Mondays with Mike: I Saw the Light

On Friday I opened an email from Bethesda Lutheran Communities, the operator of the group home where our son Gus lives in Watertown, Wisconsin. The gist of the message was that Bethesda had agreed in principle to sell its Watertown services to another organization, Broadstep. For those who don’t know what the heck I’m talking about, Bethesda announced last year that it would be closing its residential operations in Wisconsin, at least partly due to the financial burdens COVID has caused.

Gus has been cared for by Bethesda since 2002, so it was a shock to our system, to say the least. A case worker has been trying to find a new placement for Gus, and in fact, we turned down an opening at a home in Racine based on the hope that Bethesda would find an organization that would take over Gus’ house. That would be ideal—he wouldn’t have to move, and current staff could even be retained.

The tour continues!

It was a tough call. Beth leaned toward taking the spot—if we held out and the sale never occurred, Gus would still have to move and we might not have much say later on. Plus, Racine is considerably closer to our home in Chicago.

The flip side: Gus has caseworkers, staff, and doctors who know him. (Finding doctors and dentists who are willing to treat developmentally disabled people like Gus is not all that easy.) And, you know, it was simply a case of the known vs. the unknown.

We held out. And it looks like it’s going to work out. I almost broke down and cried while I was reading the email. I didn’t think I was walking around and thinking about it consciously. But it was apparently weighing on me more than I realized. What a relief.

So, Friday was already a great day. But wait, there’s more!

Beth and I had a date night. Sort of. We’re both very big fans of Todd Rundgren. In my mind, he’s up there with the likes of Stevie Wonder, Ella Fitzgerald, Prince—you know, transcendent talents. When I was in high school I wore out the grooves on Rundren’s “Something Anything,” a double album (plus an EP) that was all about…teenage angst. He wrote everything, played all instruments and produced the album. He’s always been innovative, and has produced a bunch of successful albums by other artists.

As we cultists say, “Todd is God.”

This is a terrific review of the “Pittsburgh show.”

Well, he’s doing a “tour.” It’s goofy, but if you play along, as we did, it’s a lot of dumb fun. He and his band actually perform every show of the tour live in Chicago. But, each night the stage and backdrop changes themes by city, and he peppers in the appropriate “Hello Cleveland” remarks. Even the clock display is set to local time.

We signed up for the Chicago date. Beth decided we should go out for a drink in advance, as is our wont in normal times. She got dressed up and even wore…lipstick. Me, I was my dumpy self. We went to our local, Half Sour, which can now have indoor dining at reduced capacity. When asked what we were doing that night, we said, “We’re going to a concert!”

When we got home I hooked up my MacBook to our TV, and I blue toothed it to our stereo. Which is a fine piece of HiFi, by the way. (My nerd self soldered the amp together from a kit. It has tubes and everything.)

We connected to the stream at around 7:30, in advance of 8:00 start time, and it was weirdly kind of real. Stage hands were running back and forth hooking stuff up. Behind the stage, we got the images of the Chicago skyline, the lake, etc. There was a familiar pre-concert anticipatory murmur—because 19 people are allowed to attend in person each “date.” It’s pretty tightly controlled—attendees must present evidence of a negative COVID test within 72 hours of the concert. People were comfortably spaced, and between attendees were video screens, each displaying the faces of virtual attendees who’d bought VIP passes.

The footlights were dimmed, the fans roared as much as 19 people can roar, and the band came out—a horn section, three sequined backup singers—in all 11 counting Rundgren. The sound was marvelous from the first note.

We rarely order delivery food, but for this occasion we had Chinese delivered. It came about five minutes into the performance. While I was downstairs in the lobby picking it up, Beth said she started to cry when she heard the horn section, realizing how much she’s missed live music.

We applauded. We hooted. We jumped up and danced. The video production was superb—it came off as slickly as a fully edited and produced documentary concert film.

At the end of the two-hour performance (the guy is 72, and Mick Jagger has nothing on him) we even did the thing you do after a music or theatrical performance—you talk about it. We called our friend Nancy, whom we knew had also “attended.” On speaker phone we marveled at the arrangements, the sound, and, well, it was joyous.

It wasn’t quite the real deal. But thanks to Rundgren’s imaginative, innovative artistry, it was pretty damn close.

Can’t wait for the real thing.