A Buffalo Sings the Blues

This Elginite ready to rumble

Comments
September 29, 2009
Mike Danahey mdanahey@scn1.com
It's Native American Day on Saturday at the Elgin Public Museum in Lords Park.

The festivities will include Joseph Standing Bear Schranz -- an elder of the White Earth Ojibwe and president and founder of the Midwest Saving Our Ancestors Remains and Resources Indigenous Networking Group (SOARRING) Foundation -- doing a public bison blessing at noon on the hill overlooking their pen.

To mark the occasion -- and since the bison have been in the news a lot this year -- we asked Dakota, the male of the three-member micro-herd, our obligatory five questions. Here's what the big guy had to say.

How do you feel about all the attention you've had this year?

First, while it's nice to be blessed, why do people assume that we would share the Native American belief system? While they were nicer to us than white people were, they still ate us, remember? So I am a little nervous about Saturday.

Besides, I've been living here in Elgin so long, I think I may be Lutheran. I see all those folks going to that church by the park, and they seem like a nice bunch.

As for people trying to keep me and the lady bison here, well, we're flattered. See, we've become pretty suburban. At this point, the farthest I'd roam would be the local Aldi for some whole-grain snacks. What they say about the deer and the antelope here, however, is true. Those animals really do like to play.

It sounds as if there are a lot of misconceptions about you. Would you like to clear up any others?

First, those names they gave us. Dakota? I prefer to be called Jeff. Po-Key and Cahoya go by Cathy and Judy. We're in Elgin, not Montana, and want to blend in like everybody else.

And dudes, living with two females is not as sexy as it sounds. It's always "Jeff, why are you so messy?" and "Jeff, why don't you pay more attention to us?" And "Jeff, you never listen, and you never talk to us anymore." I feel so fenced in sometimes.

Also, it's OK to call us buffalo or bison -- just not Bill. Oh, and I don't like wild wings.

Are you related to anyone famous?

My cousin Ralphie is the mascot at the University of Colorado in Boulder and goes to all the football games.

Granted, the team stinks. But Ralph is hanging out with cheerleaders.

My great-great-great-grandfather Bob posed for a coin. And I overheard somebody say that he saw my cousin's head mounted on a wall at a local pizza joint. Man, you people can be scary-weird.

If you wind up having to move, where would you like to go? Plainfield sounds like a nice place for a buffalo. And it's not too far for people from Elgin to visit.

I'm pretty domesticated these days, so I don't think I'd enjoy living on an actual plain, though. Especially if it's owned by Ted Turner. He has restaurants, right?

What would be on your iPod? Springsteen -- "Born to Run." Bob Marley -- "Buffalo Soldier." Jay-Z -- "Run This Town." Lady Gaga -- "Poker Face." Some Nickelback. But no Black Eyed Peas. If I hear "I Gotta Feeling" one more time, I'm gonna stampede.

Hawaiian shirts and "Happy Trails": For Thom McNamee, RIP

Hawaiian shirts and “Happy Trails” on the holy cards. Bagpipe music at sunset. A rendition of “Amazing Grace” at the service that left nary a dry eye on a rainy day. A song from “Willy Wonka” sung by a Smoking Pope. A simple pine coffin adorned with a pair of well-worn work boots and a Celtic harp.
Those are some of the images from the wake and funeral of Thom McNamee. And while there aren’t any more High Kings of Ireland, McNamee was, at the very least, the dearly departed Duke of Dundee. McNamee lived large, a big fish in a small suburban pond, and a true character in the best sense of the word. In a world with way too much beige vinyl siding about it, the daily blur of the busy blandness dragging us down, he added splashes of color to brighten things up.
Heck, check out the paint job on one of his joints, Bandito Barney’s, 10 N. River St., East Dundee for metaphorical example. Take a tour of the beer garden where you’ll find an elephant spewing water that once stood at now-defunct Santa’s Village. Other attractions include a wall from a barn built 150 years ago in Iowa, stained-glass etchings de picting wildlife, the top of a column that once was part of First National Bank of Chicago, a 2,000-pound street lamp, a waterfall flowing into a moat, a 200-year-old wrought-iron gate, and a castle turret.
It’s like having a drink in someone else's dream, but somehow it all sort of works. And it’s there because it all had meaning for McNamee. Take the etchings as example. McNamee was friends with two squirrels, Perry and Buster, whom he would welcome into his home and feed. And he was known to keep the company of raccoons, too. A photo of McNamee with a mom raccoon and her litter hung above his casket at the wake, then at a gathering of friends at Bandito’s last week.
There were also photos of Mac from his male model days in Australia and New Zealand. That’s where he picked up the habit of calling people "mate.”
The blown-up photos showed there is something intrinsically funny about 80s hair and men with pouting faces as with McNamee posing in a pants ad with a woman at his feet, or “Top Gun” style in a motorcycle ad. He was on a box of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, too.
It was quite the life for a poor kid from a big Irish family that moved to Carpentersville from Chicago. The modeling came after working his way through law school as a hot roofer with his twin brother Tim.
And the brothers, with their buddy George Karas, opened Wall Street in 1978, which would become Bandito’s, but not before a fateful night 22 years ago when William Nally gunned down Tim in front of Tim’s law office along Route 31.
Nally reportedly intended to kill Tim’s law partner Tim Mahoney, with a rifle he stole from the Dundee VFW post, for the most convoluted of reasons: It was supposed to scare the father of Nadine Walter's young child into bringing the child back to Illinois. Nally did it for love.
A close as twins can be, the murder haunted McNamee, who eventually built a gazebo in a small park along the Fox River to honor Tim. Ghosts aside, McNamee built a life in the Fox Valley with a vengeance.
Thom became the Donald Trump of Dundee, buying and renovating properties and partnering in businesses including the local Dairy Queen, the salon La Femme Fatale, which is run by his wife, Heather, and Rosie O’Hare’s, a beautiful pub sprung from an ugly duckling of a place near the footbridge along the Fox River in East Dundee. For the last few years, come the Saturday before or of St. Pat’s Day, you’d find McNamee leading a parade he helped found that wound its way to Rosie’s.
Though he wasn’t much of an athlete himself, you could catch him playing sports on “Irish Rebel” teams made up of jock friends. And he played golf in the rain, because he loved the rain. One time he rescued some orphan raccoons during a round.
Every summer he hosted his own fireworks show and later in the year threw a ball, an event not quite as fancy a s the one he had back in the day at the Field Museum, but elaborate by local standards.
You could find him tooling around town in a beat-up old pickup truck with Wyoming plates. He had a place near Jackson Hole, where he’d bring his buddies, George Clooney-style, often around Super Bowl time.
On one of those trips West, he flipped a snowmobile. Much to the amazement of friends, he shrugged off the experience, saying that’s why there’s insurance.
That’s how it goes when you seem larger than life. But no one is, really.
McNamee fell off a ladder last year, while working on the roof at Rosie’s. He came crashing to the ground, breaking his nose and thumping his chest. X-rays revealed the brain tumors which would eventually lead to his death at the age of 56.
An Irish raconteur by nature, McNamee withdrew from the local limelight during the last few months of his life, traveling for treatment, staying at home getting things in order and spending time with his wife and a handful of close friends.
His last notable public appearance was in the aforementioned St. Pat’s parade. Resplendent in a kilt and a big blue and green sweater, his grin beamed like the luckiest of leprechauns in a photo from his final parade.
His own wake and funeral were subdued compared to those for Tim. There was no taking the corpse around town to old haunts, no presentation of the body laid out on a vintage Corvette.
Times change, people get older and maybe a touch wiser and learn the value of subtler but no less significant touches. That’s to say, sad or not, you can’t help but smile when you see a sea of people in Hawaiian shirts. And if you can get people to smile at your funeral, then it’s quite a life you’ve led.
Happy trails, my friend, happy trails indeed.
Note: Donations can be made t o the Timothy R. McNamee Science Foundation at 10 N. River St., East Dundee, IL 60118.

Led Zeppelin brings families together

Late Sunday afternoon at Mad Maggie's in downtown Elgin and "Kashmir," a Led Zeppelin chestnut comes wafting out of the PA system like it has a millions times at thousands of bars over the last four decades. Yeah, Robert Plant is 60, and Jimmy Page is 65. So if you're a teen, Zeppelin, once the symbol of youthful rock and roll excess and bombast, is, indeed, your grandfather's music.

"Yeah, that's funny. They got the name because people said they'd go over like a lead zeppelin," Ken Elsenbroek said. "But it's still working for people. Who would have ever thought that?"

And who over a certain age would have ever thought that rock would one day become a family bonding experience, like Little League baseball or or a Sunday pot roast dinner at grandma's?

See, Elsenbroek and his wife, Marguerite, were in the bar helping their son, Kenny, 17, set up his drum kit for a gig with the band named after a town in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, Copper Harbor. The kit actually used to be Elsenrbroek's, and his son, a junior and Genoa-Kingston High, has been drumming pretty much from the time he could hold beat out a rhythm with sticks. The boys in the band practice in the Elsenbroek family basement three times a week, which is a bit different that when Ken was a kid.

Growing up in DuPage County, "My parents didn't mind me being in a band, but it was two different lifestyles. Once in awhile they'd get to a show. With Kenny, we try to make all his events," said Elsenbroek.

Elsenbroek's band played hard rock, with Aerosmith, Foghat, Rush, and, of course, the aforementioned Zeppelin, among its influences.

Some of the bands Kenny's age do, indeed, play tunes by such rock dinosaurs. And they dress like them, too, as if the last 30 years never happened, or they heard about a casting call for a sequel to "Almost Famous."

But Kenny said Copper Harbor, which also features Dillon Anderson, Mikhael Colon, and Jeremy Quinones, all of Elgin, is more of an indie unit that covers some Bayside tunes. Unlike back in the day, when you'd have to hear them live or hope somebody had one of those new-fangled cassette players, you can check them out online on MySpace. And you can check out Bayside, too, without having to head out to sift through bins at an old fashioned record store.

Still, "I still listen to (Led Zeppelin), too. It doesn't get old. It will always be around. (The family) were listening to them on the way over," said Kenny.

Maggie's hosts all ages shows a good many Sunday evenings, giving younger bands a crack at playing a venue with professional stage lighting and a good sound system. Bar owner Sean Davis said the Elsenbroek family's support of their son and the infatuation with the 70s typical of what he sees at such concerts.

"We get tables filled with moms, dads, neighbors. Even grandpa and grandma come out," said Davis.

That's not to mention that parents' minivans come in handy for hauling equipment. Or that while his dad sipped a beer before the set, Kenny had a bottle of strawberry lemonade.

It all gives a whole new, practically wholesome, meaning to "Whole Lotta Love."

Danaclot, the heparin drip stick

Once again, I was a heparin hostage.

It all started last Sunday. Recovering from my most recent adventures as Blood Clot Boy, I felt some sharp pains in my chest, on the right side. The stabs only happened when I would take a deep breath, laugh, cough, turn in my sleep or see naked pictures of Rush Limbaugh which apparently are being sent as some really nasty computer virus.

Oh, sure. I could have just taken more cough drops, slept completely still (AKA funeral practice), stopped breathing (also funeral practice) or logged off the laptop where I was being lured by the sexiness that is Rush. But, being told that blood clots are nothing to sneeze at (or cough, breathe or turn), to be on the safe side I called my doctor's office. They got back to me in a half hour and suggested I go to the emergency room for some tests.

Well, until Friday afternoon I was embedded in the hospital. I just gave myself a shot in my belly fat - a trick you jock types with 6-pack abs can't do. So much for your muscles. But I thought belly shots were supposed to be fun.

Here's how I wound up being held captive by the Catholic hospital and now giving myself expensive liquid blood thinner for a few days.

First, if you want to get attention in the ER, just say they magic words, "chest pain." I barely had time to pee when they called my name and whisked me off behind a curtain. I told them my history and they ordered up a bedisde chest X-ray and a CT scan. Interestingly, this gave a woman from the billing department time to ring up my $50 copay - and to inquire about making my $250 copay on my last stay which ended on Feb. 13. Talk about a short billing cycle.

Aside from that, so far, so good. It only took about 40 minutes to get to the spinning ways of the scanning machine. Only thing is the dye didn't take, so the test results were no good.

I had to wait another hour or so for a VQ scan (and isn't med-speak hot?). They had to call in someone to do it, then had to find someone to read it on a Sunday afternoon. The test pretty much confirmed there was a clot on the lung - but without the CT they weren't sure if it was my old friend from February or a new pal along for the fun of a party by my ribs.

Since they weren't sure, the ER doctor talked with my doctor and a hematologist and presto, I was going to be admitted. By now it was after 3 p.m. To kill time, if not me, I was having fun listening to the other ailments: a kid with an ear infection; two bladder infection cases; a dude embarrassed by the knee surgery he had for skateboarding, and more so about the apparent infection setting in around the incisions; a blue collar type with an infected corn; and an elderly woman with her insulin needle stuck in her belly.

I was back in a room by 6 p.m. Good thing I had that Egg McMuffin on the way to the hospital as there was a SNAFU with my food and I didn't get fed again until 7 or so. And I was hooked up again with my old friendly nemesis, the heparin drip, there just in case I was throwing clots again, like an angry rock star had invaded my venous system. Throwing Clots. Good album title.

The hematologist stopped in to talk with me as did a few friends, including a Facebook buddy o' mine, a doctor who was nice enough to bring backup grub as I waited for my misplaced meal (which never showed up - I got stew instead).

While chowing on couscous I learned they were making sure I didn't have a fresh clot, which would mean getting a filter placed in my groin, which sounded a little too S&M for my tastes. But as my doc buddy pointed out, I could be starting the latest trend of body jewelry - and I am all about being on the edge. if not looking like The Edge.

Ever try to sleep in a hospital? How many times did you pee? Did you take a dump? Let's take some blood samples. And your bed makes electronic burping noises as it adjusts to your every movement. Surprisingly, somebody waking you from a deep sleep seems to do wonders for your blood pressure. My best readings came scared away - 116/56 if I remember correctly.

Ever given 14 blood samples before 6:30 a.m.? I felt the love Billy Bob Thornton must have had for Angelina Jolie. I also realized that drawing blood must be a thankless job. It's vampire-like waking people, tying off their arms, searching and pricking their veins, honing samples, dealing with bio-waste, then heading off with the push cart to the next room.

Devoid of my hemoglobin, I needed food - which could be the title of my biography. In this case it meant waiting 90 minutes for breakfast. To the hospital's credit, complaining about the service actually resorted in prompter meals the rest of my stay - and a $5 cafeteria gift certificate for my troubles.

Little did I know I would be here until Friday waiting for the levels of blood thinner A (heparin) to reach a certain level, while blood thinner B (coumadin) was reintroduced into my system. Well, there was that and an electrocardiogram, and a CT scan of the pelvis, and more bloodwork, and, best of all, a colonoscopy - all in the name of ruling out culprits in the case of the mysterious clottings.

If only it were like House, right? It would because I ate a parasite-bearing goldfish as a dare in college, and that, combined with an allergic reaction to the laundry detergent used by the Boeing CFO with whom I was having an illicit affair while on a trip to Hong Kong, led to dangerous blood clots typical of such combinations.

Nay - and luckily - cancers of various organs have been ruled out, to which I will be eternally grateful that I currently have good health insurance that allows me to do what the doctor asks.

What fun it was to drink a chalky mix for the pelvic CT scan. That was practice for downing the godawful gallon of electrolyte-laden joy that is the prep for the colonoscopy.

Now drinking a gallon of pretty much anything is going to leave you feeling, well, crappy. And that's exactly the goal here. You can pretend its KoolAide with the little flavor packets, but not really. The trick is to chug two pints at a time, then rest for 15 minutes or so. When you chug, you don't really have time to taste. I took two hours to finish thee foulness, and then it was off to the races.

TMI HERE: The first lap took about a half hour - and not too brag, but there was a bit too much water in the bowl for what I'm packing, so every time I would flush, I'd get this cold, tingling sensation between my legs (similar to the reaction of seeing those aforementioned photos of Rush Limbaugh). But flush I did and did and did and did and did as the magic fruit punch cleansed the colon to the point water was coming out of my ass.

It's a sexy way to spend an evening. Fittingly, I had American Idol playing in the background.

Four hours later, I was pretty much tapped out.

Oddly, they insisted on asking me how many times I went to the bathroom - to which I replied, just put the damn infinity sign on your chart. Hard to keep track to which nurse or aid I made the comment, as they seem to be on odd rounds. You get used to one or another, they leave you for another floor, another shift. There has not been one here dealing with me the whole time - and I wasn't even whining like the old lady down the hall one afternoon.

I felt sorry for her at first, but man she had a potty mouth. Imagine your grandmother saying "Get me out of here. Get me the fuck out of here" in a cry that was part hurting geriatric, part cat in heat, part that mean old lady in a scary movie.

But back to my screen test. All crapped out, I waited in anticipation, if not diapers, for my extreme close-up with a camera. It was supposed to happen at 9, but because of my heparin being shut off late, it was pushed back two hours, which was about 24 hours since my last meal.

I had to strip down to just a hospital gown (I had been wearing gym shorts and a T-shirt), which for some reason made me have a desire to head to an Old Country Buffet. Instead, I was wheeled to the staging area. They sprayed my throat with something that tasted like how a Toyota dealership smells. Nobody but me got that. In a move many people who have heard my bad jokes would appreciate, next they put a bit in my mouth.

And that's the last thing I remember before waking up watching my insides on TV.

Tipsy, I think I said something like, "Hey, so that's what my colon looks like. Pretty cool. Will anyone cuddle with me when this is over?"

But just like when I went to that frat party when that football player slipped something in my drink, I was left mostly naked under a blanket in a cold room for a half hour before I was sent back to my room.

Parched and famished and feeling hung over, I still was not allowed to eat. They even alerted food services not to take my call. The reason - I had no gag reflex. No joke needed, eh?

But 28 hours later, I fueled up my belly, mostly with good things as I was told I had no potentially problematic polyps, but needed more fruit, fiber and vegetables in my diet. Just nothing too seedy to fill some colon pockets.

Imagine that - a muddling middle aged suburban American male being told he needed to make better dietary choices.

Still, no answer for the clots, so I was sent home on folic acid (No, I AM NOT PREGNANT!), antacid, warfarin and, for the time being Lovenox shots. A pack of 10 goes for $200 on some insurance, so it's like drinking downtown. Me, I got the HMO price of a mere $50. Monday I learn if I can go back to being on just one thinner.

I remain a clotted mystery. My hematologist is still on the case. Maybe I should fess up about the goldfish and the sexy CFO so he can solve this mystery.

Small town government - it can ruin your health

I am propped up in bed as I type this, wearing gym clothes and one of those Old Guy in Sarasota support stockings on my left leg, which is propped under a pillow. Sultry image, ain't it?

I have been ordered to keep my travels to a minimum, to walk about for 5 - 10 minutes or so every couple hours, but otherwise keep that leg up in bed or a recliner at least until early March. Maybe this is karmic payback for all those weekends wasted watching TV sports. How I got this way remains a medical mystery, which is to say I am like a patient on a mediocre-at-best episode of "House." But apparently my blood is as thick as Aunt Jemima syrup, and while not at all high in cholesterol or sugar, prone to causing sticky problems.

I'm not telling you anymore about my malady. HIPPA, you know.

What I will tell you is about this weird dream I had after filling out paperwork related to my condition for my job. My blood thinned, I shivered dreaming about my paperwork being challenged by someone from Carpentersville or some other local burg, someone I never met, who maybe didn't like some story I wrote or was just really into following the letter of the law, like Eric "Respect My Authority" Cartman on "South Park." So, because they convinced a panel I had violated the law, my claims were all being denied and I was being kicked off my insurance.

In the dream, on one page of documents I signed my name Mike Danahey and on another Michael Danahey. To my challenger and her attorney, standing there in the shadows, the rules clearly stated that the name had to be the same. Oh, and I forgot to number my pages. And I put them in a sealed envelope and used the wrong kind of clip to hold them all together.

"The law is the law," they said in unison. Which is so true, yet often so very confusing.

"Is this fair? I am not deceiving anyone. I go by Mike or Michael, depending on my mood. I think its sexy when someone calls me Michael. I didn't realize I had to number the pages, so can't I just go back and do that? I sealed the envelope so stuff wouldn't get lost. And all I had was a big green paper clip. Sorry. I've been in the hospital," dream version Mike pleaded.

"It doesn't matter," they said, in unison again, which creeped me out.

"Why are you doing this," I whined. "Why are you people like this? Why can't someone who wants to run for office just run for office as long as he or she doesn't have a c riminal record, lives in the area they want to represent, and is a registered voter? Why the dog and pony show of petitions?" I meant to say, why can't I just refill out my forms if I must or do what I have to do so they I don't wind up destitute, which I think I did eventually get out. But hey, it was a dream.

"We are just enforcing the law as it is written. Because we can," the duo sang this time.

So there I was in one of those embarrassing hospital gowns, chasing after the two as they headed down a hall, out to a driveway and into a Hummer carrying more than 3/4 ton of petition papers from all over the place. Apparently this is what this couple does for fun - and it was a DREAM so I can know this.

"Wait a minute!," I shouted. "You're using a vehicle, possibly for commercial purposes, that fully loaded weighs more than 4 tons that I bet you leave in a driveway overnight sometimes. You should be the ones in trouble. Ordinance breakers!"

"Nope. Towns with such laws, the laws may seem to apply to us, but they are really about those ugly panel trucks or for preventing someone from parking a semi in the driveway or a bus. It's not in the spirit of the law to prevent me from parking my petition-filled Hummer wherever I want to," said the lawyer, who was smoking a cigar made from ground up petition p apers.

"What the..." I said as a wind blew up my gown, and they drove off to bother another election.

I called a friend in Chicago who doesn't have a car to come help me. It would take him three hours to get to me by bus, then train, then bus or cab. That's a=2 0nightmare for another time.

This time, in the words of Tommy Lee Jones' character in "No Country for Old Men," then I woke up. And double checked my paperwork.

Get a Leg Up: The Further Adventures of Clot Boy

So my blood apparently is as thick as maple syrup, probably that fake kind, like Aunt Jemima.

Which is a glib way of saying, I have gooey blood clots again. I am back on the rat poison, with a leg that feels like the Pittsburgh Steelers defense fell on it. But only when I stand. Or sit. Or walk.

This all came to a head - or a foot, in this case - about three weeks ago. I've been having breathing troubles for some time. I walk up stairs, I sound like a horny obscene phone caller. I had tests in October - the year anniversary of the first time I had clots on my lungs - and all came back fine. I thought I was in the clear.

But even then I said my breathing seemed a bit labored on stairs. So I thought, better ask about getting a stress test, in case it's the ticker this time. I mean, my gene pool is dirty with coronary issues.

In the meantime, my leg started hurting, a slight pain in the left calf, a sore vein in the upper left thigh. So two weeks ago, I went to the doctor to talk about both issues.

She sent me to the hospital for an ultrasound, and then they found the baby growing on behind my knee. And they contacted Oprah immediately. Alright, I'm lying. They found nothing on the calf but a surface clot on the thigh.

I was told to keep the leg as elevated as possible, to heat it, and to schedule the stress test in a week or so. Only thing is, by the end of that week, the leg hurt more, especially the calf. It felt like a sports injury, like a sprain or tear, of which I know from experience. And the simple act of sitting on a bar chair caused my foot to fall asleep - that sharp needles and pins kind of numbing in the heel and big toe.

I called my doctor that Monday (Feb. 9) about it, and she said to go for the stress test, but she would order up a chemical version in case I couldn't walk well enough.

Well, I couldn't. In fact, the nurse took a look at the big toe, and it was turning a nice shade of Chicago winter sky. And that wasn't because of the registration hoops I had to jump through - as in I didn't properly pre-register for my test, so I had to hobble over to admitting, then back. Lucky, I had a friend with me.

So the nurse looks at the foot, says the stress test is off, but sets up one down the road for me that takes three hours and uses a dye, and sends me back to ultrasound. Still no baby, but this time, there is a deep vein clot on the calf and the surface clot. So they admit me - which took two hours for a bed to become available.

Another good buddy brought me a sandwich, which is good, because crabby from hunger AND in pain, well, I could have turned into Wolverine.

But I wound up in a single room, which was nice - with an IV in my arm for four days.

I had a VQ scan the first night, which showed a very high probability that I have a clot or clots on my lungs again, too. Interesting test: they make you breath in radioactive oxygen to get the images. The test was administered by a Korean woman with a nice sense of humor. She told me I looked like a genie and asked me to grant her three wishes.

I was poked and prodded for the remainder of the week - but I remain a medical mystery, like a weak episode of House.

My hospitalist put me on blood thinners. A hospitalist is a doctor who manages the care for patients while they are in the hospital. It frees up general practitioners to treat more people and/or spend more time with those who come to the office.

I like the way that every medical person asks you to tell you what happened the first time they meet you. If you're paranoid you would think that was to see if you are faking it. But I think it would be pretty hard to fake a blood clot. And it's not like a store sells some kit to cause one on purpose.

Anyway, the stay was pleasant enough, as far as hospital visits go. The staff was quite friendly and I felt like Brad Pitt for the attention I was getting. I had my laptop, but the place had odd blocks set up - I can understand no xtube, but no blogger sites either, or social networking sites, or pretty much anything with video. And no Internet radio feeds either.

It beat work. But I think if you asked most people these days, would you rather be at the office, or have an IV in your arm and be in bed for four days, choice B would win in a landslide (provided the person answering has good insurance, as I am fortunate enough to have. For now).

Still, the leg hurts, I can't walk for more than a block without the pain. I sit as you might at a desk or restaurant or meeting, and it gets uncomfortable. The toes and heel still seem to tingle. Only when the leg is elevated does the pain subside.

That's why I didn't ask for painkillers. Tomorrow I hope to learn what the doctor thinks my activity levels should be and what to do to manage the pain. The leg clot will eventually dissolve, they told me. It's taking its time, and blocking the flow to my foot, the bastard.

I also want to see of the can find a specialist who can pinpoint what the hell is causing this. There are mysteries in life and I don't want this to be one of them.

I am too much of a puzzle as it is.

Uncle Brian and Lady Macbeth

So I got to meet my Uncle Brian Dennehy last night after watching him hit the boards in DESIRE Under the Elms (I write it that way because the ads for it really stress DESIRE and almost whisper the Under the Elms part).

OK, so he's not really my uncle. You caught me in another lie on the way to my truth. Whatever.

Either way, Uncle Brian was putting on his socks when we got to go into his dressing room, and he was listening to some Bill Evans jazz on his portable which had him reminiscing about seeing Evans at the Village Vanguard.

Uncle Brian was looking tired, and how couldn't he. DESIRE Under the Elms is a son of a bitch of a play, Eugene O'Neill and lots of shouting, treachery, torment, love triangle, sex, deception, maybe some actual love, infanticide, and is this case, all those rocks on the stage.

That it the set looks like the bottom of an unglamorous aquarium, with brown gray boulders abounding, piled like the walls of a fallen castle, dangling from the ceiling even, with a cabin on ropes coming up and down from the catwalks, too.

Uncle Brian isn't fucking sure what's up with the fucking set. That's his buddy, director Robert Falls' decision. And all the fucking nudity, what's the fucking big deal, and why the fuck even have it.

Yeah, he swears a lot. Big fucking deal. He was nice enough to meet with me, a no-name writer at a craptacular publication, and a buddy of mine. And he told my buddy, who took a back-hurting tumble on an ice patch by his apartment building earlier in the day, that he better not fuck with that and get to a doctor come Monday if not sooner.'

We talked about how Wall Street has pretty much fucked up the country, with that asshole Maddoff bilking folks of money that they might still have liability issues about, taking from nonprofits like the Innocence Project, which helps free people who are wrongly on Death Row, to Broadway and other theater where there's less and less backing for mounting productions.

And how the play was cut to just under 2 hours and how you can always cut O'Neill. (And in these times, you gotta, right? Who has the patience and attention span anymore. Hell, you're probably bored reading this already!)


DESIRE was supposed to go to Broadway, but on this night at least Uncle Brian had his doubts. Hey, Broadway is Disneyland now, and even his buddy Angela Lansbury is having a hard time getting a production of Blythe Spirit going. Whose got the money to see it?

The female lead in DESIRE, Carla Gugino is hot and has a career heating up with Watchmen about to open and her one of the stars - she's leaving the cast to promote her films.


And Uncle Brian, like me and way too fucking many of us, was wondering what might be next for us all for work.

Didn't help that dumbass me said the "M" word, mentioning I had seen M-beth at Chicago Shakespeare the prior weekend. That is BAD LUCK to say M-beth in a theater, but I forgot. But Uncle Brian forgave me, luck's been bad enough can't get much worse.

And he was heading over to meet up with a buddy of his in the Scottish play, anyway.


There's nudity amidst the blood there, too, With Lady Macbeth baring her boobies and having them fondled by Macbeth. We see her ass later in the play. Oddly, when she gets into a bathtub, she has panties on. But what do I know? Maybe Scots wear them into water.

The gore in this Macbeth was almost to Tarantino levels, but the production could have been even more over the top for my tastes.

In DESIRE, there was nudity, but oddly, it was male nudity - butt shots, and a burly bearish guy going around for about 15 minutes without his shirt and with boobies almost as big as Lady M's. Hey, women and gay guys in the audience need eye candy too.

Hey, you gotta do what you gotta do to get people talking about your play, even if it means putting Macbeth in a modern setting with an Obama lookalike in the cast, and video and DESIRE having a Bob Dylan song. And to me it seemed organic for these plays to do this.

More organic was seeing Macbeth spray the front row with spittle as he enunciated like a good Elizabethean actor. And seeing a woman sitting next to me fall asleep. Or here the old dude smack his gums like he was a dog eating peanut butter during the whole second act of M-beth.

I don't know what that tangent has to do with anything. After all, this is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Wait, that makes me, and M-beth, sound like Anne Coulter.

And now I am officially rambling.