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.

barfly shots.

scenes captured downtown sometime after sober

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.

cigarettes, gin, and lust.

Experimenting in excess

How can one possibly be expected to focus on homework when sitting in a 30-year-old, paint-splattered art studio, listening to the Beatles, with the Painter and the Musician creating all around? That is an unreasonable assignment for the Editor, and so I have put aside my computer for a moment and picked up my journal. I can't really think straight, anyway, through this hangover and lack of sleep, trying to piece together the details of last night that I know are floating in my mind somewhere.

I know that the night ended with Lacey. I know there was gin and PBR, cigarettes, tequila, sex, a sauna, students all around ready to party after the week of restraint...I should more clearly remember the daytime hours that preceded the night, but the combined cognitive effects of alcohol and lack of sleep are stunting my brain's ability to solidify the connections that would place this story in my memory. It was an Editor's day: writing, reading, Editing the novel, coffee and cheap food, movies, and yoga. The soundtrack of the day was Butch Walker, The Lately, Johnny Cash, Sublime, The Films. The day started unexpectedly in the wee hours of Friday morning and ended long after bar close this morning. In one continuous stretch of twenty-four hours, I was able to pack in every bit of productivity and fun I had planned for the whole weekend, and I am left wondering what to possibly do with the next two days.

“I desperately want to fuck you.” The Doctor's call woke me yesterday at four a.m. I could hear the truth of it in his voice.

I let out a shaky sigh.

“Vulgar, I know,” he added sweetly before I could reply. “But true.”

I grinned to myself. God dammit. It was a terrible irony that his desperate cries through this distance only made me want him more.

I hadn't seen the Doctor in three weeks. Three weeks. Lust was fully clouding my mind at this point; my vibrator no longer had the charm it once had. Everything seemed cold; I longed for human touch, to be held and kissed, the warmth of another hand on my flesh, another being to absorb the desperate heat that radiated from every pore at every moment of my day. The desperation was driving me mad; I had been drowning it out with alcohol for about two weeks, but even that was losing its power.

This lust and desperation had taken over my mind; it kept me awake at night. I was keeping myself as busy as I could, but it was no longer enough to distract me. I needed to give in. I needed to experience pleasure, decadence, superfluous pampering of my body, heart, soul, mind, all of my senses. No mechanical orgasm or weak buzz was enough to replace the hands of the Doctor. Nothing would be, but my mind continued to search for something to give in to, something made of primitive pleasure and depravity in an attractive package.

I tried gin. I was pre-gaming at the Painter's house, and she is a fanatic of the gin and tonic. That was tasty, but not satisfying. I was in no mood for smooth, tasty booze. The Musician offered me PBR; it was cheap and simple, a touch of bitterness. That was more like it; my body needed the sting of bitterness. I drank cheap, harsh tequila shots with the Painter's roommates. That was fucking disgusting. Such a painful version of my favorite shot was a shock to my system, a body that heard the word “tequila” and began to salivate in anticipation.  Perfect; in the absence of the pleasure they lusted after, my senses needed a jolt now and then to clear the clouds in my mind.

The Musician offered me cigarettes all night, as usual, and I refused. The first three. By his fourth cigarette, the house was filled with Coasties curling their hair and a hipster poet naked under a barbeque apron. I was getting frantic texts from a friend with boy troubles. The Lust Beasts had begun to arrive, reminding me of the easy opportunities I was passing up as I waited for the next visit from the Doctor. Fuck this scene. I joined the group of guys hiding on the porch drinking PBR and shivering in the fall air. Before he could offer again, I asked the Musician for a cigarette. That was satisfying; my mind relaxed and cleared a bit as my hand fell comfortably into a position that held the cigarette and my beer while I talked.

It's a damn shame that the things are so filthy, because they are really fucking effective and so damn cool. Throughout the night I smoked around six cigarettes, and I have quickly found that this is a shocking amount. “You don't even smoke!” one friend exclaimed. “That's a lot.” Why the fuck would I do something as stupid as smoking cigarettes if I were only going to tease myself with one? Where is the satisfaction in that? I was ready to give in, and that meant enjoying the freedom to smoke like a fucking smoker. Cigarettes came as the relief I needed to distract me from the damn Coasties, hipsters, drama, and lust for a few hours. Primitive pleasure, depravity, and attractive as hell.

After a few hours' pre-gaming at the house, the group headed downtown en masse to find a bar. Floating along in my buzz and clouds, I didn't realize where we were headed until I almost followed the crowd through the door of the loudest, reddest, sports bar on State.

"Wait a minute!” I exclaimed as I stopped short in the doorway. I turned to the Lust Beast standing closest behind me. “Do you want to go somewhere else?”

He nodded, relief in his wide eyes. How had we found ourselves following Coasties around to bro bars for the night? Lust is bad for the brain.

“I'll call Lacey,” I said as we turned to leave. “We can meet her somewhere.”

“Lacey...?  Is she single?” He was already grinning eagerly.

I pointed a stern finger at him while the phone rang. “She's mine tonight.”  I had been wanting to indulge Lacey's bi-curiosity for months now; it was time.

He raised an eyebrow at me, then held his hand out to shake mine. “Oh, it's on.”

I shook his hand as Lacey answered the call, and we made plans to meet her at a dive a few blocks down. That was more like it. We bid farewell to the Painter and the Musician and left the Coasties behind.

We ordered a pitcher of PBR and crowded into a corner booth and waited about ten more minutes for Lacey to show up. When she did, there was a guy at her side, whom she introduced as her boyfriend. I caught the Lust Beast's eye. He groaned, and I held back a frustrated laugh as she slid into the booth beside us. We spent a short time catching up; I hadn't seen her all summer, so there was a lot of small talk to be had before any of us could dive into blatant flirtation. When she and her boyfriend stepped up to the bar for another round, I turned to my competitor.

“You know that means I win,” I said, indicating the boyfriend with a glance.

He sighed and nodded. I wasn't as sure of my chances as I sounded, but we both knew he had no hope of hooking up with Lacey this night. We toasted and finished our beers, and he headed home when the first pitcher was gone. When the couple returned, I continued the small talk and tried to decide how far to take it. I wasn't really available for a threesome in the Doctor's absence, but I wasn't sure I would get any time alone with Lacey. Besides that, even though Lacey had always been flirtatious in the past, she had this boyfriend to go home with now, so her bi-curious interest may have waned.

But, she looked at me all night with the wide, longing eyes that I remembered from Spring, and they invited me to try out the sauna at their apartment building as the bar closed. A sauna, you say? What a lovely perk in downtown housing. That ought to satisfy my need for decadence, at least.

In the sauna, there was drinking, flirting, petting, kissing, sweating. I had the sense to drink a few glasses of water, and that combined with the sauna's heat began to cleanse my body of the night's booze and cigarettes. I stayed committed to waiting for the Doctor's next visit, so I didn't follow the couple back to their room. I toed the line and gave in to Lacey's touch, allowed myself to share in the heat and lust that radiated from her longing eyes. My night was topped off with a few minutes of giving into this passion, wrapped in her arms with her mouth pressed against mine, entwined in our bathing suits and towels, hair falling loose from the sauna's steam. I drank the moment in, lived on the passion for a few minutes. I ran my fingers desperately through her hair and over her half-exposed breasts and her thighs and back and shoulders. Three weeks of loneliness were driving my exhausted and drunk mind, this need to give in bursting from my pores and loving the flesh and the smell and the kiss and the touch and the desirous eyes of the woman in my arms.

The eyes of the Painter become much more dreamy as she moves to a spot in her painting where the realistic structure of the building she's painting must melt into the atmosphere of the fantastical world around it. No longer glancing to the photo that was guiding her, no longer searching for accuracy in the details, but CREATING now, purely from some place in the mind, simply creating what this part of this world will be. Quizzical and imaginative, eyes that are not looking in front of her but inside of her, for just a moment. Eyes lost in the depths of an artists' world.


These are my Quiet Days, and I am giving into them as they come to me.  A damn good story is always floating in the air, and I cannot ignore it.  I will stay awake for it, I will find it in a sauna at three a.m., I will set aside these mundane obligations to capture it in the middle of this art studio in the middle of this artists' life.

I left Lacey's house last night far from satiated, still longing for the Doctor, but exhausted and satisfied to end this day and its outbursts of excess. I wandered in my haze back to the Painter's house, where the Musician met me at the door. We tiptoed through a maze of sleeping Coasties in the living room, and he laid out a bed of blankets on the floor of the Painter's room for me. After he lay back down in the Painter's bed, I found his jeans on the floor and fished a cigarette from the pocket. I stole away to the porch and the brisk cold and called the Doctor.

“I desperately want to fuck you,” I whispered sleepily into the phone, laughed drunkenly, and lit the cigarette.

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.

the first thursday.

scenes from campus life

The semester had begun, and I was easing into my new schedule, which now began at eight each morning. For the first time in months, I was waking to an alarm. I had started to work nights over the summer vacation, and I was used to waking only when the superfluous honking of horns on the street, chatter of yuppie pedestrians outside of my window, and sunshine through my broken vertical blinds became too much to sleep through. I was happy for the added hours in my day forced upon me by this early rising, but it was taking a lot more coffee and a lot more weed to put me in shape to leave the house so early each day.

It was Thursday, which meant my journalism class at nine-thirty. We analyzed the novelty and relevance of an article in the campus paper about a twenty-year-long study by the University that proved that “boozing” before exams will lower test scores. We all agreed that it was entertaining to read officially what we all knew from years of experience, but that not a single student on campus was going to change his behavior after reading this article. It was yet another quaint warning from the University that we ought to watch our drinking if we were to be at all successful in our college careers. Much appreciated.

After class I headed to the library, where I passed the computer lab and the cafe to reach the library stacks in a dimly-lit corner on the third floor, exchanged my copy of Anais Nin's Diary for the next volume, then settled into the cafe for more coffee, free internet, and lunch. After six hours of homework, correspondence, and Editing in the cafe, I caught a bus back home, made supper, stole a quick nap, and headed to work.

I stopped to buy a bottle of vodka, as I wouldn't be out until long after the liquor stores were closed. Next to me, pondering over 6-packs in the adjacent cooler, were two girls, maybe nineteen, barely passing for twenty-one tonight.

“Lindsay, you can't just have a liquid dinner again tonight! We should order pizza when we get home,” one said to the other.

“No! No more drunk food,” the one called Lindsay replied. “I am totally addicted! I'll get fat while I'm in Wisconsin.”

As I waited in the long line at the counter, I noticed an unusual number of Vikings jerseys and Brett Favre t-shirts all around me. Ah, football season had begun. Good; the store was not going to be busy tonight.

So, instead of waiting on lines of customers, I spent the night swapping coming-of-age stories with my coworker.

“I got my first tattoo when I was fifteen,” he told me. “A friend of mine needed practice, so he took a bunch of underage kids to some sketchy hotel room downtown and gave us all free tattoos. I got my nose pierced when I was sixteen by some chick in the back of a cafe. I don't think that was legal...”

Throughout the night, drunk couples and groups from the bar next door wandered in to buy munchies and condoms and coffee to top off their nights. Even our regulars were more drunk than expected, everyone friendly as hell and smelling like stale booze even early in the night.

As the night wore on, we could feel the madness of downtown Madison growing around us. Students whose money hadn't run out yet, who had no class on Fridays and no homework assigned yet, who had just recently left their parents' house for the year, and who had stayed sober for four days straight, were ready to fucking party that night. We could hear shouting, techno music, and the general din of debauchery floating into the store each time the door opened for a second.

“I never knew it before moving to Madison,” my boss noted, “but the weekend actually starts on Thursday. And the first Thursday of the semester is like a fucking national holiday in this town.”

And the kids were celebrating, getting this weekend started in bro bars with football and cheap beer and fake IDs. Unfortunately, many of these kids were from out of state or underage, early in their college careers, so most didn't yet know how to handle their alcohol. When I left the store at 1am, the streets were swarming with kids stumbling, puking, wandering, screaming; lost, confused, and wasted .

A couple passed me in the crosswalk, the girl stumbling with as much indignation as she could muster in her wobbly high heels, and the guy behind her shouting, “Yeah, here we go again: I'm not as sensitive as you. I don't care as much as you. You love me so much more than I love you. Whatever, babe. I'll just fucking drop you. Fuck that; I don't have to put up with this shit.”

Two blocks down State Street, I ducked into the bus shelter and settled onto the wooden bench to wait the twenty minutes for the next bus. The shelter was directly across the street from the most Badger-red, bro-filled sports bar downtown, and I watched from behind the glass as groups of young drunks wandered out of its doors.

“Hey bra, hey bra,” drunken taunting across the street. Two of a group of three guys in front me were starting a fake fight with each other, one shouting these words in his Jersey accent and tapping the chest of his friend, puffing out his own. They crouched and raised loose fists to each other, slapped at the air a couple of times, then collapsed into a drunken hug with their third companion. “Nah, man, I'm just messing around. We're cool.”

Taxis were running slowly down the street, stopping in front of the bars as the drivers searched the masses for whatever incoherent group had called them and forgotten by now that they were waiting for a cab. Kids knocked on their windows and tried to climb in random cabs, but the doors were all locked, and the drivers just kept moving. Good Samaritans guided their friends into the taxis with empty pitchers or buckets to puke in, gave the driver directions on where to take their friends, handed them a few dollars to cover the fare, and returned to the bars with the weight of that guy off of their shoulders. Assholes left their friends behind to pass out in the bathroom stalls.

I pulled a joint from my bag and lit it, calming my mind as I took in the madness swirling around me from the other side of the glass shelter. I watched one guy walking down the middle of the street stop and stand in place, staring straight ahead of him with huge pupils for about five minutes without moving. I watched another trip over his own toes and fall face first onto his cheek on the sidewalk. I grimaced with pity as his friends helped him stand up.

Behind me, a girl shouted, “Oh my god! I love that jacket!”

She had stopped while she and her friends walked down the sidewalk, and now she was leaning against a storefront window and tapping the glass to point out the jacket to her friends.

“I'll come buy it tomorrow,” she said as they walked away. “Mañana. El sábado. Per favore,” she chattered to her oblivious friends. “Oh wait! Por favor, I mean!” She laughed. “I shouldn't have taken Spanish and Italian in the same semester.” She waved a hand in the air and shook her head. Even drunk, this town is so goddamn academic.

Across the street, a pair of Madison police officers, one man and one woman, strolled around the corner to patrol down State Street. I hastily put out the joint on the bench and tucked it back into my bag, but they didn't even glance my way. They were chatting with each other, counting on their mere presence to maintain order in the streets. They rounded the corner and walked away from the bro bar just as two people walked out, first a guy in a black-and-white-checkered Abercrombie hoodie sweatshirt, followed by a bitching girl in a short dress and high-heeled sandals.

“You wanna do this?” the bitch screamed at him. They wandered a few feet into an open space on the sidewalk and silently taunted each other for a few seconds. She clumsily slipped out of her sandals and threw her cardigan on the ground next to her. She squared herself and patted him on the cheek to egg him on.

“Aw, come on, baby,” he slurred to her, then reached for her waist. She slapped him again lightly on the other cheek, and he stepped back. They were both so drunk and weak and completely unable to engage in this battle that it unfolded practically in slow motion before me. The guy shook his head at her and unzipped his hoodie and tossed it to the ground a few feet behind him.

They continued to bat at each other a couple of times before a group of five girls poured out of the bar and surrounded them. They tried to coax the two to cut it out while their friend was screaming, “This fucker was trying to start shit with me!” and swatting at the air in front of the guy.

Behind these girls, a group of three guys came out of the bar and watched the fight from a few feet back without interfering. One of the guys noticed the sweatshirt lying on the ground and picked it up, eying the fighting couple carefully as he did. He chuckled to his companions as they dug into the shirt's pockets and pulled out a cell phone and a wallet, stuffed them in their own pockets, and dropped the sweatshirt back to the ground. None of the group just a few feet away noticed this, and finally the girls were able to pull their friend away and sit her down to help her strap her sandals back on. The guy turned away with a snarl, picked up his sweatshirt, and joined the three guys, apparently his own companions. They greeted him and patted his back, calling the girl a bitch and laughing drunkenly as they all walked away down the street.

When I finally exited the bus in my neighborhood, I found myself behind a couple of girls leaving the Gyro shop on the corner. As they weaved a path down the sidewalk, they threw arms around each others' shoulders and held their phones at arms' length to snap a picture to remember the moment. I was walking a lot faster and steadier than they were, unintentionally gaining on them. As I approached quietly within a few feet, about to pass them, the brunette turned around suddenly and gasped.

“Holy shit!” she shouted, but rested a hand kindly on my shoulder after a moment. “I'm sorry-- you scared the crap out me!” She giggled and caught her breath.

I apologized for nothing in particular and laughed too, shrugging my shoulders and rolling my eyes.

“Here.” She passed me a bottle of Coke mixed with cheap rum from inside her purse, and we walked another block together. I introduced myself, and she took a picture of me with her phone before they turned the corner and left me alone but thankful for the warmth of the rum in my belly on this cool night. I finished my joint on the way home, set my alarm for eight a.m., and settled into bed content. I am not much of a fan of football, or bros, or gaggles of drunk young girls; but they do put on a pretty good show to kick off a Madison weekend.