Someone Bridle My Optimism

Thank you God for the gift of Fr. Hart. Wonderful reminder with Luke’s Gospel to day re: Lazarus (not the raised from the dead Lazarus, although this Lazarus ends up dead in the story this is poor, riddled with sores Lazarus) – oh, the reminder…wonderful reminder with this PARABLE Christ tells how we Catholics read the Bible fundamentally different from our fundamentalist friends. Dinner and drinks with Father Abraham vs. fire and torture for the unrepentant is an image Jesus employs in the story. It is an easy image for the simple to see something difficult – the poor are the greatest in the kingdom of God while the rich have already been great in man’s kingdom.

Not to judge the fundamentalists and their literal interpretation of the Bible, I agree with those who argue that there can be a plain reading of the Bible but there is a difference between a plain reading and an absolute literal one.

For some strange reason I am looking forward to the Bears game today. I was not a Rex hater, but it is time for him to go and I am curious about the Greasy. If he leads the Bears to a 7 game winning streak, gets injured, Kyle Orton comes in and wins a game or two and Greasy comes back to lead the Bears to a superbowl victory…does that make Kyle Orton Earl Morrall?

Sorry.

Happy that the SOX have resigned AJ. You want to talk about franchise frustration – the Bears have been looking for quarterbacks for years, but think how long Chicago’s beloved WhiteSOX have searched for a catcher of Pierzinski’s quality?!?!?

Sorry.

The Bears next two games can save the season whether they win it all or not. What do I mean? If they beat the Lions this week, the season is still interesting. Then the biggest game is next week against the Pack. I’d be happy if the Bears make it to 2-2 and expose the Packers next Sunday. We’ll see if it happens.

I am also happy that Lance Briggs (I know many of you hate him, but he is playing fucking GREAT this year) might play and Tommie Harris might even play. I’m not sure what sort of ligament damage he has. This all sounds strange to me – but why be glum until I see the Bears play the Lions today?

I have unbridled optimism because some fun and exciting stuff is happening for me and my friends after the Bears game today. Yay!

For those who already know I like a lot of weird, stupid shit in music let me present exhibit 9,857. This band has a song called Yard Sale that I can’t get out of my head – here they are doing a different song on Conan.

Whiskeybeerpizza

Fun night with Joe & Steener and my in-laws Friday. Alex had a sleepover at Luke's. Thanks and much love to the PDawg crew for letting the boy come over for fun on a Friday. They have a great house for kids...everybody had a friend over. Coo

Drank a bit too much of the new Jameson last night, but if I keep doing that - the new bottle of Jameson will never become an old one. That's good, right?

Saw Cub Girl's boyfriend's band on Sat. Seaworthy rocked me pretty hard. They rocked the Squirrel pretty hard as they kept sending shots over to him.

Good times.

Congrats cub Fans

And let me back away from my statements about backing into the playoffs. Z went out and won a big game last night. I still don’t like him, but all praise for that. More importantly, even with the Wildcard, making the playoffs in baseball is truly the most precious thing to do in all team sports so no matter how the cubs did it – they did it.

Their fans should be happy and proud.

I poke fun because that’s what I do. Everyone feel free to give me shit for being a SOX fan but also know that I am happy for my friends who are fans of the blue team…

…most of whom, by the way, were very nice to me when the SOX had their run.

I may still make fun of your team, but in honor of the cubs accomplishment let me say a few nice things about the cubs organization –

No matter what happens the rest of this season, Jim Hendry may be the best GM the cubs have ever had (or since the turn of the last century). Two playoff appearances with very different teams in the last four years while overcoming the albatross of McFail and the Tribune ownership…

Maybe it’s not Hendry, maybe it’s the one guy in the cubs organization who (as a baseball fan) I’ve always admired – John McD (Michael K’s ex-uncle-in-law)

McD may be the best baseball man in town and getting McFail’s old job was a well deserved reward for this man who brought the party, the life and the aura to the cub organization even during what might’ve been its worst decade (on-the-field-wise) – the 1990’s. McD made the cubs an event in his old job and now may make them a winner in is new job as President of Baseball Operations (I think that’s technically his title).

Anyway, God bless my cub fan friends. I will still make fun of your team but know that I am happy for y’all.

Here’s your song.

Fight Song

So I've admitted here I am pulling for the cubs to beat out the Brewers, not because I have become some sort of cub fan but because I despise what the Brewers did in the middle of their pennant push.

My fantasy scenario however, is that both teams lose all their games going down to the last game of the season and the cubs by virtue of being ahead at this point make the playoffs. In addition (this is a complicated fantasy scenario) I want all the other National League races to end in a tie so that the other teams will have to play extra games and use their best pitchers one game early. In this enhanced post-season, fantasy scenario the cubs enter the playoffs with the worst record in the NL (and naturally of all the playoff teams) but they have the biggest advantage - sitting at home while the better teams pick each other off and take out one of their Game 1 pitchers.

The other reason I want to see the cubs lose all the rest of their regular season games is I HATE THE FUCKING GO CUBS GO song!!!!!!! I've been following the games, TV on in the other room and every time the cubs win I have to run into the other room, jumping over toys, books whatever cluttercrap is cluttercrapping up my house and turn off the damned tv before I hear too much of it.

The "Go..." part is too damned much.

I made the mistake of mentioning this at work to Cub Girl and friends so I have to hear the shitty ditty all the time. It is starting to get stuck in my brain so to exercise the demons I had to write...


GOAT CUBS GOAT

Goat cubs goat
Goat cubs goat
Hey Chicago what do you say...
The cubs have backed into 1st Place

Goat cubs goat
Goat cubs goat
Hey Chicago what do you know
There's only three games left to blow

Goat cubs goat
Goat cubs goat
The cubs are bad but still in first
Because Milwaukee's so much worse

Goat cubs goat
Goat cubs goat
Hey Chicago raise your beer
To another 100 crappy years


Ok, it's mostly inter-office instant messaging back and forth between cub fans and me but you get the picture.

I guess I shouldn't talk, as much as I hate Go Cubs Go, it probably has just as much "musical quality" as some Journey song that may or may not come to mind.

Good luck cub fans...

BUT YOU CAN KEEP YOUR DAMNED SONG!

Time to Cut Nuts

Week II with Fr. Hart and reading Revelation responsibly…

How does one do this? Father suggests we have to read the book like a 1st Century Christian. We have to understand that it was meant to deal with a very specific political entity exacting religious persecution on the cross bearers. The Beast, the one who is to come at the end of days??? Father suggests this man may be the Beast.

Father is making a compelling argument to separate the bad reading some preachers force on us to make us fear the end of days now, see the Beast in the Saddam Hussein’s of the world, Jezebel in Tyra Banks or whatever…

Is anybody proud of me that I know who Tyra Banks is?

Probably not.

My question for the first week was: If this is a book written for a very specific set of religious and political problems, and if it has been greatly misunderstood, why does the big canonical council include it in the final pressing?

More on this later.

Here’s my baseball bitch for the night. I hope the Brewers fucking choke and do not make the playoffs. Stupid ass Busch league (ha!?) move last night. Prince Fielder gets hit (all due respect to his MVP like play this season) but what do the dumbass Brewers do the top of the 8th?

THE TOP OF THE 8TH IN A PLAYOFF RACE!!!!

/and making the playoffs in baseball (even with the expanded round/wildcard) it is still the hardest/most precious thing to do in team sports.

The Brewers hit Pujhols in the top of the 8th and this open the floodgates to a 3 (or 4, honestly I didn’t watch the game which probably makes me a bad source) run inning. Their manager gets tossed and suspended. Stupid stupid stupid. I don’t care how the cubs get in. I just hope they do at the expense of the Brewers.

The Brewers will play the Cards 19 times next year. Someone get a fucking pencil and a piece of paper in the dugout and write down (if retaliation is so damned important, and I still wonder out loud whether or not it is - - pennant race or no) “Hit some red douchebag next year.”

Dumb, dumb, dumb.

Brewers stay home.

The cubs may be losing to the Marlins who have a combined payroll this year that is less than Soriano and A-Ram make…

But they are not playing stupid. They are pitching the guys they have to pitch and that’s it. Lou undid his proposed dumb move by re-scratching Kendall and letting Sosa…er Soto wear the tools of ignorance today.

By the way, my beloved WhiteSOX just went double-digits on the Evil Empire of the AL Central…the Royals.

Well, they are the empire of sucking.

Lots of talk of empire in my Bible study tonight.

Maybe I should welcome everyone to the true Empire of Sucking: Population, me.

Looks like Bush is ready to whip out his veto shit again. The general government can’t offer additional funding for states who provide insurance for children. What are we, France?

And now for the sake of publicizing some dangerous looking motherfuckers in suits, click on this link, ignore the story about the Intelligence Oversight Board and just enlarge the photo of these two dangerous looking motherfuckers.

For some strange reason, I laughed for 15 minutes when I first saw the pic. I kept thinking 'Man, the Senator is going to shoot Bill Haley right in the ass with that poison dart gun.'

Rex Is Not Our Quarterback

- or Rex Was Our Quarterback
- or Brian Is Our Quarterback
- or No, Kyle Orton Is Not Our Quarterback Yet
- or Craig Krenzel is Our Molecular Geneticist

Listened to the press conference during my lunch. Lovie Smith earned his money today. Whatever else happens I think I will always be a fan of Lovie. He seems so measured and decent under whatever pressure and scrutiny comes his way.

If that's fake, it's one hell of an act.


Ok it is later now and it's been a fine day. We got our family portrait taken at Newman tonight. Alex saw me putting on a shirt and tie and said "I'll be as handsome as you when I have my shirt and tie on."

We got gussied up and took the pics. Ran into Fr. Godwin and he offered us his homemade Nigerian recipes. Excellent stuff and it is always wonderful to shoot the...uh, Spirit with this blessed man. Fr. Godwin seems to have limitless energy but he is not the kind of person who is so busy it makes you tired just watching them. It is a joyful energy, verging on being excessive but not past that threshold where it becomes manic, where activity becomes unproductive.

I've been so lucky when it comes to the priests I've known.

Came home and Alex mom & I pretended to be his favorite kind of bat.

The cute little fruit bat.

Tomorrow is Part II of Fr. Hart's series on the Book of Revelation. In an effort to spend more time together, Kim and I are taking this Bible study. I'm a little pissed that the first class we take together is the Book of Revelation. It's like we're cheating and looking ahead to the end.

The Antichrist did it.

Turned down a gig from the booker-who's-name-shall-not-be-mentioned on this blog. Not because I have a beef or am trying to be cryptic...I just don't want to be google-associated with them and the show they offered this week.

Period.

.

e-mailed the group about a possible set list for the Oct 25th coat drive thing. Very exciting shit. I am not married to any particular order or odor as the case may be. My wife is married to a peculiar odor but that is neither here nor there.

Nor here.

I said that already.

I should've quit while I was ahead...sometime in late October 2005.

LNL Larry posted a message on the bigDrag mySpace again. I've got to get a message to him. As soon as I get Joe to help me fix the levels on Anyone Can Make a Shadow we can start duping (with an emphasis on dupe) the 1st Old Kishwaukee Band thing. Bill's already given me the ok for I Wanna and Cousin Mike seemed to be up for anything last time we spoke about this stuff.

All this can wait until we play these upcoming bD shows leading up to the Halloween thing.

It's nice to be busy. I hope I am not making myself sound busier or more in-demand than I am. Most people who read this thing know me pretty well and know I am not part of anything that's changing the world anytime soon.

It's just nice to make some noise.

Eric Lowen sent out an e-mail to a bunch of us who were involved with the ALS benefit. I was glad to be a part of the show. He asked that anyone who cared to do so could share this video that somehow generates $2 donations for research. I am not sure how or if this works so feel free to be a bit leery...

- or feel fee to click here.

Curious

Hmmmm, I've seen every episode of the Sopranos and I don't remember this lady.

You Were Wrong

/actually, I was wrong. I was wrong when I said Pujhols would be out for the rest of the year. He played last night. Looks like Tony LaR fielded a good team against Fielder and the others. The Cardz just kicked the ball around the yard. That's gonna happen. Even that cute little hobbit David E.

That hobbit was the MVP of the World Series, what the fuck have I done with my life?

I have this blog.

I have a blog where I give bad information.

At least the bad information is about relatively unimportant stuff.

Dammit.

If there's a 'Talk When You Don't Know What You are Talking About' Hall of Fame, I think I am amassing the numbers to get in on the first ballot.

Enjoying the last regular season baseball highlights of the year. I'm gonna miss them in a month or so. Man I am an idiot.

One football thing (that I may also be wrong about) but with the stepping down of Cower, Jeff Fischer is the longest tenured coach in the NFL. I am not a Titans fan by any stretch of the imagination, but I admire their coach. He wins and wins and wins and keeps his players interested and keeps management and fans happy and always seems to out perform whatever expectations there are. We could all stand to be more like Jeff Fischer.

Except for the mustache. That shit's gotta go.

Iran & Birthin' Babies

Laughed our butts off at practice. Conversation ranged from Mike Campbell, mosquito coils (we still don't know what the fuck they are), going stag to your high school reunion (is ChrisB really a trophy wife?), having babies without drugs, and what exactly are the Russians trying to sell the Iranians, and what did we do to piss them off so much that they want to sell whatever they are planning to sell to the Iranians.

We laughed and laughed and laughed

Played Alice, Call It Anything You Like, Ridin' that Wave, Mt. St. Michael, Stay Out Here, My Best Friend, Not Let Go, Lincoln County, 2BorB, Windflower and Poor Baby.

I wish we could get one more bigDrag golf outing going before the weather turns crappy. Maybe we can still do one even if the weather is crappy.

Brewers kill the Cards and I have heard talk that LaRussa's hatred of things blue and furry may lead him to tank or not play his best players in this four game series against the Brewers. I hope that's not true. The lowly Pirates tried their best against the cubs. They threw three lefties against the northsiders (and the cubs have a bad track record against lefties this year) - but the Pirates' lefties suxked so it didn't matter.

But at least Jim Tracy tried. Hopefully the Cardinals will put their feelings for their rivals aside and try to beat the Brewers or at least play hard - even with Pujhols out for the rest of the year.

Ah baseball. I don't want it to end. That means I will have to pay more attention to football.

Of course I could read more or take up a musical instrument.

But who has time for that horseshit?!?!

BEARS!

All Due Respect & Love

...to my cub fan friends...

But Tony fucking Romo can go and bite my bag along with the idiot Zambrano.

My rationale for these things?

I just don't have one.

Those who know where I live know that there is a sort of strange sickness in this part of the i-l-l. There are more than a few people who are cub fans and Packer fans. What the fuck is that bullshit?

Why should I care?

I drove past one house near the Luxor flying a Packer flag on the left and a cub flag on the right.

Right now I am a big proponent of flag burning.

On the plus side, Marcel Marceau is dead. Let's see him try to get out of this box.

Rememberfest

For my little crew, St. Mary’s Septemberfest is really the reminder that our summer days are pretty much behind us for the year. But for one night Alex and I take our car and park in the grass (he loves that part), check out the skateboard/BMX show and get unlimited ride wristbands. He uses most of the unlimited powers on the Funhouse. It’s been his favorite since he first knew what a carnie was.

The Funhouse is always Alex’s first and last ride of the evening.

But his second to last ride is the one I’ll remember the most from tonight. The NASCAR ride. The NASCAR ride was very popular and as he prepared to ride it at the end of the evening he had to share the car with a girl just about his age. Watching their faces light up as the car whipped around the corner, seeing their little noses crinkle each time they passed through the cloud of menthol-laced smoke emanating from the carnie, and how they high-fived at the ride’s end before they went their separate ways…

Well, it made me think of Frank Sinatra’s great paean to summer, its memories and its passing as the season changes.

Remember the 16th of September

Happy belated birthday to my little buddy Bill Garver.

He has some birthday surprises coming for you all soon.

Until then and in honor of the birthing of Bill, enjoy this....

WARNING: American Pastoral Spoiler

Finished Philip Roth’s American Pastoral two weeks ago and I have wanted to write about this thing almost from the moment I began reading it. I had shit to say about this book every damned day. I didn't know what I was talking about but I had something to say.

Roth tells the story, his story, the American story through his alter-ego – the writer Nathan Zuckerman.

I was reminded often of our friend Grant Miller’s critique of the last Sopranos (a different sort of love letter to New Jersey and America in general). Grant said that there are surprises left to be had from great writing. Grant cited Roth in particular and Grant was right. Roth can use dramatic turns in his work and the real surprise is what follows the shock. The surprise or the shocker is never the thrust of what Roth is doing…unlike the M KNight Shamamamammamamammlammmmamamamamamamamama guy.

The shock in this novel rivals anything I’ve come across in books (that includes serious books from Xenophon and that sort of junk) and the pain felt by American Pastoral’s “subject” Swede Levov is searing. There was nothing to buffer or buoy the Swede when he lost it all. Roth’s Zuckerman tells us that the Swede lacked vital components that aide a man in the process of experiencing great pain or after suffering great loss. Even as a young sports hero for Weequahic, the Swede did not require the tools, tools like me turn to when they feel defeated. The Swede was never really defeated and did not need such stuff. Consider:

“But wit or irony is like a hitch in his swing for a kid like the Swede, irony being human consolation and besides the point if you’re getting your way as a god.”

What happens to the Swede later in life is tragedy for any man, but worse for this one who traded in godhood on the sports field for quiet, dedicated respectability. This gift of his to his family and the world was not enough and Roth says…

“He had learned the worst lesson that life can teach – that it makes no sense. And when that happens the happiness is never spontaneous again.”

These aren’t things I necessarily believe, but like the too-sensible-for-God subject of Everyman, these are the things I find challenging in Philip Roth’s books.

I know too many fucking people who read only what they believe. They only argue with those who have the same starting point as they do. They consider producers of different thoughts as the Enemy or foreign or whatever. When a potent artist and mind like Roth seems to be very different from mine – I am exhilarated.

I’m going to end with three long passages from American Pastoral that I will always remember.

Ghost Writer is probably next. Maybe I’ll do all the Zuckerman novels (minus My life as a Man) and end with his latest book Exit Ghost.



“And then the loss of the daughter, the fourth American generation, a daughter on the run who was to have been the perfected image of himself as he had been the perfected image of his father's father … the angry, rebarbative spitting-out daughter with no interest whatever in being the next successful Levov, flushing him out of hiding as if he were a fugitive — initiating the Swede into the displacement of another America entirely, the daughter and the decade blasting to smithereens his particular form of Utopian thinking, the plague America infiltrating the Swede's castle and there infecting everyone. The daughter who transports him out of the longed-for American pastoral and into everything that is its antithesis and its enemy, into the fury, the violence, and the desperation of the counterpastoral — into the indigenous American berserk.”


“It’s astonishing that everything so immediately visible in our lives as classmates we still remember so precisely. The intensity of feeling that we have seeing one another today is also astonishing. But most astonishing is that we are nearing the age that our grandparents were when we first went off to be freshmen at the annex on February 1, 1946. What is astonishing is that we, who had no idea how anything was going to turn out, now know exactly what happened. That the results are in for the class of January 1950 – the unanswerable questions answered, the future revealed – is that not astonishing? To have lived – and in this country, and in our time, and as who we were. Astonishing.”


“And it was never but once a year that they were brought together anyway, that was on the neutral, de-religionized ground of Thanksgiving, when everybody gets to eat the same thing, nobody sneaking off to eat funny stuff – no kugel, no gefilte fish, no bitter herbs, just one colossal turkey feeds all. A moratorium on funny foods and funny ways and religious exclusivity, a moratorium on the three-thousand year old nostalgia of the Jews, a moratorium on Christ and the cross and the crucifixion for Christians, when everyone in New Jersey and elsewhere can be more passive about their irrationalities than they are the rest of the year. A moratorium on all the grievances and resentments, and not only for the Dwyers and the Levovs but for everyone in America who is suspicious of everyone else. It is the American pastoral par excellence and it lasts twenty-four hours.”

Chickle Wee Wee

Apparently my beautiful boy has an alter ego a la the Great Cornholio. He came home from swimming tonight and I asked him:

“How was school today?”

Alex: “Chickle Wee Wee.”
Me: “Huh?”
Alex: “Chickle Wee Wee.”
Me: “Do you have to go to the bathroom?”
Alex: “Chickle Wee Wee.”

I don’t know what it means, but I know he likes to say it.

A lot.

Congrats to Jim Thome. Thome is not one of my favorite SOX. I respect him and think he is a classy player. I didn’t like the trade with Philly two years back but I understand Kenny’s thinking.

Having said all that – WOW! What a way to get 500!

It was a walk-off WhiteSOX winner.
3-2 count
On Jim Thome bobblehead day.

If I am ever in a successful band I want to have my own bobblehead day. Is that too much to ask? The other members will have their bobblehead day too, I just want one for me.

SOX fans erupted and it was great to see the love at SOX park. Ironically, I see more love there than in 2005 when everyone was so fucking nervous and edgy near the end of the race with the Indians breathing down the collective necks of our beloved SOX.

Hopefully my SOX fan brethren will turn the good feelings from their park into good will for their friends who root for the cub.

I still remember all the nice e-mails from my cub fan friends when the SOX won it all.

I will still rip on the cubs that I don’t like but know that any bad feelings I have toward certain boys in blue have nothing to do with how I feel about the team as a whole or my friends who cheer for them. The cubs are really doing a lot of things the right way this year and my hat is off to ‘em. Good luck to those who cheer ‘em says I.

Iran.

You know things are bad when the French are talking about war.

The focus on sanctions, negotiations and preparation for war at this point seems stupid to me.

What should the international community (or the portion of it that disagrees with Iran getting nukes) do?

Bribe the fuck out of the fucking Russians. That’s what you should do if you don’t want the Iranians to have the weapons they want. The Russians are the ones who are planning to sell the Iranians the enriched uranium they need.

If the US, the British, the French, the Germans have a problem with an Iranian nuclear weapons program – make the Russians an offer they can’t refuse.

Does it set a precedent that the Russians will use against the international community in the future?

Of course, but having the capacity to sell processed heavy elements and dangerous technology is the only bargaining chip the Great Russian Bear has left.

BEARS!

Pay off the Russians and friggin’ stall.

Right or wrong, the US at least is going to need to buy some time before it brings hellfire down on the Iranians.

And I Don't Give a Damn

…about a bad reputation.

This morning Fr. Hart spent time on St. Paul’s statement that Jesus came to save sinners not to justify the righteous.

And of all the sinners, St. Paul says he was foremost, or the greatest of these sinners.

To be more precise, St. Paul says he engaged in the greatest type of sin.

What is this sin?

Fornication?
Murder?
Stealing from the church?

Nope, nope and nope.

St. Paul’s great sin, and the greatest of sins, was being too righteous. St. Paul was too zealous in the defense of his faith and the persecution of the new Christians. We all know what happened to St. Paul on the road to Damascus, but before that he was like one of the Pharisees or scribes or Sanhedrin who persecuted and prosecuted Christ when he was alive. St. Paul in the righteous pursuit of his idea of his faith came to learn that he sinned greatly against God.

Please do not mistake this for some sort of hidden message as to how God’s chosen people refused to hear the message or silence the early Christians. That is not my point here, and I am sure that it is not Fr. Hart’s point either.

Rather it is a lesson to someone like me. I claim to be a believer. I have been tested as of late and was tending to judge someone because I thought they were not living up to a standard that I think is absolutely necessary for family and loyalty.

Some things have happened recently, culminating with the wonderful sermon by this amazing man that is helping me keep my righteousness in my pocket.

Even from the point of view of the story of the NT, Christ never saved anyone by acting righteous in front of them. He saved those who made contact with him, who ate with him, and those included tax collectors (the shakedown artists of Christ’s world), the poor, the unclean and worst of these – women.

The righteous scribes and Pharisees wouldn’t be caught dead eating with any of these people.

So if I want to call myself a Christian, an imitator of Christ I can’t be like the Pharisees. I can’t be too good to sit with those I think of as sinners. And forget this distinction of sinner vs. non-sinner because I am pretty much in the same boat with a lot of people on this score…I can still sin with the best of ‘em….

I should engage in acts of fellowship with everyone I can, and let my actions be guided by the example of my hero Jesus Christ and by the grace of God.

Boy Oh Sheboygan

Thanks and much love to our friends Bill, Julie, Ben and Ellen for opening up their home to us. Alex is having a blast playing with Ben, Kim is catching up with her good girlfriend and Daddy is in full on 'I am outta town and on vacation mode'.

This has been a good three day run. bigDrag rock show, day off spent golfing in Sycamore and taking in the crisp, chilly WI air. I'm a lucky dog. All we have to do is get the boy back in time for religious ed on Sunday.

Enjoy your fall Saturday, day people. We are going to tour a battleship and possibly eat cheese.

Wimpy but Proud

Thanks and much love to everybody who came to the bigDrag rock show last night.

Lots and lots of fun.

Bear Colony was pretty good, although after every song Chris and I kept goin’

BEARS!

Idiots.

Thanks and much love to my old friend Khyle who came out to the rock show. It was great to see him. John and Janine were out and I got to talk to everybody there.

Some folks from work were at the gig. I didn't get to visit them as much as I'd've liked but there will be more nites and more fun.

I’m listening to a story about the Putin nomination being confirmed by the lower house of the Russian Parliament.

I don’t know why, but there is something hot about saying “lower house of Parliament”

Idiot.

I don’t usually do this but I am taking today off…

Not because I strained myself in a major way at the gig last night but because I’m gonna be on the road for a good part of this weekend. I need a chillout day before I drive my crew up to Sheboygan for fun and excitment. I’m a wimp.

Dishonest Abe

I wonder if he got a blowjob too. This is some real world class misappropriation here .

Maybe Eric Mangini busted the former Prime Minister based on information from when he was in Shinzo Abe's cabinet.

Either way, hah hah fuck you Bill Bellicose. Nice to see the Patriots bite it on the day after Patriot Act Day.

In more non-news news from the news desk of this blog - -

I've blogged about this guy a bit before, so for those who know or don't know or don't care, or don't care but want to care; (I just randomly threw in that semi-colon, sorry Jeanz) my cousin-in-law is fucking hilarious. Sometimes I feel like I want to scream at him and we butt heads like strange head-butting fish, but mostly I love the crazy little guy and think he's got something like vision.

I am not going to use his name here for a variety of reasons...

Not the least of which is I believe he is currently trying to enter the Sudan illegally.

I want to say 'Cousin-in-law, most people are trying to leave the Sudan illegally these days. What are you thinking? You are on the wrong side of the trend here.'

Actually part of his desire to visit The Sudan legally or otherwise stems from his larger ambition to visit all countries that have the word "The" as part of their official title. The more I think about it, a definite article adjective may in fact be worth risking life and limb.

A the is worth dying for.

I probably have this, like a lot of other things, wrong.

One thing I do know is his blog, like Khrushchev's USSR, is going to bury us.

READ IT FROM THE BEGINNING PEOPLE, scroll down to Feb 13 or something like that just so you can find out what it truly means to be a Newarker.

And may Philip Roth have mercy on his soul.

Just Remember

Call me superstitious...
Call me paranoid...
Call me foolish...
Call me an American...

But there is no way in hell I am going to work on September 11, 2011.

Shit will be crazy then anyway with a little more than a year before the end of the Mayan Calender sometime in 2012.

I wonder how many shopping days are left until the end of the Mayan Calender?

Know what the best present to give in anticipation of the end of the Mayan Calender?

An end of the Mayan Calender Commemorative Colander.

The Bradford Exchange may want to get going on those puppies.

Speaking of puppies...have you visited Weasel's blog yet?

It is way more clever than this.

Bitch

Just when the internets was getting boring, the mind (and micro-hound populated kennel) of Bill Garver brings us this

One Last Ting

Bummed out about the Bears or life in general.

Melancholy never sounded so sweet as the Chamber Strings Month of Sundays from 2001.

Listen to some primo Chamber Strings cuts here

The House Sept 13

bigDrag had a damned fine practice for our upcoming rock show - -

THIS THURSDAY THE HOUSE IN DEKALB

We are not playing with Seaworthy.

They didn't survive the flood.

Actually their main drummer is out of state and their temporary drummer is unavailable or something like that.

Too bad, Cub Girl's boyfriend is the singer in Seaworthy and he seems like a nice guy. I think PDawg's outfit played with them on the flooded out Friday of Cornfest.

Weird thing at practice...

Every so often we'd start playing some old timey Ambersons tune.

Now why on earth would we feel compelled to do something like that?

LaJolla Part II

Glad to see the Bears' defense made it to San Diego.

Apparently the offense thought the game was being played in La Jolla (pronounced La Hoya) but spelled La Jolla.

The Under

I do not bet on football games anymore. Even when I was young and stupid and bet on football games all the time I never ever ever bet on any Week One games. In fact, I was so "disciplined" (self-deluded and calling it discipline) I would wait until Week Four and then only start betting home underdogs that I knew didn't deserve to be dogs, or the road favorite was way over-valued. For years the Steelers on the road were my bread 'n butter.

To have a little juice running in the first 3 weeks I would pick some over/unders. I noticed the Bears vs. Charges tots are listed at 42 1/2. I believe in Ron Turner and I believe that the Chargers offense can still be good (despite their retread coach who believes he was once an offensive genius & may try to micro-manage a good offense)...

42 1/2 Bears & Chargers

...to those stupid enough to bet on football, take the under.

Sick as Shit

It's a beautiful day and I am sick as shit.

And there's not a damned thing anyone can do about it.

Crap.

The Three...uh, I mean Two Tenors

Looks like Placido Domingo just moved up a notch.

King Tut II

or, Part Two-tankhamen

No bigDrag practice and that sucks. We’ve got a lot going on in the coming weeks. More on that later.

I’ve ballooned back up, over 210lbs. I don’t know how many “stone” that is exactly, but I’ll hazard a guess that it is too fucking many…

/esp. when I have spent most of this year in the low 190’s. Ladi Di called me svelte. That was svelle of her.

This blog is sounding more and more like Bridget Jones’ Diary every friggin’ day!

Svelle.

Now I’m watching Maggs pinch hit for some Hessman character. The way Los Tigres are playing of late, it’s probably Howard Hessman.

I miss John from Cincinnati.

Alex is on a King Tut kick and I am pretty sure I’ve done a bad thing. He asked his teacher when they would start learning about King Tut in 1st grade. He made sure to let Ms. B know he already possessed a wealth of knowledge about the boy king.

This is almost as bad as when Alex asked me to tell him something about every US president.

He remembered three things –

1. Taft was fat.
2. The first guy from Texas had a big scar, possibly shaped like Texas.
3. His favorite president was the guy who fell down all the time. Jerry, the Fall Down President.

Sadly, Ford was the only president to play Division I football, and this is how he is remembered by douchebags like me.

I bet Ford’s Wolverines would’ve kicked the hell out of Appalachian State.

Tonight, as Alex and I continued our wrestling league (one day I will tell him that we are the last remnants of the EDW…Extreme DeKalb Wrestling…and nobody better tell him about the Beautiful Ladies Of Wrestling! -until he’s in college)

So we had our big match tonight…

Alex: “Ok Dad, tonight I’m Spitting Cobra and you are King Tut.”
Me: “Yer goin’ down Cobra! Book it! Ya here that Okerlund?!!”

We wrestled, I pinned the boy and said -

“OK Cobra! I’ve been in my sarcophagus for thousands of years brewing up a fart that’s going to seer your nose holes! You ready to get mummified Cobra?”

Then I danced around singing…

“Born in Arizona moved to Babylonia, born in Arizona, got a condo made of stone-a”

Alex: “You’ve got a condo made of diarrhea, King Butt!”

I gotta hand it to him. The kid gives as good as he gets.

King Tut

The other night I was singing the Steve Martin song, King Tut to myself. The boy asked “What song is that daddy?”

Me: “King Tut.”
Alex: “Can we see it on You Tube?”
Me: “Maybe tomorrow or the next day kid.”

I was not going to forget. Those who know me know that I memorized most of the Steve Martin records when I was a kid. I should want better for my precious son but tonight, right before teeth, prayers and bed we found King Tut on the You Tubes.

Alex was into the 70’s novelty hit, but more as a curiosity.

Or, to be precise he had many questions about the song’s lyrics.


NOW WHEN I WAS A YOUNG MAN I NEVER THOUGHT I’D SEE
PEOPLE STAND IN LINE TO SEE THE BOY KING
KING TUT…

Alex: “King Tut was just a boy and he was king of the pyramid place?”
Me: “Yes.”
Alex: “When they dug up King Tut, was anybody sad because he was a dead boy?”
Me: “I think the British found him. They play it pretty close to the vest.”

…HOW’D YOU GET SO FUNKY?
FUNKY TUT
DID YOU DO THE MONKEY?

Alex: “Did people really dance like that back then?”
Me: “The monkey was more a part of the ‘60’s I think.”

BORN IN ARIZONA, MOVED TO BABALONYA
KING TUT

Alex: “I think we flew over Arizona once.”
Me: “I think you’re right.”

NOW IF I’D KNOWN THEY’D LINE UP JUST TO SEE HIM
I’D TAKE ALL MY MONEY AND BOUGHT ME A MUSEUM
KING TUT
BURIED WITH A DONKEY

Alex: “They buried a live donkey with King Tut?!!”
Me: “I don’t think the donkey was alive, I’m not sure.”
Alex: “They killed a donkey just so the dead boy could have one?!!”
Me: “I’m not sure.”

….DANCIN’ BY THE NILE
disco tut
THE LADIES LOVED HIS STYLE
ROCKIN FOR A MILE
rockin’ tut
HE ATE A CROCODILE

Alex: “Crocodile? Yuck.”
Me: “Tell me about it.”

NOW WHEN I DIE, NOW DON’T THINK I’M A NUT
DON’T WANT NO FANCY FUNERAL JUST ONE LIKE OLD KING TUT
KING TUT
HE COULD’VE WON A GRAMMY

Alex: “What’s a Grammy?”
Me: “It was an ancient award that now means nothing.”

BURIED IN HIS ‘JAMMIES

Alex: “Was he really buried in his pajamas?”
Me: “Yeah. They didn’t hold up so well. The Egyptians excelled in math, astronomy and architecture but their knowledge of the fabric sciences was limited at best.”

BORN IN ARIZONA, MOVED TO BABALONYA
BORN IN ARIZONA, GOT A CONDO MADE OF STONE-A

Alex: “Is that the condo Grandma Marge is selling?”
Me: “Uh, no.”

When the song was over we just sort of sat there. Then Alex said…

- “Dad, what was the point of that song?”
Me: “King Tut, he gave his life for tourism. Don’t give your life for tourism.”
Alex: “Ok.”

Birdies and Cubbie Chubbies

I actually defended the cubs today. Maybe it was because of my morale being high. I took Alex swimming today and got to golf. Whilst golfing I nailed my first legitimate birdie (par 3; 260-something yards). The first shot, 5 wood off a tee shoved pretty far into the ground had the perfect ting sound to it. I didn’t see the ball land because my head was fixed on the point of contact.

To my horror (because something evil must be behind this) I got up on the green and found the ball to be about 8ft from the cup.

Perfect tap with the putter I love and I let fly a justifiable fist-pump.

I was walking into the clubhouse to check the distance on the 7th hole from the white tees with today's placement…

Some SOX fans were calling the cubs lucky today.

I said “I just checked my phone, they lost 11-3 what do you mean lucky?”
Random Sox fan (RSF): “Yeah they’re still a game ½ up cuz the Brewers lost and the Cards lost too. Crappy NL Central.”
Me: “Just cuz the cubs got spanked on the same day the Brewers and Cards won, that doesn’t make them lucky.”
RSF: “Why?”
Me: “Look at yesterday. The Brewers and Cards won and the cubs looked like they were in trouble. Hill sucked doo doo and they were losing 5-1 at one point. What happened? They came back. Sure D-Lee got the dong off Chad Qualls who has given up some big home runs in his day but the cubs really put themselves in a good position because they came back and won yesterday.”
RSF: “Yeah well it was against the Astros.”
Me: “But they could’ve been demoralized after they got to Hill early. Not only did they overcome that shit, but the Frenchman Jacques Jones layed out big time to save a run with a spectacular catch. He doesn’t make that the cubs are down 6-4 and maybe don’t make the comeback they do. The bullpen was lights out. That’s not luck, that’s having good pieces to the puzzle.”
RSF: “Yeah you’ve got your Cubbie chubby I guess.”

Then the guy behind the bar who is part-time bank employee, part-time golf pro, full time truth teller said: “Nope you’re wrong again. That guy (me) is a SOX fan. He just likes to start trouble.”

The random Sox fan went on to say that the cubs might get to the playoffs, and they might win a short series but they would choke in close games and ultimately lose.

By the way, a lot of baseball experts have said they like the cubs chances in a short series.

WRONG!!!!

Once again the experts are wrong. The experts base any success in a short series on starting pitching. The cubs starters have been decent at some points of the season (relatively crappy as of late) certainly not the main reason they are where they are.

What’s gotten the cubs to first is catching the ball, making clutch defensive plays, timely hitting in close games, having ONE of their three offensive superstars make a key contribution just when you think they are all dead, and the best thing about this cub team of late (can’t believe I am saying this)…

Their pen esp Marmol, to Howry to Dempster.

Those three have given the cubs chances to win some huge games, just like Sunday’s against the Asstros.

I actually think the cubs have a disadvantage in a short series because one of the first three starters are likely to get lit up and it might be hard for them to recover. But any one or two run game in the 7th inning seems to be in the cubs favor. If they can survive a bad start by Zambrano, or a rough inning or two from Lily or Hill they can win any game against any team. They have three guys that prevent the other team from scoring from the 7th inning on…

And one of the only useful things Ed Farmer has ever said…

“Runs scored after the 7th are winning runs.”

So true…and so hard to score on Marmol, Howry and Dempster.

Here’s the way things seem to be in the tight NL Central race, to me at least…

The Brewers may have the brightest future in that the farm system has brought up some players with great potential and these guys have the capability of playing at a high level, at the same time. It might not be enough to get them to the playoffs this year but a window seems to be opening.

The Cardinals have the best story (overcoming everything the team has gone through this year) AND RICK ANKIEL!!@!!! He is another one of those stories that, if you saw a movie of it you would laugh and say no way. And of course, when he is sober, the Cardinals have the best manager by far. Tony L has changed baseball for better or worse. How he has gotten that team to this point is beyond me. Don’t rule them out.

The cubs have the best all-around talent of the NL Central teams. On any given day one of their three superstars (Lee, A-Ram or Sorry-ano) have the capability of doing something and giving the team a lift…and they have the best real baseball players – Theriot, Mark DeRosa –WHO HAS SOMEHOW LEARNED TO CATCH THE BALL, and yes cub fans you have a savior and his name is Jacques Jones. He plays big in big games and has done that dramatically this year. Who knows where the blue baby bears would be if the trade to the Marlins went through?

Jones has a track record of great stretch run and playoff play with the stupid fucking Twins. It looks like he is picking up where he left off during this run with the cubs.

Most importantly, enjoy your bullpen cub fans.

I’m happy that today I didn’t see Ryan Suckvich or Mike McDougal (he doesn't even deserve a derogatory nickname) give up tape measure home runs in the 7th or 8th inning allowing the other team right back in it.

In a non-baseball related matter, how did I miss this shit? Did anyone else know about this from back in 1994?