FOREVER YOUNG: Roma Hess is not just a frequent commenter on this site, she's also my mom. And God bless her, she turned 39 again today. Happy birthday, Mom!

SUBTEXT IS SUPER: It occurs to me that perhaps the funniest, most edifying, and best writing and thinking on the Blind Camel is appearing within the COMMENTS realm these days. Congrats to those who are writing -- and thanks! -- and a word of encouragement -- go explore! -- to those who've yet to delve into the COMMENT realms.

IF IT RAPS LIKE A CRIMINAL, IT'S PROBABLY A CRIMINAL: I'll apologize in advance that I don't have time to do this next post justice. But...

This article reminds me of my brief foray into the music/entertainment biz. Without naming names, let me just say I was astounded how much involvement and overlap big-time Hollywood and big-time Music have with crime and criminals. This is not an isolated thing. There are all manner of gangsters and gangstas mixed up in the business of show, as they say. I mean, just read the article. Not so many degrees of separation there between big-time show business and big-time street criminal. Like no degrees. One and the same. Okay, so maybe it takes one layer to get from gangsta to superstar, from criminal enterprise to big-screen blockbuster. One!

Sure, I like movies and music as much as the next guy. Hell, I even like wild and sexy movies and gangsta-rap. But the premise we often hear -- this is just fantasy, it's not reality, it's harmless entertainment -- to justify the misogynism and criminality and drug infuence and amorality of it all...well, it's not really true, at least not all the time, now is it? If a guy calls himself "Gotti" and runs with drug dealers and uses a recording studio called The Crackhouse...are we that crazy not to be shocked when it turns out he's a criminal?

In a roundabout way...and I apologized already for not running farther and harder with this premise...this is why Big Entertainment is a drag on the Democratic party. Middle America is catching on that songs and movies about killing and drugging and sexing -- and the progenitors thereof -- are not simply innocent fantasies and visionary artists. Nope. They're criminal kingpins/enterprises channeling our lust for helter-sheltered, vicarious thrills into real-life evildoing.

Not elegant writing, I know. But you get it.

FREE VERSE AT 37,000 FEET: Wrote a new poem on the airplane the other day. Was thinking I should create a little chapbook, call it IN THE AIR or something like that. Anyway, here's the new one:

VACUUM
------
When you have
endured
that first calamity --
been embraced
by love and then
suffocated
after it's sucked
out after all --
it is in
that moment
you first learn
what is gone
and what is left
to come.

DEADLINE OR DO-NOTHING DISORDER: They've got a pill to help you stop smoking. (Worked for me.) A pill to help you get it up. (Ahem.) But what they really need: A pill to help you stop procrastinating. I'd buy 'em by the bushel. Good God, it's the next great mass affliction, Acute Procrastination Syndrome (APS).

Must. Stop. Procrastinating.

Thing is, I keep putting off doing anything about it.

Bah-dump bump! (Take my wife...)

DON'T JUDGE A SCOURGE BY ITS COVER: Here's what our little night-time terrorist looks like these days. Innocent on the outside, insurgent on the inside.

PROCREATION CAN BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR MENTAL HEALTH: So it's two nights in a row my nearly three-year-old son C.J. has decided to get up -- and stay up -- at 4:30AM. Meanwhile his two-month-old brother -- the one who's supposed to be causing trouble -- sleeps like a champ. Since I've turned in 'round midnight both nights, I'm going on precious little sleep. My wife is in worse shape, although she somehow maintains a reservoir of good humor. Last night I, on the other hand, really hit an anger level that I haven't hit before. I wasn't just annoyed or frustrated...hell, far as I can tell parenting is about 80% low-level frustration...I was mad. Still, it passed, no harm no foul, etc. But it reminded me how desperate and irrational lack of sleep can make a person. I had no logical mental processes going on. I just wanted to shake the boy.

We survived.

And perhaps the reason he was up was because of an exchange he and I had had earlier in the evening. My wife was out to dinner with a friend, so I had both boys. We were prepping to head out on a car trip over to a friend's house. I had the baby all set, but CJ the Elder was running from me, evading his jacket. I told him to stop, and he yelled NO at me. I grabbed his arm and shoved it into his coat sleeve, telling him in very direct and firm tones, "You *never* say no to Daddy." I then walked him to the front door and paused, thinking I'd reinforce the point: "Are you going to tell Daddy no again?"

He started to say no, then stopped. He started to say yes, then stopped. Realizing I'd inadvertently given him a unsolvable koan, I let him off the hook. "I know you're going to do what daddy says," I told him.

"Yes!" he said.

Maybe the 4:30 wakeup had something to do with solving the koan.

READ MY WRITING ABOUT READING: Nick Hornby's got a new book out, compiling his "Stuff I'm Reading" columns from THE BELIEVER. As much as I love Hornby, I'm not sure I can justify reading about what's he's reading...rather than reading what I want to read. And, from this review, I gather he laments how tough it is to get through all the books one buys...without mentioning that it becomes even tougher if one feels obliged to read one's favorite writer opining about how tough it is to accomplish same.

Still wondering if I was the only one who enjoyed his HOW TO BE GOOD. Maybe not as good as his first two, but still a thousand times better than most of what I pick up.

Which reminds me: Am LOVING the book I'm reading right now, Elizabeth Gilbert's LAST AMERICAN MAN. Can barely put it down.

BOTH FEET ON THE BANDWAGON: Break. Up. The. Bulls.

BEACHBLOGGER: In Santa Monica (CA) this week. Currently camped out in a Starbucks on the 3rd Street Promenade, with blazing loud classical music pouring out on my head. As far as I can determine this little neighborhood is all about Eurasian tourists and homeless folk.

Got to watch some of the Inaugural from my hotel room today. Most indelible images (for me) were the so-called protesters who saw fit to fly the bird and yell "Fuck You" at the presidential motorcade. Pathetic.

I know, I know, there are nutbirds on both sides of the fence. Sad for what was my party that the face of the opposition (read "Democrats, sadly) has become these anarchistic, anti-American, disrespectful, politics-as-fashion fucknuts who, somewhere in their depraved DNA, equate protest with profanity. James Dobson, that Focus on the Family zealot, appeared balanced, bright, and downright huggable on his network interview, especially in contrast to the finger-flyers.

Bunch of "street teams" working the street (where else) for this new show, NUMB3RS. I think it's a show. I wish one of 'em would come up to me and give me their swag...I mean, c'mon, I must be one of the only non-Eurasian tourists and/or homeless people anywhere in the vicinity. Maybe the laptop-on-lap look doesn't make me appear particularly receptive to solicitation. Plus I'm tired and a little sick, so I'm pallid and grey-eyed. I *am* wearing my snazzy new french-cuff shirt atop some niiiize Lucky jeans, so I have that going for me. But apparently my greyness overwhelms my couture.

God Bless America. Good luck, 43. You're gonna need it.

CATFIGHT! When it comes down to a showdown between Barbara Boxer and Condi Rice, my money is on (and my heart is with) Dr. Rice every time. One of the first times I really felt my liberalness falling away -- I could almost feel it lifting from my body and brain, more accurately -- was when I saw Barbara Boxer on Larry King, talking about the various issues of the day, and realizing I disagreed with her out-of-touch, utopian stands on nearly everything.

WHAT IF I BLOGGED ABOUT SOMETHING? I'm growing very jealous of blogs that have a focus, that revolve around some particular interest. You know, blogs like The Cub Reporter (the Chicago Cubs), Bookslut (literary fiction, mostly), and even AndrewSullivan.com (politics, mostly). I'm thinking Blind Camel either needs a focus...or I need a new blog that has a focus. Focus. I'm tired of just blogging about the innards of my own navel on any given day. I want to build an area of expertise. To delve more deeply into something. To become a clearinghouse for some narrow niche that over time becomes mine, mine, mine.

CHARACTER! I'll say it again: Break up the Bulls! Check this out:

The Bulls are #1 in the league in defensive field goal percentage

New York was the Bulls' 22nd consecutive opponent held under 100 points

They're like last year's Pistons, minus the talent. (Kidding.) Like Al Davis said in another sport, "Just win, baby!"

WORMS OF ETHIOPIA, REJOICE! So they're digging up Bob Marley -- or the remains of what was Bob Marley -- and moving it/him to Ethiopia. My big question: Why for? What freakin' difference does it make where you decompose? Sorry, I just don't get it.

BOGGED DOWN ROADBLOGGER: So I was supposed to be on the 4:00PM, but I thought I might make the 2:00PM, but I missed it, or so I thought, but then it was delayed, so I didn't really miss it, so they put me on the 2:00PM leaving at 3:10PM, but then it got out early, so I DID miss it, so they put me back on the 4:00PM, which is now scheduled to go out at 5:30PM. And so here I sit in the Red Carpet Club where they may make an announcement if ATC lets the flight go earlier, but then again they may not. Meanwhile I may arrive at O'Hare very late -- in fact I WILL -- so that I can go home and sleep in my bed before waking up and flying to San Antonio, from which I'm scheduled to head back to Chicago on Friday afternoon...or evening...or whenever God and United feel like transporting me.

As my friend Brad would say, time to start drinking.

ROADBLOGGER: Settled in Boston tonight, staying in Cambridge. Even at 38, I still muse about what it might have been like to go to school at the Big H. Had dinner tonight with a pal who went there, and he assured me it's no big whoop. The guy is as humble and unassuming as they come, so maybe he's just being unassuming and humble when he says that.

Headed over to Babson College to speak in the morning, then flying back to Chicago in order to re-pack my bag for a Thursday trip to San Antonio.

METAFIZZLE: I think human beings must be born with something like faith...or is it grace? It's that intangible inside-of-us governor that keeps us from running down the middle of the road shouting "We're all going to die."

Because at some point we all realize it. And since we all wear different weights of different faiths as protective psychic clothing, well, sure, some of us (or I should some of *you*, perhaps) have at least some protection against the cold wind of mortality. But there are many of us, yes, *us*, who are nearly naked out here. Why aren't we running willy-nilly and shouting. How, in the face of 9/11 and the Tsunami, do we just soldier on, just stumble on, just keep on keeping on? Sure, some fall, some surrender, but the mass of us roll on like a great tide of indiscriminate and implausible...what? Hopefulness? Faith? Are we cloaked in grace, even in spite of our clumsy attempts or non-attempts at Faith?

When I was younger I was fascinated with the idea that we are, as one poet or novelist wrote, "magnificent dust." Mostly at that time, I was keyed in on the "magnificent" half of it. Now I'm feeling the "dust" angle, as my body slips and softens somewhat. Wither? Whither?

I'm hearing Talking Heads now: We're on a blog to nowhere. Ah, well. Travel in the morning. At least moving feels like something important.

Comment. Comment. Comment. I implore you, you noble few readers. Bart! Steve! Eric! Trisha! Paul! Buehler!