Indianapolis

The BBQ Pit
1

A few years ago, Chicago had a city-wide fundraiser of having local artists design and create the Chicago Cows. All over the city, there were large, plastic cows, all with different designs. There astronaut cows, there were chicken-like hatching cows, there were cows with firefighter equipment on, it was wonderful. Every cow was different, every cow was unique. Some cows weren’t as funny as other cows, but the general idea was brilliant.

Why? Because you can personify a cow. Cows, by definition, dressed up like other animals or people are hilarious.

Later, Kansas City and, I believe Houston, got in on the idea. More cows, more hilarity. Since then, I’ve seen Fish in Erie, PA (excellent), heard of salmon in Seattle, etc.

Indianapolis recently wanted to get in on this cash cow (sorry), and is going with the icon Indianapolis is most known for - Indy racing cars.

By definition, you CANNOT make an Indy racing car to look like an astronaut, let alone have that be funny. You can’t make a car look like a duck, you can’t even make it look like another car! So what we have now turned this city into is a large parking lot full of 100s of cars with American flags painted on them.

At last count, I think I’ve seen about 15 cars with an American flag motif, and 8 with a checkered flag theme. Is this necessary? Wasn’t there a committee or something to make sure that there was a semblance of variety?!?

The least someone could do is design an Indy car with a cow driving it. That would be funny.

[sub]I now welcome Indygrrl and Avarie to come by and bitch about the proposed smoking ban, which I could care less about.[/sub]

2

Baltimore has fish.

And, yes, using Indy cars for this is a dumb idea.

3

New York did the cow thing also. My favorite was the yellow cow in Grand Central Terminal with “MetroCow” written on it.

Heheheh.

4

Indianapolis is race car obsessed. I don’t pay that much attention to it, except to avoid the Speedway area on the day of the race.

5

Heh? Where are these cars? I live in Indy and I haven’t seen any flag-motifed cars.

6

Head downtown, irishajo. There’s several on the circle, more in the park just south of the capital building, lots in Circle Center, that tiny triangle park under the Arts Garden, and a few outside buildings on Meridian and Illinois streets.

I forgot to mention – these cars come in only two shapes (the cows came in many different shapes and poses) - small and large. Same shape, same “pose”, same angle, just a different size.

7

I like to avoid downtown. It’s just a bunch 'o idiots from neighboring cities who don’t know how to drive and think it’s cool to come to the big city on the weekends. Blech.

8

Here in the Twin Cities (home of Charles Schulz), we had a whole pile of Snoopys, then Charlie Browns, then Lucys. Don’t know what’s next, if any.

Hey, it could be worse. They could be using Dave Lettermans.

9

In Indianapolis. Because he’s from Indiana. Instead of race cars.

Thanks, I’ll be going now.

10

Since my husband and I no longer work downtown, we almost never go. I go to the IU School of Dentistry on the IUPUI campus, but I never have to go all the way into our puny little downtown.
We also don’t get out much (damn, we sound boring!!), so I’m not all that concerned abou the smoking ban. We’re trying to quit (again) as well.
So THERE!!!

(Gratuitous cursing for the pit)
DAMNED REDNECKED SUNZABITCHES GIVIN’ US HI-FALOOTIN’ INTERLECKTUAL HOOSIERS A BAD NAME!!!

:smiley:
(Hey, let’s get togther again!!! - I’ll start the thread in MPSIMS)

11

I’m in Indiana, and you speak of artistic race cars and a smoking ban? Man, I am so out of the loop.

12

Heh. We had frogs here in the heart of the black swamp, Frogtown.

13

This summer, it will be Linus statues all over town. (Nitpick: Only in St. Paul, not in both of the Twin Cities.)

I liked the Snoopys, and the Charlie Browns were O.K. But then we had Lucy last summer, and now we’ll have Linus.

When will the madness end? When all the minor characters are honored?

Peppermint Patty? Pig Pen? … Franklin?

Gah! :rolleyes:

Yeah, but at least we’re not as lame as Indianapolis: Formula one cars are dumb, dumb, dumb.

14

They are not F1 cars - they are Indy cars.

We could have used pigs, I guess … I mean, Indiana has lots of hog farms, right?

15

Here’s today’s Indy Star front page article on the cars:

http://www.indystar.com/print/articles/5/036553-8275-092.html

There’s a photo gallery of 8 of the cars, none of which are the dominant flag-motifed ones. This morning, I counted three (3!) flag cars on Monument Circle’s north side. That’s 3 out of 5 in less than a city block. Of course, the monument is a Civil War monument, and if you’re going to have any flag cars, that’s where you’d want to put them.

But for fuck’s sake, c’mon!

16

FTR, when I was there the cow phenom had reached Salamanca, Spain.

17

Yep. I thought most of them were really cute. My favorite was the one wearing the bib and eating a human leg. Heh heh.

And yeah, race cars for this kind of thing is just dumb. If I had to do a car, I’d make it look like it was “dressing up” as an airplane or something…

18

Knoxville had Bears, but now the shows over. :frowning:

19

I agree w/the OP, cars are a dumb idea & the photos prove it. Which is too bad, b/c Indy has some good stuff going on (the zoo rocks).

FTR I loved the cows in Chicago. But not everyone’s aware that the Chicago cows had some gender issues - ahem, horns AND udders?

20

Hate to break it to you fess but cows generally have horns in their natural state. They are routinely taken off for safety reasons.