laughing skull: a review.

Comedy and Culture in the Bible Belt

They told me before we left that Atlanta is a shitty city. But, I'd never been “down South” before, so I was excited for the week nonetheless. The trip would be filled with business and pleasure, with stops in Atlanta, Buford, and Roswell, Georgia; and Spartanburg and Charleston, South Carolina. I could check another U.S. city off of my list, see the ocean for the first time in my life, and enjoy a week of what I expected to be quality comedy.

We were stuck with Atlanta, GA, because this is home to the Laughing Skull Lounge, host of the Laughing Skull Comedy Festival, and the competition that was our reason for getting involved. Madison's Comedy Club on State hosted the second round of the competition back in November, and Nick Hart advanced to the quarter-finals, which meant Atlanta in April. Stefan Davis funded the trip and performed in the festival; and I went along because I am eager to travel anywhere, and because following Nick and Stefan around has done a good job so far of feeding me material.

Laughing Skull Comedy Festival

The city of Atlanta was every bit as disappointing as I had been warned. No one knows how to drink, a vegetarian meal is not to be found, service is terrible in any venue, and the prices for everything are outrageous. The people aren't very friendly, and there are few attractions to keep the poor traveler entertained. We spent most of our time in Atlanta in the hotels.

The festival itself was pretty disappointing as well, despite the great potential that a week with the top budding comics from around the country holds. The Laughing Skull was its hub, but shows were held at bars and clubs around the area, so moving from one show to another was annoying, at best. We had to drive 45 minutes from Atlanta for Nick's first show Wednesday night, to the tiny town of Buford, GA, and the Buford Variety Theater, a comedy club built in the guts of an old Presbyterian church. The venue was gorgeous, and the staff hospitable; but the show was clearly not promoted at all by the club or the festival. The club usually runs an open mic on Wednesday nights, and a number of their regular comics showed up still expecting that. The showroom holds about 100 people; about 20 seats were filled. Six of them were me, Nick, Stefan, and Nick's family; and we had to leave after Nick's set to race back to Atlanta for the competition show at the Laughing Skull.

The Laughing Skull Lounge is a tiny space located inside the Vortex bar in Midtown Atlanta. The bar is really cool, despite the characteristic Atlanta service. The food looked great; and between the dim lighting, the section of poker tables, and the secondhand smoke that is still legal in Georgia, the bar had a satisfying seedy vibe. The Lounge had a bit of an underground vibe, as well, but more Beatnik than back-alley. The comedians said it reminded them of Chicago basement open-mics. I expected to see a troupe of mimes all in black and berets step out from behind the velvet curtain onto the small stage in front of the theater-style rows of chairs.

Instead, a shitty host stepped onto the stage. He was an entertaining comic, but-- like everyone we saw chosen to host the festival's shows-- had no idea how to emcee. They were all low-energy, they held pages of notes on stage, they forgot the performers' names, they were slow to get to the stage after each comic's set... and a number of other things that the comedians pointed out to me as unprofessional and awkward, things that made the shows dull and uncomfortable compared to the ones that we've become spoiled with in Madison, where the performers know proper etiquette and the crowds know how to watch a show.

The third venue that we experienced this week was the most absurd, in my opinion. Nick was there ahead of Stefan and me, and he sent a text, It 's inside of a Chuck E Cheese. The Funny Farm is located in what apparently used to be a restaurant inside of Andretti Indoor Karting & Games in Roswell, Georgia. We entered through the arcade and dodged the herds of fat families and screaming, sprinting children at the buzzing, clanging, dinging machines to get to the green room. Nick performed in the Politics show in front of an almost-empty room of Georgia Republicans on Friday night, and Stefan performed in the King Davids of Comedy show Saturday night without a single Jewish joke in his cache.

We came out ahead, altogether, though. The boys earned TV credits through the Funny Farm performances; and, because few of the people in charge at any of the shows knew completely what was going on, we were able to get into all of the shows for free as “comics”, and the Funny Farm even gave me a $25 gift card for the arcade simply because I was in the green room when they were handing them out to the night's performers.

South Carolina

Despite any annoyances of the festival, the vacation was still a pleasant respite for all of us, and a great experience for me. I enjoyed the idea of “being on the road”-- the boys were performing, and I was taking notes for a story, a prototype for the artists' life we're each working for.

Thursday we had no comedy business, so we spent the day in Spartanburg, South Carolina, at the lakeside home of Nick Hart's parents. It was 70 degrees and sunny outside, we could see the Blue Ridge Mountains standing in the distance behind the trees across the lake, and Sue Hart made grilled chicken for dinner. Nick and Stefan drove the Harts' Porsche to the mountains with the top down, and Nick gave us a tour of his childhood after dinner. We enjoyed our only good buzz of the entire vacation on vodka-7 and Heineken. Stefan and I slept in the room that used to belong to Nick's little sister, and we woke early to head to the ocean on Friday.

The ocean was my favorite. This part of the vacation was absolutely unreasonable and totally necessary. We were told that the drive from Spartanburg to Charleston would take about three hours. With a stop for breakfast at Waffle House, Stefan's Yankee driving, and a car on fire on I-85, it took us four. We spent twenty minutes at the beach before we had to turn around and head back to Spartanburg to meet up with the Harts to head back to Atlanta for Nick's politics show. We spent fourteen hours driving that day. But, I saw the ocean for twenty goddamn minutes. I collected seashells, I held a starfish, and I tasted salt water.

Aside from a week off of work, the greatest benefit of my trip was simply the experience of traveling. I experienced Southern hospitality, cooking, driving, and... “diversity”. I experienced a tour schedule and a sleepless night in the plane, the train, and the automobile that got us to Atlanta from Madison. It was but one more taste of the world outside of Central Wisconsin, another one to whet my appetite for more, an experience worth even Atlanta and bad comedy.

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.”

the hart compound.

Scenes from Campaign HQ

"She called me an asshole for no reason, then offered to make up for it by baking me a dozen cookies. I said, 'Make it three dozen and deliver them to my house before five p.m. tomorrow, and we'll have a deal.' I told her to ring the bell three times, leave the cookies at the door, and leave, and she fucking did it. She broke the deal, though; she only rang once. So fuck her, dude. Don't call her again.”

This is why I love this house. The chocolate chip cookies come with a story. And they are the only food in the house besides the PBR and Jameson, so once they run out, these boys are going to have to find someone else to fuck with, I guess.

I am watching Nick Hart and Stefan Davis write an email response to a series of questions from the Isthmus about Nick Hart for Mayor. We are all drunk on PBR and whiskey. Nick leaves town with his brother tomorrow afternoon, so this needs to be done now, they believe. Good plan, I think.

Stefan is at his MacBook, recording. Nick is standing and pacing, dictating in the dark living room. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is paused on the TV screen. I am in the kitchen cooking rice and beans. The dog Echo is curled on the chair. Adam Hart is on his computer across the room.

“This campaign thing is getting serious,” Stefan says.

“You're right,” Nick replies. “It's getting serious,” and makes a show of grabbing his whiskey drink from the coffee table and taking a drink. Ice rattles. He scans the silent room over the top of his glass.

Stefan recites the first question. “Why are you running?”

“I am running for Mayor--” Nick begins.

“We are running for Mayor.”

“We are running for Mayor,” Nick continues, “Because we want to finger the status quo.”

I am far too drunk to consider the implications of this statement. I dish out four plates of rice and beans and pour some coffee.

Nick takes another drink and says, “This is for a good cause.”

“Which is...?” I ask.

“To be named at a later date.”

Stefan, Nick, and I are working and watching a movie in the living room, and Adam appears in the doorway from his bedroom and says, “I've been trashing pop music on YouTube. People think I hate Asians now. I don't know how I got that rap.”

I'm not always sure how I end up here each night-- can't usually recall the reason or the drive through town. My memory fades back in about the time I walk into the kitchen, hit the bowl, dish up some munchies, and pour a glass of water. But it's never a decision I regret, and each night here makes me want to be around for the next.

It started as a professional relationship, really, but quickly became blurred when Nick Hart said, “Have you ever used a vaporizer? 'Cause we just got one.” Getting fucked up at three a.m. on three bags of weed vapor will inevitably blur labels like “Journalist”, “Comedian”, and “Mayoral Candidate”.

As Stefan Davis dropped me at home that night, he said, “Just so you know, everything is on the record; Nick and I agreed to that.”

“Thanks for the permission,” I replied. “But nothing is ever off the record. I'm here to tell your story.”

“What the hell is she doing hanging around with guys like us?” Stefan asked Nick when he got home.

“Dude, she's an artist.”

It is an Editorial itch that drives me to the Hart Compound, a compelling inner voice that says Oh, it's going to be good here. It's movie Sundays with day beers; it's a drive to Perkins at five a.m.; it's waking up Nick Hart to hand him a bowl while he half-sleeps naked in bed; it's Stefan presenting the candidate with a Mayoral pie at seven a.m. to celebrate a successful start to campaign season; it's the coziest and friendliest little dog who is madly in love with Nick and Adam Hart; it's Nick and Adam wrestling like kids on the couch calling each other faggots to point out the absurdity of the beliefs of the people they grew up around in South Carolina. It's a household where they know what it means to be a Gonzo asshole, and they love it.

I arrived in town after a trying Thanksgiving weekend and texted Nick.

“What are you up to tonight, Nick Hart? I want to find you and take shots of Wild Turkey whiskey. I need a Gonzo shot in the arm after four days of family in Central Wisco.”

And he indulged me. We met at the Argus and ordered the shots from his campaign manager, bartender, fellow comedian, friend, and roommate.

As Stefan set three shots in front of us he said, “This won't end well.”

I raised my glass to meet theirs and said, “It's not supposed to.”

My neuroses fit in well in this household, and I like that.

“She's pretty quiet tonight,” Stefan worries.

“She's just recording,” Nick assures him.

The Hart Compound is filled with those moments that make the writer and the comedians alike exclaim, “Write that down!”, that these moments are shared and remembered.

Nick has been surviving on comedy and unemployment for 18 months now, and the unemployment is about to be cut off. We can't picture him with a job, and it actually makes me kind of angry with the world that such a man will have to work like a sucker to make a living. Such a man ought to be able to survive in life by sharing his art with the world.

“I'm kind of hoping that this mayor thing will work out,” Nick says in response to our concerns about his job search.

The Hart Compound is a place in such juxtaposition to the Real World that anyone who enters can't help but realize that such hope can make things happen in the world. Each moment in the Hart Compound is one moment farther down the rabbit hole, one step closer to the artists' life, further from the reality we are trying desperately to fend off. Nick's seemingly naïve belief that things in life will simply fall into place becomes more and more plausible as I watch life fall into place around everyone who enters the Compound with an open mind.

“I am a firm believer in 'If you act like big shit, they will treat you like big shit',” the candidate explains simply.

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.

nick hart for mayor.

“It's an idea; it's not the best idea, but... ideas grow... We're just putting it out there.”

Tyler and I sat down at the Argus with 2011 Mayoral candidate Nick Hart and campaign manager Stefan Davis a couple of weeks ago before their performance with the Isthmians of Comedy.

They've got a few ideas to throw out there; some at first glance seem more feasible than others. All-out legalization of marijuana. Relaxation of police patrols throughout the city. Marijuana farmers' market, perhaps? And, for those of you who are beginning to worry that a Nick Hart administration would exist to simply make Madison a better place to party than it already is, he also taught us a thing or two about the poor quality of the city's water.  Why did you have to buy a water filter as soon as you moved into your new apartment?  Improving that is on the list as well.

And for those of you who, like me, want a politician to tug just a little at your heartstrings, first on their list is to take care of the homeless problem in the city.

“If you can't take care of your fellow man, you are failing as a society,” Nick told us.

Nick Hart announced his intentions to run for Mayor of Madison on August 11^th during a semi-regular appearance at Open Mic at the Comedy Club on State. I saw him for the first time about a month later at Open Mic, reading to the audience from an anti-drug flyer and pointing out all of the details of psychedelic drug use that it got wrong. He was hilarious, and he spoke to a topic that caught my attention, and just before he left the stage he said, “I'm Nick Hart everyone-- oh yeah, and I'm running for Mayor!”

photo courtesy of Isthmians of Comedy

I thought, Wow, I need to remember this guy. But, the PBR and Jameson shots are only $2 each during Open Mic, so I didn't remember to look into the Nick Hart campaign until about three weeks later, when a reappearance at Open Mic sparked my memory, and I finally wrote the name down and got in touch with him.

The campaign, for now, consists of three guys: Nick Hart, the candidate; Stefan Davis, the campaign manager; and their “legal guy”, who was unable to make it to the interview but gave this advice to his partners:

“I'm busy tomorrow night, but I trust you...Keep it short. Serious campaign ideas, personal freedoms. Lay off the drug stuff for now.”

“So, we did exactly what he said not to do,” Nick said, realizing that legalization of marijuana was, in fact, the first campaign idea that he had discussed with us.

Well, his target demographic is the 23- to 34-year-olds of Madison, Wisconsin. As a local comedian, he is targeting the “bar crowd” of the city. So, “the drug stuff” will certainly capture their attention, as it did mine, and the rest will impress us enough to keep us listening and to encourage a group that is typically uninterested in local politics to start paying attention.

“They don't get to just keep doing business as usual. [We'll] throw a monkey wrench in there and make them [think] 'Oh yeah, we have to worry about that factor,” Nick said.

It's not about winning, necessarily; the campaign hopes to capture somewhere between 5-15% of the vote. It's about trying to “keep them honest and throw out new ideas”, putting out someone who will run to the left of Democratic incumbent Dave Cieslewicz and upset the stagnant political landscape of the city.

photo courtesy of Isthmians of Comedy

Nick and Stefan are the founding members of the local comedy troupe the Isthmians of Comedy. The group performs with a plethora of local and visiting comedians, but officially includes these two, and David Leon, David Pickett, and Ryan Casey. The comedians met through the Comedy Club, where all regularly appear at the Wednesday night Open Mic.

“'It's a publicity stunt', that's what people say. 'He's doing it for his comedy career,'” Nick told us. “Well, why do you think Mayor Dave is doing it?”

Nick Hart's “civic exercise” exists to challenge the status quo, to ask the questions that aren't asked, to offer a candidate left enough to challenge Mayor Dave's position as the “liberal” candidate and bring up the issues the incumbent has ignored.

And, being a comedian offers some great benefits that Mayor Dave's campaign doesn't have. The traditional candidates are restricted to political correctness, focused on protecting their image as professional public figures and pleasing as many people as possible.

“Because it's comedy,” Nick said, “you get to say whatever you want.”

And he's saying it in a dark basement late at night to a room full of drunk and stoned young Madison comedy fans. There won't be anyone questioning his image anytime soon.

And, these comedians don't have anything to lose; a win means a major accomplishment for newcomers and an upset of the entire political arena of the city, and a loss just means a damn good joke.

As Nick put it:  “We don't have to worry about them. They have to worry about us. Because we don't care.”

I've never looked twice at municipal politics, not even as a UW student, where political propaganda from all sides is shoved in my face anytime I walk through Library Mall. Nick Hart offers municipal politics wrapped in an attractive package of Jameson, PBR, and stoner jokes, and I am hooked. He's got the vote I would never have cast, and one more dedicated fan of local comedy to boot.

You can keep up with Nick Hart on Facebook.

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.

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.