Category Archives: Local

Very Tiny Voyage: Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio, Oak Park, IL

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Mom-in-chief Julie Podulka decided that, for Mother’s Day, she wanted to tour the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio out in Oak Park, the first suburb west of Chicago, nicely equidistant from her house and mine. I managed to screw everything up by a) arriving on the wrong day and b) when I returned on the right day, forgetting my phone and camera. But I still bring you this report (sans pictorial evidence) from the tour.

There are two tours you can do: the guided interior tour of the Home and Studio, and a self-guided audio walking tour of the private homes that Wright designed in the area. We did the combo. The guided interior tour isn’t to be missed, because this is your chance to see Wright’s real genius–his “total architecture,” which encompasses both the bones of the building and every detail of the interior design. Plus you get the background on his architectural philosophy and innovations from well-educated guides who are happy to answer your questions (although they don’t let you dilly-dally–these are small groups in a small space, and we’ve got to stay on schedule).

I’d say you can give the audio tour a pass, though. Just google some information about where Wright’s other nearby buildings are (there are more than a dozen in easy strolling distance, including the Unity Temple) and you’ll probably get almost as much out of it. There was nothing wrong with the audio guide, but it probably wasn’t worth an extra ten dollars.

I’m a fan of Wright’s aesthetic generally, but what was most fascinating to me on this tour was noticing similarities between what he created in his Prairie style and what I’ve seen in the Islamic architecture of Turkey, Spain, and Morocco. There are overlaps in the geometrical patterns, the careful use of light, and the incorporation of natural elements. It struck me that there must be something inherently human about these things, something very soothing, for people in such different times and places to keep returning to those themes. Next time you’re in Oak Park, I’d recommend experiencing it for yourself.

Be Where You Are

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A friend told me recently that he doesn’t take a camera when he goes on vacation. He doesn’t want to be distracted by finding the right angle for the shot, for documenting everything to show the folks back home. There are postcards for that, in his opinion. This is patently insane, but I understood the point behind it. There have been many times on trips when I’ve had to remind myself: Put the camera down and actually look at the thing you’re looking at, just put your eyeballs on the thing, without a lens in between.

There are all kinds of barriers that you can put between you and the place you’re visiting. Not just a camera, but a huge tour group, the guarded gates of a resort, or a book or a phone.

On my own in Morocco I felt more out of place than usual, more lonely; the trip itself felt like more work, more draining than travel usually does for me. It was partly where I was in the world and partly where I am in life. So I retreated more into a novel or a notebook or the omnipresent wi-fi than I normally would.

But even on the most ideal of trips there are at least a few moments like this. I sat on the balcony of a hotel in Montmartre eating breakfast and forced myself to put down the magazine I almost instinctively pulled out, remembering that I should be looking out at the streets rolling down below me. I stood on the deck of a ferry to Cozumel, looking out at the most brilliant turquoise water, and said to myself (like said the words in my head; I did not say them out loud, thus staying on the correct side of crazy), “You’re so lucky to be here right now,” to remind myself that I was, in fact, there, that I’d spent time and money to get there, and that I should be appreciating it.

The Internet makes it easier to pull yourself out of your physical location, into the world of bragging about your far-flung adventures on Facebook (the adventures you’d be having more of if you weren’t busy crafting the perfect status), posting photos of your breakfast on Instagram (the breakfast you should probably be enjoying instead of taking pictures of), and tweeting your friends back home about where you’re going later (instead of just, you know, going). But the Internet isn’t the cause here. It’s just a technique for dealing with the uncomfortable feelings inherent in being in a different place.

But that uncomfortable feeling? That’s sort of why you went to wherever you are. When you travel, the whole point is that where you are is different than where you’re from. You’re supposed to be out experiencing it, without buffers, without distractions. And it’s weird and it’s hard, but you should have expected that–should actually be craving that, eager to dive into that, because that’s what travel is. I’m more than a little angry at myself for getting scared and putting up so many barriers on my last trip and building a little haven of familiarity inside them. Because of that, I didn’t spend as much time out in the place I was visiting, and I missed a lot.

So even if it sounds more fruity and zen than I usually am, it’s a good reminder. It’s what makes travel worthwhile at all. To be where you are.

Murals of Logan Square

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[Kim Kovalick is a designer, cat-rescuer, and supermom who lives in the Logan Square neighborhood of Chicago.  She is Go Go Go's official Mural Spotter™.]

You can find some great street art in Chicago . . . some commissioned, some not. For several years while taking the Blue Line downtown from my stop at California, a few moments after the train had started up again, I would look down from the elevated tracks and see the huge ferrets.

Ferrets in Logan Square, photo by Kim Kovalick

Ferrets in Logan Square

Ferrets in Logan Square

Ferrets in Logan Square (detail)

They are painted on the back side of a long, 1-story brick building. The words “It’s not where you’r from it’s where you’r at” (sic) wrap the back and side of the top edge of the walls. Finally, during a temperate day last week, I searched for the alley/lot that contained this building so that I could get a closer look. After walking around Milwaukee Ave. and up and down some side streets, I was able to get to the parking lot that is between this building and a defunct thrift store. Brief, internet research identifies the artist as ROA from Belgium.

See more on the artist’s Flickr page.

Here are some additional murals from Logan Square:

Mural, Fullerton & Milwaukee, photo by Kim Kovalick

Mural, Fullerton & Milwaukee, photo by Kim Kovalick

 

Mural, Fullerton & Milwaukee, photo by Kim Kovalick

Mural, Fullerton & Milwaukee, photo by Kim Kovalick

Mural, Logan Square, photo by Kim Kovalick

Also-
Check out this Flickr Group that features a lot of great Chicago Graffiti and Street Art

Signs of Spring in Chicago

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  • The empty bottles on the sidewalk switch from fifths of cheap whiskey to Corona.
  • The potholes are full of water instead of snow.
  • Water taxis start running again.
  • Snowbird homeless dudes return.
  • Most of the snow melts.
  • Your landlord turns off your heat, despite night temperatures below freezing.
  • Road construction begins.
  • Marked increase in litter.
  • Corner boys return to their posts.
  • Elotes/fruit/paletas stands return.
  • Time to bring Emergency Pants to work for when you get splashed by a bus.
  • You can smell the river stink again.
  • You can feel and hear the bass from the low-rider going by.
  • You take the plastic off your windows, only to regret doing so within a week.
  • Your detached irritation turns into boiling rage as the rest of the world gets real spring.

A Very Tiny Voyage to: Chicago Golden Gloves

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I don’t think I ever would have come to enjoy watching fights on my own. But many years ago, I dated a guy who was very into martial arts. While we were together, I willingly a) watched wrestling on TV on a regular basis (and even had favorites) and b) went to not one but two live boxing matches. And then we broke up and I sort of figured I’d never do any of that stuff again. But recently I was looking for something cheap and entertaining to do, and I saw that the Chicago Golden Gloves tournament was on. So I convinced a friend with a car that we should go, and he, being a good sport about basically everything, agreed.

First of all, the location: Chicago Golden Gloves was held this year at the Cicero Stadium, which sits on a fairly desolate stretch of South Laramie. Across the street is some kind of possibly abandoned factory, with a sign hanging on a chainlink fence with several letters missing. Up and down the block from the stadium, the sidewalks were mostly dark. But the marquee of the stadium itself was lit up, announcing the semifinal bouts of the Golden Gloves tournament, so in we went.

Inside the stadium looked exactly like any high school gym in America and smelled very athletic. The ring was set up in the middle of what would otherwise be a basketball court, and at one end of the gym a stand was set up selling pizza, soda, and beer. We found ourselves a spot in the half-full bleachers and settled in to watch the action.

One of the most surprising things to me about boxing is how quiet it is in the ring. Outside of the ring, the family and friends of each of these amateur boxers (mostly men, but some women too) screamed their names and cheered them on and gave them important advice like, “Hit ‘im!” But inside, all you hear is the dull thud of shoes against the floor and gloves on bodies–barely a grunt or a shout is uttered.

Despite the fact that these people are definitely beating each other up, it generally doesn’t seem very violent when you watch it. Partly that’s due to how controlled everything is: pads are checked, refs are watching to make sure everybody’s conscious, and someone’s three-year-old sister is dancing in the aisle down front, so how bad could it really be?

But then there’s a moment when a glove connects with a face and you see the head jerk back and when the glove pulls into view again it’s stained red, and when the ref separates the fighters and counts off for the one who got hit, he’s weaving and staggering, and the ref calls it, and the fighters go back to their corners, and the helmet comes off, and his face is all blood and sweat. And you remember that despite the honed techniques and the safety measures, what you’re watching is two dudes trying to hurt the other one more than they get hurt.

Very Tiny Voyage: Madni Mart

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I went up to Devon Ave. on Sunday afternoon, Chicago’s Little India neighborhood, for some lunch with my folks, and afterward we were wandering around when my dad stopped us at a small, twenty-four-hour shop called Madni Mart. He was in search of a massive bag of basmati rice. Madni Mart could help us.

In addition to more and bigger bags of rice than any one person could eat in a month, Madni Mart had a variety of canned, boxed, and bagged foods stuffed onto its tall shelves with narrow aisles in between. It was a tiny store, but I felt like I was sneaking and hiding everywhere I went in there.

Would you like to mix up some family?

Do you need lentils? Because they have all kinds of lentils.

Also, all kinds of pickles. Pickled mango, pickled garlic, pickled lime, and the vague “mixed pickle.”

These are only a few of the huge variety of spices bagged up in the back.

Do you want your jaggery in squares or lumps?

Also, in the back was a butcher shop. The three guys back there, all Hispanic, were serving up halal meat. One of them was breaking down a whole–and frighteningly still life-like–lamb. Multiculturalism at its finest. Little places like this are what I love about this town.

Happy Birthday, Chicago! And Other City Origin Stories

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Today is the Chicago-i-est day of the year. March 4 is both Chicago’s birthday (making us a youthful-looking 176 years old) and also Casimir Pulaski Day, which I know is not only celebrated in Chicago, but really, it’s a Polish-American love fest, which pretty much describes this city.

Thinking about Chicago’s birthday, the beginning of its rise from trappers’ cabins in a swamp to world-class cosmopolitan jungle, makes me think about the origin stories of other cities. Of course, some have mythological origins, like Rome, founded by raised-by-wolves twins Romulus and Remus (well, just Romulus, I guess, since he killed Remus in a fight and thus got to name the place after himself alone). You can see a statue of the brothers in happier times with their ersatz mom when you visit Rome.

But even better than fictional legends are real-life acts that become legendary. My favorite is Brasília. The constitution of Brazil said the capital had to be moved to the geographical center of the country, but there wasn’t a major city there. So the government ordered it built. Just like that, they created something from nothing. The whole city went from empty grassland to capital city in four years, between 1956 and 1960. The photos from this undertaking look like something out of science fiction: sleek, modern buildings appearing in the middle of nowhere like they’ve just landed from space.

There have got to be other fascinating origin stories out there, maybe for places I haven’t even heard of yet. How was your city founded?

Viva la Revolution: Revolution Brewing, Chicago

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Chicago has an abundance of great breweries. There’s old standby Goose Island, of course, but also Half Acre, Haymarket, Piece, 5 Rabbit… the list goes on. No longer are we forced to drink Schlitz (although we still do on occasion). Recently, I enjoyed a long, lazy, roving afternoon of Revolution Brewing beers. Revolution is on tap at many bars around town, but they have a full restaurant on Milwaukee and a tap room at their brewery on Kedzie. I visited both on a tour that started with a Revolution beer and a bite of food at perhaps the finest corner bar in Chicago, Four Moon Tavern in Roscoe Village.

First beer, which I believe was the Coup D’Etat. Note the dollar bill. Always tip on free drinks, people. Try to act like decent human beings.

I should make two things clear at the outset. One is that I was trained as a journalist at Medill, one of the top j-schools in the country, so obviously I am a very polished and professional writer and reporter. Those of you who are old friends of this site are already aware of this. The other is that I am a total lightweight when it comes to drinking. Of course, point two in no way impacted the objectivity and accuracy that point one implies.

From Four Moon, we got on the bus to go to the brewpub. We were all happy at this point, mostly because we knew that for the next few hours we were going to continue drinking many excellent beers and getting shepherded safely around town by people who were not drinking many excellent beers.

Second beer, on the bus.

During the course of the bus ride, the crew of us (I believe there were about fifteen?) got to know each other. All of us were in couples or small groups of friends, except one strange dude who sat in the corner telling dead baby jokes. There’s one in every crowd.

At the pub, which is beautifully designed, with long wood bars and a warm yet open feel, we were guided upstairs, away from the good, decent, regular patrons. There a friendly bartender poured us sample sizes from Revolution’s awesome taps.

Fists of fury… and deliciousness.

Two of the people in our group came on a beer tour although they don’t drink beer. This is ridiculous, but it meant I got to have two samples. For those of you keeping track, that makes the equivalent of about three beers for your humble reporter, all of which were between 7-10% ABV. I should state that two beers is your humble reporter’s typical limit in one outing, because of the aforementioned lightweightness. Just so we all know where we are.

Two of the sample beers. In the foreground is mine, technically a barley wine called 3rd Year Beer.

Speaking of knowing where we are, at some point we realized that the top floor of the brewpub was filling up with normal patrons and that us riffraff were being gathered back onto the bus. As I slumped into my seat and was carried through the dark Chicago streets, I, whose sense of direction never fails, especially in my beloved hometown, had no idea where we were going. After some minutes, the bus stopped. Everybody else got out and went into a warehouse-like building, so I followed. I could not have described to you our location other than with the word “brewery.”

The brewery includes both the actual production and packaging facilities for Revolution as well as a comfy little tasting room with a long bar, couches, shuffleboard, and surprisingly fresh popcorn. It was here I drank my fourth (and favorite) beer and became, as my friend Ben termed me, adorable.

Fourth beer, Moby, the Great White Ale. Yes, it’s blurry. Have you not been reading this story?

It was in this state that I went on the brewery tour. Marty, one of the Revolution brewers and our tour guide, was both extremely knowledgeable (answering highly detailed questions about ingredients and timings from the crowd, including the chemist/home brewer we brought along) and very skilled at dealing with the dumb, slow drunks that he was talking to. I’d like to retake the tour sometime when I belong more in the former camp than the latter.

Industry in action.

When the tour wrapped up, we miraculously found everybody in our group and were secured back on the bus. I remember being squeezed very tight in between somebody I didn’t know and somebody I did. The bus was loud and raucous and there were little glowy LED lights on the inside, and the city was dark and cold outside, and my skull was bundled in a pleasant blanket of fur, and I was laughing too hard at something stupid I’ve forgotten now. In short, it was a wonderful day.

A Very Tiny Voyage: Ronan Park

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It was 16 degrees, but somehow 16 degrees on a sunny, windless morning with coffee and friends and a dog doesn’t feel so terribly cold. So we started off from Francisco and Leland, walking north, crossing Lawrence at a very ugly stretch, and angling off into Ronan Park.

The crew consisted of Linda, hiker and biker extraordinaire and organizer of this little excursion, Laura, our illustrious art director, Laura’s dog Minka, oft featured on this site and basically the best dog in Chicago, and myself. The point of the walk was to walk. That’s all. We went nowhere–the beginning and the end were the same, and then we all scattered.

We walked north through the park, encountering almost no one but a few hearty joggers and several fellow dog-walkers and one very dedicated girl shooting baskets alone on a forlorn court. We followed the river north, under bridges with frozen-up drains, under weeping willow trees that looked dangerous with no leaves, under skies bluer than we’d seen in months. We talked some of the kind of talk you can when you’re side by side instead of face to face and when you’re moving forward instead of sitting still.

We didn’t stop to sight-see until the end. We’d come back south on the opposite side of the river and saw a tall chain-link fence enclosing an irregularly shaped grassy area. Inside was a metal folding chair, some unidentifiable equipment, and a stack of plastic signs. We couldn’t figure out what it was for. Some kind of safe rest area for park workers? A containment facility for rabid squirrels? But then we read the signs:

DSC_0008

And all became clear.

You never know what you’ll find when you go for a walk to nowhere in particular.

Not A Guide To Mardi Gras In St. Louis

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[As this post contains questionable activities, its writer has requested to remain anonymous. I'm going to call him the Soulard Spy, because I like alliteration.]

I was asked–no, I was challenged by Laura to do a write-up on Mardi Gras in St. Louis. She asked me to take some pictures, observe, and come up with an interesting article. I told her something to the effect of, “I’ll try, but there is no way in hell I’ll have enough ambition to put that much energy into something.” I’m not a writer. I think I’m goddamn awesome and my brain is far superior to most d-bag slobs around me, but let’s be real. I’m not going to give you any bullshit. I’m going to give you reasons why you’ll thank god you’re not me. I am an uptight, selfish, self-righteous asshole, and this is not an interesting article on the sights and sounds of Mardi Gras in Soulard. And I didn’t take any fucking pictures.

So Soulard. Soulard is a quirky little neighborhood just south of downtown St. Louis. Some people with the last name of Soulard got this land from somebody blah blah blah. Seriously, most of you really don’t care, but if you’re a history jerkoff, google that shit if you want the whole history. I did, but I’m a history jerkoff. Here’s what you need to know. The buildings down here are old and awesome. Mostly built in the 1800s, all of the buildings are made with beautiful brickwork and look like they’re haunted. Soulard is the home of the Anheuser-Busch brewery. We were pretty pissed when InBev bought it out, but now we have Budweiser Black Crown, and no one gives a flying shit. The neighborhood is also home to many amazing bars and restaurants, mostly filled with your typical college idiots on the weekends, testing out the limits of date rape. Oh, and Soulard is French for drunk. It’s got that going for it. But most of all, for one day, it’s a goddamn shit storm. That is Mardi Gras.

It’s rumored to be the second biggest Mardi Gras celebration after New Orleans. Thousands of people flock to this neighborhood to puke and piss on my house. Yes, I fucking live in Soulard. Ah ha! You thought I was one of those suburbanites who see this shit on the news or maybe went down to Mardi Gras for a few hours. Nope. Every year it feels like the fucking apocalypse is happening at my front door and the next day the stillness is deafening. You could hear a squirrel fart.

It’s Friday afternoon, and I have to leave in a few hours to pick up two friends who will be staying with me for the weekend. Let’s call them Pud and Skin. These guys are my best buds. I have known them for over ten years and we’ve gone through hell and back but we’re still standing. My girlfriend, let’s call her Twinklebutt, and I pick up Pud and Skin, and we head to the grocery store. We do this every year so everyone staying at the house can get their booze and whatever they want to eat for the weekend. My girlfriend always makes gumbo and red beans and rice, but you need snacks too just in case she fucks it up. I suggest we make a drink I saw on the interwebs called Skipper. For those who don’t know, it’s two cans of pink lemonade, a bottle of vodka, and a fucking twelve-pack of Natty Ice. The article promised that although the combination did not seem appealing, the pink mixture would go down real easy. Well, this store did not have Natty Ice. Pud says just get anything. I, being the uptight asshole that I am, swear up and down that without Natty Ice this project is a failure. After looks of pity and verbal abuse containing the words “man up,” I was persuaded that Keystone Ice would be fine. When we got home I set to work. We got out a big beverage dispenser thing and poured in the beers, added the vodka, then stirred in the frozen pink lemonade. I watched as this mixture did not form the wonderful pink hue as described in the article but looked rather like someone had a loose shit in river water. Goddamn Keystone Ice. I knew I was fucking right. So we taste it. I wouldn’t say it tasted bad, but it did not taste good. It did, however, go down very easy. We were on our way. Commence the Mardi Gras.

We started playing Cards Against Humanity and to our surprise we killed off the Skipper, which we had renamed to Soulard Shitwater. We quietly went to bed and hoped the uneasy silence gained by being too drunk and learning too much about each other and ourselves would creep out during the night, and a brighter, happier noise would creep in and fill its place. It did not.

What did fill its place at about eight in the morning was the goddamn end all of humanity. It’s common for people to start drinking early on Mardi Gras. It’s also common for people to play a little music while they are outside on their patios and porches. What’s not common is having a fucking P.A. directed at my house blaring some of the most god awful top 40 bullshit that has ever been shat out of the music industry. I awoke to a jaunty little number titled “Thrift Shop” by a nice young man named Macklemore. I must have heard that song twenty times that day, all from the same P.A. from the same fucking people. That song waking everyone in the house up would be the fuel, and all we needed was a spark to set this day into a flaming ball of shit. By the end of the night, I hated the sound of humans sucking air. So we woke up and Twinkles started on the gumbo.

Eventually, we set off for a house party, and during the trip we hear of a guy getting shot by the police two blocks away, Pud helps carry a drunk guy across the street, and we yell obscenities at people we don’t know. I feel a little bit better. For about one minute.

Russell is the street where most of our activity is located. It’s our Bourbon Street. Right as the four of us hit the corner of 9th and Russell, I release what I thought was going to be a fart. Now before you get too far ahead of me, I did not shit my pants. It’s that strange twilight between a clean ass and something a bit more wet than normal. Since the port-a-potties were all out of toilet paper, I told the guys I would be heading back home to take care of this, and depending on the situation I may or may not meet back up with them. I’m sure to everyone I passed on the street during the ten-block walk back home, I looked like a drunk guy pretending to be a penguin. Don’t make eye contact, just walk. Shuffle. Scoot. Whatever. Needless to say, I stayed in, and in a few hours the guys returned with their friend Striker, and they had found plenty of alcohol while they were gone. The guys are fucked. I’m told we’re going to go over and talk with the neighbors and hang out a bit, so we walk over to the building across the courtyard, go to the upstairs unit, and knock on the door. After chatting with the neighbor for a bit, I suggested we move our group to another location. It was then that I heard the words that would ignite the spark I spoke of earlier. “I’m gonna pop some tags, only got twenty dollars in my pocket.” Skin then said something to the effect of “How do we get up to that fucking P.A.?”

I soon find out that the quest to socialize with the neighbors was nothing but bullshit. Their intentions from the start were to seek out this blaring, god-awful P.A. and unplug it. I hated it too; it had been going nonstop for twelve hours and the playlist must have consisted of maybe seven shitty songs. Skin says he figured out how to get up to that porch and I follow them. My intentions were not to unplug this shit but to keep them from getting their assholes turned inside out. So we all climb these hazardous stairs that I’m sure at least ten people have died climbing in the last hundred years. When we reach the top we don’t go for the music first, we go inside. Guess what? You can’t even hear the goddamn music inside. You can hear it three blocks in every direction outside, but not inside. Fuckheads.

Now, the key to going into someone’s house party is to act like you’ve been in there already. You can’t just walk in the front door and stand there, you have to make your way with a purpose. So we stride right past the kitchen, into the living room, and set up posts. Pud and I lean against the mantle of an unlit fireplace. Skin goes to a little bar and starts making small talk with a barely functioning party-goer. The three of us are pretty much blending in. However, Striker makes a beeline for a couple of girls on the other side of the room. He starts to convince them that he’s a tennis player from Kansas City in town for the weekend. Turns out one of the girls knows some tennis player in K.C. and starts rattling off names. Of course he pretends to know them and starts giving details about matches he’s played with them. Now here’s the problem–if you’re a strange guy talking to a girl you don’t know, her boyfriend has a spider sense that will tingle. And it did indeed tingle. He was next to her side in record time. Now don’t get me wrong, I would do the same if I were in that situation, but it wasn’t me so he’s a douchebag. Meanwhile, Skin returns to Pud and I, swearing the drunk guy at the bar stole his gloves and he was going to beat his ass. I watched them the whole time; the drunk guy never even moved. Anyway, we’re drawing too much attention now so I break this group up, collect my boys, and then they all split upstairs. I never like to go upstairs at house parties because we know what happens up there. So I keep it lowkey downstairs while the rest are doing god knows what. About thirty seconds later, Striker comes quickly down the stairs, looks at me, and says, “Gotta go.” When your friend looks at you that certain way and says “Gotta go,” you do not speak, you just act. I’m down the stairs and headed out to the street when I hear the sudden, beautiful silence. You have no idea how amazing silence feels after being pounded with constant bullshit for twelve hours. Everyone comes out to the sidewalk and people down there are asking what happened to the music. Skin tells them that the police were called and they had to turn it off. This guy makes lying an art form. It is enchanting to behold. I then suggest we move our group from line of sight and walk the fuck around the block.

When we get to the other corner, two things are happening at the same time. I’m getting filled in on all the details I missed while groups of people are running from the party yelling that the cops are coming. While the guys were upstairs, they were checking out the rooms, and as you might have figured, they were filled with guys trying to make sweet love to some lovely young ladies. I was told that one guy looked directly into their fucking souls and told them to get out. However, when Skin unplugged the P.A., some guy just stood there and watched it. Said nothing, just stood there staring. He was either too drunk to understand what the hell was happening or in shock that he could actually hear. So because they had drawn so much attention to themselves, I suggested we get off the street and into the back alley by my house.

As soon as we reach the alley, that goddamn music starts again. And it’s louder. My group is in chaos now. Skin is convinced that guy stole his gloves and he’s got to go back up there and kick his ass. Pud is so angry that he can hardly speak, but he’s sure that we need to go back up on that patio and fuck that P.A. up for good. Striker is actually having the best time right now, pissing on the dumpster and smashing bottles in the alley. It was like all my friends went fucking primal on me. I’m standing here looking at this scene and I crack. I yell at them saying something to the effect of, “If any of you go back up there, you are fucked! I will not help you. If you go to jail, you are on your own! If you manage to not get arrested, find a Plan B because you are not sleeping in my house! I’m sick of this shit, why can’t we just have a good time? Why do we have to be so angry? THIS SHIT STOPS NOW!”

After eight p.m. on Russell, it’s a sad scene. Most bars are closing up, people are dispersing, and the drunkest of the drunk are on display. We were included in that later category. Now let me be clear, at this point I was completely sober and had been for most of the day. These guys had been acting like complete fucktards for so long, I knew I had to babysit. But now we were on Russell and there were many drunks around, and where there are drunks there are police. I figured this was the safest place for them right now. Boy was I wrong.

Nah, just kidding. Nothing really happened. I go inside and sit with Twinklebutt on the couch. She asks how things went. I tell her she really doesn’t want to know. She trusts the look of exhaustion on my face and asks no more questions. Eventually, the guys come back inside as well. I point out to Skin that his gloves are on the table over by the door where he left them. It is now just nine p.m. and I was tired. I was worn out. I was done protecting them and other people. My friends aren’t terrible people. They are actually quite amazing people. They are musicians, artists, movie buffs, debaters, critical thinkers, and much more. They had a great time this weekend while I was stressed out beyond belief. I spent my weekend cleaning, tolerating loud music, keeping people out of my house, making sure people were fed, making sure people were behaving, and watching over three grown men. I could have gotten just as drunk. I could have gone right along with all the shit they did tonight. Someone could have gone to jail. Someone could have gotten hurt. But all day I was an uptight, selfish, self-righteous asshole. Because they are my brothers.

Next year I’m locking up the house and going to New Orleans.

Assholes better not steal my gloves.