SCAMATEURS: It's an open secret that big-time college athletics is as dirty as my car after a night under a bird-filled, sap-leaking tree. A friend who used to work in the sports business summed it up the other night on the telephone. "You want the truth about college sports? It's all in that scene from A FEW GOOD MEN, where Nicholson says 'You can't handle the truth.'"

The scene in question:

Jessep: You want answers?
Kaffee (Tom Cruise): I think I'm entitled to them.
Jessep: You want answers?
Kaffee: I want the truth!
Jessep: You can't handle the truth! Son, we live in a world that has walls. And those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives...You don't want the truth. Because deep down, in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall. You need me on that wall.
We use words like honor, code, loyalty...we use these words as the backbone to a life spent defending something. You use 'em as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom I provide, then questions the manner in which I provide it! I'd rather you just said thank you and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon and stand a post. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you're entitled to!
Kaffee: Did you order the code red?
Jessep: (quietly) I did the job you sent me to do.
Kaffee: Did you order the code red?
Jessep: You're goddamn right I did!!

Are Neuheisel and Clarett men of honor who are simply doing the job we sent them to do?

BLOG AND FORTH: The Whimsical Revolutionary is baiting me, taunting me, and otherwise agitating me. (Actually, he's mostly just mentioning me, but 'mentioning' don't sell tickets, y'know?)

I want to tell him why I don't like the Stones (let me count the ways), but who has that kind of time? I'll do it soon enough, though. I promise.

Meanwhile, the man-behind-the-blog, Mark, is on another roll. A couple wonderful excerpts:

On the Catholic Church's campaign against gay marriage:

Whenever you start to think that the White House is run by a sinister cabal of self-serving, power-hungry shitbirds, just take a look at the Vatican in comparison. Yes, that's right. The Vatican has launched a campaign against gay marriage. Here's an idea: Why don't you start a campaign against child-raping priests? And the bishops who cover up for them?

What a fucking travesty. I'm sure Jesus is very, very pleased.

After a diatribe over LAST COMIC STANDING:

Meanwhile, blog-reading women across America scratch my name out of their little black ebooks as they learn I actually sort of care about this show.

Oh, and he had the good sense to call me "quite the excellent blogger," which ensures I'll say mostly nice things about him, too, for at least a week.

STORYBOOK AFTERNOON: You couldn't write it any better than this...

An old friend treats me to a sushi lunch yesterday, and we wrap up around 1PM. Man, I think. If I hop on the El right now I'll be at Wrigley in time for the second inning.

Then again my business is slow, and I probably should just go home and listen to Santo and Hughes on the radio.

I hop the train to Wrigley, jump off at Addison, and score a primo ticket, five rows up just past first base, for twenty bucks. Yes! I enter the ballpark, find my seat, and settle in.

Shit. Wood has just given up a grand slam. Aww, man. Turns out the guy next to me scalped his ticket, too, and he's here solo, so we commiserate over how streaky Wood can be, whether or not we like the Glanville deal, and so forth. We're having a great time with our casual, intermittent banter. I buy a floppy hat to protect my expanding forehead from the fantastic afternoon sun. I buy a couple beers. I start to feel guilty about spending so much cash. It's adding up.

I find a $50 bill on the ground underneath my seat. No one else claims it. My guilt disappears like a grand-slam ball heading for Sheffield Avenue. If only the Cubs would have staged a late-inning comeback, it might have been the perfect day.

I leave the ballpark and buy a giant, ice-cold bottle of water. I walk two miles to my car in the perfect fading sun.

TREN TREN! My son's a little more than 15 months old now, and his vocabulary is growing rapidly. My wife asked me how many words he has at his disposal now, so let's see:

Tren
Spanish for train (he has a Guatemalan babysitter, so he's got some solid Spanish). He usually says this twice in a row, which brings to mind a rollicking old song by Blackfoot.

Dee-yuh
Short for ardilla, Spanish for squirrel.

Mo
More.

Yah-yee
Vladi, our dog.

E-yay!
His friend Sarkis, who calls him "E-yay."

Mommy
Of course.

Da-da
Hurray!

Kah
Car.

Fwower
Flower (his most advanced word).

Kluh Kluh
Kitty-cat.

Pock
Park.

Go
Go. (Repeated ad infinitum.)

Ahhhh-gwa
Agua (water).

No!
No.

Nie-nie
I want to go to sleep.

Me-me
I want to go to sleep.

Abba
Bottle (give me my).

Yum-yum
I'm hungry. Feed me.

Rie-uhn
Lion.

Scheeeze
Cheese.

Hmmm. So we're at about twenty, for now. Note that most have to do with food, sleep, or fun things. For things that are not in those categories, he has "No!"

SET THE WHIMSICAL STALKER STRAIGHT: My blog-pal Mark at Whimsical Revolution is a celebrity stalker. But it's not like he stalks your usual uberbabes. No, Mark is not interested in Uma Thurman, Jewel, Britney Spears, or even Jenna Jameson. Instead, everyone's favorite Calvinist focuses on cyberstalking brainy babes, women he might sip an independent-coffee-shop latte with while discussing last night's Charlie Rose.

For his first victim, Mark selected Maureen Dowd, she of the liberal scribblings and the come-hither publicity shots. Alas, it did not go well, as Modo never even so much as acknowledged Mark's desperate quest for her affections. Sensing defeat, Mark declared his Dowd Campaign ended, and he asked his throngs of loyal readers to help him select a new stalkee. From our many stellar suggestions, Mark used his unique criteria (single, smart, and not too mainstream) to establish the following candidate list:

Sarah Vowell
Former Chicagoan, forever linked with proto-radionerd Ira Glass, she of the terminally whiny voice and (Scottie) Pippenesque physiognomy. Overrated writer and commentarist who has somehow become the female David Sedaris. Okay, yeah, I like her. These grapes are indeed sour. But I have a secret (whoops) and simmering jealousy, an "I could have written that" vibe with a lot of her stuff, and I just can't shake it. So I suck. Bad me.

Neko Case
Auburn-haired alt-country and alterna-pop songstress; a real indie darling with the voice of an angel. Attractive and can really sing? Major bonus points.

Lauren Winner
Judeo-Christian memoirist, sort of Melissa Gilbert meets Elisabeth McGovern in the looks department. Definitely attractive, but how does she feel about drinking Schlitz from a can while listening to NASCAR on the radio. One wonders...

Gretchen Helfrich
Chicago radio's Charlie Rose, albeit younger, less pretentious, female, and cute. I think I voted for her, although Jennifer nominated her.

Rudi Bakhtiar
Lead anchor for CNN's headline news. Wiry, perky, smart...but a little stiff. Plus eventually you'd have to go to Hotlanta to stalk her in person, and everybody knows Hotlanta sux.

Amy Poehler
SNL gal, solid Chicago roots, smart, funny. My #2 pick for Mark, after Helfrich.

Of late, Mark is leaning toward Ms. Vowell. I recently submitted a helpful comment, suggesting he might want to reconsider his choice given Ms. Vowell's perpetually whiny demeanor. As a ten-year marriage veteran, I submit that whining is a skill a wife (or girlfriend) should develop over time. Ms. Vowell, on the other hand, will start off day one at DefCon 7 on the whine-o-meter. This is not good.

Please get thee over to the Revolution and help our boy Mark see the light...before it's too late.

TALL ORDER: Is it too much to ask for Google/Blogger (Bloogle? Glogger?) to offer a reliable hosting platform and a commenting system that doesn't suck half as bad as enetation? My apologies to Camel readers. I keep hearing that fixes are just around the bend. Meanwhile I'm just not up for ripping out the enetation code and pasting in something new. Patience...

Meanwhile, you're a stalwart bunch, still throwing comments over the wall like you are. Remember, if you stop commenting...enetation has won. More comments, I say! More!

ARE THERE SLIM SIMIANS? Apparently I'm on the ape diet.

GOOGLE OF THE DAY: Some hapless searcher landed here by using the search term "nude college swim meet."

ANTIDOTE: To cleanse my palate, I'm switching over to NPR now. The Stern/NPR juxtaposition is the intellectual equivalent of a speedball...the sick rush of Stern, then the decelerating stupor of NPR.

SHAME ON ME: Of course just as I'm posting about my fascination with Stern, he goes so far over the line that I feel sick with myself for listening. (Basically he airs a really tasteless prank call to CNN where one of his minions pretends to be a former Bob Hope comedy writer, then says something gross.)

LEWD LIFT? As I mentioned, I've developed a real fascination with the Stern show of late. Today Howard mentioned a band called Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, a sort of punk band known for playing covers of schmaltzy pop songs (i.e., they'd do "Dust in the Wind" or "One Tin Soldier" or other stuff like that). Anyhow, I wanna track the effect of a Stern show mention, so I've checked out their latest disc on Amazon and, wonder of wonders, it already has an Amazon sales rank of 600. Now I know their previous records are these little word-of-mouth affairs, so apparently this one already has some pre-Stern push behind it. Anyhow, for now it stands at 600. Let's see where it is tomorrow morning.

NOT THAT THERE'S ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT: Let's take these things one at a time:

1) I'm in a Fantasy NASCAR league, on accounta one of my best buddies who I bet with all the time thought it'd be fun for us to have *something* to wager on during the NFL offseason. Of course this is the same guy I went to Branson, MO with, on accounta we hadda see if it could be as bad as it sounded. (Conclusion: It's worse; so bad it wasn't funny!) So, yeah, there is at least some small element of "Let's slum it with the common folk" to our little NASCAR diversion. Or at least there was. 'Cause see, over the course of this fantasy league I've started to take the whole thing pretty seriously. I know the difference between super speedways and road courses, which teams do better with restrictor plates, and why Kevin Harvick is so mad at Robby Gordon. And I'm in like 6,000th place out of nearly half a million drivers. Boogity boogity boogity indeed!

2) Over the years, I've determined that Schlitz in a can is the best possible beer in the world to drink in the summertime. Sure, I've had microbrews, Belgian Trippels, even brewed my own. But I just love Schlitz in a can. It tastes like summer to me.

3) I try to listen to a lot of Cubs games -- when I'm not tuning in on TV or sitting at Wrigley, it's pretty tough to beat the combo of Pat Hughes and Ron Santo on WGN-Radio. Yeah, I've got radio wired throughout the house, but with baby walks and dog walks and having to move from the yard to the basement to the deck in order to keep my son happy, well, I broke down today and bought what my friend Christina calls "an old man radio." You know, one of those little portables you can sit in the back yard with and park it against your ear.

Anyhow, here's the parts expressed as a whole:

Earlier this afternoon, I was sitting out in the backyard with my son, my wife, the aforementioned Christina, and her little gal Caitlyn. Picture it -- I'm in a crap TARGET chair, some little ten-dollar number we picked up, low-slung, one of the nylon slats ready to rip loose. I'm nursing a can of Schlitz, and I've got my radio glued to my ear so I can listen to the Pennsylvania 500.

"Look at you," says Christina. "My God."

And I hadn't thought about it. But today I realized I'm a 37-year-old man who sits in his yard in a crap chair drinking Schlitz and listening to NASCAR. So that's me. Today.

RANDOM: Thoughts from this morning's dog walk, not related to dogs or walking:

I remembered when I officially lost all interest in school -- eighth grade science class, the segment on carbon chains. Sure, they came close to losing me the year before in English class, all that sentence diagramming. But it was carbon chains that really drove me to the dark side.

I think it would be fun to start posting critiques of our local graffiti artists. Like this guy from this morning, Sir Majesty. I mean, first of all, the name is so cheesy and lame. So I would say, like, hey, Sir Majesty, that has got to be the most gay-sounding street name I've ever seen! Oh, and you can't spray-paint at all! It looks like a fourth-grader wrote your name! C'mon, man, if you're gonna deface the side of a building, at least go all out. Call yourself like "El Grande" and use a stencil.

I'm talking to my next-door neighbor about the notion of "finding your calling." For me, I said, reading and writing were always my greatest pleasures, so I guess that's how I became a writer. For him, he says, he always thought taking a shit was life's greatest pleasure. And, I shit you not, the man is a gastroenterologist. Talk about following your bliss...

GRUMPIN': Among the many things that bother me about the Steinbrenner/Jeter conga-line commercial:

Steinbrenner says "starding" rather than "starting"

I'm guessing they shot it separately, since you never really see them together; even that corny closing conga-line thing is a bit awkward

The way Steinbrenner says "Oooooh," sort of through his nose and overdramatic

I don't like when jerks satirize their jerkiness (ala Trump)

Dunno why I'm compelled to report this -- but then why do I blog at all? You tell me.

Oh, shit. Little dribbling single up the middle in the Cubs/Astros game. That pesky Biggio...

FEINTBALL: So the Bambi thing was a hoax, engineered to sell really dumb videos. Crap. I hate when I fall for stuff.

WILEY ON KOBE: Sometimes I forget that Ralph Wiley can write his ass off.

PERFECT CITY MOMENT: I left my car in a parking lot overnight last night. This morning when I went to pick it up, I saw a sign that said "8-24 hours - $15.00." Then, when I got to my car, there was an ominous looking envelope taped to the driver's side window that read: "Your license plate number has been recorded. You must pay $30.00."

Huh? How'd it double. I pulled the car up to the booth and gave my original claim ticket to the attendant. He studied it for a moment, then said, "$23.00."

"How'd you come up with that number?" I asked him.

"Well, I charge you $15 for yesterday, then $8 for today. Now pay."

"I will not pay," I told him, explaining that I would be happy to part with $15, but not a penny more.

"The sign say 8 hours to closing time, $15."

"The sign does not say that." I tell him, pointing at the sign.

"The sign mean that."

Meanwhile, a couple cars have pulled up behind me. He gets on his cell phone.

"Mister Ken, man here no want to pay. Black Benz was here overnight, now he say only pay $15."

He listens to some extended speech from Mister Ken, nodding, grunting, shrugging. Meanwhile a blonde woman in a business suit behind me is losing her mind. I see her in my rear-view mirror fidgeting in her seat, making clucking noises and leaning out her window. "C'mon," she mouths. "My God."

I experience total serenity. I will sit there all day if I have to. This is a man who will not be moved.

"Mister Ken say $15 for you this time."

"Tell Mister Ken he needs a new sign."

"You have good day."

"You, too, my friend. Thank you for your help."

Poor guy. The blonde is gonna give him hell.

But I feel like I just won the lottery.

KRAUT DOUBT: Nobody wants to believe in simple villains anymore. Everybody's looking for the twist, the conspiracy, the stealthy cabal.

Take this poll of young Germans: Nearly 1 in 3 thinks the U.S. orchestrated September 11!

I liked the Germans better when they were just razor-sharp automatons who made boxy sedans. Now they're trying to outFrench the frogs.

BLAH BLAH BLOGGING: Random thoughts swimming through my brain this morning:

Today is a beeyootiful Chicago day. Perfect for a Cubs game. And I'm going! I rule.

Every time I tell a woman I think Kobe is innocent I expect a crack across the mouth. Instead, so far, they just agree with me.

Could the Kobe trial eventually divide us more along gender lines than race lines? We'll see.

The time for finding a full-time job again is drawing near, and I'm actually excited about it. Either that or I'm just trying to forge a guilt-free path to my afternoon at Wrigley.

My son is making frog noises from his crib. Time to go get him.

DAILY CASUALTY REPORT: Three more soldiers dead today. Horrible. Why does it feel worse to lose them one or two or three at a time than it does to lose, say, twenty, in a single battle?

This is the nation-building quagmire, yes, quagmire, that Bush spoke out against during the campaign. This is the no-win situation you end up in after you wage a successful conquest these days. Victories can be won in a week and then lost over a decade. I believed in this war, and I still believe in it, as much as you can believe in something like war. Still it feels awful, this post-war reconstruction or occupation or whatever it is, like a terminal disease creeping slowly through the system, shutting down one bodily function after another.

Look for major hand-wringing over end-game strategies in the weeks and months...and years?...to come. Let me be the first to say it: I have no idea what should come next.

SPELL THAT, BEEYOTCH: I pride myself on my spelling. Sure, I make the occasional typo here and there, but in general I can spell with the best of 'em. An old colleague once observed, "You're the only person I know who trash talks about his spelling."

Still, I'm having a big mental block of late: occasion.

Luckily I pulled it off up there in the second sentence. But the word occasion more than occasionally gives me pause. Something about the 'double consonant' construction just won't stick in my brain.

Occasion, occasion, occasion.

Makes for some thrilling blogging, don't it?

A BLOGGER'S SHAME: My blog-pal Mark over at Whimsical Revolution gave me a nice snort today. In his list of three things he's ashamed of, item one is clearly the funniest:

I ate a fish and chicken combo platter at Long John Silver's last night -- while reading USA Today. That has to be some sort of record for unhealthiness of mind, body, and spirit.

I don't know why that hit me so dead-center, but by God it did.

ONION-WORTHY: This headline on my MyYahoo page gave me pause:

"Bush Hopes Killing of Saddam Sons Reassures Iraqis"

Nothin' like a little killin' to settle folks down.

TONIC NOT SPRAY: The NYT's Charlie LeDuff is one of my favorite journalists, and sentences like this one -- from a recent piece on California recall leader and former car thief Darrell Issa -- are the reason:

"This stuff is 30 years old," said Mr. Issa [in reference to the car theft allegations], dressed in a blue polo shirt and khakis, his hair combed and parted with tonic, not hair spray as preferred by political veterans.

Every time I see this guy's byline I smile.

REAL VICTORY IS A TORTOISE: I can't verify this letter is real, but it sure looks right. Take a gander at an alternative viewpoint, a real live GI who says our post-war presence in Iraq is not a disaster but a slow, steady victory. A tip o' the cap to AndrewSullivan.com for finding it first.

SADDISTIC: Apparently Saddam's sons were not very nice.

SADAMNED: Apparently it's true. No more Uday or Qusay.

Next stop: Papa. Oh, and there's also that pesky bearded lerch guy who'd best be hunkering somewhere near the Earth's core if he knows what's good for him.

NORM! I know this little nugget is s'posed to be about Paris Hilton and Nichole Richie, but I don't really care about them. What I do care about: Norm MacDonald. And judging by the piece, he's still the funniest guy in the room.

BYE BYE SONS? An unnamed U.S. official is saying Uday and Qusay "may have been found" in a recent shootout in Iraq. Elsewhere on the web are suggestions the men were killed or captured.

I post this here not because I think you're getting your up-to-the-minute world news from the Camel, but simply to document yet another breathless pronouncement from an unnamed U.S. official suggesting we've finally hit Saddam or his sons or uncovered WMD. So far nearly all those pronouncements have later proved false...or impossible to prove.

Let's hope this one's for real.

MUCH ADO ABOUT WINE: Those of you who know me (or read this blog religiously) are probably aware of my love for wine. For the past three or four years, grape juice has been one of my steady hobbies, a little sidelight that lets me combine things I enjoy: drinking, learning, and hanging out with other folks who enjoy drinking and learning.

This Wine Spectator article on home winemaking really got me excited. I hadn't really thought of making my own wine before, and chances are my wife will not give over our modest kitchen to the process. Still, I challenge you to read this and not have a little flight of fancy about making your own, naming it, and coming up with cool labels.

As a further enticement to those who think wine is for snobs, I offer this great quote from the article:

"The average bottle contains 750 milliliters of fermented grape juice. What's the big deal?"

It's true. Wine, like baseball, is much ado about nothing. But as I always say, you can live focused on the much ado, or on the nothing. I'll take the much ado every time. (Funny, though, as a Buddhist sympathizer, I'm pretty okay with the nothing, too.)

NAKED SPORTSCENTER? Sure, Jim Edmonds makes those running, over-the-shoulder grabs that wow crowds and commentators alike. But I like to think there's no way he could have pulled off what I did this morning:

I'm in the shower, the soap loosely formed into my right hand. I reach up and over my right shoulder with it to scrub my upper back. Oh no! The soap comes loose and hurtles end-over-end towards the tiled floor, the drain, defeat. Someplace in the body a signal is sent to my left hand: Down! Down! Down! My left hand rockets from its resting point near my belly, inverting itself on the axis of my wrist and elbow. The hand burrows as if submerging, as if playing an acrobatic puppet performing a flip, and blindly navigates around my hip and down past my lower back, my buttocks, and my hamstring. Just as thought awakens -- I've dropped the soap! -- the hand opens and closes like a beak around a fish, cradling the errant soap with just the right pressure so that it's safe again, at rest. Had there been spectators to this grand event, they might have observed a tremor of sorts. Perhaps he caught a chill, they might surmise. But no, no. He caught the soap. Made quite a grab, actually. A blind, over-the-shoulder snatch of a slippery bar of soap. Anyone can catch a dry baseball, he thinks. But what I've just done is truly sporting.

Edmonds, Schmedmonds.

THE KOBE EQUATION: I'm working hard today, so not really at liberty to blog much. Still, when more than twenty of you hit the site on a Monday and are confonted with a whole great pile of NOTHING NEW to read, well, that makes me feel guilty.

What to write though? I can start with this: I think Kobe's probably innocent. Do I have any special info to back up that claim? Nope. Just my own life experiences to fall back on. Thing is, he's famous, has a stellar reputation, and has no history of violence, especially of a sexual nature. From the get-go, I was more than willing to believe the guy had sex with the young lady. C'mon, of course he did. Pro baller on the road, hotel room, traveling with his posse, etc. Old boy was playing ball on the bad side of town, and he was eventually gonna get into trouble. But instead of just getting busted for his infidelity, he ran into a nutter. That's my armchair analysis of this thing. We've already got the equation via the various news stories to date:

She wants fame. (Tried out unsuccessfully for AMERICAN IDOL.)

She's emotionally unstable. (Grieving over the end of a relationship and the death of a friend.)

She's been known to act out sexually. (Rumors of previous sexual escapades either as college coed or NBA groupie.)

She's not averse to big reckless acts. (Tried to kill herself.)

She was looking for it. (Went to his room near midnight of her own free will.)

This all adds up to INNOCENT, s'far as I'm concerned. It's a virtual recipe for reasonable doubt.

Is it fair to dismiss this young woman's claim out of hand? 'Course not. It remains possible that she went to his room seeking an autograph or a SCRABBLE partner. And all my above bullet points are speculation, rumor, and innuendo. They are not evidence.

But this whole affair quacks like a duck, smells like a duck, walks like a duck, and is wearing a very convincing duck costume, so I for one am calling it a duck until further notice.

What else to write about?

That'll do for now. Oh, and if you disagree with me or, by some strange coincidence, actually agree with me on all this Kobe stuff, well for goshsakes post a comment below. Y'all have been awfully quiet lately. Speak up. It's free!

ME-TROIT: I'm up in Motown for the weekend, hanging with my folks and serving as limo driver for the wife (who's headed to a baby shower for my beloved cousin Stacy).

Had a quick observation as my dad and me hit Starbuck's this morning (after we first hit the gym, I might add): The men up here have, on average, more drama in their hairstyles than the men in Chicago. I saw this look, kind of a Mafia oil-job mixed with a Dantanna swoop visor, on four guys in a row. Think football guy Jimmy Johnson, king of the dry visor, sporting the wet look. Very interesting.

Oh, and let me add this important nugget: Mocha malt frappucino. Best drink Starbuck's has ever introduced. What will they think of next? Maybe they'll actually come up with a few edible pastries. I mean, explain that one to me. Best coffee in the world, and they can't carry even one pastry that doesn't absolutely blow.

A GAME WORTHY OF THE NAME: Now that was fun. A tight game decided late by a wild improbability. Say what you will about the game -- that it's irrelevant, silly, or all about money -- but I enjoyed the heck out myself last night, even though I lost two separate bets to two loud-mouthed jackasses who are bound to gloat ad infinitum.

A late homer off Eric Gagne? He's only given up three since last year's All-Star game. A blown save? He hasn't had one in eleven months. You have to take your hat off to Hank Blalock. The kid almost singlehandedly authored an ending that put an exclamation point on this sentence: The All-Star game is back!

GIVING THE GAME ANOTHER CHANCE: If you're like me, baseball's All-Star game always makes you think of one thing: swimming.

Growing up, I had a swim meet every Tuesday and Thursday night in the summer. As a big baseball fan and card collector, I was forced to listen to the game on the radio in between events. Every once in a while our meet would get rained out or cancelled, and I'd get to see the game on TV. I loved every second of it. And I rooted like a maniac for my beloved National league to kick the tar out of that other dumb league. I remember feeling heartbroken on the rare ocassion the Nationals blew it. Back then, you see, we were dominant. Not so much lately.

But right around the same time my swimming career wound to an end, the game itself changed. For whatever reason, it started to mean less. And I tuned out. Oh I'd flip past it every now and again, but everybody seemed way too chummy for me. All this laughing and back-slapping had taken the place of real competition. Nobody seemed to care who won or lost, just so long as nobody barrelled into the catcher.

Tonight, though, I'm back. No swim meet and high hopes. I'm giving the All-Star game another chance. I hope it's a good one.

Too bad the national anthem was so lame! Who in God's name was that? Get a real singer in there to belt it out live. And was that a guy playing the cello? I was halfway through composing this happy post when that whole thing knocked me off my moorings. Icky. At least they had those planes fly over. That gives me chills no matter how hokey the anthem performance is.

Let's play ball.

THAT FIRST CRASH: "Your son had quite a wreck."

My wife comes in from the park with C.J. trailing behind her, clinging to a leg. He looks more sad than hurt, like a toy whose batteries are nearly spent. His face is still red and puffy from tears, but he's not crying anymore.

"What happened?"

"He was running as fast as he could, pushing that big plastic car. He was headed right for the teeter-totter, but I figured he'd steer around it. He hit it head on."

"Oh, man. Then what?"

"He flipped over the car. When he hit the teeter-totter the car kind of stopped and hit him in the stomach, and his momentum carried him right over it. He was very sad. It looked like it hurt."

C.J. doesn't know what we're saying yet -- oh, maybe he picks up a few words here and there, like "car" and "park" -- but he knows we're telling a sad story, and he knows it's about him. He wades into the space between us and waits for someone to scoop him up.

I scoop him up.

And I think back to when I was riding my bike to school one morning. I must have been seven or eight years old, and it was one of the first times I was allowed to ride there on my own. Actually, I think I was part of a group that included older boys, but all I remember is the sense of freedom. We got down to the street next to the school, and I started pedaling as fast as I could. I stared down at the road rushing past, and I felt powerful and free and alive. Then I felt my bike stop, felt my belly smack into the handle bars, felt my fingers get pinched and my shoulders flipping over and then it was fuzzy and quiet until I rolled off the car I'd hit and down onto the road below. I tried to yell, but I couldn't. I'd had the wind knocked out of me. I was scared. I flailed my arms and flopped my head from side to side for what seemed an eternity before I finally found some air again.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!"

I was hurt, scared, confused, and just generally miserable.

"You broke the light!" someone screamed at me.

Gathering myself, too young to know to check for protruding bones and blood and guts, I saw that it was true. I'd smashed the tailight on the car. My bike was mangled. And somehow I was standing up and rolling my bike toward the school.

"Let's get out of here," someone said.

And that's what I wanted to do: Get out of there. I wanted to get out of a world that let little boys smash their bikes into cars when all they wanted to do was have fun and feel free and strong and alive. I still remember that feeling, the whump of the car, then the misery of the aftermath.

Later that day I confided what had happened to a teacher, and we walked back and left a note on the car. The people were very nice. They called my parents, said they understood it was an accident, and they hoped I was alright. I was treated more as a hero than a villain, since I'd somehow stunt-manned my way through the accident alive, and since I'd gone back and taken "responsibility," which seemed to be the word everyone wanted to repeat a thousand times. I took the people who owned the car some money -- something like five bucks from my piggy bank. My parents sat in the car, and I had to go up to their door and give them the money. I'm pretty sure I cried when I gave it to them. I was scared, plus I already knew I didn't like to give away money.

I remember that incident as the end of my innocence. I learned you had to pay attention, otherwise Life could hurt you, could take things away.

I think my son forgot about his wreck over the course of his nap. But sooner or later there'll be an episode that will stay with him. I only hope his episode is as innocuous as the one that I'm remembering today.

HUNTING FOR BAMBI: This is one of the most bizarre things I've ever seen in my life. At some point I'll work up some moral outrage, but for now I'm just dumbstruck.

THE MYSTERIES OF ST. LOUIS: I'm back from the 'Lou, and I had a great time. I was there to teach my communications strategy class to a small design firm, 501 Creative, that specializes in design for not-for-profits. While there I spent a ton of time in U. City, and I think it's really a great place. Big houses on large lots with only medium-sized price tags. Plenty of racial and socio-economic diversity. A good skate shop, coupla solid record stores (one even had several selections from my favorite unknown reggae musician, Nasio Fontaine), and several good little indie bookstores.

I spent over an hour in The Big Sleep, a mystery book store, talking shop with the proprietor, Helen Simpson. Helen told me a few stories about Lee Child (one of my current faves and a friend of hers), talked about the sorry state of the mystery biz for writers, and recommended used books from Ian Rankin and George Pelecanos. She shares my notion that Harlan Coben's most recent thrillers pale in comparison to his Bolitar series, but we both understand why he does it. Like the record business (and the rest of the book biz), the mystery world is entirely blockbuster-driven, and mass-market intrigue just flat-out outsells series mysteries.

BTW, and FWIW, yes, my background is in literary fiction, and I still read it (and write it from time to time). But of late I've been really enjoying the mystery form, and although I still feel goofy hefting Lee Child's KILLING FLOOR (with its super-hokey bloody handprint on the cover), I'm becoming more and more comfortable with it by the day.

PLACEHOLDER: Reminder to self -- next time you get some blogging time, parallel your son's car/teeter-totter wipeout today with your own head-down-peddling-hard run-in with a parked car. Talk about fear and mortality, how you can't protect your kid from everything, and so forth. (Husky, mysterious VO: "On the next Blind Camel...)

E-I-E-I...UH OH: Blogging may be light the next couple days. I'm about to jump in my large black automobile, point it south on I-55, and commence the most boring 300-mile-drive in the continental United States. You got it: I'm headed to the 'Lou, the Three-One-Fo'. Or, for those who haven't listened to a Nelly record in the past year, I'm going to St. Louis. Word to my peeps in U City.

HORRIBLE: You hear parents talk all manner of drama about the parenting experience -- it's "the greatest thing ever," "I just didn't know I could ever love anything that much," and "it's the hardest and best thing I've ever done."

Most of it is true. Heck, it's all true. Some weird chemical courses through your bloodstream once your kid is born -- you're fuel-injected with this parental awe and wonder -- and every time you try to put it in words you sound all Dr. Phil.

But here's another new and weird thing about being a parent: You get a whole new channel of empathy in the DIRECTtv box of your emotions. You read a story like this -- two kids dead after five hours in a sweltering SUV -- and it not only rips your heart out of your chest, which happens to even non-parents, but it constricts your lungs, drop-kicks your stomach, and makes you chew on the inside of your mouth. It's empathy, because you know what a fundamental thing it is to love your child, and what kind of a haunting will be visited upon these parents.

Before you had kids, you felt bad for the victims. Now you know they're all victims, and maybe the dead were the lucky ones.

UPDATE: I read through the above post, and I keep thinking, Wait, what about these parents...maybe they didn't have enough love, didn't feel that fundamental feeling, because otherwise...how could they? And where's my anger at these parents, that they could let these two kids die? Maybe that will come, but that's just not my first feeling. My first thought was actually, "Where's my son?", and then I remembered that he's safely tucked into his crib for the morning nap. Then I thought, God, never never never leave him in the car. (Even though I already know that, life just moves so fast with the boy, so it's not inconceivable...well, it is inconceivable I'd forget him for hours, but for minutes?) And then came fear, the fleeting image of forgetting my son in the car, and then empathy, because how can these parents live with this? It used to be that contemplating my own mortality was tail-chasing sweatfest, but that's nothing compared with contemplating the mortality of your child. File under Don't Go There, I guess.

A POSTCRIPT ON DIVERSITY: After writing yesterday's ramble on diversity in five minutes or less (and truth be told, most of the Camel is scrabbled together in five-minute bursts) and then posting it right away -- like so much spaghetti thrown against the blogfrigerator -- I found myself happening back past it, re-reading, sensing I'd missed something, misstated something, or otherwise yanked the pot off the flame too soon. And then there it was:

Real diversity includes the white guy and his American flag. (Funny how I've come to equate diversity with everyone else but him.)

MAD GUMBO OF HUMANITY: The boy is down for his morning nap, although he's likely up within fifteen minutes or so. But the dishes are done, the garbage is out, and the laundry is agitating in the basement, so I've got a few moments to blog.

I'll take on the first image from yesterday, the guy with the flag and the Darryl Worley song.

We live in a really cool neighborhood, Chicago's Bucktown. Despite all the gentrification of the past decade (and yes, my wife and I were unabashed gentrifiers some eight years ago), our 'hood remains wildly diverse. There are Eastern European stalwarts -- Slovaks, Poles, some Ukrainians. There are a lot of Puerto Ricans and some Mexicans. There are black families (I'd type 'African-American' if I knew for sure that was their heritage). There are gay couples, single parents, DINCs, eccentric old people, artists, stockbrokers, hipsters, Jews, Christians, pagans, homeless guys, millionaires, hillbillies, Limbaugh listeners, peace protesters, dog lovers, cat lovers, dog haters, fitness freaks, disabled kids, disabled adults, chain smokers, tattooed folks, gang-bangers, breakdancers, white trash, drug addicts, recovered drug addicts, ex-cons, missionaries, Republicans, widows, widowers, white families with black kids and Asian kids, black families with Asian kids, all manner of mixed marriages, common-law marriages, doctors, napropaths, restauranteurs, waiters, NY transplants, San Francisco transplants, plant lovers, and so forth. We've got it all.

And yet, in the face of all that diversity, that mad gumbo of humanity, it was a plain old white kid, glasses, a little paunchy, driving around in a beat-up SUV with an American flag hanging out the window blasting a redneck country song and looking like he might be about to go all Columbine on our neighborhood's ass that actually gave me pause. Plunk this kid down in any small town in Indiana or Ohio or Texas or Colorado and he's Joe Average, the kind of kid who does his chores, goes to church, gets teased at school, and probably watches the NASCAR broadcast every week on FOX. But here in our little urban melting pot he stuck out like a sore thumb. I actually got the chills when I saw him. I thought, "That's trouble." Meanwhile "sodomites" roll by in shiny import convertibles, gang kids wrestle one another in front of the corner building, and a virtual United Nations of neighbors shuffles by me in the alley, and I barely notice.

Diversity is my operating reality. It's the old school white-guy-in-a-truck playing country music that raises the goosebumps on the back of this neck.

BLAH BLAH BLOGGING: There's so much to post about today, so many thoughts and tangents. But I'm the full-time child-watcher/caregiver, on accounta our Monday/Wednesday babysitter is on vacation this week, and my wife is actually making a living. So there will be only placeholders, half-baked musing that may one day cook into full-blown posts.

Some of the things that crossed my blogging mind, things that have been running in the background thus far today, include: the stunning and disquieting sight of a clearly angry, dumpy white teenager driving around my neighborhood blasting Darryl Worley's patriotic sledgehammer, "Have You Forgotten" while hanging an American-Flag-on-a-Stick out his window -- and this juxtaposed against the more common site of young Hispanic kids doing the same thing with Mexican and Puerto Rican flags and either gangsta rap or Latin dance music blaring; contrasting my suburban day-at-the-pool upbringing with my admittedly young son's urban experiences; my weekend forays to varying neighborhood "splash pools," and my mini-ephipany about how I'm prejudiced against threatening folks and how that had abso-zero-lutely to do with race on this day; and some small rehashing of weekend conversations with two of my favorite people who happen to be liberal, not that there's anything wrong with that.

But for now I'm going to go back to creating all manner of amusing diversions for my son, as opposed to creating, well, diversions for my tiny but devoted readership, you, who I also love very much, but not in that way.

THURSDAY IS DAD DAY: You may have noticed that Thursdays are typically light blogging days. That's because I stay home to take care of my son every Thursday and, at nearly 15 months, he's a handful.

Since traffic has been so great of late, I wanted to give y'all something to read. So I thought, in the interest of novelty, I'd run one of the mini-essays I wrote in the early days of parenthood. Here goes:

OUT OF CONTROL AND INVINCIBLE

There's a game my brother and I play at Dave & Buster's. It's a competitive road race, where you pilot a souped-up vehicle over random terrain and contend with all manner of obstacles, hazards, and other bad things. Your goal is to reach a faraway finish line, although that seems less important than running over stuff along the way, making your opponent wreck, and just generally raising hell. It's a lot like Life, in other words.

Ah, but here's where it gets like Life with a Baby: As you navigate, you want to try and steer your way over these shiny magic pills; if you succeed, your vehicle hurtles forward at hyper-speed, ramming through obstacles, dodging bullets, and so forth. The pill sends you completely out of control, so that you really needn't bother steering. You go where you go, flames shooting out of your tailpipes, scenery flying by. Sounds dangerous, I know, but the other key thing is: You're invincible. So for the duration of the magic pill's effectiveness, you rack up ungodly amounts of points almost unwittingly, with no real regard for your (virtual) self or your vehicle. Running over the magic pills is the adrenal high point of the game.

Here's something you don't want to say to your wife hours after the birth of your first child, by the way: "I could die now." You know what I meant, the completeness of having procreated, of having contributed to posterity, of leaving a mark, or at the very least feeling like a Giver more than a Taker, just this once. But she didn't like it. "Don't say that," was her reply. "My God."

She was afraid, of course. It’s no time to talk of danger and loss. But I felt the opposite. And not because I'm not still afraid of Death, afraid somewhere deep down, somewhere fundamental. But because this little baby -- the one that's wrestling around in the Baby Bjorn holder just below my tucked chin as I type -- is my magic pill.

Wonder how long the feeling will last...

UPDATE: The answer, so far, is forever.

MY NEW TRAFFIC STRATEGY: Apparently I've stumbled onto a real hot meme here. Once again, Google searches for "Jose Canseco nude" have led unwitting surfers to the Camel's doorstep. To those who come here expecting to see the unclad nether regions of a steroid-fueled Latin home-run hitter, I can only say...

Check back tomorrow.

A COMMENT ABOUT COMMENTS: Regular readers will have noticed that the COMMENTS feature on Blind Camel is as fickle as a college girl on a spring day. In fact, I'm growing more and more displeased with the company that provides this feature (okay, so it's free, what should I expect), and I'm looking at alternatives. The comment-fueled Cub Reporter, a brilliant blog covering my favorite team, has already made a switch. The Camel may be next.

CUBBIE BLUES: The crosstown Sox made two big deals yesterday, trading for Robbie Alomar and Carl Everett. Both come with baggage (Alomar spit in an umpire's face, Everett can't get along with anyone), but both are also clear improvements at their positions. Meanwhile the Cubs continue to slide and do nothing about it. I'm experiencing my usual feelings of queasiness and distrust toward management, especially as I read that Lowell will sit tight in Florida. Sure, I'm still on the bandwagon, but I've stopped beating the drum and throwing candy for now.

SOMEBODY GOT MURDERED, NEWS AT 11: How my expectations for news have changed.

This morning I noticed a team of detective-looking guys arrayed across the street from my regular Starbucks. (For those seeking evidence I'm a corporate whore, look no further than the fact I have a 'regular Starbucks'.) Turns out they were in fact detectives that, according to my barista (I laughed as I typed that word), were investigating the early-morning murder of the proprietor of the adult book and video store across the way. While it's true that, like my supposed political ally Clarence Thomas, I have at varying times been a consumer of such items, I have not ever been a customer of this particular purveyor of prurient products. Still, it was hard to miss the constant parade of freaks, lowlifes, and yes, regular Joes that snaked in and out of the place at all hours, and it was hard not to hear the rumors that the joint was the stomping grounds of certain illegitimate Italian businessmen. There's a story here, I thought. Something more than just a botched robbery.

After I finished my coffee, I walked over to my client's office and jumped on chicagotribune.com. Nothing. I cruised by suntimes.com. Nothing. Geez, I thought. I gotta wait 'til tonight's news to hear what happened? What is this, 1995?

Funny, sure, but I got to wondering: How long is it before online local news goes up-to-the-minute? Is there a market for a local news blog that consolidates the work of dozens of Johnny-on-the-street amateur reporters? CNN.com and Drudge do an awesome job with the national stuff. As Strom Thurmond's heart beats its last beat they're already posting his obituary. As the Supreme Court embraces affirmative and anal action, they're already posting the text of their decisions. And the Sports sites are quick, too. But local news is still stuck in bad old days, where we're left to rely on hairsprayed pan-ethnic models reading old news in between ads for car dealerships. How long can that last?

UPDATE: Turns out it was the overnight clerk, not the proprietor, who was murdered. It's not clear exactly how he was killed, nor what the motive might have been. His assailant remains at large. A sad story, no matter how it ends up. All I can think about is the one-year-old boy who'll never know his father. Little wonder why this is my angle on the story.

SHOUT-OUT: If you haven't dropped by Whimsical Revolution, you really owe it to yourself to do so. The man-behind-the-blog, Mark Gammon, writes like a dream (if your dream consists of H.L. Mencken playing ventriloquist to John Calvin), and his posts today -- about the Supreme Court's recent sodomy decision, the asinine Republican movement to amend the Constitution to ban gay marriage, and the way that Katherine Hepburn and Buddy Hackett play a role in his love life -- offer a fine example of his unbounding charm and intelligence.

THE DAILY SOUNDTRACK: Driving downtown this morning I stuck in a New Order disc I largely overlooked when it came out. The disc is REPUBLIC, and the song I found myself listening to over and over is the infectious opening track, "Regret." As a rule I love Bernard's Sumner's minimalist lyrics and contained vocal delivery. That said, I couldn't help thinking how great the Pet Shop Boys would sound covering this song, with Neil Tennant turning the "I just want a place I can call my own/have a conversation on the telephone" into something more heartbroken and wistful.