The Corona Diaries Vol. 100: Meet Me at the Omni

(early-August 2023)

(Listen to the Hoosiery prelude.)

For the first time in a few years, I made the trek to Indianapolis with some friends for Gencon, the largest gaming convention on the continent. For most of us, it was our first time there since the pandemic made everything all topsy-turvy. We arrived the day before the con officially began and checked into our hotel which was just off of the lovely Monument Circle.

There would be 4 of us sharing a room and so we came prepared with air freshener and ear plugs.

My group decided to meet up at our usual gathering spot, The Claddagh Irish Pub. We had a hard time finding it, though.

"Isn't it this way? Like a block over?"

We all looked around and then at our phones and then at the street signs a few times before coming to the sad conclusion that it was gone.

It had been replaced by Hovito Ultra Lounge, which sounded like a place from A Clockwork Orange where Alex and his droogs would hang out after some ultraviolence. We ducked inside to see if it would perhaps suit our needs anyway. Gone was the instant sense of bonhomie along with the nice wooden bar, the cozy booths, and the more atmospheric lighting, shall we say. The Claddagh felt like a third space, a living room away from your living room where The Clancy Brothers would have felt at home. The well-worn and welcoming had been replaced by an IKEA showroom aesthetic, sleek and minimal. It had a vague 60s Space Age kind of feel for me, as if George and Jane Jetson might have frequented the place while they were courting.

We went elsewhere for some dinner and liquid refreshment. Then it was off to our secondary-now-made-primary gathering spot: the lobby/bar of the Omni Severin Hotel. It is where our pals in the Novus Ordo Seclorum group stay and run their Call of Cthulhu games every year. The Omni is over 100 years old and is a lovely Beaux Arts building with charm and character, unlike most hotels in downtown Indy. Being just across the street from Union Station, it surely hosted politicians, sports players, and actors needing a break on their whistle-stop tours back in the day. I can see Greta Garbo and John Barrymore strolling through the lobby. She checks in at the front desk while he stubs out a cigarette in one of the countless ashtrays before going to a phone booth and calling David Sarnoff to ask who this Katharine Hepburn dame is.

At the bar, I ordered a pint of the official beer of the convention, Hive Mind from Indy’s Sun King Brewing, which was an English mild with honey. Every glass came with a small dragon figure.

It was OK. A bit too sweet, a bit too much honey obscuring the expected leathery and caramel flavors from the malt. But the company was stellar. We chatted until the wee hours before hoofing it a few blocks to our hotel.

Oddly enough for a room of 4 middle-aged fellows, the snoring was quite minimal. I was up early - not long after dawn - and out the door before long.

While I was ostensibly there for a gaming convention, I had various other things planned. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to realize the value of getting away from the madness of the convention and tens of thousands of gamers, many of whom eschew soap & water. And so I decided to investigate more of Indy this trip.

Not even a block from our hotel was the classically-inspired courthouse and post office.

Just a block or so away from there was a neat mural.

As I noted above, our hotel was right by Monument Circle with the Soldiers & Sailors Monument in the middle.

This lovely, ornate obelisk is the state’s tribute to its own that served in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Civil War, the Frontier Wars, and the Spanish-American War. There was work going on at the base of the memorial – I think the fountains and pool were undergoing maintenance – and some of Monument Circle the street was closed off. This allowed some of it to be transformed into a makeshift park featuring ice cream, ping pong, and space to lounge.

The whole weekend I encountered these things which were everywhere downtown.

They all have a sticker saying “Do not ride on sidewalk” but many people did. And at breakneck speeds too. Sorry to sound like an old man.

Get off my lawn, you kids!!

As I wandered the downtown, I found some nice ghost signs such as this one.

I cannot tell what it says. Maybe the name of a local department store from back in the day.

As the noon hour approached, I began feeling a bit hungry. At some point in the past, I learned from Aaron Renn (a native Indianan) that the pork tenderloin sandwich is the unofficial state sandwich of Indiana and I have fallen into the habit of sampling one at a different place each trip to Indy. My highly scientific selection process begins with googling “best pork tenderloin sandwiches Indianapolis” followed by some rigorous sifting and winnowing. This time I chose the Aristocrat Pub, some 6 miles north of downtown. I would ride Indy’s newish Bus Rapid Transit bus, the Red Line. We’re getting BRT next year here in Madison and I thought it would be interesting to try it out. That and I had absolutely no desire to drive.

My stop was near the Capitol, a gorgeous building.

BRT utilizes elements from light rail but transposes them onto streets. Buses are often articulated – i.e. have those accordion bits in the middle and the stops are dedicated platforms that are spaced at greater distances than ordinary bus stops. The platforms have payment kiosks on them so you buy or scan your pass and just hop aboard. Red Line buses come every 15 minutes.

Here was my stop:

I found that the payment kiosk here was not working so I hoofed it up to the next stop. Now, I most likely could have just gotten on the next bus and ridden for free – what were the odds of a fare collector being on board? – but I wanted the full experience.  At the Vermont Street stop I found that the kiosk there was in working order. The northbound bus had a smattering of people on it when I stepped aboard and the air conditioning seemed to be busted. Oh well.

The first stretch north of downtown seemed to generally be gentrified or gentrifying neighborhoods. A quick jog east to Meridian Street and you are in a more ritzy part of the city with very large, old homes on big lots set back from the street quite a way. An old money part of town, I guess. Also, it’s a much greener area than parts south with acres of lawns and well-manicured hedgerows .

Another turn to the east takes us down 38th Street for several blocks. There are many boarded up buildings along this stretch and the businesses tend towards fast food, check cashing places, and others aimed at lower/working class folks.

We turn north onto College Avenue and the McDonalds give way to well-kept single family homes as we enter more middle class neighborhoods. The houses are nice, but not huge, and there are more trees and lawns, though more modest than was seen on Meridian Street.

I got off the bus at 52nd Street in a nice, quiet area. More of those single family homes with shops scattered about, including the Aristorcrat which was tucked away amongst some trees at the north end of an older building that housed 2 or 3 other joints.

The inside was just as charming as everything was wood giving it an old-timey kind of feel - everything the Hovito Ultra Lounge was missing.

I ordered the pork tenderloin sandwich which was called The Hoosier Tenderloin and a fine pilsner beer from Indy’s Metazoa Brewing called Mortal Wombat. By the time my sandwich arrived, I was very hungry but found that I had enough food for an army.

The pork tenderloin sandwich is basically Schweineschnitzel served on a bun. A slice of pork loin is pounded thin, breaded, and then fried. I had lettuce, onion, and pickle on mine. It was very tasty. The breading was lightly seasoned and the bun was toasted, which is a big plus for me. As someone who loves that taste of Maillard reactions, the more, the merrier, I say! The cole slaw was good as well.

This was the 3rd, I think, pork tenderloin sandwich I’ve had in Indianapolis and I am working on formulating the Platonic ideal of it. How much breading? How should the breading be seasoned? What kind of bun to use? What else should go on it? Red or white or yellow onion? Tomato?

I don’t doubt that, if I thought about this long enough, I’d come up with a version for every season. Perhaps something like a hearty rye bread for winter and fresh jalapenos in the summer. Now that I think about it, a rye bun and fresh jalapeno sound good year-round. Anyway, I have come up with this:

Breading as thin as possible and seasoned well, including white pepper and marjoram. Serve it on kaiser roll – crispy on the outside and fluffy inside. I like the lettuce, onion, pickle combination. The Aristocrat had yellow mustard on the table and I didn’t ask if they had another variety. Under optimal conditions, I’d go with a brown mustard, something earthier tasting than yellow and with a mellower taste – not so sharp.

I decided it was best to keep moving after lunch so I didn’t fall asleep on the bus only to wake up on the south side of town completely lost. A couple storefronts down from The Aristocrat was a record store called Luna Music so I stopped in.

The place had a bit of a High Fidelity vibe.

Most of the space was dedicated to vinyl but I don’t own a turntable nor do I have the space for a lot of records so I stick with CDs. I ended up buying a couple albums: Kick by INXS because it’s good pop music. I like to sing “Devil Inside” but insert our very curious and often times naughty cat Grabby’s (a.k.a. - Marilyn) name.

The Grabber inside, the Grabber inside
Every single one of us
The Grabber inside

Well, it makes my Frau laugh, anyway.

The other album was Secret South by alternative country band 16 Horsepower. My understanding is that their lead singer and bandleader, David Eugene Edwards, was (is?) a practicing Christian and he was not afraid to sing about topics near and dear to that religion's heart such as suffering and redemption. While The Louvin Brothers warned us that Satan is real and that the atomic bomb would be the end of humanity, their songs are mere nursery rhymes in contrast the gloom that 16 Horsepower conjured. On Secret South, there's “Clogger”, a great tune that moves along at a good clip but has some sinister overtones as Edwards warns:

You ride a faithless steed
Took you down the wrong road
Ye' in word an' in deed

Their version of the traditional folk song “Wayfaring Stranger” takes a melodic lamentation and makes it into an all-out dirge laced with churning waves of what sounds like distorted electric guitar meant to evoke going to the other side. It's moody and it's weird yet never abandons the hauntingly beautiful old folk melody.

The guy behind the counter was extremely friendly. With my purchase I got a sticker and a postcard to boot.

I had a game in a couple hours and figured that it’d be best to grab a cup of coffee. And I had a sweet tooth to satisfy. Luckily there was a coffeehouse just across the street from the record store – Prufrock Coffee Co.

The place turned out to be cozy little spot with a literary bent. One wall featured shelves full of books and there was also one of those rotating wire display thingies with even more. It was only later that Prufrock rang a bell but I couldn’t place it. One internet search later and I learned that the coffee joint was surely named after “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, a poem by T. S. Eliot. I’ve never read it. The only thing by Eliot I have ever read is “The Waste Land”. Oh, and "The Hollow Men".

The coffee was very tasty and I threw in a Danish because, well, I was on vacation.

With some caffeine and dessert now inside me, I was truly a stuffed man when I walked 100’ to the bus stop and waited about 10 minutes for the next Red Line. Thankfully, the air conditioning worked on this bus and it was quite a bit more populated than the one I had taken earlier, with some folks wearing blue Gencon polo shirts which meant they were going to work. I felt a bit bad for them and hoped that they had safe jobs like working the concession stands or changing trash can liners and not cleaning the restrooms. Those men's rooms at the convention center can veer awfully close to EPA superfund sites, at times.

I got back downtown with a little time to spare so I met up with a friend and we walked through the con’s vending area which is huge and always packed with people cheek by jowl. It is surely is a major fire hazard but gamer folks need to buy rulebooks, t-shirts, and plush 20 sided dice . I’d hate to be in there if a fire broke out. There’d be more deaths from the ensuing stampede than from smoke or actual fire.

Countless vendors hawk their wares with close to every game and gaming accessory available to willing buyers. Need a deluxe $10,000 bespoke table to play Dungeons & Dragons on? Someone there has got you covered. Want to fill in your D&D rules collection with first editions worth the mortgage of your house? Done!

Are you a cat lover who wants to game with your cat? No problem! There’s a game for you.

Does your cat need a suit of armor for the adventure? They’ve got you covered.

We wandered over to the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society booth. Lovecraft, an early 20th century author, invented the Cthulhu mythos, a family of betentacled deities, the mere sight of which frays our fragile sanity. To them, we humans are not even pimples on the ass of The Great Old One, Cthulhu. The Society makes gaming aids for Cthulhu role-playing games, movie adaptations of Lovecraft’s tales, and audio drama adaptations of his stories and those of other, related horror authors. I always buy a CD of one of their audio dramas at Gencon and this year it was their adaptation of Robert E. Howard's The Black Stone.

Howard is known for having created Conan the Barbarian but he also wrote “weird” horror tales a la Lovecraft. My version came with props including a postcard sent by one of the characters, a map, and a page from the Chicago Examiner which, I have discovered, was a real newspaper.

HPLHS productions are of high quality with great voice acting and sound effects. Their shows mimic the radio dramas of the 1920 but add an occasional 21st century touch. They are just a lot of fun to listen to.

After showing some restraint and not buying anything else, we ducked out and I headed over to Lucas Oil Stadium for a game of Trail of Cthulhu. A role-playing game, Trail was created by Chicagoan Kenneth Hite. The scenario was called “The Case of Ernest Wheeden” and I played a private dick named Sam Clay.

I was a member of a group hired by the wealthy Wheeden family to figure out what happened to their son, Ernest, who had mysteriously disappeared about a month ago only to even more mysteriously reappear a week ago on a train unable to recall exactly what happened to him.

Well, it turns out he had been investigating family lore and dug a little too deeply into the occult studies of his grandfather. The usual kind of thing in any Cthulhu game.

Somehow we survived an encounter with the hideous, eldritch forces of the universe. Now, I am not going to claim none of our characters lost any sanity along the way, but we remained alive.

The game being done, it was off to find my friends which wasn’t too hard. More beer and good company in the Omni lobby until the wee hours of the morning.

********

Bonus photo. Seen while out buying cat food. Someone painted colorful carrots in their windows.