a musing julius…

i made pasta with bell peppers and sea scallops tonight. it was delicious. but in the end, the meal was made by my favorite beverage…wine.

i opened up a bottle of dynamite vineyards merlot (not as sophisticated as their cabernet, but still good) and sipped on wine while eating my pasta. the combination of flavors combined with the fruity, woody, and spicy flavor of the dynamite merlot was just awesome.

i love wine. its my beverage of choice most nights…and if it was more socially acceptable for a 25 year old to drink wine in a group of guys at the bar, i’d probably do it more often, but i know that beer and shots are my only options in a group of dudes. either way, i love wine. its the greatest drink to complement food. and when i make pizza, it’s usually the first thing i’ll reach for when taking my first bite.

two days ago, i celebrated my 25th birthday with my closest friends from detroit (and dc!) never have i ever felt so blessed or lucky or loved in my life. 20 of us celebrated at proof bar from 9pm to 3am, drinking, talking and laughing the night away. it felt amazing for all of my friends to come together, talk, gather, enjoy life in a place that was new to most of the individuals. people met, talked, danced, drank, and enjoyed life!!!

i got to thinking…how lucky i was to have my aspiring radass fly to detroit to spend my birthday with me (and bring an original radass card, which is now prominently displayed in my bedroom) and how lucky i was to have people come out to detroit (not a small feat for those coming from ann arbor.)

the next day, my parents called and sang happy birthday to me no less than 6 times. even today, the day after, my parents sang their favorite, “happy after-birthday” song (which is just happy birthday with “after” thrown before each time you’d sing birthday) 

it makes me tear up, thinking about how great my friends and family are. it was all just so memorable. i’ll never forget this weekend…for many reasons…but mostly because i felt so lucky to be around such wonderful people.

thanks again everyone!

my life was dominated by a nightlife that rivals all but college alcoholics. from the age of 12 to 18, i spent nearly every single weekend at a bar or lounge or restaurant or club in chicago. my parents took me everywhere (except strip clubs…but they didn’t go to those) and i would usually sit, chat with everyone, active in conversation with people over 3 times my age.

when i went to college and turned 21, my friends always wanted to go downtown. “hey man, lets go to man vs. margarita,” a friend would say, to which i would respond, “been going there on the back of my dad’s bike since i was 12, not interested, have fun.”

anyway, i recall one night where we had a guys night and girls night, so i was naturally with the guys. we were out, having fun, and after a few hours, we someone decided to leave. so we all jumped in the car, a range rover that belonged to a dad’s friend. so we’re driving down and minding our own business when we get cut off by a mercedes benz on the street. at the next light, we pulled up to the driver, and the two dudes in the mercedes flicked us off, and they started laughing. why? i guess they thought they were cool, little did they know the net worth of the car they were flicking off was probably in the 8 digits (my family contributes nothing to that total).

for some reason naturally, this infuriated my dad. he immediately jumped out of the car, and everyone else “got his back” ludwik calmly walked over to the drivers side of the mercedes, where he literally reached into the vehicle grabbed the guy by his shirt, and removed him from his vehicle through the window. in one fluid motion, after removing the man from his car, he placed him on the hood of his mercedes. he said calmly, “you cut us off, you flicked us off, and you were laughing at us. now…who’s laughing.” he let go, walked back to the car, and we drove away.

my dad is not violent, and i’ve never seen him use force…but the one time he did, i was incredibly impressed. we talked about the story this past christmas, and all my dad will ever say about the incident was, “that guy pissed me off”

lesson: don’t piss of ludwik.

my parents and i camped often as a hobby. we’d go 3 times a year, sometimes 4 or 5 times a year. we loved it…basically, we’d drive to the upper peninsula of michigan towing our jetski with 3 other couples, also towing jetskis. we’d camp in fayette state park, or pictured rocks national lake shore. both are great places to camp, and surprisingly, both are home to the only remaining iron ore smelting furnaces in the united states. how ironic that i’ve camped at both?

anyhow, two separate instances that i recall were rather amusing…there were dozens of fun camping episodes that range from freaking awesome to freaking time-to-go-to-the-hospital-awesome.

1. we once visited fayette state park in the summermonsoon season of 1999. it rained all 5 days we were there. obviously everyone was pissed except one person.  henry, one of my dad’s friends (one of the captains responsible for demolishing the engine of the 72 foot yacht) made the best of all situations. he decided after two days of rain, we would sit outside in the rain, and sing. all day. all night. next to the camp fire, which became my job to upkeep. yay. so, in the drunken stupor of everyone except me…my dad decided to take pictures with our old 35 mm camera. it wasn’t anything spectacular, but in it’s day, it was a fancy camera. the humidity took its toll on the poor camera which never wanted to work. without thinking, my father threw the camera into the campfire. here, i learned batteries explode furiously violently. it was funny. plastic smelled. my shoes were damaged by the exploding battery.
2. in 1997, we went to pictured rocks on lake superior. for those uninformed, lake superior is the coldest of the great lakes, and usually runs at 35 degrees year round. our campsite was nice, but for chilling during the day, my parents and their friends preferred the extraordinary, and so it was their wish to travel around to the north side of grand island, about a mile offshore from where we drop our jetskis into the water. this was our first year on the water of lake superior, so we didn’t know it was so cold. so we pack up our stuff, like we have done in the past…me and dad on one jet ski, henry on another, mom, andy, ola and stuff in a jet boat. begin the mile long travel off shore. in 35 degree weather. in nothing but swim trunks. hey, it’s just like lake michigan right? my dad entered hypotheric shock about a half mile from shore and began shaking uncontrollably. i freaked out, signaled to the other jetskis (which were far ahead of us) with flares shouts of uncontrolled rage. realizing it was up to me, i had to manuever the jetski from the back seat, while i thought my dad was having a seizure. nearly 5 minutes of my dad shaking, me crying, and driving a jetski as quickly as i could to shore, the other jetskis noticed we were severely off course and followed us. i got to shore, put my dad on the ground, and jumped on top of him to help keep him warm. the other boats figured out what was wrong when they got to shore, and immediately grabbed towels and blankets spiced rum to warm my dad. dad and i shared swigs of rum from the bottle that day. we continued on our course after warming up. upon our return from that camping trip, the family bought long wetsuits for future trips to the cold lake.

those are just two camping stories. there were dozens of other great memories, jetskis or not. but now i’m cold just thinking about it…i need a blanket.

in september of 1997, my parents and i, and a group of 7 other family friends, went to see the rolling stones on the bridges to babylon tour at soldier field in chicago. problem was, we didn’t have tickets to the concert.

so we travelled downtown and wandered outside of the stadium, asking scalpers if they had 10 tickets together. what? this was the launch date for the tour (the canadian venue and double door concerts were part of a beer company promotion for surprise concerts in small venues) the soldier field dates were the two opening dates of the major north american tour!! we tried for an hour to get tickets. it was impossible. we were crazy to think we could get tickets.

out of the blue, my dad’s friend andy suggested we get on one of his client’s boats at burnam harbor, and watch listen to the concert. great. what none of us knew, was the boat was not really a boat. it was a 72 foot yacht. so we walked from soldier field to burnam harbor, and arrived at a gated door, which my father promptly jumped and climbed to open so we could get to this boat.

so, the 10 of us, boarded this yacht, and as night fell, the concert started at soldier field. listening from the top of this yacht, was not enough for my parents and friends. so…on a 72 foot yacht, that wasn’t ours, my dad and another guy undocked this boat, and drove it out onto lake michigan. problem is, no one really knew how to operate the boat…and most everyone was drunk. matt, one of my dad’s friends, had brought a bottle of johnny walker with him to the concert, which he consumed in the hour it took us to decide to steal this boat.

meanwhile, the others found the bar on this yacht, which contained thousands of dollars worth of rare wine and champagne*, which my parents and their friends quickly consumed. i wandered the boat, curious what the heck i was doing there, while my parents friends got drunk, my dad drove a 72 foot yacht, and matt was on the top deck of the boat, throwing the furniture off the top of the boat into lake michigan. i opted to stay with matt, as the massive amount of whiskey he drank, and the physical exertion of throwing all the furniture off this boat made him tired and, well, stupid. i held onto his belt, as he puked over the edge of the boat, ensuring we wouldn’t lose him to the lake.

the concert we came to see became secondary to acquiring more alcohol. so the boat was driven to navy pier, where we pulled up and my dad asked me to follow him to the bar, where he bought 20 margaritas, and expected me to carry some of the boat. the bar was prepared, and gave my dad two trays to carry the drinks in plastic cups. i carried one tray back to the boat.

everyone continued drinking, matt kept puking, and i laid on the top deck of this boat, hoping we would go home soon. so here’s me, a 14 year old accomplice to a grand theft boat, making the best of my evening. eventually, the concert ended, the party on the boat didn’t, but it was time to return the boat we stole. at 3am.

upon returning to the harbor, henry, one of the operators that decided he knew best on how to park the behemoth of a boat, managed to damage one of the transmissions on one of the engines. it was here, at 14, i learned it’s impossible to park a 72 foot yacht without 2 engines. so myself, my dad, and 3 other males, all completely drunk except for me, thought it best to pull the boat into dock. so we’re pulling, henry is reving the engines on full throttle in harbor, ramming the end of the boat into the dock. slowly, i noticed lights were turning on in other boats. people started to gather. sober-er people joined in the struggle to park this boat. questions were asked. obviously people knew we weren’t the owners. matt slept on the dock in the fetal position, exhausted from his furniture removal.

my mom drove home, as she was most sober and i couldn’t drive at 14. we dropped matt at home. by dropped, we mean we carried him to the front door, and rang the doorbell and drove away, leaving him to his wife’s wrath. the next morning, the police called our house. my dad answered, claiming we were at the rolling stones concert. i was the only person that could remember the first song of the night. that was the only song we heard.

to this day, i still claim it was the best concert i’ve never been too.

*later, we learned one of the bottles they drank cost $1500