ONLY IN AMERICA: Apparently I'm supporting the Party of Don King.

BYLINE ALERT: Michael Ventre has to be one of the best freelance writers in the business. Here's his take on the Kobe Bryant trial, enlightening and entertaining as always.

THE POLITICS OF FASHION: Walking around Chicago over the weekend I couldn't help but notice all the Kerry/Edwards paraphernalia. T-shirts. Signs. Bumper stickers. Lapel pins.

Everywhere I looked I saw someone proudly displaying their support for the Dem ticket. Meanwhile, I saw only one Bush sign.

I wrestled with what conclusions I should draw:

a) Kerry is going to win in a landslide?

b) Chicago is a very Democratic town?

c) Bush backers couldn't care less for displaying their affinity for their candidate?

I'm sure the answer is d), all of the above, but I really think there's something to c).

I know a lot of folks in each camp. My Kerry pals are almost apoplectic with disgust for our president and, as a result, are much more likely to wear political t-shirts and display signs than are my Bush buddies. My Bush buddies, on the other hand, are a portrait of quiet resolve, perhaps not altogether wowed by 43, but certain they'll choose him over Kerry.

Meanwhile, I continue to straddle my fence, as I expect to do until election day. Maybe that sounds idiotic to some, but I think I'd like to keep listening, keep thinking, and eventually make the best choice I can with the best information available on the last day possible.

If I had to vote today, I'm back on the Bush side. My most significant disagreements with him -- on same-sex marriage (and specifically on amending the Constitution to prohibit same), abortion (I can't imagine making it illegal, but I think we should continue as a society to make them highly undesirable and yes, even stigmatized), and stem-cell research (let's not create a factory-farm scenario for embryos, but fortheloveofGod can't we please make the most of our homeless stem cells?) -- don't outweigh my utter distrust in Kerry's ability to deal with foreign policy, homeland security, and the problem of maniacal Islamic terrorists and totalitarian regimes the world over who would like to exterminate us.

So I don't expect to be wearing any t-shirts anytime soon.

NOTHING TO CRY ABOUT: An absolutely beautiful piece in the Chicago Tribune about mortality.

DO THE STRAND: I happened across a book last night, a poetry collection by Mark Strand, the Warren Beatty of American verse. I had forgotten how compelling and honest I found so many so many of his poems way back in college. If you're bored or intrigued, this site has a nice little bio of Mark, plus links to some of his best poems. "Courtship" is especially hilarious, and "Keeping Things Whole" is something of a Zen koan.

WRITING IN THIN AIR: I've been writing plane poems of late. I published one on a friend's blog the other day, as I mentioned earlier.

Here's another recent plane poem:


ON THE PLANE

At coming-down time,
right before you
see the ground
there is a moment of

“is this it?”

a leaning back falling
feeling like a child
sliding down
the stairs
on your behind
for no real reason
save for fun
and because you can.

TOTALLY WICKED: Check out this cool Ali G Translator.

FILE UNDER REASONS TO VOTE FOR BUSH: Apparently Omarosa is a Kerry supporter.

POEMS ARE REALLY BIG WITH THE KIDS THESE DAYS: The lovely and talented Herberta has published one of my poems. Check it out!

JEREMY PIVEN, I TAKE IT ALL BACK: Have been Tivo-ing ENTOURAGE, the new HBO show that tells the tale of a 'round-the-hood NYer who makes it big in Hollywood and takes his posse of pals with him. Still not sure how I feel about the Markie Mark Wahlberg-produced series -- can't tell if Wahlberg is laughing at himself or celebrating himself, and only the former is funny over the long haul -- but one thing I do know: Jeremy Piven, who I've often loathed in person (screaming and fist-pumping like a loon at a Pearl Jam show, drunk at a Cubs game, etc.) and on screen is friggin' AWESOME as the star's vapid, hard-charging agent. His direction to the star's sidekick a couple episodes that they "hug it out" after having an argument was genius, and not just the writing, but the way Piven plays it. He shifts gears between ingratiating and grating, razor-sharp and retarded with consummate skill, creating one of the best comic performances I've seen in a long while, maybe since Rip Torn's "Artie" on LARRY SANDERS. Fantastic.

BACK FROM BLOGBLIVION: What happens to this blogger is that after a certain point, when so much has happened since last I wrote, I get stuck. What to write, where to start, so what, etc. That's where I am right now. And usually the only thing that gets me unstuck is to just start somewhere in the middle.

One thing I've been thinking is how much better it might be if I could just write everything that happens, unvarnished. Use real names. Cite real problems. Wrestle with demons incarnate. Y'know? My boss this. My wife this. My mom that. My son etc. Blah blah blah. But then even when I'd be trying to get somewhere good, to wrestle down angels in demon's clothing so as to better celebrate the bestness of my life...you know...to sling mud with good intentions, to alchemize mud into chocolate fudge, to turn bitterness into tanginess, to make sour into something to be savored...well, people's feelings can get hurt, even when that's the last thing you wanna do.

Can't a writer wrangle his way off the hook by disclaiming at the outset: "I know nothing. I'm just sayin'..."

Nope. It don't work that way.

So I'm back from a week away, went to another high school reunion. See I split time between two high schools. One was a kind of redneck public school in a post-industrial Ohio town, the town where I spent some of the best years of my life in what, years later, doesn't look like a very great place to grow up. Lots of latent Type 2 diabetes, I'd wager. Not a lot of ethnic food or racial mixing. No Starbucks. Etc.

The other was a preppy public school in a post-industrial suburb of Detroit, another city on the decline, and yet this second school was still afloat in a major and stable way, as old money worked wonders plugging holes and propping it up.

The Detroitish reunion was first, a tony, cocktail-centric affair not out of line with the kind of social stuff me and the wife do here in Chicago. Bunch of college-educated folks comparing notes about babies and corporate travel and then repairing to each others' nearby sailboats for a nightcap. A pleasant, occasionally ecstatic event.

Then came Ohio, a wedding band-bolstered beerfest where various social strata mixed somewhat uneasily, with talk of stepkids and teenage offspring, of city jobs and smalltown scandals ("yep, he's back in crack rehab") even as a surplus of goodwill held everything together. It was like, hey, we went to friggin' SECOND GRADE together, we are friends 'til the end. Sincere. Seriously. Loved it.

Thing is both were great, the best entertainment values a 38-year-old soul searcher is ever gonna find. People were open and kind at both events, genuinely thrilled to have a few hours together. There were these aforementioned social differences, some nuances of content and context (in Michigan we wondered who might have Mob ties; in Ohio we wondered if a fistfight would break out), but all in all a big smile and a wide-eyed sense of wonder were the common wardrobe at both events, and a kind of "holy shit, look at us" attitude permeated the music and memories and kept most of us up past our bedtimes.

So that's one middle I can give you, readers. There's also the stuff about drinking, about friendship, about not being able to go back home but doing it anyway, about realizing that all you have is your time and it's not yours anyway, so you have nothing, and then circling back through all the damn Zen books you've been reading and wondering if you're still trying too damn hard at something that requires no effort.

The question I keep coming back to is: Do I focus on the much ado, or on the nothing?

And the answer I keep coming up with is the infernallly true: Yes.

If that makes as much sense to you as it does to me, Hello!

DUH: Wow! The monkey can talk! Holy cow, maybe them animals do have feelings!

IF IT QUACKS LIKE A WINNER, IT MAY BE A WINNER: Alex at the Cub Reporter does a great job of summarizing my shock and awe at the Cubs' front office, especially their recent, brilliant acquisition of the best available non-pitcher in the game at the trading deadline.