FOR A HUNDRED BUCKS you could pick up and ugly guitar on ebay in 2005. I literally went to one of the best guitar techs (Geoff Benge) in Chicago and dumped Mr. Ugly off right next to his life size shark replica, in front of his fireplace, in his workshop/apartment above a dentists shop.

Frankly the whole scene was cool. I had him set up my cheap-ass-fake Gibson SG with pewter skull knobs sporting ruby eyes. It's Van Halen-ish red strips slashing across one the faces of the mocking grey skulls, laughing like a ghostly Ronnie James from Dio, beyond the grave!  The black lacquer otherworldly back ground that made this cheap guitar something special somehow has stayed shiny all theses years (see above photo). Ebay...baby...That’s how I got my first few electric guitars (Mr. Ugly was the first) and the addiction began.. 

Guitars remind me of ballet shoes. When you first sign up for ballet you get these slippers… I was very disappointed…I wanted to stand on my toes and spin around at high speeds and fly across the air to extremely dramatic classical music not shuffle ball change in some funky ol’ soft flats. Whelp, that’s also how I felt about guitars. Acoustic felt slow and heavy…intense and folksy. I wanted to rock! Play stinging power chords, like Def Leperd or Foreigner…it was Urgent, that I rock some Billy Squire swagger with my own original riffs. 

My third guitar...epiphany...I needed a pawn shop guitar like the greats! At least that was what I thought for some reason. A semi hollow body with rich tone and jazzy capability but also bluesy. It needed a past…the one I chose had issues…perfect! It was christened Big Red. It's slightly sordid history came home with me, but not before a lot of jaw flapping and possibly pointless rumination with my buddy Larry. “Was it was the right axe for the job?” Was Uncle Larry's ultimate question, I told him I wanted something meaty and soulful. In my hands, at that point, it probably sounded like an out of tune ukulele to the neighbors BUT the fact remains to this day it is beautiful instrument. Big Red is also pretty special because for a minute Epiphone owned Gibson so it’s got a little of both worlds all in one, Gibson is expensive and Epiphone is a little less pricy but combined it sounded damn good to me once I got going. 

The guy at Old Town School of Music’s “A Different Strummer” guitar shop had a bad back. He was very hunched over and had many physical issues that did not limit him from being an amazing guitarist. In fact he was astounding and he talked me into getting the most grown up guitar in my collection, the American made Telecaster.It's beautiful blond wood and sturdy build, he explained, would be the only guitar I would ever need. I got a nice discount because I was a student at Old Town. Sadly, I’ve never been able to really bond with it, maybe its too classy for me. I almost do better of my British Flag/Union Jack ebay special from Lyon's Def Leppard Collection. Both guitars have low action, but this slightly magical cheap-o has a really skinny but crooked neck, that’s why I got it at such a sweet bargain basement price on ebay, it plays just fine for the likes of me. I have no regrets and it looked great on my wall for 10 years at the hair salon ( don’t judge me…I was trying to bond with my vastly more expensive investment from A Different Strummer). They’re all home safe and sound. 

​Now I’m no  Rick Nielsen (lead guitarist of Cheap Trick and massive axe collector) but one of my favorite guitars turned out to be my beginner acoustic Fender and my Classical Cordoba. Oh, the irony...acoustic really is amazing! They make your soul vibrate and are so forgiving to my limited playing skills…reallllllly limited skills. I’m about as good at speaking french as I am at playing guitar, that ain't sayin' much. So you may ask, why do you have so many guitars? Well…I like to write songs and each instrument whisperers inspiration via their personal tone, and resonance. My Uncle Rick gave me a 12 String Ovation that is like a harp from the heavens, the sound is off the charts. I feel nervous to play it but when I do…a song will come popping out, like the goose that laid the golden egg alas, my tunes are only my personal gold, they bring me pleasure more than anyone else. 

Lastly is the story of my beat up 12 string Fender that impressed Scott Besaw my first teacher at Old Town School of Music…he is the reason I am playing guitar. “You don’t need a voice lesson Cally, you need to learn to accompany yourself.” Were his golden words that got me..."hooked on guitar".  Steve Dawson my most pivotal instructor said the same thing and I know it’s true but I’m just not dexterous enough to confidently play night after night. 

Back to Scott…he looked deeply at the Fender 12 string ebay had gifted me  for a hot "hundy". Turning it over and over wondering aloud, if it was the same guitar his dad had played when his father had accompanied John Denver on the road back in the seventies. If you closed your eyes it's old and musty smell…seemed to tell a secret story of a hundred songs that it had played before it met me. The wood was warped but yet it seemed to have a wisdom to it’s spongy strings. I can’t bring myself to change those suckers because for some reason they sound good to me. They sound like a storied past, walking backstage to a gig, late at night in the middle of nowhere…not knowing where your next stop will be on the tour.
​
Now all these musical refugees have found a loving home for this wayward troubadour and maybe some late night you'll walk into a little dive bar and hear me singing my songs with one of these old 6 string friends.

   “Ewww, groooos, are you kidding me?”
“No man, I’m serious! I was at Hardware last night and G.G. Allin threw poop into the crowd! Hit some Nazi in the face and now they want his ass- it was wild!”
    “Where did he get the shit, man?”
“Uhm, from his butt dude, he took a royal shit on stage!”
    Crevis thought about this hard for a minute, “it takes concentration to dump…I can’t image shitting on cue.”
“Pretty impressive, right.” Toby was easily impressed.
    Crevis took a look out their studio apartment window, “let’s get over to Punkin Donuts before the rain, I need coffee bad.” Toby nodded and stepped over Wally and Ace who were passed out on an old mattress covered with a Superman sleeping bag and his grandma’s old quilt. The apartment was a complete dump and smelled like old gym socks, mildew and wet ash trays. Crevis had bought some incense sticks at The Alleycat and it took some of the skank stank away.

Punkin Donuts was where all the broke ass punks hung out on Belmont and Clark. He loved it- you could always find some one to talk to, bum a smoke- read some comics in The READER his fav free weekly newspaper- see what bands were playing where. Although since he got the back bar gig at Hardware, he was in “the know”. He was gonna try and work his way up to back bar at O’Bannion’s but only time would tell. 
    Supposedly, the Crafty Beaver a proto-punk band was recording their new album at Wax Trax, a underground music studio not far from their apartment. He was gonna try and roadie for them.  Crevis wished he had some musical talent but he couldn’t sing or play an instrument worth shit. At the end of the day he just liked the whole scene. 
    It was overcast, an icy wind moist with the last prickles of winters threat,  seemed to follow Crevis and Toby over to Punkin Donuts. The place wasn’t really named Punkin Donuts, it was just a Duncan Donuts centrally located by some great punk places.  A bored looking Indian guy took their order and they got a couple of large black coffees to warm the feeling back into their fingers. 
“When The Alleycat opens I’m buying one of those 99$ leather motorcycle jackets,” Crevis announced as Toby and him sat down on the hard concrete of the sidewalk next to the building. 
    “With what money asshole,” Toby said hotboxing his newly lit cigarette, puffing like he’d never smoke another cigarette again. He was wearing two zip up black hoodies with an old stained jean jacket that was covered in band patches. Articles of Faith, DK, Replacements, Minutemen, The Damned…and a few silver screen monsters, the latter they bought at a t-shirt shop called Strange Cargo. Toby had worked pressing customizable t-shirt for the owner until he got busted sleeping on the job.
    “ Got paid a fine C-note painting the titty bar, asshole,” Crevis shot back. Toby nodded in acknowledgment.
There had been an extremely skuzzy, piss soaked bar in the neighborhood that needed to be cleaned out and painted. A guy had gotten shot and the body sat there for a week…so when Crevis and Wally came on to clean up it was literally barf inducing. But for a hundred each, in cash and all the free beer they could drink until the tap ran dry, well it was a, “great gig,” according to Wally. 
    “Rent is due ya know,” Toby reminded Crevis.
“What the fuck man, when did you ever care about rent?”
    “Since I saw my old man last week and I never want to live with that mother fucker gain.”  They watched a sexy girl with green fishnets and a leather skirt walk by- even with a bald head she was hot. 
   Toby’s dad was a rough guy who had bartended since forever and was a complete alcoholic. He job jumped from Green Door on Orleans, Simon’s in Andersonville and Green Mill in Uptown…and had managed to piss off all the most powerful bar owners in the city- finally ending up at a late night cop bar called Early Tymes. The last person these patrons wanted to see was Toby strolling in with his punk rock jean jacket, mohawk and combat boots. 
    “The prick sees me come in, all the pigs is staring a hole into my ass and dear old dad, grabs me and drags my ass to the front door. A real show for the boys. ” Toby tried to look tough but you could tell he was hurt. “I was trying to tell the bastard he needs to go check on mom- she fucking has cancer man…like he could care. Have another drink dick head.” Toby hit that cigarette and it glowed as hot orange as the rage he was feeling but couldn’t explain.
   “Fucker has got another thing coming…” he dug in his inside pocket and dangled a set of key’s with a four leaf clover key chain. “When he grabbed me I snagged his keys… went back early this morning and gabbed the first case of hard liquor I could find and a carton of Lucky’s.” He smiled with pride, like an evil cat. 
    I would be glad to help him polish off some of that fine hooch.
“So what’d ya snag?”
    He looked at me, standing a little bit taller…”I think it’s European, it’s called Malort!”
    I couldn’t bare to tell him the stuff tasted like cat piss and ear wax with a rotten grapefruit as garnish. It was seriously the worst booze he could’ve nabbed. 
One of the stoner guys who was sitting near us was listening to our conversation, “kid, they only make that shit in Chicago…they tried to make absinthe…a liquid hallucinogenic…but the shit just tastes like paint thinner.” Tobys face lost its glow. “It’ll get ya fucked up, though.” The guy added, flashing his toothless grin. Toby’s glow returned. 
    We headed over to Rocket 69 to pick up some rolling papers. The place was full of hippies and neither of us liked hippies. So we got our shit and headed over to The Weiner’s Circle for some char dogs. 
Wally and Ace were already there chowing down. 
Crevis swept in and took a big bite of Wally’s char dog, as he chomped, and Wally groused, Crevis added, “nah, this ain’t enough for me, I need a Double Char Burger and some-a those cheese fries.”
    “You better share summa yours Crevis, you ate most-a mine, ya asshole.”
    “Quit your pouting ya pussy.” 
But in the end Crevis shared some of his fries…. Wally did have a car after all and if they wanted to go see a triple feature across town at The Portage Theater, he had to stay on Wally’s good side. All three films were gonna rock…Pick Up Summer, which looked like a stroke film, Alien Contamination, which he heard was  like a low budget version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers and the cream de la cream Basket Case, he’d already seen it and it never got old. His mom literally had the same basket but no insatiably hungry mutant lived in it, just her pads and girl stuff. 
    Wally’s car was a huge gas guzzling rust bucket that blew dark gray smoke when you fire it up. We all piled in and headed to the show. His backseat was filled with shit. We all were surprised he didn’t have roaches. He had a beer box full of print clippings he found cool, he was hot for us to make a Chicago punk ‘zine. 
    “You still want ta’ make a zine dontcha,” Ace said finally emerging from his silence. He was rummaging through the box.
    “Yeah man, there was this zine my brother use-ta read called Sniffing Glue…And Other Rock “N” Roll Habits… it was sooo fuckin cool, funny and really turned me onto some bands like Eater and Buzzcocks.”

   We all proceeded to make fun of him for his high aspiration but we were in. We’d give it a shot. This girl who was into Crevis worked at a copy shop in Wicker Park and she could do personal stuff after regular hours. Maybe it would be a way to make a name for himself. Like John Holmstrom did with his PUNK magazine. Crevis figured he could be the Legs McNeil, “resident punk” who’d give Wally all the choice stories from the clubs.
    They parked the rust bucket in an illegal spot by the Portage because per usual they were running late. There was this group of people kinda jamming up the doors by the ticket booth, fuck, he thought now they’re gonna miss the whole set up of Pick Up Summer. Some fancy people with expensive looking “too new” 
leather jackets and Hollywood new wave hookers were buying tickets…then Toby spotted him, “Dude, it’s Joey Ramone, no ones got a face like that…” 
   “…or hair,” Wally added, already sipping from a flask hidden in flack jacket. Joey Ramone had a strange long over grown shaggy dog look with…bangs?! Somehow he made it look cool and considering he was the king of NYC punk scene and CBGB’s the famed rocker bar, we all starred at him, jaws dropping in awe. “How could he be here, 12ft. in front of us…” Crevis gaped in awe. “What should we do,” Ace said looking at Crevis like he’d have a plan.

   Before anyone knew what was happening Toby ran up to Joey and shoved a bottle of that rat juice Malort into Joey’s hand. “Joey and the girl with the Debbie Harry dye job nodded in approval, “Thanks Man,” Joey nodded in his rangy all black clad coolness that even fame couldn’t smudge off. “Thank you man for step’n up for all us punks and showing us the way.”
    Joey said something in approval and had his people buy us our tickets and whatever we wanted at the concession stand. 
    By now security, which was two big bikers in AL’S Moving t-shirts were pushing us away, but Joey gave us one last wave before he disappeared into the theater,
    “Greatest moment of my mother fuckin life,” Toby said…
“I knew today was gonna be a great day,” Crevis said as the usher showed us to our seats. 

    Once you are an icon you can’t go back to being a regular guy…the joke was on Shamus, now all he wanted to be was one of the blokes…but all his old friends seemed a little too agreeable and slow to pay their tab. Some how for all his pissing, moaning and scratching…bad road side food, broken down shit hotels and morning after body odor he had made himself a bloody star! He hadn’t really noticed in the last 20 years of alcoholic fog…but a few years sober under his belt he was taking stock. 
    At The Bristle Bar he’d told his best mate Danny, “it’s like I’ve been asleep all this time and I just work up, and my whole life changed and i can’t go back.”
    Danny, red nosed and potbellied laughed hard, he looked like a normal middle aged man…Shamus had a handler…he did fitness stuff…he looked a might better around the edges. 
    “Are you daft man, you have the world at your feet, no family gathering after church on Sunday or a nagging soggy wife who makes a face at the sight of ya…you look,” 
Danny pointed to the bar, “that pretty young thing is winking your way…what I’d give to be you mate.”
    Shamus really did understand this…and that’s why this all felt even more unreal. He had somehow no matter what state he’d been in continued to show up for his music. Years were blurry but he did love his guitar and piano and somehow he had eluded the grave of many of his musical peers. 
     He left the bar, and drove along a street he’d walked all his young life daily, in front of his grade school he watched from his Mercedes a gaggle of kids laughing and their parents picking them up and it seemed, right. The sun setting on the short day, a cold cold spring draft snuck through his cars cracked window and he rolled it up.He continued to drove slowly around a neighborhood that used to be so familiar. He dreamed of this day from his cold bed on a third floor walk up 50 years ago, that he would have a smart car, fine clothes and doors would open at his pleasure where ever he saught to be. Now he felt more of an outsider than ever. That was the trade off no one tells you about cause few get to that point.
    He recalled meeting with a not so lucky chap…played with a big band we won’t mention here…but they filled the stadiums back in their day and let just say this guy dropped out a little too soon. Retiring at 28 doesn’t leave you with a big pension. The guy had some how gotten through to him and they’d met for breakfast, his teeth a mess, not looking particularly fresh and looking for work. His hands shook so bad Shamus wondered if he could still play. He didn’t like being put in that position…he didn’t want to disappoint the guy. 
    Shamus made the rounds and no one was willing so he put this guy on one of their records, the bloke sounded like shite’ and they over dubbed him out…the guy didn’t care, it was one last shot in the public eye, a little money and a few photo op’s. 
    Shamus sighed… he was glad that wasn’t him. He wondered…What was next? Shamus pulled into his little sisters car park and that night under those old quilts he had the best dreams he’d had in months. 
    His brother in law was kind of a puke, he was far too impressed with Shamus but his little sister couldn’t have cared less.
    She gave him some advice, “It sounds pretty basic but settle yourself down, commit to something besides the road- you will always be a musician but you should give yourself a shot at being a person…not just a persona.”
    She was right…but it wasn’t so easy. He’d hooked up with Kay his old high school sweetheart and tried to make nice, he thought it was going pretty well…but he heard her one day on the phone with one of her girlfriends…lets say the fringe benefits were more the topic and something about another man was brought up…Kay seemed to want the best of both worlds. 
    The light was almost gone from the day and he stood on the rocky rubble, facing the brutal coast- the ocean bashing its head against the boulders…the best thing to do was to not try and go back…it wasn’t gonna happen…he would go somewhere and be unknown…maybe that could help him remember who he really was or who he should be now. 


Fast Forward -Micronesia:
    Shamus felt like a steamed dumpling sitting in his grass shack by the sea watching the a millipede make its way out the front door. He wasn’t really sure what he was doing here but his sisters neighbor needed help with some special needs native islanders and he actually had some basic medical training from his very short stint in the military. So here he was trying not to get dysentary and avoid large spiders. 
    He walked in his sandals slowly, with a large knotty stick, trying to avoid the rather rabid dogs that would sneak up on you in packs- he would toss out some treats and hot foot it out of there. He finally got to the low cinderblock building where some of the more wheelchair bound folks were waiting for meds, treatment or a doctor. Today he was simply handing out clean water, meds and talking notes for the doctor on who was waiting for what. 
    He had time to chat. He liked it. He’d only been on the island a week and already he felt his cynicism start to slide away. Most of the people he met just wanted simple things- the things that mattered. Health, family, love, a patient explained, “if I get the gitchy-gitchy once a day what do I need to worry about,” a sun beaten faced joked joyfully while waiting in line, elbowing Shamus, as they both watched a cute girl pass by the clinic. They needed shelter, minimal clothes- church and social time was vastly more important than a computer…considering their electricity was limited to six hours a day, that made sense. Some would say it held back this group of people from moving ahead on the food chain…but really…they seemed to be sane and happy. 
    It was blast furnace hot, he would not stay here forever. “Shamus, gonna play Robinson Curusoe on our fair island,” one of the doctors had joked.
    He held up a travel brochure to Brazil, a river boat trip on the Amazon River was next.
    Month later his back pack smell quite ripe when he arrived in the hotel outside Manaus. 
    As he watched piranha eat a chunk of meat his tour guide had tossed in the water he realized he would not be happy just roaming the globe either. 
    The next day as his dug out canoe sliced slowly through the turkey river waters he watched a camimen side back into the muck of shore making his way back into the unknown darkness of the mysterious jungle. 
    Who would’ve thought a poor kid, who grew up underweight dodging the fists of his father… would someday be staying in a lodge with Howler moneys trying to steal his baseball cap. He realized, he had almost pissed all this away…he had fallen so deep into the drink, he could just be another rock and roll statistic.
     A toucan squaked. He was so startled he almost fell out of the boat. The bird seemed to be alerting them of the big snake hanging precariously from tree coiled around branch they were passing from an over hanging limb.
    Back at camp, after dinner he was reading in his tent when his sister called him to explain, “there’s a house in the next town over, faces the ocean…beautifully maintained by Ian Wilson’s father who just passed…you should get it! He hasn’t put it on the market yet.
    Two days later he was headed home? The whole flight home he tired to imagine living in this old cottage by the sea. It would be a lifestyle change, the market was 20 miles from the house. He’d have to plan things a bit more. Things closed at 5 o’clock in the nearest town.
    Howling wind, beat the stones and boulder that made his “new” home. Ian had said, “Don’t know exactly how old the place is but Da thought it made Stonehenge look modern,” they had a good laugh signing the sale papers. 
    As Shamus sat in a rocker by the hearth a ton of snow dumped on his new/old roof, scheduling some gigs from his smartphone, he realized he’d come full circle… in the best of way really. 
      He flipped on an old transistor radio that Ian's dad had left behind, the kind that was static-y and the needle was hard to get adjusted, as he scrolled a Stones song came blasting through, "time is on my side," and by God, it really was...

    
    


    

Kenny smoked the mornings first cigarette from his sagging once green velour chair by the dirty front room window. It was overcast and sleeting. He had a funeral he was supposed to go to…Lil’ Tony’s Wife, “she was a mother fuckin saint,” he had cried on his mistresses shoulder last night at the bar. Facts is facts.
    Kenny pulled his shit brown bathrobe tighter cozying into his moccasins the old ones with the big hole in the toes, they still had some juice and were keeping him from freezing his toes off. His freakin’ heat didn’t seem to be working and the place was as cold as a tomb. At least his coffee was hot and strong…it was the cheap shit he’d bought at the Dollar Store but right now it would do. 
The last 24 hours had been a real pisser. Like usual he skated by the skin of his teeth…
    Rick, his once best pal used to be the king…he shot porn movies the 8mm types for peep shows and then let’s say he advanced. He used to be surrounded by babes who were ready for action 24-7. Now he was just another sleazy guy, heating up the bar stool where Kenny worked. Kenny’s boss didn’t so much care for Rick…but he liked Kenny well enough so Rick got to drink cheap 5 nights a week.

Kenny worked at The Cock Pit. The place was fuckin’ weird. Monday’s was for the gays, he told Rick, “lemme-tell ya, those boys can fight”, Tuesday was “Retro” what ever the fuck that meant, bad music he guessed, Wed- the skaggs showed up, Ladies Nite,  free drinks for “the skirts” a blow job in the bathroom wasn’t anything he’d complain about and Friday was the “lingerie” show, trying to keep toothless old men off the ladies in the skivvies wasn’t always a cake walk especially if Fat Phil was heavy handed pouring them drinks. Sunday illegal gambling in the back, which he sometimes bounced at the “way back room”. The “models” from Friday, really just broken down junkies Rick had reeled in for the boss and they would serve drinks and do some hustling in the “way back room” on “the world’s ugliest couch”. 
    What a life, Kenny snorted taking another deep drag of his smoke…not like he ever had any big a plan for himself. He wasn’t gonna cook anything up now at his ripe age…his back reminded him that 60 hurt. When he’d been a roadie for Quick Silver Howlerz  it really just seemed so perfect, then the gigs and the money dried up and he was out on his ass…so thankfully Lil’ Tony had put a beer in one hand and some green backs in his pocket and he’d never looked further then “The CP”. 
He was gonna suit up and walk over to 29th street where Lil’ Tony had his place. He was gonna drive them all to the cold meat party…”Ferrel and Son’s Funeral Home”, for the big event. Lil’ Tony’s wife had always been a royal bitch to him ever since he’d turned her down…like he was gonna shit where he ate…no fuckin way. 
    Lumbering to the bathroom he got the water good and hot, clearing his lungs and letting the hot rain from the shower head sanitize his filthy body and soul. 
    Kenny, mused, he wasn’t the worst guy or the best guy- he was just a big beefy guy making his through this world without a heavy load. Out of the shower he rummaged through his closet finding his only presentable suit. It smelled like cigarettes and whiskey, from his last funeral but this day would be much of the same. Kenny was getting to that age. People died.
    He rang the golden doorbell at Lil’ Tony’s, “I swear this guy thinks he’s the Willie Wonka of wise guys,” he said to no one under his breath. No answer. “What the fuck,” he said a bit too loud and checked his digital watch, “noon,” yeah…that’s right on the money. So he knocked agin harder and the door opened. “Ohhhh, shit.” The place was silent. 
He stood on the landing, looking from left to right…he saw cars he knew, but not a soul in sight. Kenny was no fool…he was going to walk in to Lil’ Tony and it was gonna be a horror show. He sighed, should he just walk away now. He was no hero. He also wanted a few more birthdays. He light up a cigarette and decide to just walk around the house. He didn’t have to go far, he turned by the carport and saw feet sticking out of a bush. 
    Nope, he wasn’t walking into that spider web. He turned the fuck around, and walked home. His fourth floor walk up winded him every time. He didn’t have a cell phone but he did have an old answering machine the last tenant had left behind…it was blinking.
    He first went to the kitchen, went under the sink and grabbed the Jameson, pour a nice fat glass and hit the red blinking button.
    “Hey, Kenny…hope I catch ya…can you come early. Everyone’s pretty much here and we want to get over to Ferrel’s, get this over with…Liz’s mom is driving me nuts and won’t stop her wailing. Hope ya get this before I put one in her,” then he laughed and hung up.
    Kenny realized he was still on this earth because he didn’t hear this call.
    He wondered who was everyone and what the fuck had happened. 
    He picked up the old harvest yellow rotary phone and dialed Rick. “Hey, what’s up pal,” thought you’d be at the boses. Were down here waiting for you’s.”
    Kenny realized he was shaking,” ah, uhm…fuck Ricky…I think they’re all dead.”
The line got real quiet, “what?”
    “I went to pick them up, the door was slightly open…I got a bad feeling, walked around and am pretty sure I saw Rod, ya know his bodyguard.”
    “Yes, I fuckin know Rod…what was he doin?”
“…he wasn’t doin’ nuthin, I saw those pointy toed shoes he wears, he was in the bushes man, feet sticking out…I didn’t wait around.”
    “WHAT? Why didn’t you go in.”
He paused, “I could just tell…it was bad. I walked back here.”
    “Your at home…”
“Should I cal the cops…you with some of his crew?”
    “Just Liz’s cousin’s and some people I don’t know…wait…I see Fat Phil, let me talk to him…they’re like third cousins’ or some shit.” 
    Kenny could hear muffled voices, he could tell they were walking outside, cars were honking and for awhile he wondered if Rick had forgotten he was on the phone. 
    Rick came back, sounded scared,” Ok- we need to get to the bar, Phil says we should grab some cash and get out of town…The Job, he called it, got pulled off…anyone connected with Lil’ Tony is getting whacked.”
    “What, I’m a bouncer…I’m a nobody.”
“Well you just became a somebody.”
Just before Rick hung up, Kenny remembered a very disturbing fact. “Rick, fuck, Rick,” he almost yelled, “wait…don’t go to the bar.”
    “What- what the fuck are you talking about…I’m headed there now.”
“are you alone.”
    “YESSS.”
“come pick me up now, I just remembered…I just just remembered.”
    Kenny looked at trash can under the sink…the only thing in it was a wad of cash from last nights drop…for some reason Lil’ Tony had given it to Kenny. Usually Phil gave him the drop but Tony insisted…
    “Banks are closed Sunday…you keep it, I trust you…Phil’s lazy ass won’t get it there by Monday.”
    Rick was yelling now, “does Phil know you have the money?”
Kenny paused, starting to count the cash from the zipper pouch, “no, but he sure knows he doesn’t have it…so why does he want us to meet him at the bar, hun?”
    Kenny heard Ricks tires squeal, “get ready to leave, Ill be at your place in five minutes…bring the cash.”
    Kenny threw together a duffel bag of his belongings and looked at the huge amount of cash in the zipper pouch. There was a note on the back of a business card, “You may need this,” was all it said. Was it to Kenny?
    His life just got real un-boring. Rick was beeping furiously and Kenny didn’t bat an eye- he was outta there. As he trucked down the stairs to the awaiting getaway car he thought of that old saying, "he who runs away lives to fight another day," so adios muther fuckers!

8:45 on a Saturday night Dec 5, 2020…it’s a fuckin ghost town. 
 
Hanna picked up a double cheese burger and fries and a medium Coke from ye’ ol Mc Donald’s…she needed some salt, ketchup and caffeine stat. She was really sick of work and just wanted to go for a drive in her beautiful city and see how it was limping along. She was done, like “stick a fork in me, I’m done,” tired of “the Virus”. People were not at their best…all sense of logic was in the pooper and it was becoming more and more obvious how fragile and yet dangerous human beings could be. 

Stores with butcher paper in the windows, neon signs dark… for lease posters dotted the facades of former “historic” bars, theaters “founded in 1946”… shuttered. Old posters from last St. Patty’s Day falling down haphazardly in random taverns that now were silent and cold in this 30 degree weather. All the good cheer and tinkling glasses was but a ghost in these vacant former bastions of merriment.
 
Ice skating rinks still had their lights all a glow but no skaters. Michigan Avenue, the Magnificent Mile…Gold coast…was now boarded up, vacant, dark or eerily illuminated by all the police SUV’s blue lights. 

People were high on violence…everywhere former church lady grandma’s bragged about going to the gun range and suburban couch potatoes boasted about the heat they were packing. Men in the street were stabbing each other over a “slice” someone was supposed to pop for at the local take out pizza joint…not because they were hungry…they were bored. The drug dealers were busy, busy busy…they worked long hours and took shifts, they came to the street around 2pm and by eight the pockets of addicts roamed like “The Walking Dead.” She never did like zombie movies.

YET, in the sanctity of her toasty warm 2007 FJ Cruiser she road through these once traffic jammed streets and she gazed upon all the champions of industry, large and small that were being crippled by this lethal flu. Some fine feel good jazz moaning low over the radio, carried her past street after street until she looped around the downtown heart of the city. 
 
Father along, heading back north she took a residential street past a house called , “The Gingerbread House,” built in 1884 a beautiful old Victorian with opulent stained glass,  ornate iron work in intricate swirling colorful almost otherworldly motifs. Built in a time when craftsmanship mattered- it was your calling card. Reputation and words like integrity meant something…but she wasn’t a fool…there had always been scoundrels.

Modern bad guys flaunted their arrogance and superiority to the lesser-thans…they had polished fingernails and were playboys living off their daddies legacies. Their father’s knew shame, so they threw some money around to the people they hurt and their guilt was assuaged. Their sons and daughters didn’t know guilt…all those hard luck cases were chumps. It rang from wall to wall at every country club she’d ever been a guest at. They were never her people…but she found them curious. 

For better or worse she was a student of society. All people interested her. She loved Pilsen’s Hispanic community, Chinatown never got old, Bridgeport mirrored Boston’s proud working-class pride, Wicker Park’s polish taverns where on the right night someone’s wife or grandma might honor you with a little polka tune on the concertina, Taylor Street and it’s gelato on a hot day with business meetings in back rooms behind closed doors, the hallowed halls of The Union League where “business” also got done after a round of lunchtime cocktails. Afternoon games in Wrigleyville and Reggie’s Rock and Roll Sox buffet bus and brunch on Sunday game days at Sox Park. Garfield Park was more then it’s botanical garden, it also had a cool old record store called Out of The Past Records where grandma priced the music, grand-daughter ran the register and the son took care of the stock. There was musical treasure in that cluttered trove of heavenly vinyl relics. 

She even loved driving around the industrial sites. Some were closed up and long decaying, housing obsolete machinery to make outdated products and no one could quiet recall the names of what those factories made anymore. They would become lofts someday or at worst a pile of indecipherable rubble. Literally, she had seen cathedrals after the wrecking ball had done it’s job…and all that was left was broken pieces of concrete. Old stone gargoyles…just rocks in a parking lot with some weeds sticking out of it, like bristly whiskers on the chin of a great age demolished. Ashes to ashes they say. 

Things have to move on. They either adapt or are destroyed. No one likes to hear that…it doesn’t sound very bucolic or romantic but that’s why we don’t live forever. Good folks are sentimental creatures. We like to see the past honored and commemorated- we like to see wrongs get righted and broken things fixed…in theory. 
 
​She was done with her burger, and had taken her last hit of the fizzy fountain drink until it gurgled dry. Her street was dappled with Christmas lights in the darkness of the swaying trees. The wind had become blustery and George the cat from across the street came whizzing by from out of nowhere, making a grand and graceful leap right through the wrought iron gate in her backyard…not even getting stuck on the chicken wire hidden around the parameter of the fence so the dogs wouldn’t weasel out and go missing. Everyone had wondered if he was alive since it had been so long since anyone had seen old George, yet there he was patrolling the whiles of our Rogers Park neighborhood like there was no COVID, violence or weird shit going on…he was just doing what he did best. Living in the moment, grooving on one of his nine lives, finding a way through man’s obstacle course and enjoying his life regardless. He’s got it right, Hanna thought as she walked inside her house and locked the door so she could get upstairs and get ready to do “it” all over again.








​

        “This airport smells like my grandmas’s basement” and “these houses sure look run down”, were some of the first thoughts that entered my mind when I hit Hawaii, land of paradise, for the first time. 
         As the taxi took us along rugged, gravelly roads, winding around fields of sharp looking grass, and dense bushes and weeds, I wondered where was the Hawaiii of Don Ho and Paul Page? Not present were, swaying palm trees, gentle blue green oceans, soft warm sand cushioning my pink, pampered Haole feet, these “sure things” I came from Chicago to enjoy, seemed somehow…not here.

       The cab, with a less than talkative, extremely large Samoan guy popped the trunk and nodded, “out”, without saying any words. 
Granted the only reason I was here was my girl friend at the time had won two round trip tickets to anywhere in the US and my cousin Jennifer and Jason were living here, on the island of Oahu. Jason in Kailua and Jennifer was in Hauula. We were staying in Hauula.

        On a tiny inlet, Jennifer’s A-frame styled house was crammed next to two other houses with decks facing the ocean side. Why with all this land and forest did they need to jam 3 residences right next to each other… it was beyond me? BUT when you stood on the deck and saw the unobstructed, view of the limitless ocean you really didn’t care. Mahalo! 

    These three homes were rented out to “high ranking” military folks…Jennifer was a doctor and top of her class so here in one of the “cottages” is where she stayed with two other doctors. I quickly realized things would be pretty quiet out here since these doctors worked all the time and were rarely ever home except to shower, sleep, eat a quick meal and get back to Trippler Military Hospital. The Trip, which I called it, was the largest military hospital in the Asian-Pacific Rim…the medico’s were busy. 

      Jennifer broke away one night to take us to a local hot spot. I tired poi at Ono’s a famous restaurant where many locals came for traditional Hawaiian cuisine, I wanted to like the poi and impress my waitress…but this was not the case.  I had to admit the combo platter with Kalua Pig, Lomi salmon,  and some other stuff in little bowls took a lot of rice and chili sauce for me to really choke it down. Ironically, years later that Kalua Pig on some cheesy nachos is one of my favorite meals…that’s why I’ll never be Ohana…it’s ok, I’ve made peace with the haole status. Just because you fall in love with a place and keep going back doesn’t make you a local. I’ve always been an outsider who loves to be around the insiders. I don’t really mind being the lone wolf. 
       In the Pacific Islands family is everything…your riches are your family- and I love that even thought in that department I’m an outsider too. 

    Chinatown is alway my favorite. Whether Chicago, San Francisco or Honolulu. It is mystical, slightly forbidden, sometimes shadowy and seedy or suddenly opulent and ostentatious. Glamorous, maze like, foreign and fully functional- there always seems to be something cool to look at, eat or be a part of in Chinatown. From Japanese sushi to Chineese Dim Sum, to Bob Chin’s…that’s the fancy stuff. You have to wander and find your spots. You will feel out of place, lost and possibly stupid, but if you can get over yourself…you will get to witness markets and moments that tell you a story of a lifetime in an afternoon, stare into the jade lions eyes…you will find answers.
​ 
        For me it took me many visits to “get Oahu”. It was not the land of false fairy tales even though those stories were lovely and what brought me here originally. If you don’t get the people, you don’t get the island. Once I really listened, slowed down, shut up and allowed the islands to rule the roost and me not be the ugly mainlander with my loud demands and restrictions…it was like a quiet smiling wind took me under its wing and allowed me not to be eaten by a big shark that passed me by twice! We’ll get to that. Fast forward. My brother moves to Oahu and my cousins move back to the mainland.

       My brother is a pop culture vulture like me. Although we compliment one another because he always knows the inside scoop to the part of the story I’m searching for…and…I can fill him in on the other half. His big guy status opens doors for him. He’s 6”7 and charming so folks like him. I have a Midler-esque quality which I have come to accept and appreciate, so islanders find me curious. 

       I love the Hukilau Cafe. It’s not fancy and get your buns though the door before 2p.m. or no macadamia nut pancakes for you! The owner is cool, you can tell she knows everything that’s going on. She’s strong and hard working and her food is great…bacon crispy, no problem. Don’t rush her, you are a visitor and this is her home, so be good, eat and get to the beach. 
      Malaekahana Beach is one of my fav’s. I think it’s gotten more well known since I started going there- pick up some poke at the Kahuku Superette with the other Hawaiian guys for lunch…nice sizes and ready to travel, just bring a cooler. 
      There's a bunch of cool little beaches that from the road don’t look like much but on the weekends everyone goes to these beach’s and pitches a tent, there are public rest rooms and folks park and camp out and have a good time. As one local explained, “we live where you come to vacation, we don’t need to travel.” It’s true, most Hawaiian’s want to stay in Hawaii. Unlike me from Indiana, who couldn’t wait to move to Chicago, the Big City or travel the world…many Hawaiian’s have all they need right on their island, if they’d only be allowed to just have their island.
 
      The longer I studied islands and their cultures, one very similar thread linked all of them. They just wanted to be… to live simply in their own ways and it worked for centuries until the pesky white guys came in and fucked it all up. Stop getting offended…facts are facts. We brought SPAM, disease, inappropriate clothing, forced their religions down the toilet and then wondered why they didn’t thank us. All I can do, being the pale face I am, is try and be thankful and respectful and feel really lucky that they don’t throw me in the ocean and use my body for chum.

        Ok…my shark stories. 
No great shakes except for my psyche when both times I realized I could have been shark sushi. 
      Remember that beautiful little inlet at my cousins. The third day of my visit I woke up early to watch the sun come up, I’d made a pot of delicious Kona coffee, extra strong and it had made me extra hyper even in the blazing hot sun. There was no air conditioning in the house so I hurriedly pulled my bathing suit over my sweaty body and made a run for the ocean. The sweet cool waves bathed me in refreshing kisses and I let myself swim out a little farther then I probably should of, I noticed pretty close by one of those sharp pointy metal things was tethered in the water. I think somewhere I’d heard they were there to protect US shores in WWII from hiding battle ships, that could moor in the little inlet and then sneak attack our ships.
     As I treaded water and watched the sharp edge wander I thought better of swimming that far out and decide to make my way back in for some breakfast.
     I later shared my story with my cousin, finally asking, “do you want to swim out to those tethered pylons with me, I bet there’d be some cool snorkeling out there.”
     She looked at me befuddled, “what pylons? Tethered where? The only thing out that far are sharks, supposedly there’s safety nets, but there’s no way I’m swimming that far out.”
     I gulped, “whaaa?”
“Thank God you didn’t swim out that far…my roomie who’s out of town, sometimes scuba dives out there…he’s got some underwater video. Sharks aren’t just a theory…that’s their stomping grounds.”
   I looked at her thinking she was pulling my leg, “but what about the tethered pylons.”
   “How much did you have to drink the other night?” She raised her eyebrows.
      Yeah, I was pretty tanked.

      In my second brush with the  “mano” or some may call JAWS,  coffee was also part of the story.
     Years later, I was staying in my favorite condo’s on the ocean at Pat’s of Punululu- literally I woke up in bed looking at the ocean unobstructed. It was dreamy. I made my coffee and hustled down to the beach, only two old folks were hanging out the rest of the expanse was deserted, except for one lone snorkeler, who had what I call a Midwest Tan, in other words as pale as milk and ready for a blistering sun burn. He was chubby and his trucks were neon Ocean Pacific circa 1980’s beachwear. All I could do was shake my head at his fashion fax pas.
     I jumped into the on coming wave and wanted to squeal, it was cold! After paddling and breath stroking up and down the beach a bit, the chill came back and I decided to get out.
​    Chattering up to my big beach blanket, I bundled up on a lawn chair next to my stuff and cracked open my travel mug of steaming Big Bruddah’s coffee. Ohhhh so good! Then I saw it, a turtle, finally a turtle! It popped its head out of the water like a submarine's periscope and then as I fumbled to get my phone and take a picture, but before I could get a photo it shot off with such speed it boggled the mind. Until I saw the huge stealth shadow swimming under the water going after the turtle. It was at least eight feet long and before I could yell to the snorkeler it was gone. Now, the water I had been swimming in was only a bit above my boobs and I’m five feet nine inches and I was on my tippie toes. Maybe it wasn’t a shark. They wouldn’t come in that shallow of water…would they?
       That night at dinner I shared my story with my sister-in-law who works for Hawaii’s national parks. “I’m sure it was my imagination,” I laughed, over a big bowl of spaghetti.
     “I’m sure it was,” she replied. “Less than a mile from where you are staying we had to shut down the beach because a dead whale drifted in and got stuck on a reef and there was a shark feeding frenzy. I’m sure your shark got done pigging out and decided he needed some turtle on the half shell for dessert!”
      We all laughed, but I was done swimming at the beach for the rest of my trip.
     You may be wondering what’s the big build up to this story…where’s it going Cally. I’ll tell ya where…to a very quiet place, called my soul. 
        I am by nature restless, loud, funny, hyper and always have something cooking, metaphorically but when I’m in Hawaii I can shut the hell up and just be. I literally can sit for hours and stare out at the endless ocean, the soaring mountains that seem to have a low song that vibrates out to me and holds me captive. I don’t need to clutter up the air with my conversation…all I want to do is just be with this special island that allowed me to come visit and be its friend even if it’s only for a little while. I think this is what heaven must be like, maybe that’s why the Hawaiians are such a happy people.
​

If you’ve ever walked into a record store and had the staff give you “attitude” or just simply ignore you you may appreciate my tale.

​
It all began at the dark wood paneled, poster covered back room space at Woodmar Records in Hammond Indiana... in the mall. This was a hallowed hall to me. As I quickly hustled down the maze of hallways past jewelry shops and a variety of little boutiques that sold the fashion of the day I could smell the cigarette smoke and incense, it was my guide to the sanctuary of all things cool and music, cave of secrets and a world I wanted to be part of…the music world. 

In Northwest Indiana I felt the edgy rock and roll life was pretty non-existant but here was a special lair of bad ass and I felt part of something just walking through the archway. British music magazines and expensive hard cover coffee table books of Annie Leibovitz photographs, Rolling Stone Magazines (which use to be the must read music mag of its day) CREEM, Hit Parade and Crawdaddy littered the front racks of the store by the counter. I never left without a copy of The Reader, a free weekly newspaper from Chicago, where there were personal columns to meet weird and wild city folk, it gave us lusty teen's something to get excited about in our bedrooms hovering around our Sound Design Stereo’s with duel cassette making mix tapes. 
​The only problem with this club of cool is…they wouldn’t let me join. The guys who work there thought I was too square. It took me a long time and many album and cassette purchases to prove that i knew something about music. 


One afternoon I begged my mom to drop me off at Woodmar Records using the fine art of compromise, “ mom, while I’m at the record store you can check out a dress in Carson's for your big date at The Brass Mug next weekend,” I was ever the little manipulator! 
“Ok, you’ve got thirty minutes she said, “ she was dust in the wind, as I took off, following the usual scent. 

Terry, Mr. Know It All, was working behind the counter chain smoking cigarettes, he nodded, like an emperor granting the plebeian admittance to his hallowed chamber. I entered, his nod was actually somewhat of a compliment for a 14 year old like me. 

I went directly to their imports and rifled though…I was bestowed by the crate digging gods with a really cool British New Wave compilation with horrible pastel graphics and a great mix of groups put out by some distributor I’d never heard of…it’s corner was damaged so it was on sale! Score! I actually really wanted the Prince's- "Purple Rain" soundtrack and Car’s-"Heartbeat City" but I knew Todd would look down on me for these commercial purchases, so I grabbed a 1/2 price Brian Eno to throw into the mix and decide I’d buy "Purple Rain" elsewhere…as I made my way up to the front. Another Senior manager of Woodmar Records,  some tough looking AC/DC t-shirt wearing, Camel smoking, Greek dude started reading Todd the riot act. Todd suddenly looked small and magically he now was obviously just another pimply faced 16 year old trying to play cool. 

AC/DC man sniffed like he had just over used a bottle of Affrin, rubbing his nose violently, “Dump that ash tray, price this stack of albums, quit strutting around here like some useless gash,” he spat at Todd. Wow, that dude was a dick. AC/DC man took off in a storm of sniffs and grunts, with his bad case of post nasal drip and disappeared through the rickety backroom door, with a slam. Todd looked at me sheepishly embarrassed.

It occurred to me, I’d been trying to impress this smug little jerk, not buying the music I wanted because I was afraid of his judgment. Wellll…I turned on my heels and grabbed that Prince cassette, but kept Brian Eno too…”I’ll take it all,” I said shoving the stack at him.
“Lotta good stuff here,” he said, almost like he was attempting for once to be sort of nice. “Ewe, what are you doing with this, he said, wagging the Purple Rain cassette at me.”
    A switch went off, no doofus like Todd was gonna tell me what to buy. “Yea, well I like him.” I stood firmly with my purchase. 
    “Suit yourself,” Todd said jamming my haul into a black and gold plastic bag and sliding it towards me. 
    After that day I vowed no one would ever music shame me again!

As the music years have gone by I have visited every music store I can, collecting all kinds of amazing stock! Very little of it did I sell, I just continued dragging dusty plastic crates of albums and “Case Logic” double sided storage cases and shoe boxes full of cassettes from apartment to apartment. When one of my cassette carriers zipper rusted shut I knew it was time to start burning some of these one of a kind tapes to CD and then into my iTunes library. 
    Rhino had a great bunch of New Wave compilations and unique collections of songs that had not made it to iTunes or CD yet…so slowly, track by track, I burned the flimsy, sun melted cassettes onto a CD via my Crosley Desktop Stereo…not very impressive to look at considering the stereo rigs of yesteryear but it was easy to use and did the trick. Re-listening to all this great music was so soul enriching. Like a warm hug from a giant down comforter when the heat goes out. 

Years later my computer almost crashed during COVID, I raced to buy a new Apple laptop and unfortunately my music collection, all 46,989 items was mostly wiped out from my iTunes. But as luck would have it I learned how to put it back together the long way by reloading all those CD’s yet again…hundred and hundred of CD’s that were Jenga’ed into all over my house. You’d think maybe this would suck…because it was time consuming but actually…who gets a chance to listen to their whole music collection.

Most of the time, if people even have a music collection it’s on the shuffle on their devices. The music goes in one ear and out the other like background noise. But purposefully loading this mountain of music into my computer made me slow down and take stock.

The hours and hours I spent at my kitchen table loading in CD after CD and sometimes renaming, finding art work and relabeling stuff gave me a hemorrhoid but it was worth the incredible time warp of good feels I got being reintroduced to all of these great moments in music!

    My first stop after the quarantine was lifted and shops could be open was Laurie’s Planet of Sounds. I walked in after being a devoted client for at least a good 15 years and a man greeted me by name. He was tall and kind of hippieish with his long graying hair, he had a rock and roll t-shirt on, I, in turn, had on my Laurie’s Planet of Sounds T-shirt with Alf grooving to a tiny record player…I guess Laurie the owner of the shop was a fan of the 80’s TV character. “HI,” I said shocked this guy knew me.
    “H! You said on FB last night Laurie's was going to be your first stop since the stores had been closed.”
    “Yes, I did...here I am...great to be back!!” I smiled.
“I’m John,” he said introducing himself.
I was still confused.  Who was this guy? Was he trying to pick me up? “I’m Cally,” I said with hesitation. 
He could see I was befuddled, “I’m the owner.”
    “OHHHHH,” I laughed. All these years and I had no idea this was THE John Laurie who owned the record store. Then we proceeded to talk music, small business ownership and general stuff. What a sales man too…just as I was checking out with a fat stack of goodness he shows me a 30$ album by my favorite label Numero Group and bam…I’m buying the gold standard of lounge music with the coolest cover and package of my album collection. It gave me a lot of peace of mind and soul every morning with my coffee, to combat the worry about my business and the future of our country in 2020. 
It was the best feeling I’d ever had at a record store…so I proceeded to do my own National Record Store Day once a month, first to my favorite haunts and then later to places I’d never been to. 

    There’s a certain record store that I will continually revisit from time to time because of it's great stock unfortunately it comes with a bunch of  pukey personally ordained elite hipsters behind the counter... who like to look down on you from their perch. To them I say, “ring me up, choad,” and you can keep that smug look on face for the next insecure sap that gives a shit. I will be lavishing in my 20 soundtracks I just got for a few bucks each in your dusty CD bin…you guys were the same jokers who told me vinyl was dead 30 years ago. Now who's the schmo. 
    KEEP YOUR COUNSEL, fellow crate diggers and never let anyone diss your disk selection. Music is sacred no matter what you buy. 
    
​

The radio serenaded us as we drove along Rt 41 in the darkness of a crisp autumn night. The light from the dashboard glowed golden yellow, as the songs washed over me.  I go back to this soft rock memory over and over. I.G.Y by Donald Fagen played along side Gypsy by Fleetwood Mac and Joe Jackson’s, Stepping Out- these songs were perfect soundtrack for our weekly trek to Stained Glass lesson’s, heat on low as we made our way to class.

I could finally wear my monogrammed periwinkle blue sweater that had been tucked inside my dresser drawer where it had sat since August when it was still too warm to wear- and summer was still so fresh in my heart.  Now I looked forward to pumpkins and sleepovers on the weekends…impending Halloween festivities set excited butterflies fluttering in my stomach. New school folders were getting broken in, I’d been decorating them with all my favorite latest bands. Promises of better grades and a new diet, cooler clothes and romance…anything seemed possible. 

What did my step mom and I talk about all the way to Stained Glass class? I was more of a listener, like a therapist. It was hard for me to pay attention as we took our seats and Sherri, my brother’s best friends mom, explained our assignment, she was a good teacher.  I wanted to do the really complicated stuff like she did on her “Wizard with Swirling Tree’s” door, but I could barely cut squares and triangles without lots of slow patience, on my part. My step mom wanted to be creative but her heart wasn’t in it- she preferred to just buy the art.

Such a complicated relationship I had with my step mother…I lived with her, my step…I never called her step mom back then. She explained if she was gonna do the work we should address her as mom, since that would be her role. That seemed fair to a five year old me.  She did the heavy lifting, so to speak…the doctors visits, the grocery shopping, picking up medicine at Ribordy Drugs when we were sick, talks with teachers…tutoring, family vacations, clothes for each season, making dinner and…stained glass lessons this week, until the session ended. 

We drove, on the way, passing A-framed homes some looked like ski chalets, they looked very cozy and posh at the same time, they were very Vail and in fashion.  Sometimes we shopped after our class at some near by interior design stores, the smell of oriental rugs, surrounded by Teak furniture displayed grandly next to bright yellow fireplaces that were made of metal and attached to a wall they looked like a cone,we had one of those.  Art in bamboo frames, wicker fan chairs that seemed tropical and exotic but were uncomfortable to sit in, we had them at home too. Things seemed glamorous, exciting, vast possibilities for the future. Travel, adventure and maybe castles in France or Yacht’s in some East Coast destination. I was reading the Preppy Handbook, Izod, Polo, Oxford…important named brands. Country clubs, sail boats, snow skiing and tennis. 

My folks would go out and my step mom wore a metallic, sequined beret and Halston type clothes, they brought home lobster leftovers that tasted good even cold. 

My brother and I ate cereal on Saturday morning watching Scooby- Doo and eating Cookie Crisp cereal. I remember after cartoons one morning, I was listening to my parents albums on the record player, it was on a jiggly metal rolling cart, where the player was housed  and you could put three or four albums on at a time and they would drop after each side would play, we had another record player that would flip the albums too. I don't know how old I was but pretty little, and I put on Three Dog Night, One Is The Loneliest Number, and I played it over and over…haunted, intrigued…I felt like the singer knew me. I was so touched and I cried, how could he know how lonely and cast out I felt at school with my “special classes”, surrounded by all boys, meeting with a tutor because I couldn’t read or tell time and had dyslexia. But in stained glass class, I was just another student. My project seemed to delight Sherrie, she liked my creativity.

They put me in a different school and all the kids knew each other but I didn’t know a soul. I learned to read and I loved it passionately and my dad let me buy tons of books from Scholastic Book Club. Judy Blume, Beverly Cleary and so many other authors became my favorite.

My teachers Miss Honeycutt and Miss Chizmar were just wonderful and I just loved them. They heard me sing and entered me in a talent show and I sang tomorrow accapella- and I could tell they thought I was really good and not just faking it. Miss Chizmar got transferred after my second grade year and Miss Honeycutt, my main teacher,  got married and quit teaching. I went back to my old school…I was “integrated” now. 

Again I knew no one at the school, two years away makes you a stranger. But I got reacquainted and kids were kind of mean. I thought about these things silently while my step mom talked on our way to Stained Glass. 

We had a lake home in White Pigeon, Michigan, when I went there I was popular with the kids my age and we had fun snowmobiling and water skiing. Bay City Roller’s, “ S.A.T.U.R-D.A.Y, hey!” 

Fast forward, our last stained class lesson, “do you want to re-up for next session,” my step mom asked on the way to Valparaiso where Sherri had her “studio.”
“No I think I want to take piano or voice lessons”, I replied, knowing that was where my future fame would be directed. 
My step moms Farrah Faucett, feathered blond hair nodded in agreement, her face forward, driving into the midwestern darkness, past fields of faded yellow, prickly grass and trees so huge, and dense they were like a wall to another world of distant factories, hidden by highways that made things I didn’t understand, in dreary looking plants. Until we hit city lights, like an escape from the dark vortex…pulling into the parking lot for class.

The only thing I missed about our stained glass classes was that drive, I just love the glow of the dashboard the soothing music and the idea I was going somewhere to create something. My quiet thought time with my step mom. Why that memory stands out so vividly, over and over in my mind 38 years later is beyond me. But I really enjoy recalling it every time I hear I.G.Y…Stepping Out and Gypsy.

By Cally Raduenzel 2016

In case you don’t know who John Hughes is...well, have you seen: Vacation, Sixteen Candles, Weird Science, Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Pretty In Pink, Some Kind of Wonderful, Uncle Buck, Home Alone1&2?

Before you were a jaded, workaholic, aggressive, frustrated adult you were a teenager, and you probably saw most if not all of these movies if you are in your 40’s. These movies and soundtracks defined our 'puberty-years' and gave being a teenager some credit for something more then zit cream, eye rolls and weak upper lip mustaches.

The 80’s were kind of fucked up. There was a lot of money due to free flowing banks and credit cards- the bubble hadn’t burst yet, to remind us all that you did have to pay back those credit cards at some point. When you are a teenager, bills aren’t your problem, your heart, soul and loins are!

Driving in the backseat of my best friends mother’s silver Cadillac Cimarron, heading to godforsaken hicksville Georgia from the cultural armpit of Indiana in the summer of 1986 my soundtrack was all John Hughes inspired. I felt “Left of Center,” and my high school days were going “Round,Round,”...everyday walking down the hallowed halls of Munster High School, constantly nervous about my developing bod, my “look”, my stature in the halls, I was in a state of “Shell Shock”- my pillow knew tears. These were all songs collected for the soundtrack of "Pretty in Pink" by John Hughes.

John Hughes wrote our words, picked the perfect music and gave us a good laugh at ourselves when we so desperately needed one, (ever try to make a teenager laugh, it ain’t easy)!

Fast forward to...my early 20’s.

The 90’s have come and they weren’t all we thought they were gonna be in the 80’s. I’m in the formerly flooded, basement of my pianists apartment trying to put music “act” together. His day job is teaching karate to rich kids and he comes home all depressed because he was at singer Richard Marx’s house and he’s jealous. Richard has the hot wife from "Flash Dance" / "Stayin Alive" Cynthia Rhodes and a great career and he, Ron Blade (stage name) is playing piano for a nobody like me in his moldy hole of a home.
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“We gotta find a way to make it Cal, seriously, I can’t keep living like this,” he power chugs a gatorade with a splash of vodka, “ I guess I could become a solider of fortune?” He said wistfully, he always forgets...he was never in the military, he only went to military school.

Ron went on to explain; the sun was setting, and he saw a man in his bathrobe with what looked to be a cocktail, standing at the edge of his back terrace staring out at the lavish north shore neighborhood he lived in, there was something sad about him. Ron said, “he looked how I felt.”

Next week Ron and I meet up to practice our set for a gig at poetry slam (it was a new trend in Chicago in 2009, and they wanted music to break up the poets...incase folks were falling asleep into their drinks).

After our practice, we were finishing off a bottle of tequila, the basement still smelled like a cave of old cheese, “remember that neighbor of Richard Marx I told you about?”

“Yes Ron, who looked like you felt,” I nodded pouring myself another shot. “It was fuckin John Hughes! The director! Ya, know Molly Ringwald- Judd Nelson...Breakfast Club, St Elmo’s Fire... He just fuckin died!”

I was so in shock, I took another shot and chased it was some flat diet Dr. Pepper. “St. Elmo’s wasn’t his.” I replied in a daze.
Every generation has their stars...for me it was Princes Diana, Jackie Kennedy Onasis, Harold Ramis, people who define an era...and John Hughes was one of these luminaries.

He really was his characters because that’s what happens when you write...you create a person out of thin air and make them real, and some how they are a part of you.

I was such a gaping wound of a teenager...and John Hughes was like a therapist, big brother... or more aptly my Oz. He said, “I listen to kids. I respect them. I don’t discount anything they have to say just because they are only 16 years old.”

I had heard that he didn’t feel his films or his writing was appreciated in the way he thought that they should be and was disgusted at the baby boomer hypocrisy that was culminating from his generation.

He left a legacy that will transcend the pettiness of the 90’s and 2000’s... We all long for our teenage summer, the Say Anything, Shyest Time, I Go Crazy- days and nights of sleepovers, big dreams, long walks across town with no destination but to hope and dream that someday we will be as loved and revered for what we are...what we leave behind...our thumb print on this big blue marble of the world.

The song that John named his movie after- ...”Don’t You Forget About Me,” will live in our forever teenage summer memory of him.

C. Raduenzel 2016

​The first time I read a National Lampoon magazine was in my cousin Jon’s bedroom. It was laying in a pile of dirty laundry I was supposed to retrieve and what a great load I found!

It was comic porn with bad words, dirty pictures, ADULT humor, which I knew must be awesome because all things “off limits” were EXCELLENT...when you are 10. Case in point was my favorite TV show Saturday Night Live and John Belushi and Chevy Chase were my idols. My favorite movies were Animal House and Caddyshack...soon to be followed by Stripes. Harold Ramis and Bill Murray were my other fan favorites.

Being a jokester was my destiny!

I also read a lot MAD, Playboy Joke Books (good for cocktail parties). I begged for a subscription to National Lampoon and my step-mom promptly replied, “absolutely NOT”!

So I tried my dad, “don’t you think that’s a little too adult,” he questioned from his Lazy- Boy recliner, making a squeeze cheese and Ritz cracker for me while I pled my case. “It’s got really good political articles!” He rolled his eyes and handed me back the subscription card, “ask your mother.”

Shit....

I finally had to settle for cousin Jon’s cast off’s...he was only reading it for “the tits”. So he gave me a big bag of MAD, National Lampoon’s and Crawdaddy....ohhhh, Crawdaddy. The now defunct music magazine for people who really knew music, he explained.

It’s amazing to see the writers who began their careers in National Lampoon, such as John Hughes of Breakfast Club and Pretty In Pink fame, or P.J. O Rourke, now famed political author of Parliament of Whores and Eat The Rich. Most of my favorite comic artists, such as Roz Chast and Gahan Wilson also donned the pages of this hallowed relic and now draw for the likes of The New Yorker magazine.

As smutty as National Lampoon was it also was a great place to spread your wings as a writer and comedian. Folks were really taking a chance as the old guard of comedy was fading out...this new breed of aggressive, out spoken alcoholic-drug addicts fueled by Harvard degree’s was blowing my young mind and making me laugh and question society’s hypocrisy.

You couldn’t help but become a critical thinker if you listened to the news and then read these periodicals. Also, growing up in a small Indiana town out side of Chicago, we had this strange melange of urban forward thinking, mixed in with the staid country clubs and small town PTA mentality.

I was going to Brownies, coming home playing with my Wacky Packages (done by some of the greatest underground cartoonists of the 70’s- satirizing popular consumer goods) and reading these alternative publications, but also being influenced by Judy Blume (teen lit author), Dynamite and Banana’s Magazine (John Holstrom of PUNK magazine drew for them from time to time) and RollingStone Magazine...also my step-mom never missed an issue of People Magazine...and I ate that up too!

By the time I hit puberty I was sure that some how, some way music, comedy and writing would be in my future.

Computers and the internet highway have given rise to Vice Magazine- I think it’s probably the most cutting edge/smutty and critical underground information mag there is...they also have morphed into video. They have their own channel on YouTube, and I recommend it....they too focus on the carnival of weird sex that seems to drive we human beings but Vice also is daring to go get the stories you will not see on mainstream TV about war, religion, sex trafficking and any and all things that are going on right here/right now on this planet from Africa to Bosnia- to The Bayou!

So I will forever thank my Aunt Marrianne for asking me to do a load of laundry for cousin Jon, if I hadn’t maybe I would be a good little conformist living back in my hometown, going to the PTA and living an exemplary life instead of being the wild woman I am!