Shimee Shay's Bar & Grill

I haven't had a drink almost 3 months now, and I feel pretty great. I'm more present for things going on in my life, more aware, more in the moment. I feel healthier and happier, getting more done, and enjoying my time with my family more.

So that's that.

Hey, let me tell you about someone else who was drunk. A friend of mine was in town with his son (he wasn't the drunk one, nor was his offspring), and he was bringing his young boy to his first baseball game at Wrigley Field. This friend has been living in LA for years-and-years now, but he decided he would be damned before he let his son's first game be a Dodgers game. And guess what? His son had the ultimate Wrigley experience and will likely (read hopefully) be a Cub fan for life. He got onto the field before both games and got autographs, the whole 9. 

So onto the funny drunk person story. After I parted ways with my buddy at a rooftop hotel bar overlooking the ballpark (where I drank fake beers, staying the course) an attractive 20-something attractive gal approached me. Did I say attractive twice?

"Do you know where the karaoke place is over that way," she said, motioning south down Clark Street.

"Well, Murphy's Bleachers used to have some karaoke" I suggested, not knowing if this was still true all these years having gone by since I painted the town brown in that neighborhood.

"No, that's not it."

"Oh, well, you could for sure go to Trader Todd's. That's not far at all, on Belmont and Sheffield. They do karaoke 7 days a week."

"That's not it either. It's a big name," she said, spanning her arms out like jazz hands in either direction, looking deep into my eyes like I would get it. She might have been on something besides booze, now that I think about it. "The name is like . . . Shimee shay," she said in an epic, important-sounding manner, "Like that's not it, but it's like that."

"So that's not the name at all because that's nonsense, but that's like the rhythm of the name?"

"Yeah!" She said, thinking I got her.

I didn't. "I'm sorry I don't know this gibberish bar. I wish I could be of more help."

"It's okay," was the last thing she said to me as she joined her friends walking south bound, relaying to them that the guy she talked to didn't know where the bar was. I hope they found it. I walked away not wishing at all that I was drunk like her, but looking back fondly on those drunken adventures. I don't need any more of them, but they're nice to fondly look back on in the rearview.

Baby Erik's Birth Story

I wanted to sit down and write the story about the day Mrs. Noisewater gave birth to Baby Erik because I thought it would be cool to have it all on record to look at years down the line. Two months have gone by, and I'm finally sitting down to write it. I figured out that I couldn't wait until I would have lots of time or when I'm not super tired because I NEVER have any time, and I'm ALWAYS super tired. So while he takes an hour nap right now, this is the time to write it all down. It's a long a long one so I understand if you skim through it.

Our doctor kept telling us every visit that the baby was basically ready to go because Mrs. Noisewater was dilating, and the baby's head was right there, knocking on the door. She told us just to come in on Thursday, September 8th and she could induce, even though the due date was on the 12th. We thought it would be a good idea to go out for dinner the night before the induction so that we would have a nice night out together, just the two of us, before the baby came. We had Tapas, so who knows which item it was because you sample so many with that type of cuisine, but something likely gave Mrs. Noisewater food poisoning. Bad idea eating anything risky around the time of labor. Now we know. Our appointment was around 8AM, but at 5AM Mrs. Noisewater was throwing up and had daihrrea. I called up the hospital, and they said to get her in right away so that they could get her on an IV so that she wouldn't get dehydrated. I was in a panic when I drove her into the hospital, but it was go time.

Here's my big homie at 2 months old.

It turns out all those stomach problems induced the labor on its own. Erik was due on the 11th, but he was coming out on the 8th one way or another. Things were very, very scary for quite a while because Mrs. Noisewater was still having to get up to go to the bathroom to throw up and go number two quite often, and even after multiple IV bags had pumped into her, the nurses were surprised that she wasn't more hydrated. We could see the heart rate of mommy and baby up on the screens, and both of them were too high. I was a nervous wreck watching those monitors and spoon feeding my wife ice chips. Mrs. Noiswater's body temperature and heart rate eventually came back down to normal levels, and so did baby's.

Our doctor is a really laid back cool hippy type of doctor. She makes you feel very relaxed when you're around her. I felt like I have known her all my life, and she seems like the kind of gal you just want to sit on a back porch with and drink wine all night and contemplate the universe. We had a baby birthing mix on, and when the doctor heard a Wilco song, she said, "Oh, I can't believe you have this Wilco song on here. I delivered both of Jeff Tweedy's kids." What!? How amazing is that?

This is us out for some tiny beers. We are starting to have lives again.

The doctor said, "Okay, dad. It's time for mom to start pushing. You'll be grabbing that leg and pushing her knee back towards her shoulders each time she pushes." What? I mean, I know it's not the old days where the men smoke cigars in the lobby, but I had no idea that the daddies got so hands on nowadays! Mrs. Noisewater was to push as much as she could for the duration of each contraction when the monitor said a contraction was coming (because we couldn't tell at all if she was having contractions because she an epidural. Get one of those by the way, everyone. It's the only way to have a baby). Mommy is really fit, so she was good at doing a stomach crunch/sit-up while the nurse and I pushed her legs up, and baby came out quite quick once she started pushing.

Once the head is out, the rest just slides right out because the shoulders can wiggle from side to side. I just remember seeing how long his torso was and how his legs just kept going and going as the doctor slid him out. A number of people said, "What a big boy!" He was 9 pounds and 20 and 1/2 inches long at birth. We didn't know going in if we were having a boy or a girl, and I remember looking at his beautiful little face, not even having taken a glance towards his genitals when the doctor announced, "It's a boy!" God damn. Everyone always says it's the best moment of your life, and it is. No doubt.

But then they said there was fluid in his lungs, and they had to rush him to the NICU to get that taken care of. I thought that would be a quick process, and they would bring him back. It turns out Erik stayed the night of the 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th before finally going home the afternoon of the 12th (his actual due date). We would sleep in our room in the hospital, but every other minute we could, we were with little Erik in the NICU, holding his hand, rocking him, and feeding him. I remember the first time Mrs. Noisewater saw him with all those tubes hooked up to him, she started crying. I wanted to be strong for everyone, but when she cried I wanted to as well. Erik's breaths per minute were still a little high, so he had to get some assistance with his breathing for a while. Even when that finally came down, he still wasn't eating enough. They wanted him to reach a certain number of milliliters, and if he didn't get it all down, they shot it up his nose. This was just a sad process to see our little guy go through. It made me think of a force fed farm animal or something.

Remember how I said that his mommy saw him  in the NICU, and it made her cry? Well, when I put him in this Halloween costume and came out of the bedroom, she cried again - only from cuteness! 

We got an extra day to stay after the usual time allowed for new mothers because of Mrs. Noisewater's illness - they had to keep giving her antibiotics through an IV. Then that day ran out and they still didn't want to release Erik. So they found a little room on another wing that only had a single bed, but at least we could be in the same room with Erik and all the machines he was hooked up to. For that last night, Mrs. Noisewater stayed in the room with him in the single bed, and because there was no room for me, I drove home, slept for 4 hours, and came right back. It was unusual to have a baby of Erik's size in there because all of his neighbors in the NICU were very undersized. Any time I was getting too down about the situation, I would look around to some of the babies around him who couldn't have weighed more than 3 pounds, and their visitors could only stick their hands into the sides of the incubators when they would visit (they couldn't even hold their baby).

Erik's grandma was too scared to pick him up with all the tubes hooked up, but look how thrilled she was to hold him for the first time. This is one of the best pictures I've ever taken.

I'm not a real doctor, you may know by now, but I had to play the part of Dr. Hardass to get my boy sprung from the joint. The doctors only make the rounds once a day, and I essentially had to say, "Listen, can you get the doctor over here? Because our boy's levels are all good, right? He's just not breast feeding quite enough, but we are fine supplementing with formula. If the doctor isn't going to be coming by, we'll just be unhooking him and walking out of this joint." That worked. The doctor came by to clear him, and off we went.

My heart goes out to anyone who has complications with their babies. I vowed to become a better friend to anyone who is in that situation. I'll be johnny-on-the-spot with anything I can do for those families because it really is a stressful situation where you feel totally powerless and helpless when all you want to do is protect your new little person.

The night we got home, 9/11/2016, Kyle Hendricks of the Chicago Cubs had a perfect game going until the 9th inning. I was bummed he didn't finish that one out for Erik's first night, but then the Cubs won their first world series in over 100 years a couple months later in his first year of life, so that's still pretty damn awesome.

Go Cubs Go! This was his good luck onesie.

People ask me all the time what it's like to be a father, and what I tell them now is that I've never been so tired, but I've never been so happy. And it's hard to explain, but everything I do now is for a purpose. I had all this freedom before, but all that freedom afforded me time to sit around get worried about dumb shit. Now I'm just on the go and getting things done for my beautiful wife and cute little man, and I'm good at it. I don't always feel like I'm good at much, but it turns out I'm a good dad. So far. And I enjoy it. Being a dad is way more fun than I thought it would be. I absolutely love it.

By the looks of it, Erik seems to think I'm doing an okay job. Look at us in our matching sweatshirts! Thanks for reading, friends.

New Beer Vendor Hated By Wrigley's 500 Level Seats

I took my good friend, Beatnik, to a Chicago Cubs baseball game last night in my season ticket seats.  My Cubbies are on a roll, by the way, having won 11 of their last 12 games including last nights defeat of the Milwaukee Brewers.  But you can look statistics like that up elsewhere.  What you come here for is the minutia of meaningless and hopefully funny observations of everyday life of your good friend, Dr. Kenneth Noisewater.

Myself and the three other buddies in our season tickets package have a beer vendor in our section that we dislike and don't buy from anymore as a result.  He made one off-handed comment in response to a simple clarification question we had about what inning/time they stopped selling beer that was something to the effect of "What is this your first game?"  We didn't take kindly to it, and over the years we have built up an irrational hatred and talk about things we would like to do to the man we call Walt Disney (due to a slight resemblance), such as curb stomp him like in "American History X."  Would we ever do such a thing?  Of course not.  It's just our sense of humor to grossly exaggerate and crack each other up when we're texting each other when one of us can't be at the game live.

("That's right, Bambi!  Bite that prick's shoulder off!")

Now, not buying from Walt is really something silly we like to maintain as tradition and superstition. Our hatred for a new beer vendor in our section is quite genuine and shared by our entire section.  This new guy is an overweight older gentleman who refuses to walk up the few steps into the 500 level sections.  He will, however, walk downwards a few steps into the more expensive 400 level seats, which to me goes beyond laziness and into some sort of class debate, showing preferential treatment to those more fortunate.  It could very well turn into a working class rebellion by the time the playoffs arrive, but only time will tell.

I am not saying he won't sell to us, but he will only do so by passing beers and exchanging money right up the seats.  I have never seen this done.  You see, a beer vendor can go up or down and aisle and pass things down a row.  That is fine, and that is how it has always been done.  This lazy son of a gun doesn't use any rows or aisles.  What he does, in effect, is instead of just disrupting one row of people, he makes up to ten rows stop what they're doing to pass a beer upwards, awkwardly reaching behind and passing over shoulders.  Lots of beer can be spilled that way, and that's perhaps the biggest tragedy of this guy's horrible technique.  It's really ticking off not only other customers but other beer vendors have shot me looks in agreement when I show frustration as if to say, "You believe this guy?"

(Even in Japan they pass down the aisles, not up the seats.  And check out that Samurai cup scabbard!)

Beyond just not buying his beer, where do I go from here?  I was thinking I could take to Twitter and start lambasting the guy on there to raise awareness.  Any other thoughts on how to get this guy fired or at the very least demoted to hot dog vending?  

Darth VS Jody On a Bookshelf Far, Far Away . . .

I have some weird habits.  The kind where if I don't do them then my whole world might spiral into ruin.  One such habit is every so often, when my life is looking not-so-good, slightly adjusting the Jody Davis and Darth Vader figurines on my book shelf could alter my destiny.  These two have been in an epic duel for around 10 years, Darth with his light saber and Jody with his catchers mitt.  Hardly seems fair, right?  The saber could slice through bone like butter without even swinging very hard, while the mitt could stop a fastball but your hand will still probably sting a little.  What's more, Darth is an intergalactic tyrant with the galaxy at his fingertips, and meanwhile Jody Davis is a lifetime .245 catcher for a team that loses most of their games, the Chicago Cubs.  

I couldn't rotate this picture, but to hell with it.  I like it better like this because with Darth on top, Jody is getting dominated even more.  He is the power bottom (of the division).

If you'll notice in the first picture, Darth has his light saber ready to slice off Mr. Davis' head.  This is when life has me by the balls and it looks like there is no hope.  

"The Cubs join the Empire?  Never!!!!"

But not so fast!  Jody has slipped his glove to the inside, blocking Darth!  This ever so slight of an adjustment can be made on any given day and everything can turn around for me.  And I actually believe this can help matters.

Anyone else do stuff like this or am I just completely nuts?

2012 Cubs Game Damn Shame Game Two

Who Went: The Uncle, Southie, and LaFontaine.  This turned out to be quite a solid crew of funny men.  I like to be challenged by dudes as funny as me, and this day didn't disappoint.   

What I Drank: Let's see here . . . A crappy blue moon variation, a skunky rolling rock, a bunch of microbrews, and a host of watery domestics.

Who Won: My Cubbies won on a walk-off walk in 11th inning.

Today's Revelation: The four of us all agreed that there is no comedy sequel that is better than the original.  The only ones that come even close are the second "Austin Powers," the second "Naked Gun," and perhaps the best is "Christmas Vacation" due to its staying power in that a lot of people watch it every year.

Miscellaneous: We met over at Yankee's place because it's right in between all of our places, and it was already raining.  Then while we were there, a thunderstorm started, delaying the game.  Looking at the radar, it was not looking like there would be any baseball.  So, while we were holed up in there, we drank beers, watched the NBA Playoffs, and spun records (most notably a couple great Clash ones).  We then made it over to LaFontaine's local bar, and when we looked up at the television, the game was on after hours of delays!  We decided to walk up to the park, but Southie had to bow out because he wanted to get home by 5 (something that certainly would have happened had it started on time).

The remaining three walked into the park for one inning, and we were able to get a couple rows back because hardly anyone had waited out the long delay.  We then went to two more bars to watch the finish. 

We also decided that there's nothing wrong with Kate Upton dancing in her underpants.

2012 Cubs Game Damn Shame Game One

I'm going to do a blog post for every Chicago Cubs game I go to; this being my first paid year on the season tickets I've been sponging off my friends on for years.

Who Went: Just me and Brutus today.  We traded in our season tickets in the upper deck for some seats in the sun because it was around 30 degrees with the wind.

What I Drank: No beer today with it being a Sunday and a long week ahead of me.  Just one coffee

The Outcome: Cubs lost 4 to 3 to the Reds in pretty lousy fashion.  Soriano had a dropped fly ball and some spectacular big league strikeouts. 

Today's Revelation: I saw that Wrigley awards designated drivers with a Good Sports raffle where the drivers can win things.  I think it would be funny if Brutus and I stumbled in there blind drunk, slurring, belching and hiccuping our way through telling them that we were both each others designated drivers.  "I'm driving (hic) him home and he's (burp) driving me home.  Whaddawe win?  A beer or sumphin'?"

"Rick Reuschel, Sit on My Face"

The title of this post is a shirt that my mom said she saw a woman wearing to a Wrigley Field when the hulking giant, Reuschel, was hurling fastballs for Chicago Cubs.

I did a search for "Rick Reuschel, sit on my face," and I'm afraid it yielded no results. I was half-hoping I'd stumble upon the woman's story who donned that shirt because you have to admit it's interesting. I mean, I can see her offering to sit on his face, but to want a big hairy sweaty athlete sitting on your own face . . .

And you got to remember, this was in the 70's or 80's, so her taking the time to print a shirt exhibiting such an uncouth message would have been highly unusual. Hell, I'd like to meet the woman today who had the cojones to put on such a thing.

Was this a woman who was into the arseholes of professional athletes or did she just find it funny?

Did she lose a bet of some kind?

If she had a significant other at the game with her, what did he think about all of this?

These are questions I need answered, Seven Readers. You have any thoughts to ease my mind, as this mystery and Reuschel's big, hairy anus has been haunting me for decades.

Lee's Rant

Baseball season is around the corner, and I thought it a good time to play for you one of the finest meltdowns in sports history, Cubs coach Lee Elia's swearing masterpiece from 1983. I spliced in some music in the background, and while there is a lot of hiss from the original Lee recording, I think if you have the patience to listen when the music gets more intense, you will hear it build up to a sweet cursing crescendo. If you want, count the times he uses the fuck word and post your answer in the comments. How fun! I mean, how fucking fun!!



Remember, hit pause on the music player on this page on the right before you play the song, or click where it says "MP3" to download it to your iTunes so you can road rage it in the car with old Lee.

Cup Chaser

My beloved Chicago Blackhawks are playing for a Stanley Cup tonight, and we're headed over to one of our old watering holes where we used to watch Chicago Bears games back when we still could get away with drinking heavily on Sunday nights.

The thing is, this city has really gotten behind their Hawks, which you would think would be surprising, since hockey isn't as popular as some other sports. But this has more to do with a city that needs a winner. Let's look at the facts:

Chicago Blackhawks: Last Stanley Cup: 1961. They made it to the cup in 1992, and then they traded away the three or four best players, guys who are some of the all time greats, and they've sucked ever since.

Chicago Bears: Last Super Bowl: 1986. Yes, Dr. Ken was in the 3rd grade. We played in one a few years ago, but Indianapolis beat the crap out of us.

Chicago Bulls: Last NBA Title: 1998. Number of NBA titles during Jordans periods of retirement: That's a big zero. He won three, sat out for two to let the Rockets win 2, came back to win three more, and then retired again. He came back for the Wizards to play for a stint, but let's just not get into that.

Chicago Whitesox: Last World Series: 2005. Yes, that's only a few years ago, but nobody cares because they are evil.

Chicago Cubs: Last World Series: 1908. Yes, that's over 100 years ago. One hundred. Civil War veterans could very well have been at that game. The last time they even played in a World Series was 1945, the same year that WW2 ended and Dr. Ken's father was born.

Chicago Governors: We sent around 4 out of last 5 to jail.

Chicago Olympics: Our mayor pumped in a ton of money to try to get the 2016 Summer Olympics here, and we lost out to Rio. Some say that it's because of all of our murders, but it turns out they have a bunch of those too. If they wanted the place with the most murders, they might as well have the thing in Detroit.

Chicago Parking Ticket Amount Paid By Dr. Ken: $3,048. This is a rough estimate. I know it's not good. They make signs in this city that are intentionally B.S., and even these pictures that you get in the mail of the automated things from the stop lights are crappola because you'll get one showing you doing a right turn on a red, which is okay on that intersection.

Now I'm just bitching, but my point is that we are sick of losing, and we're sick of bullshit. It's time to win tonight. It's time to "commit to the Indian." It's time to get my ass to the bar and reserve a table before all the other Chicagoans tired of losing get in there and drink all the beer.

All By Myself . . .

Sorry for the long absence. It’s a combination of blogger’s block, not having much time to spare, and not wanting to be in my apartment due to the broken air conditioning.

I became inspired to write a blog when I saw The Headphones Guy at the Cubs game the other day. My friends have had a nights and weekends season tickets package for a number of years, and I have been able to weasel my way to ball games fairly consistently, alternating weaseling with all of them. In these season ticket seats, two rows in front, and about seven seats to the left, without fail, sits a middle-aged man with one of those big, whopper, headphone radios. He has a very elaborate scorecard and sometimes he talks to himself while violently penciling in statistics. One thing we have noticed about him is that the outcome of the game is decided when he leaves. Whoever is leading when he leaves, and usually it’s whatever team is visiting at the time, even the shitty ones, that team will hold that lead. So, we’ll be like, “Oh, fuck. The Headphones Guy just left. It’s all over.

I took a picture of him on my cell phone with a dorky border around it that says, “Waz’ Up!?” but I don’t know how to get it into my computer. For now I had to settle for this Empire Strikes Back photo, but you’ll just have to trust me when I say that he looks like that guy at your work who doesn’t talk to anyone, and you suspect he may come to work tomorrow with an AK and mow down the entire office.

With one of my days off, I feel I should go during a day game to see if he’s there. Does he have a job or is he ALWAYS there? If I spot him I’m going to plant myself in a seat directly next to him and get the life story of The Headphones Guy. Either that or I’ll get a headset and a scorecard and not talk to a soul to see what it’s like to be in his headsetted dome . . .

Go Cubs Go!

Baseball season is, yet again, upon us, and this no doubt means another disappointing year for the Chicago Cubs. I’m tired of them fucking sucking. I don’t think people get how serious I am about Cub baseball. Let me give you some of the alarming signs that I am a die-hard Cub fan.

1. When someone insulted the post-stroke Harry Caray, I honestly think I could have killed a few of these jerks. This man’s voice was around my house so much growing up that he might as well have been my grandfather. Hell, he was my grandfather, so don’t make fun of my fucking grandpa! Will Farrell, I’ll let you slide, since your impression is God damned funny.

2. I’m not sure if there is a God or not, but I AM sure that if I leave a game early, I can drastically affect the outcome of a game.
I can also alter the results of a game by turning the radio or television off for a brief while. Believe it or not, my bleacher bum friends and I can turn the tides of a game simply by switching our seats. I don’t believe in a higher power, but I swear by this bullshit? There’s something wrong with that rationale.

3. Wrigley Field is not just a ballpark to me. It is my favorite place in the world. I love all the sights, sounds, and especially the smells – beer, hotdogs, ice cream . . .
I don’t like the smell of cigars, but I love to smell it at Wrigley. I have even grown to love the smell of hot urine in the men’s room. It is one of the only parks in the country that still has the trough-style urinals. They maximize available pissing spots by cutting out the spaces in between urinals. Efficient? Yes. Smelly? Definitely. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

4. Speaking of urinals, and why not speak of urinals, I love getting off that self/team deprecating one liner that makes the whole men’s room erupt in laughter, and not your usual laughter, but the bazaar looking laughter of men looking straight ahead, so as not to be accused of looking at a penis.

5. I will drink a piss-warm Old Style beer out of a paper cup and ask for seconds, and thirds, and tenths, and stack my dead soldiers up to show my drinking prowess. I dreamed of being the guy with the seeminlgy endless, stacked up cups when I was a young man, and look at me now America! My first frothy brew at the Friendly Confines will be for you, my 9 readers.