eternal sunshine of the drunken mind.

Chasing a story

I woke up staring at the ceiling. Greg was asleep beside me. I couldn't remember arriving at his apartment, but that was pretty normal. Steve always let us drink more than we needed and stay later than we should. My mind was prone to moments of blackout drunkenness just around bar close, coming back into consciousness sometime after landing at home.

Then I realized that I didn't remember the night at all. Nothing of what we had done once we started to get drunk, nothing after something like one a.m. That was unusual.

I reached a hand below the blankets. I was fully dressed, still in the jeans and shirt and belt and bra that I had worn the night before. He was snoring beside me. I had no headache. My head was clear, save for the sudden confusion of the hours lost. I couldn't remember getting very drunk. Where had the night gone?

I slid out of bed and tiptoed into the hallway. The house was silent; we were the only ones there, as we had been among the only ones left in the city on this Wednesday before the holiday weekend.

Just outside of the door to the bathroom was a full glass of water sitting on the floor. In the bathroom, I sidestepped a small patch of puke on the floor, then avoided the bit on the back of the toilet seat. My scarf lay on the floor a few inches away. I checked my face in the mirror. I looked good, just a bit of dark makeup gathered below my eyes, but that was normal with the layers of mascara and eyeliner it took to give my eyes the character they deserved.

I searched the bathroom and the kitchen for some sort of cleaner and towels, and finally settled for the roll of paper towels from the kitchen counter and the Windex from below the sink. I scrubbed the puke from the toilet and the floor. I noticed whole french fries and black olives caked into the drying bile. My lunch; I guess that makes this mine. I didn't usually puke, but it made sense along with the blackout. Why had my lunch not digested? I had had two meals and some unknown number of beers and whiskeys since lunch; why would I vomit whole pieces of that food?

I dumped the glass of water and refilled it. When I went back into the bedroom, Greg was drunkenly awake and looking at me.

“I don't remember anything that happened after one a.m.” I told him.

He flashed me a dopey smile. “No? Oh, this will be good...I can't wait to tell you the story...” but he turned his head and fell back to sleep without another word.

I traced my steps backward through the house-- from the bedroom, down the hallway, through the kitchen, into the living room, to the front door-- and gathered my things along the way, trying to piece together the night to no avail. My computer lay safe on the kitchen table where I had left it before leaving, untouched. My purse was tossed to the couch in the living room, contents spilling out, but all intact nonetheless. My pen was tucked into my journal, and the last line written was the last one I remembered writing:

Made it to the Argus, finally getting drunk.

But I was still what I would call sober when I wrote that, and there wasn't a trace of my usual drunken scribbling to follow. My coat was discarded just inside the front door, with my camera inside the pocket, no filth or damage on the coat and no pictures on the camera. Not a bit of the story to be found.

I was confused. I felt absolutely fine, and I had no memories of wicked drunkenness or any sort of debauchery. As far as my mind was concerned, I had had a quiet night of drinking a few whiskeys and woken up healthy and safe. This was not going to be good for my mind's drinking habit.

I checked the clock. Eleven a.m. Shit! I had to work in half an hour. Eight hours. I felt that I should be dreading this; I should be hungover. But I wasn't; I was ready to work, ready to move. I was only regretting that I wouldn't know this story for another eight hours.

I showered and changed. I had started to keep a change of underwear, a brush, and mascara in my purse in case I didn't go home at night. I pulled a t-shirt out of his closet; some band I hadn't heard of, a black shirt with skulls on the front. My coworkers would know that this one wasn't mine, and I liked that. I pulled my cardigan over the t-shirt, piled my things into my purse, retrieved my jacket and scarf from the floor, and trotted to the nearest corner to catch a bus downtown.

This had been our first unusual move last night. We rode a bus downtown, rather than drive. We immediately relinquished all responsibilities for our drinking selves onto the city we were entering. It was four in the afternoon, and we had exhausted our motivation for work with hours of story edits and website updates in the living room of the boys' empty apartment. Christmas was around the corner, and we faced a weekend of family and sobriety. Comedy was canceled for the night, and everyone we liked had already left town. We had a full bottle of American Honey Wild Turkey Whiskey-- bourbon with the spirit of Hunter and the wisdom of the new generation.

We closed our computers, cracked the bottle open, and started to move. I gathered my tools for the field while he filled two flasks with the whiskey. We each poured a glass on the rocks to down while we pulled on our coats. I tucked the flask into my boot and raised my glass as he made his way toward the door.

A toast. He raised his glass to meet mine from across the room. “Let's go find a story!”

We took a bus into the center of the city that was completely deserted for the holiday and wandered around looking for the story of the night. Nothing was happening; every bar, restaurant, and coffee shop was closed early, and every interesting person had already left town for their obligatory annual moments with distant family. And it was cold. After an hour of wandering, we were headed down State Street to see what was on the other end. I finally admitted to myself that there would be nothing down there but an expanse of empty campus, and I stopped and turned back east and said, “Do you want to just go get drunk somewhere?”

About halfway through my shift, Greg was waking up; I started to get texts. Pieces of the story, along with his complaints of a hangover that lasted until six p.m.

Do you remember falling asleep at the bar? Nope. That seems awfully unprofessional of us. But we had been awake since nine a.m. and drinking since four in the afternoon. So, it wasn't surprising that we passed out around close. My latest memories were of sitting very quiet and observing the bar around me, becoming drunk and too sleepy to entertain any of the conversations directed my way. We had accepted two shots from friends passing through and ordered one round of our own to share with Steve.

I can't believe I got so drunk after three shots! I sent to him.

We drank seven rounds in an hour, he replied.

I didn't remember those last four. But I did remember greeting Jim and Courtney just before my memory cut off, and Joe pointing to us from across the bar and summoning Steve his way. And Johnson and his girl walking through the door. And Steve with that Whiskey look in his eye. Drinking on the Square with Greg is a dangerous game; they all know him and love him too much.

“We've come home,” Greg uttered as we settled onto our barstools at the Argus.

We had wandered the city trying to do something else, trying to avoid the same old business of Wednesday nights for this crew, since the holiday had forced us out of our routines of work and class and pizza and comedy and drinking. We made the trek around the Square, played in the snow, and searched the city for a story where there was none to be found. We fought the magnetic pull from the Argus for hours as we tried to decide what to do with our night off. There was nothing on the Square, nothing on State Street, nothing at the Comedy Club, nothing on campus. This was turning out to be the worst goddamn botched assignment ever. We sipped from flasks of American Honey whiskey to keep sharp.

We wandered into the 'Dise, like all of the other barflies with no families that night. We were drinking PBRs, and the service was slow and uninterested, and we were bored. We weren't even being served fast enough to get drunk. Boredom in winter in Wisconsin is what will make you fat. There is not a thing to do but to eat food and continue to sit and drink.

After work, I made my way to the Square to meet Steve and Greg. I needed to get the rest of the story, and they seemed to be the ones guarding the details. I walked through the Argus doors just as they were calling last call. I ordered a PBR and three shots of Jameson and settled into my stool. Steve walked into the bar from the kitchen, caught my eye, tossed his head back, and laughed out loud.

“God dammit, Steve!” I passed him a shot. “What the hell happened last night?”

“Oh, don't worry,” he replied. “You didn't do anything too terribly embarrassing, except puking on the corner of the bar.”

I raised an eyebrow and glanced to Greg. He nodded in confirmation and added, “I puked, too. But I made it into the garbage.” He pointed to the trash can beside the bar.

Steve laughed again. “Yeah, you were both puking mushrooms. It was totally gross.”

So, I hadn't been the only one vomiting undigested food. It must have just been that kind of a day. The superfluous order of deep-fried mushrooms we ended up sharing at the 'Dise had been purely to entertain ourselves, in that it's-winter-in-Wisconsin-so-what-do-we-do-but-eat-fatty-food-and-drink-beer kind of way. They must have just barely settled into our stomachs, layered and undigested atop the copious amounts of food we had already eaten that day, stirred up by American Honey, Jamo, and PBR. “Gross” was right.

Greg closed the door behind his final customer, and we drank the round of shots.

Steve slammed his shot glass to the bar. “You Gonzo motherfuckers!” he exclaimed. “She's puking on the bar, you're puking in the trash...You're fucking perfect for each other.”

I caught Greg's eye as he turned to start cleaning. He grinned and said to Steve, “Say what you want. Tell whoever you want.” He gestured in a circle over his head and mine. “This shit is Gonzo.”

dreams of californication.

How I became an Asshole.

The Doctor had run off for the summer, smoking, drinking, and fucking the things that would come his way; I never asked exactly what they were. He was inspired by Miller and Thompson and Lennon and Hicks; he was living his Quiet Days. When he was in a mood like this, all I could do was let him run and stay out of the way.

My husband was an asshole. Not the kind of asshole who will fuck your sister and buy you diamonds to quiet his guilt, but the kind of Hank Moody asshole whom you can't help but fall in love with but wonder at every scene How can anyone live with this guy? The kind of guy who will wind up in a threesome with his agent and some woman he neglected to call back once, in order to enjoy the freak show and do his buddy the favor of getting him laid. His love keeps going back to him despite these indiscretions, and we root for the couple throughout the series; yet we hope, deep down, that they will never resolve their differences for good-- because then the story will end.

He was always prompting me to go out and do this on my own, go make something happen, cross the Gonzo line and understand what it's like on his side. But I never really knew how to do this. In the end, I always preferred la soledad, I guess, preferred to sketch the scene rather than make it. I'm a writer, for Christ's sake; this isn't a group activity.

But I found myself alone on a holiday weekend and feeling I needed to try it, at least. Get the fuck out of the house; if I was to find a story, it was going to be out there. So I started wandering. I spent hours in the city's parks, ate crepes and drank coffee, smoked a bowl on a pier watching fireworks over the lake, and sampled a few Bloody Marys downtown on Sunday afternoon. Writing the whole time, observing the stories of Independence Day in Madison.  I was there to experience something and record it, and it made me want more out of the days to follow than my empty apartment and the safety of work and school and peace and quiet.

Make something happen. The words began to ring in my ears at every moment. If I found myself sitting still in the afternoon or ready to go to bed before midnight, these words would creep into my mind, kick me in the ass, shove me outside to do something in the world.

The next Tuesday night I joined my new coworkers for drinks, and we ended up skinny-dipping. Tuesday nights don't always end this way, but they do usually start with dollar rail drinks, so it was no surprise. It was a gorgeous July night, long after dark-- slightly after bar-close, actually-- when Julia suggested we go swimming at the beach near her house. The three of them were about to hop into the water in their underwear when I explained to them what a terrible idea this would be, with thought to my excursions up North.

“You're going to end up wearing wet underwear under your clothes for the rest of the night. I know I'm new here, but if I contribute anything to this crew, let it be this wisdom. Just go naked.”

So, I made that happen; I crossed the line and I took them with me. It was a good start, and it made me feel fabulous. I quickly found good Monday and Wednesday events to sandwich in Tuesday's dollar rails, tried out a few Long Islands after work on Thursdays, and returned to my old office, der Rathskellar, to sketch the scene on Fridays. Saturdays I just wander; Saturdays can be wild or lonely or productive or inspiring or forgotten in the haze of Jameson and weed and Perkins' strawberry waffles.

I grew tired of staying at home.  I was going to class all day and work all evening, and when I left work I didn't want to go home. There is nothing there but some weird neighbors, an empty pantry, and a cold bed. I was practically living the life of a bachelor, and a bachelor pad is the last place you want to be alone if you are awake after two a.m.

On this side of the line, my philosophy is different; my life is different. I drink enough coffee that going to bed is rarely an option, and I drink enough alcohol that staying out always seems like a good idea. I avoid most reasons for ending the night; if something other than going to bed is offered, it usually wins, even if it is sitting up at the library and hammering out a paragraph of a story before I simply can't see anymore through exhaustion or drunkenness or that heavy combination of the two that occurs around six a.m.

I had begun to savor excess. That is what will make you an asshole. Someone will want to reign you in, and you will fuck them over. The Doctor sits in Northern Wisconsin somewhere thinking My wife has run off to smoke, drink, and fuck the things that come her way. And I am saying Don't ask what they are; just let me run, and stay out of the way. His Quiet Days in Madison turned out to be his final blowout at precisely the time that the weekend pushed me over the Gonzo line into chaos. Exactly the sort of asshole I am is the kind of person who will turn from la soledad to la vida loca on a dime without thought to those in tow. I am the sort of asshole who feels justified in this, who continues to plow forward unapologetically, inconsistently, a different sort of asshole each day.

I would call him in between bars to keep in touch That's a bad idea. “Just leaving the Argus, headed to the Cardinal for some music, then I think I'll swing by the 'Dise for one last PBR. I'll give you a call when I leave there.”

But then some guy sat next to me and talked about his novel all night, and when he offered to let me try out his Volcano as we left the bar, the Editor smelled inspiration and couldn't possibly say no. And now I have a new Gonzo novel to edit. And I got to know the bartender, so when he pours me a beer as he locks the doors at two a.m., I think about the cold and empty bachelor pad that awaits me across town if I leave now in time to catch the last bus, and I take the beer and another two, join him for breakfast, and walk home at eight a.m.

Upon leaving the comedy club one Wednesday, I was invited to join a friend for a few more drinks at the Dollar. It was eleven o'clock and Wednesday and everyone around was starting to go to bed, so I figured it was the duty of the Editor to carry on. Eleven would be an embarrassing time to check in. And after a few shots of Jamo and few more PBRs, the bartender was calling last call, and everyone around was ready to go to bed, so I figured it was the duty of the Editor carry on further. When my friend suggested we crash our sleeping buddy's house, it sounded like a great idea, as do most terrible ideas after two a.m.

So, we stumbled that way and tossed pebbles at Craig's bedroom window until he stepped into the cool early-morning air in boxers and slippers to join us for a cigarette. Certainly there was no wholesome reason for me to be up until four a.m. attempting to watch Kill Bill and call a cab and melt into Craig's couch flanked by two single men while the Doctor slept alone two hours north, and the wicked hangover that kept me home all day Thursday reminded me of this. But, that happened, and I live to write the story, and I am just the sort of asshole who calls that a success.

Once you start to savor excess, anything less feels like a failure, as you know you are missing out on something. Even when nothing is apparently going on, I know that I will make more happen if I stay awake and away from home than if I just cash in for the night. Moderation is never the most attractive idea, and it definitely never makes a good story. The stories are found at the fringes. The stories happen at the extremes, where moderation is shoved aside; where the line is always crossed, moved further ahead, and crossed again. The stories are in the chaos, so I have thrown myself into the chaos. I skirted the edges for a long time, flirted with moderation, and feared chaos and excess until I tumbled head first into the thick of it and found the beauty there.

“This is a real house.  It's old and broken and battered, 'cause shit happens here.  Real shit.”

Hank Moody

It will inevitably lead to loneliness, as no one can really live with an asshole for long. Crossing this line into chaos draws borders around the asshole in the middle, throws up boundaries that keep anyone from getting too close too easily. I lost the husband who was hurt by the chaos, I cut off the family who couldn't understand it, and I am out of touch with the friends who can't run with it. There is nothing to the life of the Hank Moody asshole but to sift through the chaos for a bit of magic; nothing can beat the high of landing a good story.

The good ones aren't written about people who make safe choices. They are made about the people who make magic up until the moment that they die face down in a puddle of their own vomit at the age of twenty-eight. No one fully sympathizes with the others in the story who are dealing with the bullshit, because they are so intoxicated by the magnificence of the main character. The main character is an asshole; there is no denying that. This asshole will take everything from you as she digs for a story, rip your heart out and hand it back to you as a work of art, and even you can't help but marvel at the fucking beauty of it.

Country USA (or CUSA, as the kids are calling it these days)

My weekend was Country USA Friday night followed by family pictures in the country town of Redgranite on Saturday morning. In order to deal with both, my goal was to become rowdy enough to get arrested at Country USA and miss family pictures for being in jail overnight.

A country music festival in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, is close to the last place I ever want to find myself on a Friday night. Redgranite, Wisconsin, however, is the last. So I chose the less offensive of the two and hitched a ride in my friend's suburban to CUSA. I put on a sundress and moccasins, hoping I wouldn't be mistaken for an actual country music fan.

It was my sister, the quintessential small-town girl-- Lutheran, an elementary school teacher, with a good Christian boy on her arm and a head start on her 401(k)-- who had begged me to join her. She went with a group of friends from high school to Country USA every year, and she loved to play the part-- lacy cowgirl hat, short jean skirt, and faux snakeskin boots. She lured me there this year with the promise of free admission and cheap beer. The opportunity to encourage my sister to break the law by sneaking me in without paying was too good to pass up.

We met her in an empty parking lot a few miles from the festival grounds, where she pulled out a ziplock bag filled with CUSA wristbands of all colors from the past seven years. Of course, they rotated colors with each year, but they chose from a small spectrum, apparently. She dug in to find bands that matched this year's color for my driver and me, sliced the sides, and slipped them onto our wrists. She super-glued them back together, so they looked as if they were snapped on as they should be. She accidentally glued my driver's wristband to his skin, but he's a tough construction worker from central Wisconsin, so he didn't even wince when she tore it away without warning.

I left my laptop and my journal in the car-- no sense in risking everything I've written at the hands of rowdy hicks. I tossed a hat and a sweater in my bag, packed a bowl, and tucked the pipe in the side pocket. Surely taking weed into a hick party was a good way to be arrested quickly. Hicks hate hippies.

We left the Suburban in the empty lot-- we'd have to pay for parking if we took it in-- and packed into my sister's tiny Saturn, a comical position for my driver, who was almost six and a half feet tall. We drove in to the campsite without a hitch, although my sister freaked out when the “guard” at the gates requested to see the snapped sides of our wristbands.

“What if they noticed the glue?” she asked later. “Then they wouldn't have let us in,” I answered. “Shit.” They hadn't even checked our bags, or the trunk. These hicks were probably all armed with shotguns, maybe compound bows; and they were never going to find my pot with such lax security.

We drove along the dirt road toward my sister's campsite, a slow drive with the hordes of drunks that occasionally swayed out in front of the car to mosey along aimlessly from campsite to campsite. I caught glimpses of Confederate flags, pickup trucks, and camouflage as we passed the other sites. I was in deep now.

We finally pulled in alongside her RV, and greeted the dudes lounging in lawn chairs next to it. Each was at least three-hundred pounds; one had a 36-ounce Country USA 2010 plastic travel mug full of Busch Light, and the other had a cowboy hat tilted to cover his eyes as he tried to nap in the chair.

“I have NEVER drank at 8 a.m. before,” he said to my sister. “And now I'm feeling it. I've got to be done for the night.” It was six o'clock in the evening.

“You just have to keep drinking to avoid the hangover,” I said to him. “You don't feel it until you stop.” I headed straight for the RV from the car, to the liquor cabinet, and pulled out a bottle of Captain Morgan. This place reminded me of high school.

I poured drinks for myself, my driver, and the hungover fat guy. “Are ya sure you don't want a little more rum in there?” my driver asked, pointing at my cup.

“Right now, I really need the caffeine from the Coke,” I answered, but took a small pull from the bottle to satisfy him before I set it down.

My sister ducked into the RV for the hors d'voures she had prepared for the weekend, and came out with an empty Tupperware dish in hand. The fat guys had eaten it all. “That was the second batch I made this week!” she scolded them.

“It's alright,” I said. “The coolers are still full of beer; we've got plenty of sustenance.”

My driver nodded as he sipped his Captain and Coke. “While you're over there, grab me one o' them Busch Lights, will ya?”

My sister obliged and took a Miller Light for herself, and we settled into our lawn chairs to down these first drinks. Soon the rest of the crew came wandering back from swimming in a nearby lake, a few girls my sister had gone to high school with and some guys I vaguely recognized as graduating a few years behind me. I carried my half-empty drink to the table and topped it off with Captain. Drunk and giddy high school acquaintances could not be tolerated on one weak drink and some caffeine.

The girls put on cut-off jeans over their wet suits and patted their hair dry with towels from the RV, while the guys started to stack cups on the table for a game of beer pong.

Two nineteen-year old girls I didn't recognize at all stepped behind the RV in their bathing suits and ran bottled water through their hair to wash out the muck of the lake.

“Let us know if you need any help over there, girls!” my driver shouted to them. He was at least twenty years older than the rest of us, but his wife was a nagging bitch who had stopped speaking to him two weeks before when he was at the bars until 2 am without calling her after work. She had been sleeping on the couch and had left town for the weekend to stay at her sister's place farther north. He was a decent guy who would likely never touch these girls, but he was ready to drink some cheap beer and enjoy whatever show was going to be put on for him tonight.

The girls giggled in that virginal, nineteen-year-old tone that says I'm not gonna say no, but I shouldn't say yes.

Someone turned on a portable radio and tuned it to the local country music station. Between cheap and shallow songs was live coverage of the festival we were at, radio DJs encouraging everyone listening to “come on out” to the Copenhagen tent, etc. Between this hawking, they played commercials. Once everyone was gathered near the beer pong table, I walked over and tuned the radio until I heard Pink Floyd. I sat back down. No one seemed to notice. One of the nineteen-year-old girls was calling for a partner, and she grabbed my driver's hand and dragged him to the table.

I was ready to wander. I could see a game of beer pong any day of the week in Madison; I wanted to go find some freaks. I knew they were out there. I stole my sister's giant plastic novelty mug and filled it with three cans of beer. I screwed on the top and tried a sip through the thick plastic straw. This was going to be a classy night. I told my sister I was leaving to wander and to let my driver know. He was busy in his third game of the beer-pong tournament, easily crushing these kids with years of drinking under his belt and not a bit of help from the drunken giggling girl at his side. My sister glanced over at him and rolled her eyes.

“How are you guys getting home?”

I shrugged and waved a hand at her. “Looks like he's winning, so we should be alright.” I smiled and patted her on the shoulder as she shook her head and raised a skeptical eyebrow.

As I left the campsite, James, my sister's boyfriend, called to me “Where you headed?”

“Out to wander! I want to find some freaks to write about!”

He glanced to the beer pong tournament, then to the sleeping fat guys, and back to me. He scrambled out of his chair and followed me as I hit the dirt road. A simple country boy, but he was quite a few degrees above most of them in intelligence. And he was a former Marine, once a personal guard to George W Bush; he would be good to have around if any of the hicks got out of hand.

I started to count the Confederate flags as we walked. Four in the first six campsites we passed. Also, fourteen American flags, three American-flag T-shirts, and one American-flag bandana.

As we rounded the corner to the next dirt path lined with campsites, I heard “Incoming!” and turned to see a jello shot in a plastic cup flying my way. I caught it and looked farther back, to the guy sitting on the tailgate of his truck who had tossed it to me.

“Jello shots!” he shouted, and tossed one to James.

“Thanks!” I shouted back, removed the lid of the cup, slid my pinky around the edge, toasted James, and sucked the jello out. It was a huge shot, about 4 ounces, so I was prepared for it to hit me pretty hard. But it just tasted like blue jello. For those people who want to drink but don't like to taste their liquor-- for the girls. It was a lot of blue jello to consume without the burn of cheap vodka to cut through the sweetness, and it made no dent toward my drunkenness. I was never going to get arrested this sober.

Down this path, I counted twelve more Confederate flags and thirteen American flags, and walked past an old man sporting a yellow thong and an American-flag bandana. I shivered and held in my chuckle until we had passed him. Curly gray chest hair, scraggly beard, and burnt-out drunken eyes. This was the kind of man who gives drugs a bad rap, the kind of man Squares picture when they hear the word “hippie”: old, worn, burnt-out from decades of uneducated experimentation. The kind of drug user that existed before the internet.

I was surprised when I saw hot tubs-- multiple people had brought hot tubs and set them into makeshift decks at their campsites, and the bot tubs were now filled with groups of middle-aged country folks. Smart people, drinking and relaxing and keeping away from the chaos and filth all around them.

People who believe in Hell are the freakiest kind of sinners. The fear of God forces them to repress all desires throughout most of the year, only to break free and let them fly out in chaotic bursts of lewd drunkenness on special events like this, where it is “allowed”. They could walk around in thongs and bathing suits, drink shots from strangers, and hit on passersby-- all the things they would never be allowed to do come Monday. All of these, in their minds, were grouped with sexual harassment, racist insults, and drunken violence; so, unfortunately, these came out in the chaotic burst as well, making these parties a slimy stew of dark desires and despicable sin.

“Show us your boobs for a beer!” came another shout as we ambled down the path. It was a general call to all passersby; a group of younger girls in bathing suits walking the opposite direction giggled and waved at the campsite as they passed by. I checked my mug; it was getting light, so I decided to investigate the offer.

Six guys of various ages were gathered around a wooden sign hand-painted with the words “Boob-o-meter”. Below the title were pairs of circles cut out of the wood, gradually growing in size along the plank. I approached, and one of the younger guys grinned at me.

“The bigger the boobs, the bigger the beer, sweetheart. Wanna show us what you got?”

I smiled back at him, then glanced back to where I'd left James. He had turned away and started to chat with a random camper down the path.  Nice, decent Christian boy, sister.

“What's the deal?” I asked.

Another of the guys set three plastic cups on the top of the Boob-o-meter plank, three sizes, growing larger along with the cut-out circles below. The bigger the boobs, the bigger the beer. I looked down at my own chest; I didn't even need a bra with this sundress. This would probably not refill my mug. I laughed and approached the larger end of the sign as another guy poured beer into the cups.

“What do you think?” I said, stepping side to side along the holes.

The guys shrugged and grinned. I don't think too many women were actually taking advantage of their deal, so they were pretty intrigued. I paused in front of the largest beer and raised an eyebrow at the old guy standing behind it.

I glanced back again and saw a golf cart coming down the path, carrying four festival guards and a city cop. I pointed them out to the guys.

“Damn,” I said. “I probably shouldn't do this in front of the cops!” I giggled with the most modesty I could fake to convince them of my innocence. “I'll have to catch you on my way back through.” I smiled and shrugged at their protests and drunken reassurances.

I was interested in getting arrested that night, but I definitely didn't want to show these bastards my tits. As I turned to leave and the guys turned back to their campsite, I grabbed the largest cup of beer from the sign and popped the lid of my mug. I filled the mug with the beer as I caught up with James down the path.

“That's a big beer,” he said skeptically, and we both laughed. “I'm a good negotiator,” I replied.

Around the next corner, a group had set up a full-service bar under a tent that spanned four campsites and were handing out free tequila shots. The sign posted next to their tent read “Tequila makes her clothes fall off”, which, I later learned, is the title of a Joe Nichols song. This country music artist also sings a song called “If Nobody Believed in You”, which includes the line “What if God quit tryin'?” Classy, freaky sinners. James and I drank free tequila shots, and I was asked but not required to make my clothes fall off, and we kept walking.

The sun was just starting to go down, and the music was going to start soon, so we started to make our way back to my sister's campsite. The beer-pong tournament was finished; my sister was wiping the splashed beer from the table, and most of the crew around had dispersed to other campsites or toward the main stage. The nineteen-year-old chick was passed out in her bathing suit in the RV. My driver was drunk now and singing along with the country music on the radio.

“Gettin' ready for Toby Keith!” he said, pointing a stern finger at me as I approached.

I fucking hate Toby Keith, who was headlining that night; but the driver and I hadn't partied together in months, and he was having a good time, so I was willing to put up with the soulless, corporate-cock-sucking singer for one night. I had weed, and tequila always mollified me.

The four of us headed toward the main festival gate with a can of beer each. We'd have to finish them before reaching the gate or they would be dumped out, my sister warned us. I grabbed an extra to tuck under my dress as we went in. If they saw me with it , maybe they would at least kick me out before the show started. My driver finished his beer as we passed another golf cart of cops, and he leaned over to say hello to one of them, patted him on the back and asked how his night was going. As we walked away, I asked how he knew the guy.

“I don't,” he answered. “I just wanted to toss my empty can in the back of their rig.”

As we entered the festival grounds, he actually did know one of the gatekeepers who was snapping on our second set of wristbands, ever the small-town man. As they caught up on the twenty years since high school, my sister and I were able to walk in with our half-full cans of beer unmolested. I didn't even bother hiding the second one, and no one stopped us. I resigned myself to watching Toby Keith play.

The roped-off area for the audience around the main stage was already full by the time we arrived, and the crowd had spilled out to the sides. Festival guards were patrolling the area, pushing the crowd to condense toward the ropes to keep us from spilling out and overwhelming the festival grounds. Why it was important to keep the crowd that was here for the show from blocking the cotton candy tent, I'm not sure, but we stepped to the side and crammed in next to the ropes with the rest of the latecomers.

I'll admit that, as the string of opening musicians played through the first hour and a half, I threw an arm around my sister and side-stepped, line-danced and maybe even do-se-do'ed a step or two, toasting my driver with my giant travel mug of beer. And I thought I was prepared to keep dancing even for Toby Keith, feeling drunk and high enough to swallow my rage. But while the rest of the crowd cheered as he came on stage in a Ford pick-up truck in front of a giant American flag singing the words “We'll put a boot in your ass; it's the Amuurican way!”, tears welled in my eyes and I stopped dancing. Jesus Christ! Fucking freaky fucked-up sinners.

At midnight, a torrential downpour struck the state of Wisconsin, and we were all instantly soaked. Summer rain, though, you can survive, especially with enough alcohol to numb your senses; so we stayed until the end of the show. Toby Keith had fireworks shooting up from the stage behind him, and the sky was streaked with lightening above us, and the crowd went wild as thunder clapped and added unplanned intensity to the stage show. The jumbo screens were streaked with the rain, and water flew from the hair of dancers crammed in next to me, and pooled into mud at our feet.

My sister stayed sober somehow and insisted on driving us home, dashing my last hope of getting arrested that night. As we pulled out of the campground in her Saturn, my driver rolled his window down and stuck his head out in the rain, letting the downpour splash in at me in the seat behind him. As we drove past the other soaked concert-goers heading to their campsites, he wiggled his fingers in the air, dancing as best he could in the tiny car, and sang.

"Hey!” he pointed back at me in the rear-view mirror. “Thanks for coming out tonight.  Even though your mother is gonna be pissed to see you hungover in her pictures tomorrow.”


"No worries,"  I replied, watching the hordes of soaked drunks in bikinis and cowboy boots stumble across our path.  "Hey, I could've been in Redgranite tonight."

i am an artist because...

Because in five years I will read this, and I will love my life.  Because I will know how I got there.  And I will regret nothing, because life will be great.  We will build off of all of this beauty, never settling for less, never regressing to some place of average everyday nonsense where we reminisce the days of old and lament what we no longer have.

We will have this (or more) forever, and I will not look back someday and regret not keeping that promise.  I will keep that promise, keep trekking along through the artists' life.

This life is awesome, and we make it fucking awesome.  We will remember these moments through our art.

I am an artist because someone needs to capture the magic, and when I re-read what I write I can feel the magic and music and the love and the people all around me.  Because I wrote these words in a room of musicians and artists; and when I read this in five years, I will still feel the music they made-- the organic crescendo into awesomeness that happened as the air of the room became filled with our passion and each artist breathed it in and survived on it for an hour as we each spat out our own art into the night-- and because I hope you will feel the magic someday, as well, as you read these things, without ever having been there.

squares and rockstars.

"We're not EXACTLY rockstars," the Taxman said as we headed to the hot tub early Sunday morning.  Someone had said "It's great to be rockstars," partying all night, and the neighbor's hot tub open to us at all hours.  This assertion by the Taxman sums up my evening with the Squares.

Well, there was sex, drugs, and rock and roll that night, for sure.  There was dirty dancing and hookups in dark corners; wine, beer, jello shots, and weed; two live bands playing great music we could dance to.  Partying followed by great food with friends followed by naked hot tub.

In a way, I guess, one could call it a good night:  no one went home mad, no one cried, no one had any sex they don't remember, there was no mess left anywhere, and nothing was broken or lost.  I imagine this is how the Squares see it.  "We partied an appropriate amount."  The Taxman's calculation.

We had one bottle of wine between four women.  One refrigerator of bottled beer for seventy-five people that ran out after we each had three.  Maybe four people smoking weed and only one guy with a pipe.  Not a single person smoking cigarettes.  No one drinking jello shots but the groupies because they tasted too much like vodka.  The lights were on in the house all night.  The house was ninety degrees, and the only two people I knew there (and the only ones not busy grinding with someone they wanted to hook up with) kept stepping outside for relief from the heat.  Even during the best songs!

The room was full of private-school music majors who had nothing in mind but who they would fuck that night, where, and when.  They weren't used to "outsiders" playing at their house parties, and they gave little energy to the band.  The music they talked about amongst themselves was their upcoming end-of-year recitals.  This crowd reminded me of a pianist chick who, when asked to step in for the keyboard part during my friends' band practice one time, responded, "I'm classically trained, and I don't want to damage my form." Musicians; but students, not rockstars.

Mistakes were made.  I didn't order any drinks at dinner before the show.  No one warned us, the "outsiders", that when these kids party they pre-game to shit-faced ahead of time, so the house doesn't supply a keg.  Just a few beers to keep everyone going until the hook-up hour.  The girls and I went with the practical choice of buying only one bottle of wine, assuming only we would drink it and beer would be abundant; we didn't prepare for the possibility of sharing or having no beer.  We stopped drinking early on so we could all drive home, but didn't resume the drinking once we were home, and we ate a bunch of food.  We spent a lot of time eating and chatting as the sun started to come up, and by the time we made it to the hot tub it was practically daylight, and we were all practically sober.

We were only in the hot tub for forty-five minutes, not enough time for it to warm up completely, so it was lukewarm the whole time.  The band members brought their girlfriends along, so no sexiness in the hot tub at all.  Though, when the Taxman had uncharacteristically called for naked hot tub and a late night, sexiness is certainly what he had been hoping for.

"I've never been to the hot tub with the Editor and not the Doctor before.  This should be interesting."

Well, Taxman, you have nothing but fantasies.  Any hope for achieving those you dashed yourself in your own mind before we could even get started:  "We're not EXACTLY rockstars."  You need to expect your dreams to come true and make something happen.  It was not interesting, not like you imagined.  It was far too real; lukewarm water and pale white bodies we could see with sober eyes in the morning sun.

Rockstars are meant to be seen in dim light through a smoky haze.  Never after dawn, and never sober.  They have groupies on their laps at 3am, not girlfriends-- unless their girlfriends have groupies, too.  Rockstars don't take a break for fresh air during the good songs.  Rockstars have the ability to see their dreams as possibilities and make them reality.  Squares can drink all night, dance to rock and roll, make great music, stay up until 5am, and get naked in their neighbor's hot tub.  Without the anger and the crying and the hazy sex and the mess and the broken shit and the extra booze-- without the passion-- they're just... Not exactly rockstars.

frenchie freedom weekend. part two: the life.

(Read Part One)


So, this is our weekend, the story of me and the Doctor, Frenchie, The Lately, Freedom, Wisconsin, and how we wound up sharing this artists' life non-stop for the last eight weeks.


I have to sometimes launch straight into a list of the shit that existed on a weekend like this, just so that I can remember to include it all.  It is less than eloquent for the Editor to post a bit of writing direct from her stream of conscious, but this is the only way I can truly share the events of this weekend.

Sam, the Doctor, and I met up with a friend who fell for Frenchie like the rest of us simply through our stories.  The four of us met Frenchie at the bus in Madison at 2pm on Friday; we all skipped class or work to get the weekend started.  We packed into our car and drove the two hours to Freedom, where we met up with the entourage of artists bred in the neighborhood where Sam and the Doctor grew up.  In the house at one time were this initial crew of me, the Doctor, Sam, and the French girl; the sage and original rockstar who sired Sam and his family of musicians, the chick who had sex with the Doctor and me and stole Sam's songs, her boyfriend, the Taxman, and a badass sax player we grew up with.

After greetings and dropping off our bags at Sam's, we headed across the court, where the rest of our family was frying fish, because it was Friday in Wisconsin.  The entourage hung out here for a bit to get drunk, then made its way en masse to the Colonial House for an after-hours jam session.  Jamming at the Colonial House with a host of other characters, all of whom I don't know, maybe fifteen of us in all, some of us just there to listen.  Valentine sang some French things along with the sax player's improv lyrics to the tune of "Sweet Home Alabama".  Alabama, France.  Sam serenaded us all and made us long to never leave this old basement and this hodge-podge of musicians.

Saturday morning.  The crew at Sam's house headed to Appleton to start recording.  The Doctor and I stayed in most of the day to argue over some spousal bullshit, but resolved to cut it out at about four o'clock and headed to the studio, where our forced smiles soon turned genuine as we shared Kerrigan Bros wine with the band and Frenchie.  Frenchie immediately changed into the Doctor's morph suit when we arrived and looked mysterious and ridiculous for the rest of the day.

Sam writes and sings the songs for The Lately, and the music we heard that day was awesome.  And the producer worked with a touch of genius and played badass mandolin for the album.

From the studio we headed to Freedom to watch the sage play a show.  A cover band at a small-town Wisconsin bar is always a fucking great night.  Frenchie turned to me and said, "I am probably the only French person here."  I laughed and said, "Yes, of course you are."  "That is soooo cool."  French-accent.  She got quite drunk as everyone bought her drinks with the hopes of getting to know her a little better, and she'd had no dinner.  She danced sexy and French in a black dress, put her arms around me for the slow songs, and kissed me on the lips with no warning.  So French.  The band introduced her to the crowd as "all the way from France", and she was glowing.  She got too drunk and headed to the bathroom, put her fingers in her throat, and puked.  Someone told me she was missing, and I headed to the bathroom to ensure she was alright.  She was puking and women were lining up to use the bathroom, so we headed outside, behind the building.  She handled herself well while drunk and puking, a touch of French class in the back alley of a Freedom bar.  A cop was called to the bar to break up a hick fight, and he saw her sitting there and said, "Looks like she's pretty sick" and went inside.  I led her away from the building then, and the Doctor soon got worried, found us, and took us back home, where we filmed her for an hour being wasted and singing "Shoestains".

Soon, the rest of the crew made it back home to meet us, and we all changed into our bathing suits and headed across the court to sit in Sam's neighbor's hot tub, by this time a Freedom party weekend tradition.  Traditionally, however, we go naked.  This weekend, we started in our suits, maybe because Frenchie was technically a 'stranger'?  The Doctor was the first to remove his shorts and the only one naked for a while.  Then Valentine started to tease me and remove the tie on my bikini.  Then she kissed me.  Wanted to show me what "French kiss" means.  It was wonderful; it's exactly what you imagine.  So, through flirting and teasing, we took off our suits, and the boys quickly followed.  We were in the hot tub until 6am, drinking wine, kissing, melting, and recovering from the previous18 hours of drinking.

Sunday was Daylight Savings, so we lost an hour somewhere (try to explain that to the French one, and you'll quickly realize how absurd it is).  Slept two hours and headed back to Appleton for a bit more recording.  The Doctor and I headed back to Madison around noon, stopping at a small-town Wisconsin diner for day-after brunch:  French toast, burgers, and cheesecurds.  French toast, along with a host of other so-named crap, is not French.

Sunday night, when Sam and Valentine came back to Madison, was chill times at our house.  We enjoyed Frenchie's company, even sober, ensuring the beginnings of a solid friendship.

Monday, the Doctor, Sam, Valentine, and I ate Indian food for lunch, wandered around the zoo to enjoy the beautiful day, and went shopping at the Dig n Save.  We continued the bender mildly that night with wine, American Honey Whiskey, and PBR.  Valentine had a new cute hat from the Dig n Save that I wore all night, and before she left our house she cried, "I'm not leaving that hat!", tackled me onto our bed, said "I'll trade it for a kiss", French-kissed me, and fled.

I had to work the next day, and she caught a bus back to Chicago.  We have talked to her via Facebook and Skype each day since; she's coming back to Madison next week to celebrate Sam's birthday.  She wants to live in the US, and our current plan is to find someone to marry her in a ceremony performed by the Doctor, so she can stay and work and gain citizenship after two years.  (Yeah, apparently that's really how it works.)

We don't know yet how this story will play out, but Frenchie will be in America for another two months.  It's only been seven days.- 3/18/10

frenchie freedom weekend. part one: the artist.

Not too long ago I wrote the words "I don't claim the title 'writer'.  I am just a person who writes."  Then the world changed and I began to once again write for hours each day, and I reclaimed the title, reclaimed who I am.  This is the story of the beginning of the change...


I met a beautiful French woman this weekend.  And to demonstrate how wholly she has conquered the hearts and minds of me and everyone who saw her, as I wrote that first sentence, my thoughts slipped into French-accent.  Her voice, explained my husband, gets stuck in your head like a song.  We spent five days with her.  I don't fully have the time or the space, or the words, or the ink to explain everything that happened this weekend. However, I am not the only one who will attempt to do so.  Our reminiscence has invaded Facebook, as the ten or fifteen new friends that she made over the weekend grasp at any attempt to maintain her presence in their lives.  The Doctor has recorded the weekend in gonzo words.  There is video footage of Frenchie drunk (after puking in a Freedom bar and being whisked away to avoid cops who had suddenly showed up)-- drunk and singing the chorus and violin parts of "Shoestains" by The Lately.  In French-accent. Drunk, singing, and claiming, "Sitar family...I speak a damn good USA."  Of course, none of this makes much sense alone in this journal, but this is the age of the internet and digital media; and we'll all have a chance to share the story in our own ways.  So, Facebook, doctorofgonzo.com, "Shoestains" video; and also, Frenchie herself said she will definitely be writing about the weekend-- maybe in French?  And maybe between these things, the world will be able to glimpse a picture of the first encounter between the party of Freedom, Wisconsin, and Valentine Michel.

It's Thursday, and people all over Wisconsin are still glowing from the grandness of the weekend.

To be fair, we certainly would have blown minds, done beautiful things, and sown chaos and fun throughout the Fox Valley last weekend even if Valentine Michel had not been there.  It is for sex, drugs, and rock and roll that we make the two-hour drive to Freedom, Wisconsin from Madison.  The reason for this trip was that The Lately was recording an album in Appleton on Saturday and Sunday; the Doctor and I were going along so that we could party Friday night and the Doctor could report on the recording session over the weekend.  Two weeks before the recording weekend, we met the French girl at a party in Madison; she had some unlikely connection to Sam Farrell by that point, and the Doctor and I remembered her shortly after as the random French chick who constantly said "Oh my gooooddd!" and tried to drunkenly unbutton Sam's shirt as he was leaving.  For about a week and a half, we thought little else about her, until she was invited to join us for The Lately recording party weekend.  I don't know who invited her or just why she was invited, really.  But, logically, her answer was "Yes."  "Yes, I am a French girl who has been in America for six months, living in Chicago, and I met you people for about 20 minutes at a house party in Madison.  Two weeks later, you have invited me to get into your car, drive north into Wisconsin for two hours to some country town where you grew up, spend a weekend listening to you record music and sleeping in your parents' house.  And you would like me to play violin on your album, even though you just learned a moment ago that I play it, and I don't know your songs at ALL?  Hell yes!  This is a great plan."

And thus made our weekend.  As I was saying, sex, drugs, and rock and roll.  We were set to make the weekend rock anyway, but adding Frenchie made everyone see our world in a new light, through her eyes.  Through the eyes of a foreigner who was falling in love with us and with Freedom, Wisconsin.  Frenchie, and Springtime, and Kerrigan Bros wine with Simon's Cheese, and the local band at Leap Inn, and the homes of our families that are open to anyone and everyone...You have made this a fucking fantastic weekend.

A Freedom, Wisconsin, weekend always holds a special place in my heart.  Now that we live in Madison, going to Freedom invariably gives me this amazing, soothe-your-soul feeling of Going Home.

Now, I never made the oh-so-obvious connection between the Going Home vibe and the name 'Freedom'.  Until Frenchie.  She was exclaiming all weekend, "What a free country!" and then "and we are in a town called Freedom, Wisconsin!"  Yes, we are.  And that vibe clicked for everyone around:  Wow, this place rocks, this world rocks, the things we are doing fucking rock, we rock.  Loving life.  That is what Valentine Michel gave us.  We have been sharing sex, drugs, and rock and roll with the world all along, freaking out squares by getting naked next to them in a hot tub.  But, now here she is.  She left France, where she was in a shaky relationship, on edge with her parents, taking drugs to sleep, and living with sheep and people who don't have tattoos or wear jewelry.  She came to America to find peace and freedom, and she made everyone of us realize that we are each a source of Peace and Freedom.  She is beautiful and smart and generally awesome, and she makes everyone feel as if they still have some bit of the world to share with her.

The first words Valentine heard in English were the lyrics to "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds".

We can never know quite what life will bring, but I can say today that life is different, for better or worse or neutral, now that Valentine Michel is part of it.

jamming at colonial house.

Size in Wisconsin is something I've begun to notice since moving to Madison.  Everywhere in Wisconsin-- except Milwaukee and parts of Madison-- there is so much space.  The buildings are huge and surrounded by huge expanses of asphalt and huge decorated lawns.  Those are the "cities" of the state.  Beyond that, it's fields, which are fruitful for a few moments each year, but the rest of the year are incredible expanses of space.  And then, there are forests.  Which on a map look like a bunch of green space, but which-- inside deep-- are the darkest, most claustrophobic and cluttered natural places on earth.

The Colonial House is one of these huge spaces.  It is a classic, the supper club of northern Wisconsin.  Fat Wisconsinites come here for buffets, steak, fish fries, beer, baked potatoes, Mother's Day, Easter, and weddings.  My wedding was in this very basement.  This building is huge, and surrounded by a huge parking lot and lawn among the fields of Freedom, Wisconsin.  Five giant rooms and this basement that is a bar, dance floor, and dining room.

We've been gathering here occasionally-- often, lately-- with a smattering of musicians from around the Fox Valley to "jam".  I use quotations because the word doesn't roll off of my tongue with ease; I'm not quite cool enough.  But that's what they're doing.  Amps and electric guitars and drums and a violin.  Tonight, also, there is the Doctor taking pictures, me writing, and a chick sketching the scene.

Art, come together, is fantastic.  That is what rocks about jamming at Colonial House.  Art come together.  Hearts and souls, and people and their art, all piled together into a space, playing their part.  Organic music, and a good vibe.  The musicians just play and come together.  The artist chick just sketched some cool shit.  My brother-in-law jumps in as sound guy as needed.  Our French friend rolls around on the ground snapping pictures, as needed.  And I write.  I could not be here if I could not write this night.

living with artists.

This is it.  The life.  Editing the Doctor's work, listening to The Lately's music, film festival this afternoon with an eccentric painter we used to know, writing again.  Writing like mad.  Writing the life of artists.  This is Anais; this is where she was.  This artists' life.  The only way to do it.   Live on band time.  Groupies move into my living room.  Whiskey-sour at lunch, at breakfast for the Doctor.  Smoking, various things, depending on who's around.  No money in savings, but beer in the fridge.  Sex-bruised knees, hot tub at 5am, a picture of early Beatles looking at me from the wall and what we'll someday call "early Little Plaything" clipped to refrigerator door.  The life of artists.  Living with artists, loving artists.  Making art, making life.  Beautiful.

sex, drugs, and rock and roll.

...It sounds so dirty at first; gritty and dark and kind of dangerous.  And maybe the phrase was coined to give that impression, and maybe to most it still gives that impression.  Not to me, though.  It's not dirty at all; it is perfect.  The perfect life, the perfect way to be.  It is this artists' life we live.  We writers and painters and musicians and groupies who follow those around.

It's not just SEX, but also love and community and sensuality and the relationships and friendships made in the life.  And it's also sex, and lust, beautiful women and sexy pictures and late naked nights in a hot tub.

DRUGS...means drugs.  Except that that word has a bad reputation in the world today; it sounds like something that will hunt you down, consume you, and kill you.  It sounds like heroin and crack and pills you buy on the street.  For me, it's alcohol, mostly, and pot and caffeine and a very slight smattering of anything else, in the life in Wisconsin.

ROCK N ROLL is art.  To me, and maybe only to me, all artists are rockstars.  Writers and painters and sculptors and poets and pianists and singers and electric-guitarists-- all live the life and all rock the world.

Sex, drugs, and rock and roll is living in a studio apartment with bean bags and a hammock; it's living in a foreign country to get a new experience out of life; it's gathering with whoever will come and making music in a fifty-year-old basement; it's bouncing from dishwasher job to dishwasher job as they fit around touring and recording obligations; it's taking pictures of sexy women drinking wine and whiskey; it's living and painting in Italy for a semester; it's stealing bar glasses from Wisconsin taverns; it's stealing vegetables from gardens to eat on tour; it's following a band to a hot tub at 4am, body shots and threesomes in your neighbors' bathroom, short skirts, psychedelic sombreros, knowing exactly how to take apart and put together an electric guitar, silently sketching the scene in words or pictures as beautiful music is made all around you, living on coffee flavored with Honey Whiskey, sleeping in your friends' hammock; singing, living, loving life, loving people, fucking, fighting, making up, and making love, making magic and giving it to the world without a care.

It's having a story to tell and being fucking proud of it.  This is our life, this artists' life we are living; we are telling our stories in our own ways, sharing our own brands of beauty and magic with the world.  There is no better way to be, no better way to connect to the world.