. From here we visited a fast-food Indian place, where Todd unexpectedly knew an employee and we feasted for two dollars total. All in all, it was a great day.

PHOTOS BY TODD DIEDERICH