Stories from Chicago - Part I

The elevators in the hotel we stayed in had tiny five inch screen televisions that were on CNN. So whenever you rode up or down you would get snippets of news. It was truly bizarre. You were never in the elevator long enough to really follow a story, unless you were willing to ride up and down several times.

I think the purpose was, rather than to allow you to catch up with the news, to break the ice inside such a small and confined space. There was never a lack of commentary by the elevator riders. So instead of staring at the floor number display in a nervous silence, riders would look at the screen and comment on the day's news, sparking spontaneous conversation.

Of course, we had the story of the century on throughout our stay: Michael Jackson's arrest. Almost without fail, everytime I entered the elevator something regarding MJ was on. MJ arriving in California with the scene of a a car leaving the airport. MJ entering the police station. MJ leaving the police station. MJ driving back to the airport. Lawyer Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. commenting on the case. Other lawyers commenting. MJ in Las Vegas. And on and on...

Almost everybody who got on the elevator was dimayed at the excess coverage. One guy just shook his head as he said, "The world is going to hell in a handbasket and this is all they care about." Indeed there had just been two bombings in Turkey, yet it got very little coverage.

A different time, I was waiting for the elevator with an openly gay couple. When an elevator arrived going in the opposite direction than we were going, the doors opened and one could hear the MJ rhetoric from CNN. Suddenly a woman in the elevator whom we could not see from where we were standing yelled out, "That Michael Jackson is such a queer!" Then the doors shut. The two guys standing there just looked at each other and started laughing. I chuckled as well.

Such obsession by the media is alarming, but getting it in such brief bit incessantly throughout the day on a small screen inside an elevator with a group of strangers was rather surreal.