The "Tired of Winter" Friday Random Ten

I realized yesterday that I was officially tired of winter. It came early this year-- usually I make it a week or two into February until this happens. Seattle and Oakland are looking mighty good as places to live when I get my kids off to college. One of the advantages of my soon-to-be nursing career is that there's a shortage of nurses everywhere-- even in places with decent weather.

1. Missin' You- Little Feat
2. The Safety Dance- Men Without Hats
3. What Goes On- The Velvet Underground
4. Subterranean Homesick Blues- Bob Dylan
5. Dancing the Night Away- The Motors
6. Romeo Had Juliette- Lou Reed
7. All In My Mind- The Quicksilver Messenger Service
8. Rollin' and Tumblin'- Bob Dylan
9. All My Lovin'- The Beatles
10. You Can't Roller Skate In a Buffalo Herd- Roger Miller



Notes:
1. Sad, lovely song from "Time Loves a Hero," the last Little Feat album that Lowell George was on.
2. One of the stupidest-- and most fun-- one hit wonders ever.
3. I always think of my late friend Mark whenever I hear this one-- it was one of his favorites.
4. "I'm on the pavement/Thinkin' 'bout the government..."
5. Another great song from the "No Thanks!" collection of seventies punk.
6. From the terrific "New York" album.
7. I originally bought the album this one's on when I was 19 and living in Salt Lake City in 1980. I finally got around to buying the cd recently.
8. Some rockin' Dylan from "Modern Times."
9. Man, doesn't this song still sound great, nearly 50 years down the line?
10. This was one of the songs I loved singing with my girl Cathy, one of my girlfriends during my days as a third grade "playah."

Milestones and Memories

In the nursing program we have a "skills lab" once a week in which we practice the physical skills we need to have in order to work as nurses-- making a bed in a hospital room, taking blood pressure, ausculating breathing and heart sounds, etc.

One of the skills I'm most nervous about is using needles. It's no secret that we use a ton of them in my chosen profession. And since I dreaded needles most of my life, I was very anxious about this.

Today's skills lab was on needles.

About a year ago, I went to the doctor after coughing non-stop for 3 days. My doctor tenatively diagnosed me with asthma (correctly, as it turned out) but had blood drawn to rule out a couple of other things-- including a "PE"-- a pulmonary embolism (a blood clot in my lung). It turned out that it was the beginning of a year of being a virtual porcupine-- I've had so many needles in me in the last year. That night, when a test for the pulmonary embolism turned up positive (falsely, as it turned out), my doctor sent me to the emergency room for CAT scan to check for a blood clot in my lung. I had a "PICC" line put in my arm so that they could give me one of many things they put in my veins or took out that evening. And I got a hepatitis shot, just for good measure.

Fortunately, it turned out that I didn't have a PE, but the nursing school application I turned in earlier that day would make sure that I would see many more needles. I've had to have blood drawn for various tests and titres (blood tests to make sure you have an immunity). I've lost count of how many shots I've gotten. I got two, for the seasonal flu and H1N1, a couple of weeks ago, and have to get another in a week or two for the last of my Hepatitis shots.

My skills lab went well. I was nervous as hell at first, handling the needles, learning to draw from vials and ampules and how to inject IM (intermuscular) and an insulin shot-- we actually have dummies to practice on. The instructor also sent us home with a couple of needles and a vial to practice with.

Afterward, I mused on how the last year of my life had helped me get ready for this; I'm pretty okay with needles, finally. And I thought about how a lot of things have led up to this.

I've mentioned before that my old drinking buddy Marty, a guy I hung out with in the Gingerman Tavern back about 20 years ago, is in my class this semester. This week in class, we were talking about the ideas of Eriksen, which a lot of the program is based on. Last semester we focused on "older adults" (geriatric is generally not used any more). This semester it's young adults (18-40) and middle-aged (41-65). Our instructor expressed gladness that there were a few people who were, like her, in the latter group, and made a comparison-- would it be appropriate for someone in the "older adult," in the "generativity vs. stagnation" phase to be sitting in a bar drinking every night? And right on cue, Marty and I looked at one another and chuckled. I knew that he was thinking what I was thinking: "We took care of that in our 'young adult' years."

Marty and I get a kick out of being looked at as the "wizened elders" in the class by the youngsters. I realize that he and I have no regrets about our past lives. It all led here. I don't know about him, but the years spent hanging out, making great friendships, having great conversations-- and burning off some anger-- were just what I needed after a youth spent dealing with both a troubled parent and suburban dickheads who didn't like me because I was from the city and hence different from them. It was great to have those years to indulge, to have some great (and some not so great) relationships. I learned a lot, particularly about myself and how I needed to change. I'm a better father than I would have been if I hadn't had that time to blow off steam and I'm a better husband than I would have been. And a better student.

As wearying as my life can be lately, I'm still very happy with it. I like being a dad. I like being married. I like the stability I have these days.

But once in a while, I pour a glass of wine, slip the earphones on and listen to Jim Croce's "Careful Man," which I've put up on my "Boxnet" widget to the left ("The Soundtrack To My Life.") It's nearly a dead-on biography of my younger days. I'm reminded that I spent 6 or 7 of my 9 lives already, and I pay close attention to the last line: "I used to be a terror, but now I am a careful man."

I don't gamble, I don't fight
I don't be hangin' in the bars at night
Yeah I used to be a fighter but
Now I am a wiser man

I don't drink much, I don't smoke
I don't be hardly mess around with no dope
Yeah I used to be a problem but
Now I am a careful man

Chorus:
But if you used to want to see a commotion
You shoulda seen the man that I used to be
I was trouble in perpetual motion
Trouble with a capital "T"
Stayin' out late, havin' fun
And shot off every single shot in my gun
Yeah I used to be a lover but
Now I'm an older man

Chorus

But if you used to want to see a commotion
You shoulda seen the man that I used to be
I was trouble in perpetual motion
Trouble with a capital "T"
Stayin' out late, havin' fun
And shot off every single shot in my gun
Yeah I used to be a terror but
Now I am a tired man
Yeah I used to be a terror but
Now I am a tired man

A Walking Portrait

Tonight, I went to the library to study without the distractions (and noisiness) of home. I stopped first at the Redeye, a cafe near my home, for a cup of motivation.

I chatted for a couple of minutes with with twenty-something barista before I hit the books. He was surprised to find that I'd lived most of the last 24 years in the neighborhood, North Center. I mentioned how much it had changed-- how dirty, crime- and drug-ridden and seedy it had been when I moved here in the Spring of 1986, less than a year after I'd finished college (or at least my first round of college).

I thought about all the changes in the neighborhood-- and in my life-- in the last quarter century. And then, right on cue, my portrait of Dorian Gray walked by.

When I first moved into the neighborhood, at an apartment on Ashland and Berteau, I'd walk down to the strip of Lincoln Avenue between Irving Park Road and Montrose for most of my shopping. Back then, aside from the Jewel's grocery store, it was an assortment of resale stores, cobblers, laundromats and such. Shifty looking people walked up and down the street-- there was obviously a drug scene (heroin) going on back then.

Through the two and a half decades, the neighborhood has changed. One by one, the seedy little shops have closed and a little fancier ones have taken their places. There are still a few places the same-- the Korean restaurant, the Jewel's-- but most of the places and people have changed-- including my "portrait."

I remember noticing this guy almost immediately after I moved into the neighborhood. He had a red "white man 'fro" and was usually wearing a dress shirt and a tie. My reckoning was that I was seeing him getting home from a job as an accountant or some other office job.

Over the years, I wore a lot of hats. I worked as a law clerk, a waiter, an assistant manager in a restaurant, a construction worker, a manager of a restaurant, a teacher. I saw a bunch of relationships come and go, including two marriages. I became a father. And I've gone back to school to set out on one more career. And all through it, I've seen this guy shuffling down Lincoln Avenue.

I saw a quote recently that you usually have the face you deserve by the time you're fifty. I've got a year and four months to go, but barring a serious accident, I have to laugh at this. For having used up at least 6 or 7 of my nine lives, I somehow managed to have a face (and with the possible exception of my right knee, my body) that's about ten years younger than what shows up on my driver's license. My classmates last semester were shocked to discover that I was the oldest person in the class. I suspect that it was a combination of good genes-- my parents both are regularly mistaken for being ten years younger than they are-- a pretty high physical activity level over the years, and a good diet; I'd made the decision as a teenager to eat healthily, despite all my other bad habits.

But tonight, as this guy, who's about my age, trudged by the cafe, slightly hunched, pasty, paunchy and nearly all gray, I had the oddest thought-- that over the years, he's been the one aging for me, like the portrait of Dorian Gray.

Monday, Monday

"Monday, Monday, so good to me
Monday morning, it was all I hoped it would be."

My Monday morning started out a little rough; I couldn't find a parking space on Montrose Avenue, where I usually park, so I kept going and parked at the lot the school has near Lake Shore Drive while it's building a new multistory lot that's built into the new administrative building they're also erecting. The shuttle bus that runs between there and the school sat for over 20 minutes, so I was about ten minutes late for class, which I hate doing.

Fortunately, there were a handful of other people who were late for the same reason and the teacher didn't seem upset by it. We had a great class session. This teacher's friendly, but really rigorous. When a friend of mine in class complained about it later, I replied that I don't mind rigorous-- rigorous equals passing the state nursing boards on the first try.

We discovered that our clinicals for tomorrow are cancelled. While we have homework assignments on the "Blackboard" online system, it means that I don't have to get up at 5 am tomorrow. A one week reprieve.

I hopped on the shuttle bus and turned on my Ipod shuffle and The Mamas and the Papas' "Monday, Monday" came on. I smiled and thought how appropriate it's turning out to be, and how much I still love hearing old Mamas and Papas songs.

The "Back To School" Friday Random Ten

I've been a bad blogger this week. Work and going back to school, and just being tired with winter sapped my energy.

It was great getting back to school. I wasn't able to get the instructor I had last semester, so I took my old friend Marty's recommendation and signed up for the instructor he had. It was a good recommendation; I can tell that she and I are going to get along fine. She's got a great combination of rigor and humor.

It's fun being in class with Marty. He was one of my good drinking buddies back in the day-- 20 years ago we used to hang out at the Gingerman Tavern, just down the street from Wrigley Field. These days, we're settled down-- both married, both changing careers. And it was good to see my old classmates. There's nothing like the camaraderie of school to bond people.

All last semester, the school kept trying to figure out the schedule of a series of computerized practice nursing board tests. We were all getting a little nervous about it all. On Wednesday, we finally had the first of them, on Critical Thinking. It was 30 questions, about prioritizing care, ethical questions and problem-solving. We had one hour and fifteen minutes to take it. I was done in 15 minutes. The guy who runs the computer lab allowed me to print up a PDF with the report on how I did and put it on my USB memory stick. I'd brought my laptop, so I went into the hall to open up the file and look at it. We needed to get at least 800 of a possible 1000. I got a 940. I guess I'm doing something right.

Tonight I'll take a break from the books. I'll run and pick up my son at 5 and then Bubs and Mz. Bubs are dropping by for cocktails tonight. We might have to break out the Rock Band and show them how it's done.


1. Only Wanna Be With You- Hootie and the Blowfish
2. Tulsa Time- Don Williams
3. Eugene- Crazy Joe and the Variable Speed Band
4. Sundown- Gordon Lightfoot
5. Ballad of the Little Man- World Party
6. Here Comes A Regular- The Replacements
7. God Save The Queen- The Sex Pistols
8. I Want You- Bob Dylan
9. Memories Can't Wait- The Talking Heads
10. Just Another Sunday- The Blasters


1. I know they're fluffy pop, but I love this song. I'm always amused by the two Dylan references in this song, both songs from "Blood On The Tracks;" "Idiot Wind" and "Tangled Up In Blue."
2. Eric Clapton had a hit with this song. I prefer this version, by the guy who wrote it.
3. This one got a lot of airplay here in Chicago in 1981-- it's a hilarious song about an idiotic oaf trying to pick up girls with the worst lines ever. I don't think it ever made it into digitized media. A few years ago, I pulled it off of the lp, which I still have, and digitized it myself.
4. This song is about Cathy Smith, the woman John Belushi was partying with the night he died. Lightfoot had had a relationship with her.
5. From "Private Revolution," one of my "desert island" albums.
6. The normally raucous Replacements getting reflective.
7. Ah, to be young, loud and snotty...
8. From "Blonde On Blonde," another one of my "desert island" albums.
9. "There's a party in my mind/And I hope it never stops..."
10. Funny-- "Little Honey," which was also a John Doe/Dave Alvin collaboration was on the shuffle last week. They played this one when I saw their reunion show in 2002, the night I became Dave Alvin's favorite Blasters fan

A Belated Elvis Post

A week or so ago, it would have been Elvis Presley's 75th birthday. I had a few thoughts about Mr. Presley.









When I was 18 years old, just starting college, the first album I bought was an album I'd been hearing on the radio, the Clash' "London Calling." I was just beginning the awakening of what would be a lifetime passion for politics. Living in the midst of a bland suburb southwest of Chicago (Western Springs), the angry politics of the album stirred something in me that was stunning.

When I bought the album, I kept looking at the cover; I kept getting a sense of deja vu; the sense I'd seen it before. It wasn't until years later it dawned on me that it was a very deliberate homage to the cover of Elvis' first album. While the Clash may have decried cheap nostalgia and "phony Beatlemania" in song, they realized where their roots were. They realized that there was a road that ran from the raw blues and hillbilly music to Elvis' blending of those musics, and shaking up all the bluebloods with his shaking pelvis, to the Clash' own angry stance.

On Little Steven's Underground Garage, they frequently play a little biography Steve Van Zandt did of Elvis. Presley grew up, as everybody knows, in Tupelo, Mississippi. What most people don't know is that Presley's family lived in a mostly-black part of town due to their poverty. He went to school with white kids, but was regarded as a loner-- a weirdo who played "hillbilly" music.

Through his childhood, Presley was indeed immersed in that "hillbilly" music, along with black blues and gospel. Out of this stew came an exciting new sound. As another great, Roy Orbison, recalled upon seeing Presley perform for the first time in Odessa, Texas when Orbison was 19, "His energy was incredible, his instinct was just amazing. ... I just didn’t know what to make of it. There was just no reference point in the culture to compare it."

Once he hit the big time, Presley created an amazing body of work. While there are a few clunkers here and there, the breadth and depth of his work is amazing. From the rockabilly romp of his first single, "That's All Right Mama" to the out and out gospel "Run On," with stops at country, boogie-woogie, rock and roll and other genres in between, I find I'm still discovering new favorites.

Elvis has become completely ingrained in Western culture. There was a very funny scene in the 1991 movie "The Commitments," where the main character Jimmy's dad is questioning veteran saxophonist Jimmy "Lips" Fagan about meeting and working with Elvis. Fagan tells Jimmy's father that he never once saw Presley "taking narcotics." All of this is with pictures of Pope John Paul II and Elvis hanging on the wall behind him. Guess which guy is on top?

Presley's personal life was definitely erratic and flawed. I sometimes wonder how I would have done had I had all the temptations he had suddenly thrust upon me. I wasn't a rich rock star and I spent a good deal of my life succumbing to various temptations. Many of the stories that have come out over the years may or may not have been true, but one that is definitely not was the story that he'd said that "The only thing Negroes can do for is buy my records and shine my shoes." This fake quote, which circulated in 1957 was complete bosh; Snopes has even confirmed this:

http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/presley1.asp

One other story, though, is true-- the one about Elvis buying a Cadillac for a woman who was looking at one through a dealer's window. He did buy the car for the woman, who was black. Elvis had black friends, worked with black musicians and readily acknowledged the influence gospel and blues had on his music. So much for his "racism."

Over the years, the specter of Elvis Presley has loomed in my life, and been the source for many a great time, such as the now-fabled road trip to check up on the King in April, 1985 when I was in grad school, and great stories, such as the time my old friend Dan and I were miraculously rescued by Elvis in 1996. Even my family is not immune to Elvis' charms: when my son was about 4, he suddenly decided that Elvis' "Kentucky Rain" was the best song ever.

In January, 1989, I was rooming with my old friends Dan and Mark in the Wrigleyville neighborhood. On January 8th, I met up with another old friend, Tim, and we went to Danny's, on Dickens and Damen to have a drink with the King on his birthday. Back then, the bar was heavily Elvis-themed. Angie and Karen, the main bartenders, were huge Elvis fans. Karen had, in fact, been in Memphis intending to visit Graceland on August 16, 1977, when she discovered Presley had died.

That night, Danny, the owner, was there. As I walked in, I was handed a raffle ticket. Over the evening, a bunch of Elvis memorabilia was handed out to lucky winners, as well as a Quija board-- so that you could talk to the King. As the prizes dwindled down, I was convinced that my status as "The guy who never wins a thing" would continue.

Then, suddenly, Danny pulled out one last surprise prize: a flesh-colored bust of Elvis Presley. He called out a number and I realized to my shock that it was my number.

That night, I came home a bit inebriated and woke my roommates up to meet our new roommate. They were nonplussed. Still, Elvis has had a place of honor in my home every place I have lived. He currently resides where he belongs, on a pedestal, in a shrine we have on the back porch, pictured at the top of this post. Someday, if you're lucky, you can come by on some lovely summer night and under the stars and the christmas lights, have a drink with the King and I. Long live the King. We still love you.

The "Back To School" Friday Random Ten

My long break is just about done. I go back to school on Tuesday-- it's delayed one day because Monday is Martin Luther King Day.

I feel very ready to go back. I realize how much I had to decompress-- what a year 2009 was. Just as I started nursing school-- and spending money hand over fist on tuition and books, Kim got laid off of her job. She went back to work in November, but we're still scrambling to get caught up.

In May, I was in an auto accident. I walked away from it, but looking back, I realize how shook up I was, particularly since my son was in the car. And though the other guy's insurance company issued a check for most of the value of my car, all the other little costs bled me just when we couldn't afford it.

And finally, I sat through some of the trial last summer of the guy who murdered my friend Mark "Atwood" Evans. He was actually being tried for killing one of his accomplices in the robbery in which Mark was killed, but it felt like justice when he was sentenced to 75 years without parole. It was cathartic to see this guy told he was going to spend the rest of his life in prison, and it gave me some closure.

In the meantime, I'm eager to get back to school. I wasn't able to get my teacher from last semester, I was, though, able to get another teacher who I keep hearing raves about. And even better, I finally found out where my clinicals are this semester: the University of Chicago Hospital, one of the best in the country. I'll have a new teacher, a new clinical location and a new set of classmates to get to know and adjust to, but I'm excited about it.

1. Hong Kong Garden- Souxsie and the Banshees
2. The Wall- Johnny Cash
3. Everybody Knows- Leonard Cohen
4. I Don't Know Why- The Rolling Stones
5. Too Many Bad Habits- Asleep At The Wheel
6. Summer Days- Bob Dylan
7. Little Honey- The Blasters
8. Beyond the Horizon- Bob Dylan
9. Nothing Is Wrong- Gomez
10. Sugar and Spice- The Cryan' Shames


Notes:
1. From the fabulous "No Thanks!" collection of seventies punk.
2. A prison tale from Johnny Cash.
3. One of my favorite songs from one of my favorite artists.
4. I've been discovering a bunch of old Stones songs that were off the beaten path thanks to Little Steven's Underground Garage, including this one. Pretty funny that this one came on in the shuffle right after the Cohen song. Everybody knows, except me.
5. A funny song from a great live album, "Served Live" that these guys did in the late seventies.
6. From the great "Love and Theft" album.
7. Written by Dave Alvin and John Doe (from X). Originally on the "Hard Line" album, now available on "Testament," a collection of everything the Blasters did for Slash Records.
8. Another more recent Dylan song, from "Modern Times."
9. These guys had a great record and a song that got a lot of airplay (this one)-- and their record company dropped them. And the record industry wonders why it's in trouble.
10. A hit from a group that hailed from Hinsdale, Illinois, a suburb southwest of Chicago.

The Funniest Thing I've Heard In A While

Yesterday evening, I was chatting with my friend and co-worker Karol, who is as big a Cubs fan as I am. She was telling stories about the Cubs Conventions she'd been to; every January, there is a Cubs Convention here in Chicago where you can meet and chat with current and past Cubs players.


She told me about a fan "question and answer" session at a Cubs Convention a few years back with ace Cubs reliever Lee Smith, who was one of the great firemen in the history of baseball. One of the fans asked Smith if he had ever tested positive for steroids. He replied that he hadn't but he'd be in trouble if they were testing for Tanqueray.