Tonight at the House of Blues and tomorrow at the Double Door I am seeing this:
hope they play that hot water music cover!
also, before I leave you all to go engage in this musical experience, get a load of this!
this is dan andriano from the alkaline trio playing solo under the “emergency room” moniker. he played at day 3 of red scare’s oktoberfest at the beat kitchen. in honor of the lawrence arms’ 10th anniversary, he covered a song of theirs! and i was there! you cant see me though. bummer.
If you’ll permit, I need to share a tale from the bottomless well of stories that is my job. Today, one of my residents stood for 7 seconds. This feat alone almost got me to break down at work for the first time because this man hadn’t stood on his legs since December 11th, 2000. There are probably a few dozen reasons why this has been permitted to happen and most include a number of people dropping the ball or thinking he is somehow unworthy of the time and attention he requires in order to really connect and make progress and honestly I had pretty much given up on him too. It was a few weeks back and I was trying to convince him to make an attempt at getting out of bed so that we could go wash him. He dismissed me and yelled for me to get out, which at that point I was pretty much used to. This was also a critical time for me as I was stewing in this perceived lack of motivation in any of the residents to make sustainable change in their lives. Now this notion was more than likely brought about by some of my co-workers but I really can’t blame them. Well anyway, I was up in my office catching up on some charting when this man’s roommate comes knocking looking visibly upset and contemplative. He said that he was sick and tired of watching his roommate and good friend do nothing about his life and waste away. I let him vent for awhile and came to understand that he had been bottling up these feelings and that watching him dismiss me earlier was the last straw and he needed to do something but was afraid to lose his friend amidst the confrontation that was needed. Now, this man’s roommate has some significant cognitive deficiencies -which recently have been amplified by a very serious bout of seizures- and for him to approach me in this manner was, and still seems incredibly significant. I automatically switched in RA mode and did the one thing I am pretty confident in: Roommate Mediation. What ensued was an incredibly open and honest conversation between two grown men that have connected so intensely that it could be scripted and aired on any movie screen. From that day forward it’s been a slow build-up of progress with some setbacks of course and maybe some innocent manipulation of the roommate dynamic to get some things moving along. For the past two weeks I’ve been sitting with him while he explored the western border of his condensed world and sat up with his feet on the ground for ever increasing periods of time all the while hearing about his life and secrets to a great meatloaf, which after reciting a few dozen times I can’t seem to recall the portions and types of meat he swears by. Well today with a bit of help from me under his right arm and a nurse under the other, he lifted himself up for a mind boggling 7 seconds. I think it took me a couple of minutes to regain my normal gait after my legs fell asleep in our morning meeting, but the idea of standing up after almost 9 years off of them is unfathomable. Needless to say he earned his can of pop today…
Now I’m sitting here trying to sort through my thoughts on the day and really trying to take something away from this. There’s a certain cynicism that is gnawing at me trying to wake me up to the cliched nature of this story and to try and make some grand oration about all of the lessons learned and constructing applicable generalizable metaphors is pointless. It’s a tool used in most medical dramas where the plight and ultimate success or failure of a patient is applied to one of the main characters in some sort of moment of ultimate clarity about their own lives that we as the mindless observers somehow cram this piece of sage wisdom into our own puzzles of existence. At least for tonight I’ll take a break from being cynical because if this man could stand for 7 seconds today, then, well, I should be able to do anything.
A woefully incomplete, blurry-eyed, male-perspective recap of the riot fest weekend…
FRIDAY
-pabst (the assumption must be made that the entire weekend could be seen through the lens of, or perhaps, the RESULT of, too much blue ribbon)
-Ali and the Pinstripe boys (www.myspace.com/thepinstripes) late. stuck in traffic.
-show at the subterranean sold out, but ali guestlisted moonshine and me at the last minute.
-lots of stickers and demos we forgot to pass out.
-pinstripes, deals gone bad, aggrolites killed it.
-lots of punx, skunx, and skins there, and everyone got along! what a foreign concept.
-dirty reggae = dancing and grooving.
-after the show, the pinstripes and frankl project (www.myspace.com/thefranklproject) crashed at the apt. the frankls got lost en route to the apt and the pinstripes drunkenly lost their van.
-everyone finally found the apartment. lots of drinking until 5 am. bodies everywhere
SATURDAY
-i had class. everyone else went to the zoo. from what i gather, a stray squirrel wandered into the gorilla cage where it was played with, beaten, killed, torn apart and then kissed and mourned. i can only imagine!
- ohio state!
-half of the group went to the congress theatre to see nofx. the other half went to the subterranean. saw the cobra skulls open for the aggros. Old Style! cobra skulls fucking KILLED it! so stoked for halloween. moonshine finally got to see them. after the show, we both bought bandanas.
-blue line to the congress. wore the bandanas on the train. people stared.
-nofx over. fat mike dressed as cokie the clown for the shown and generally creeped everyone out.
-after specifically telling mike loudmouth (www.myspace.com/theloudestmouth) to fucking wait so as to drive us to the fireside bowl for drunken bowling, he indeed fucked up and left us there. 40 minutes, i would say, in the just-above-freezing temperature. i did get to run into and say hey to Scott, from Alternative Press mag.
-mike finally gets us and takes us to the Fireside.A place I’ve ALWAYS wanted to see….a dream come true.
-free shots of jameson. estimation: i consumed around $50 worth of free whisky. mike had more
-we ended up dancing around the $96 team rate for games of bowling and got to bowl till 2 am for free. with jameson, mind you
-got licked like a dog on the face by the skinhead bowling next to us. i thought it strange and inappropriate at the time, but now, this behavior makes sense for two reasons: 1) he was from hawaii. they probably have all kinds of strange and foreign customs there. and 2) jameson.
- said skin said he liked me and wanted me to kiss his bowling bowl for luck. i did and he bowled a gutterball. he (read: jameson) said “fuck you” and told me i had herpes. i (read: jameson) told him that if that was the case, i obtained it from him and his potentially questionable lifestyle practices. He fired back quickly that he obtained the herpes from his wife, cathartically laughed a guttural belly laugh, and went back to drinking. his sober wife flashed the death glare and stormed off.
- said skin then took a shot of jameson out of his bowling ball finger hole
-the greaser chicks next to us took a liking to my dillinger four shirt. they were minneapolis punx and claimed (CLAIMED) to be drinking buds with the d4, although when questioned separately about this, each named a DIFFERENT member of the band as their drinking pal.
-riot fest 5th anniversary cake. ended up wearing it on my entire face. literally.
-party at our apt.
SUNDAY
-SLEEP!
-got dragged off to chicago bagel authority, the chicago version of oxford’s bagel & deli. this was an EXACT rip off of the already disgusting establishment in oxford. being sober and slightly hung-over, i opted to refrain from the bagels.
-taken to some generic irish-themed bar that acted as a cincinnati bengals bar. they served skyline chili, otherwise this place looked like a fucking chilis or applebees. while everyone slobbered over a shitty football club (not MY shitty football club), i went to chipotle with jake frankl and talked about health care reform and marxist theory. who-dey!
-back at the apt. loudmouth and pinstripes back to ohio. the frankl boys off to the congress for the sunday show then out. clean up and late football games.
-off to the congress with moonshine.
-saw screeching weasel (a combination of unbelievably surreal and boring) and the alkaline trio.
-trio said they finished their new album that morning. played mostly mid-era vagrant songs, with only a couple old song (bummer) and a couple new ones (eh) peppered in. solid set. thankfully they didnt come out wearing suits and ties or makeup or dressed as priests or anything lame. they dressed like normal people. i took this to be a sign of hope for this new record
-during their set, the above title for this post (and subsequent song) took on a new meaning to me
-took a free bus (a fucking SCHOOL bus!) to the cobra lounge on the south side. teenage bottlerocket was playing a free secret show!
-bus ride sucked. two “punx” who wore fox racing clothes and used the word “faggot” excessively fought while these two 16 year old girls kept talking (er, rather, screaming) about their 10am drinking and babies they had back home. this is a cross section of america’s future.
-cobra lounge was pretty awesome!
-at the bar, got mistaken by the cobra skulls singer for their guitar player. i ended up buying him a drink. he got flustered, giggled, and bragged to his bandmates about how “cool” he perceived me to be. his bandmates did not have free drinks and got sad….. me: “you were at the right place at the right time.” mr. skull: “you were the WRONG guy at the RIGHT place.” …nice.
-holy shit! bottlerocket SLAYED! GREAT sound system, tight playing, fast songs, NO dumb breaks between songs, SUPER catchy. the cobra skulls made me stoked for halloween saturday night, now teenage bottlerocket made me even MORE jazzed.
-pink line to blue line transfer downtown. home. sleep.
—–
i CANNOT FUCKING WAIT for riot fest next year. i’ll definitely be buying the 3 day pass. too much fun.
-kisses,
-whiskey
p.s. wednesday night we missed the free secret show at the L&L tavern with b. kelly acoustic. here’s my attempt to make it up to moonshine
It’s been far too long since more than a few words and a cryptic picture or two were posted on this blog of blogs and after a lovely evening with an old friend I’m feeling a bit of inspiration to shock this thing back to life. And what would a post from Wine be without some verbose description about my current existential, ethical, and/or superfluous fixation at the moment?
Last time I believe I posted a succinct and rather romanticized version of what I do during the day, and without getting into too much detail, things have fallen back to reality. Now I want to preface the following stream of consciousness/rant by saying that I absolutely love what I do and am even putting over my doctoral dreams just a bit longer in order to have the kind of impact I still think is possible (well for now at least).
Lately I’ve had a difficult time answering, or even finding the motivation to answer, probably the most asked question I get during the day: “When can I get out of here?” I usually have to respond by saying, “It depends” and feed them some witty nonsense about it being up to them and having to work with me but honestly who are they to listen to a 23 year old (sometimes there’s an expletive or three thrown in there too) kid? How can I even begin to grasp their emotional struggle after having barely known them for 2 months when some of my residents have been in this place for as long as I’ve been alive? All of these questions pile up pretty easily during the day and the separation of my beliefs and the policies I have to enforce creates a pretty loud bit of cognitive dissonance. RA’s think it’s hard to enforce rules about drinking in the dorms but trying to convince someone that taking 800mg of a psychotropic drug is beneficial to their health is a whole other ball game kids. Typically, it’s quite difficult to find a resident who wants to enact a real change in their life given that most of the residents have seen a few more winters than most. So, to some, the idea of change in their life is pretty laughable and resign themselves to playing along with the game. Others have been in the system for so long that they simply just want to leave as soon as possible and tell me about it quite loudly while some have given into their delusions for so long they cannot seem to break free from their thoughts and are not receiving the kinds of resources needed to bring them back. I paint quite a dreary picture and it may seem like I’m being over-dramatic because, well, I do have a tendency of engaging in such behavior but trust me, I don’t need to embellish the truth. If you want to hear all of it then I’d be happy to discuss it over a cup of coffee.
Now given these circumstances, how does one inspire a resident to want to change and implement interventions that are effective, just, and can appease the hardened surveyors of the state board of health? If you know please tell me ASAP because if I had a clear answer to that question then my days would so much easier.
But hey, enough about work. We’re slowly piecing together our humble abode due to busy busy schedules and crazy jobs/school work. We have been making it a point though to try a new restaurant every Thursday night and I want to start posting reviews of these places so be on the lookout for good eats to be had around Chicago. Have to admit though it’s going to be hard to top Kuma’s Corner. Just check out the menu, it’s amazing, and honestly if you read this blog you’ve heard us rant about this place even before we ate there. I know Whiskey and Moonshine are incredibly busy with some shows all throughout the month of October, because apparently the punk kids love traveling in the fall. Whiskey will probably make a post with a really long title based on lyrics of the band they’re going to see that night accompanied by a vague picture or cover art meant to convey all of the excitement and joy he and Moonshine have bubbling up inside.
Basically what I’m trying to convey is that I’m resuscitating this blog and having it live up to all the potential we thought it could have (almost) a year ago. Now folks, Uncle Wine needs his sleep because the residents aren’t ever going to take it easy on me. ‘Til next time.’
“Blew twelve and kissed the thirteenth finger.
Rabbit, rabbit, on the first,
I hold my breath.
Did tricks I hoped you wouldn’t notice,
A superstitious hyperrealist,
I’ll make you mine.”
