CLIPPED: Now hockey is really dead to me.

TWO REASONS: I like the subject matter of this shot for two reasons. First, the people in it are the best. And second, you can see our Sanibel hideaway over Eileen's right shoulder. 

NEW BEST PAL: C.J. and Mac enjoy the dolphin cruise. 

VACATION: Granted, I haven't been blogging much for a while now. But right now -- right now -- I'm legitimately on vacation. Here's the sunrise we just hiked back up from. 

SWEET BEARD: Check out this graphic (below) that CNN uses to front its Moussaoui trial story today. Is it just me, or it kind of silly looking? I can't stop looking at it. 

GAMEWRECKER: Bud Selig is a tone-deaf idiot. Even he can't believe the stupid shit he says.

DR. DENIM: Another shot I love, "beaming C.J." Does this kid look happy or what? 

THE LAST RITES OF THE WELFARE STATE: Is this genius or a kind of utopianism? Regardless, I love radical rethinkings like this.

AND THE OTHER TWO: Mom and Mikey sometimes seem like they're attached at the hip. The boy is in a major "Mommy" phase.  

MY LITTLE DUDE: Holy cow, is this kid growing up fast. 

FEELING VERY WRONG: I've read Eric Haney before, and I respect his career. Here he is taking apart the war, the torture, the Bush legacy. It hurts to read it.

I haven't written much about Bush and the war in a while. What's to write? I believed in the war. And I believed in the president. I read, I researched as best I could, and I voted for what appears to have been a uniquely incompetent administration. That I did so with the best of intentions leaves me with a clear conscience, but a heavy heart.

IDOL PREDICTIONS? Wow, if this site is reliable it sort of takes some of the fun out of it.

MCCAIN! So where do I send my money for the McCain in '08 fund? At this point he's my guy. Looks like I'm not alone.

GOD OF FINLAND: I'm a big Conan O'Brien fan, so I really enjoyed this story about his recent weird trip to Finland.

INVENTOR OF VERBIAGE: Me and my pal Dick were having an argument at lunch over the proper pronunciation of Cannes, as in "the Cannes Film Festival." Having been there -- hmmph -- I told him it was pronounced "can." Being kind of an intellectual snobby type, he assured me it was pronounced "con." Anyway, being the kind of nitpicker-dick that I am, always having to be in the know and whatnot, I rushed back and proved my point and e-mailed him about it. Although he was unimpressed with my victory, he was especially taken with the new expression I invented to describe what I'd done. I told him I'd done my "Goo-diligence," meaning that I'd used Google to...you get it.

And I was so proud of myself, and feeling so protective of my new term, that I rushed here to show it off to y'all.

BTW, "verbiage" has only two syllables. And you don't "pronunciate" something, you just pronounce it.

I am such a grammar prig.

THRILLWAUKEE PART THREE: And so Licky woke up at 4AM and has been up since. Unbeknownst to me, that is. I did hear him start yelling around then, but I thought he put himself back to sleep. Turns out Eileen went in there and has been rocking him for the past three hours. I awoke with a full-blown, husky-voice cold. That'll be fun for my flight tonight. Full sinuses on a little Canadair regional jet. Wah. Meanwhile C.J.'s jonesin' for an early A.M. swim. And Eileen wants a Starbucks.

THRILLWAUKEE, PART TWO: And so we rejoin the story with C.J. down for a nap, Michael down for a nap, and Eileen's Marshall's bathing suit looking to spend the weekend in Chicago in its bag...

And let me backtrack for a second to recount how we found Michael this morning. It's 6:00AM, his standard waking time, and we hear a very nonstandard croaking sound coming from his room. Nothing scary, but he sounds a little off. And well he should, since a quick inspection reveals the kid is wearing what is essentially a snot mache mask, with bloody accents all around his nostrils where he's fingernailed his discontent. Just gross. Snotbubbles rising and falling in his nostrils like a lizard's flamboyant throat thrust out in the sunlight, out and in, in and out. Yucky.

And so it's midday now, and our maniac friends and their family are arriving in Milwaukee, and I'm about to make the call that says we're OUT, we won't make it, when...

...C.J. bursts from his room and shouts, "Let's go to the hotel!" He's reborn, animated, cheeks aflush with health and anticipation. "Vamos!"

What the heck. We retrieve a clean-nosed Licky from his bed, he too wearing the glow of rediscovered health, start shoving diapers and sandals and DVDs into my couch-on-wheels, and we head-ass up to Milwaukee.

And it's been worth it. We have a giant suite with an adjoining bedroom. Licky's sprawled out in a pack-and-play next-door, and the other three of us are in here amidst left-over pizza and french fries and Kirkland Shiraz. Our friends and their frenzied progeny have just retired to their own rooms, and we're set for a 7AM rendesvous down at the water-park.

And there's a Starbucks in the lobby!

And C.J. just walked up and said, "Daddy, what planet are we on now?"

I often wonder that very thing. I'm pretty sure it's just called...

Planet Kid.

THRILLWAUKEE, PART ONE: I don't post much of late, but this seems like a good time to sling one out there into the ethers.

We had this big plan this weekend, where our maniac family and a few other maniac families were gonna head up to the Milwaukee Hilton and exploit the waterpark therein. Slides. Hot tubs. Zero-depth mayhem. Trouble was when we woke up this morning Licky was a sinus-addled mess, and C.J. was a grump. No matter. We forged ahead, even reserving a second, adjoining room so that Licky would have his own dark crib-room to mewl and puke in (reference, anyone?) as he pleased. Alas, that all changed when, near noon, C.J. clutched his tummy, screamed "Poopies are coming fast!" and stormed up the stairs to unleash rampant diahrrhea. "I want to go to bed right now," he cried, clutching his belly. "My bottom has a bug in it."

And so he literally put himself to bed, climbing in under the covers and racing off to dreamland in record time.

It seemed like all was lost then, Eileen's new Marshalls' discount suit all for naught.

Oh, shit, the pizza's here. To be continued.

I'D GIVE THIS ONE TO MIKE SCOTT: What happened was my brother Casey innocently asked me for some lyrics -- said he was having a drought of sorts, and asked if I would fire some stuff his way to stoke the flames. Anyway, the stuff is flowing. And this one I like:

THE SECRET OF LOVE
----------------------------
She liked to lie
but she didn't know it
She was made of evil things
but she didn't show it

She took me in
Then put me out
I never loved her...
Who's lying now?

She was full of sunshine
but smelled like rain
She gave me pleasure
that felt like pain

I thought I loved her
What did I know
Thought I was tied up
when I was free to go..


(chorus)
What kind of love makes you a prisoner?
What kind of lover breaks you down?
Why is it that I feel abandoned
even when she's still around...


She was just a schoolgirl
dressed like a lady
Knew how to charm me
by actin' shady

Never intended
to crush my spirit
I kept her secret
Want you to hear it...


(chorus)
What kind of love makes you a prisoner?
What kind of lover breaks you down?
Why is it that I feel abandoned
even when she's still around...

'NOTHER HOKEY SONG: I also hear this one as a country tune:

GO TO BED IN TROUBLE
--------------------

Looking back on the summers I spent
I learned a lot of lessons
But I never knew what they meant
I would wake up wore out
I'd go to bed all wide awake
I couldn't keep track of all the girlfriends
or of all the drugs I'd take


(chorus)
Goddamn
that was then
I must have been a whole lot younger when
I could go to bed in trouble
wake up and start all over again

(Now I'm) ...Chasing away all the mistakes that I made
Making friends with all my enemies
so I don't have to be afraid
I'm looking forward to the future
Got a purpose to my life
I'm trying to shake loose all the ghosts
from me so I can find a wife

(chorus)
Goddamn
that was then
I must have been a whole lot younger when
I could go to bed in trouble
wake up and start all over again

I have a notion, you might call it conjecture
That all my past lives and my missteps
were just practice for my future
And when I reach it then I'll finally understand
that all those lessons were what helped me
become a huband and a man

(bridge)
And if I should falter...
make a mistake along the way
I hope that I'll remember
everyday is a new day

(chorus)
Goddamn
that was then
I must have been a whole lot younger when
I could go to bed in trouble
wake up and start all over again

I'M SURE THIS HAPPENS TO YOU: I woke up writing country songs this morning. Like, for example, this one:

(intro)
There are two things to write a song about
one's falling in love
the other is falling out

If you're alive
and your heart is beating
I know I don't have to tell you
this falling out of love
eventually will kill you

But the lucky thing is
that by the very same same token
you can come right back to life
when those magic words are spoken

(chorus)
"I love you" will make you whole again
"I love you" can correct you
"I love you" superglues your heart
"I love you" can protect you

If you find yourself down on the floor
after love has taken leave
there's just one thing that you can do
say the words you would receive

(chorus)
"I love you" saves a drowning man
"I love you" dulls the knife
"I love you" pulls you in the boat
"I love you" saves your life

BACK IN THE BLOGGING SADDLE AGAIN: Start in the middle, see where you end up...

My four-year-old, C.J., has decided he likes shirts with nothing on 'em. As in, "Daddy, that's got stuff in the middle. I want an 'x-in-the-middle-shirt." Huh? "X-in-the-middle means nothing. Nothing in the middle. Just plain."

Once again, the kid is taking after his paternal grandfather, notorious for his love of subtle, understated, or non-existent branding on his apparel. Apparel. Heh. Funny to think of my dad's navy-blue and khaki combos as apparel!

Last night C.J. told us he wants to "get bigger and be a drummer on T.V." He also hopes his whiskers come out of his chin soon. Meanwhile Mikey is starting to talk. Scratch that. Mikey has been blabbering since birth. This kid talks nonsense every waking minute, some combo of German and an Asian dialect. But lately his forceful vowels and consonants are starting to make some sense. The kid is nothing of not emphatic. Every utterance comes with an exclamation caboose. "Nana!" (That means banana, for now.) "Nanny!" (That can mean his nanny or his mom.) "Da! Da da!" (Yours truly, as in "get your dumb ass over here right now, father o' mine.") "D'oh!" (Down.) "Essay!" (This one. That one. From the Spanish.) "Oh, baby!" (I hurt myself. I'm sad. Pity me.)

That's enough for now. More later from the ORD Red Carpet, as I prep for my Colorado City jaunt.

SEEMS FITTING FOR A SUNDAY: My pal Trisha has prodded me to write something, and although I don't have anything new right now I thought I'd post something I wrote a while back that I liked:

We feel terrible when someone dies, in part because we feel that we have, in some way, died too. We might even say things like, “A part of me has died.” Which part are we referring to? Are we not whole people? What we may mean instead is that we are part of the person who has died...and they are part of us. And so we feel as if we, too, have died, are dying, and faced with that we are doubly afraid and unsettled.

Many of us are wrestle with the fact that our friends and family – and ourselves, at some point -- will die and be forgotten, will be left alone to disintegrate...and eventually to disappear entirely. We worry that life is finite, or as Alan Watts once referred to it, a brief flash of light between two periods of infinite darkness.

But there is in death the possibility for a kind of miracle, if we look for it. It's much like what the Christians have been saying for two millennia: We are indeed capable of engineering resurrection. By embracing our dead loved one's memory and essence, and by figuratively carrying them out of sacred space -- the church, the temple, the meditation hall -- with us when we leave it, by living out the full potential and potency of their inspiration, by wrapping ourselves in their soul and spirit...we can almost literally lift them up from the dead. They ride with us, in us, out of sacred space and into life again.

While I don't believe I'll ever see a dead person stand up and walk days after her death, I do believe in the resurrection that a community of friends and family can provide -- for the departed, and for themselves. And I believe that is not simply a possibility but a responsibility of those left behind to lift life up to its highest purpose, and to walk on as if buoyed by the vaporous spirit of the departed. I believe that by carrying deceased souls with us, we are ourselves lifted up and made lighter.

THEY ALSO COULD HAVE CALLED IT A BLONCHO: Check out the slanket!

KRAUTHAMMER ON THE CARTOONS: This guy is becoming a hero of mine. Check it out.

FREE ADVICE FOR THE DEMS: Somewhere way back when on this blog -- and were I a responsible blogger I'd go back and find it and link to it -- I recall observing that the Bush Administration's key vulnerability was not to be found in their ideology, but in their competence, or lack thereof. I remember fearing that Bush 43 simply wasn't smart enough to do the job, all the while hoping that his henchmen -- Powell, Cheney, Rumsfield, Rice, etc. -- could cover for his lack of intellect.

I recently had a similar conversation with Dem friends. In light of all the revelations about the inefficient prosecution of the war, the management (mismanagement) of Katrina, and the ham-handed dealings with K Street, the Dems need not focus on ideological differences. In fact, they can focus on what unites us.

Here's what I think the Dem message ought to be:

"In many ways, we're just like the Republicans. We love our country, and we'll work to support it, fight to defend it, and stay up all night to fix it when it breaks. We believe in freedom, in equality, in democracy, and in the family. We feel an obligation to help those in need, to stand behind our allies, and to be a good global citizen.

"We care about the economy AND the environment, and we know that you can't save one and neglect the other. We believe our richest and our poorest citizens must act responsibly and live by the same rules; and that people of all creeds, colors, and socioeconomic groups have not just a practical responsibility to live in peace with one another, but also a moral imperative to love one another.

"So you see, when you consider Democrats and Republicans, see that by and large we're aiming at the same things. And yet if you look back at the years this country lived under a Democratic administration, under the leadership of Bill Clinton and Al Gore...we actually did more just than believe in these things. We did more than just aim at them. We lived them. These beliefs were our reality, not simply our rhetoric.

"In our hearts, we're all patriots. We're all philanthropists. We're all spiritual people, in one way or another. In our hearts, we're not Democrats or Republicans, but merely citizens. Human beings. All doing the very best we can.

"We believe that George Bush is a good man. We believe he has done his best. And we wish him well and thank him for his service. Now, as we move forward, the question to you, fellow Americans, is not which party has the best ideals. It's which party can best lead us to the ideals we all share. Which party can not simply aim, but truly hit the target."

RED CARPET CONFIDENTIAL: Here I am in the Red Carpet Lounge again, and it dawns on me: Some of my readers -- like those in Hamilton, Ohio and Canton, Michigan, for example -- don't get out much. So, ladies and gentlemen, non-travelers especially, here's an undercover cellphone shot of the United Red Carpet Lounge at O'Hare, C Terminal. Pretty cool, eh? Actually, in a life of nonstop activity, two kids, etc., it's kind of an oasis of calm. I'm sipping a free cappucino and listening to THE VIEW on the TV nearby. A man in a business suit and New Balance sneakers is pacing while he talks on this cell phone. And a lot of tired looking people are absently looking at laptops and newspapers. I like it here. 

LICKY! It's been a while since I've featured my younger guy, the inimitable Michael Lee Hess, better known as "Licky." He's nearly 15 months, and boy is it a fun time. He has an everpresent grin, his own unintelligible lexicon (part German, part Japanese, as best we can determine), and a very discerning palate (he's basically on a toddler Atkins diet -- lots of meat and fat, no love for the carbs). Where his brother C.J. was a drummer from birth, drumming on everything around him and thrilling to drum sets, drum solos, and drummers on TV, Licky is a dancer. This kid has the get-down in his soul. He can already work a boom box, turn on his favorite songs, and then drop and shake his big butt to the beat.

 
 

BOSTON! My son C.J. has decided that the greatest sports team in the whole world is the Boston Red Sox. We have no idea where he got this idea, but he's adamant about it. Perhaps it's simply because he has red socks, they are Red Sox, and voila! Remember when life was that easy?

 

FILE UNDER BIG WHOOP: Does anybody really care? God, this guy has to be one of the most self-involved folks of all time. Go get a job, for God's sake.

PICK MY PROFILE PIC: My sis-in-law is griping about my profile picture. She preferred the one from my high-school talent show, where I was jumping off the amplifier wearing a camouflage mask, to the one where I'm all old and smiley. What happened was that old jumping one was hosted on a website I no longer pay to maintain, so it up and disappeared. In order to stick up a new one, I have to send the pic to some server somewhere, like I've done with this post...

I'm thinking I might use this one. Eh?

OWIE! The bandaged appendage. Tough to type! 

LIVE FROM HOLLYWOOD: This trip is mishap central. I oughta be on candid camera.

First I forget my underwear. Then I forget my computer. Then I buy the uberpants. (Wearing 'em right now, rolled down. Chilling on Robertson Blvd. after the world's best veggie burger at the Newsroom, waiting to head over to Paramount. Willing to bet I'm the only dude on this track flying the Chereskins. Awww, yeah.) And then this morning, rushing to get out the door, I jam my hand back into my awesome, super-compartmentalized dopp kit, and...

Holy crap, I'm bleeding everywhere. Lanced three big cuts into my fingertip, each ridiculous Sensor blade ripping its own signature swatch out of my pointer. Man, fingertips, they can bleed, especially when you freak out and wave 'em around in shock and in pain. My room must've looked all OJ to the cleaning folks.

And so here I sit, big pants and band-aids, just hoping the paparazzi don't find me...

ON BUYING GIANT BRIEFS: Desperate, I wander down to the Westin South Coast gift shop (or is it shoppe?) last night. The small Asian lady is closing up, but she lets me in. Almost immediately I spot an odd display of toiletries, makeshift luggage, and yep, single-pack "Chereskin" briefs. There's L and XL, and on the package they look more or less like my beloved Calvin Klein briefs, discovered in the '80s (natch) and worn to this day (mixed with boxers). I grab the Ls, because I'm not a total fat-ass, and I take 'em up to the counter. The little Asian proprietress starts giggling.

"Oh!" she exclaims. "Oh, ho-ho! Oh-ho-ho-ho!"

She's giggling uncontrollably now, somewhere between humor and discomfort. She starts nodding.

"Good!" she says. "Oh-ho-ho-ho!" Nodding. "You need!"

Just bag up the briefs and let me be on my way, lady.

I retreat to my room and try on my new briefs. They're diaper-huge. The front of 'em is the friggin' Hancock Building (whoa! pun alert!) it's so hi-rise. They start at my crotchular region and extend well over my belly button. I look like an ad for Powerdorks Anonymous. Sure, no one will see me in my briefs. But I'll know. Plus if my shirt rides up at all folks will wonder if I'm Mormon.

I fold down the waistband. Not as bad. Not great. Won't win any Marcus Shenkenberg look-alike contest. But they'll do.

NICE HYGIENE: I have no underwear on this trip. I simply omitted underwear from my luggage. Call me "Commando." Discovered it this morning. Black sweater? Check. Black slacks? Check. Black shoes? Check. Black socks? Check. Underwear of any color? Nein.

And so I feel a little naughty today. And apparently I'll continue to feel naughty tomorrow...on accounta...

I left my computer at Microsoft after my presentation. I did not discover this until I was returning my rental car at Sea-Tac airport. I took the car back out, drove it back to the campus and, escorted by two Microsoft security guards, recovered the computer. I missed my flight to L.A. but caught the next one. And so by the time I arrived here...all the stores were closed.

I remain underwearless.

I heard the SOTU speech was blah, lackluster, no news, platitudinous. Too bad. Poor dumb Bush.

Just saw Hillary Rosen stumping for the dems. Or I should say spinning for the Dems. Never liked her when she was the unrealistic and harsh voice of the RIAA as they sued music consumers. Anyway, seeing her on the Dem side makes me feel better about not being on the Dem side anymore.

I won't vote for Hillary. Won't.

I've read ongoing analysis about how McCain can never be nominated.

I wish I had underwear. Or at least more pants.

ON TRAVEL AND POOP: Monday morning. I awoke with a random headache -- because, man, I only had like a couple glasses of that rose (think ro-zay; don't know how to make the accent over the 'e') -- but none of the pervading "sick" of last week. The Z-Pac (not to be confused with the 2Pac) has helped, clearly. Now I'm at Starbucks scotch-taping expense reports and working the e-mail. Headed to ORD in a few hours to catch a flight to SEA for a day, then on to LAX until Thursday.

A few fun C.J. scenes of late:

"Daddy, what's it called when I have a really fast poop?"

"Diarrhea."

"Oh. What about when I have a slow poop?"

"I just call that regular poop."

"Eggrahlah poop?"

"Ummm..."

"Egg roll poop?"

"Yeah, close enough."

"Daddy, I hope I have an eggroll poop soon."

And then there was this one:

"Mommy, will you change my poopy diaper?"

"C.J., you're almost four, it's time for you to poopy in the potty. Mommy's getting tired of poopy diapers."

(thinking about it)

"Mommy...will God change my poopy diaper?"

FIXED? THINKIN' YEAH: Ya gotta love a decisive doc. I'm in there for like 30 seconds, she's poking around, and then: "This is a bacterial infection run rampant. Z-Pac, 800 milligrams of ibuprofen thrice a day, and a steroidal nose spray."

Here's hoping my massive influx of drugs will have me riding high on the flight to Seattle on Monday.

WHAT STARTLED LOOKS LIKE: Yep, this is it. Expulsion of air. Wide eyes. Stomach acid marching up the old Esophageal Trail... 

START THE MUSIC: Today's an all-day meeting, starting in moments and running straight through until 6:30PM. Then I rush to the airport, dump the rental car, and try and get my butt home before midnight. Long day!

I no longer marvel that people can do this, can find the energy and will to get through a work day that starts at 7:30AM and doesn't end until almost the next day. I see it nearly every week. What I do still marvel at is that people choose to live like this. Given the wide range of available options, I'm literally startled sometimes -- as in, "Huh?" -- that there exists a class of folks, among which you may count me, that keeps putting quarters in this particular carousel.

WOKE UP THINKING: Actually had some decent sleep last night, and my throat is about 50% as raw today as yesterday. I like to think that my gargling with saltwater ("yes, can you please send up two salt shakers to room 1131? great!"), noshing on Robitussin menthol lozenges, staying regular with the Advil, and begging off dinner last night so I could just take it easy were all contributing factors. I am beating this whatever-it-is! Of course, chances are it's just that the virus is running its course, or that my bodies defenses have finally discovered a more favorable strategy. Germs are, of course, simply little terrorists who seek to engage the corpus maximus in asymmetrical warfare. And the thing that's good to remember is that these little germs usually lose time and again...

...until they finally prevail, of course.

Nothing...nothing...nothing...lasts forever, now does it?

Odd that, somehow, that simple thought manages to be both the source of greatest comfort and stress all at once.

SAY IT KEANU-STYLE -- WHOA! Lebron James' mom, in addition to being a nutter, is also two years...wait for it...*younger* than me!

REFERRAL GENIUS: In my hotel's in-room GUEST SERVICES DIRECTORY, it says:

Doctor/Dentist: An "At Your Service" associate can refer you to a nearby doctor or dentist.

Wow! Great. I'm still feeling pretty crappy, and I decide that if I feel this way tomorrow I'm going to the doc. So I stop by the front desk on my way in from an evening reception.

"I'm thinking about seeing a doctor tomorrow. Do you have a list of doctors you refer guests to?"

"Huh?"

"I think I may want to see a doctor tomorrow, and in the book in the room it says..."

"Are you sick?"

"Well, I have this lingering sore throat, and I've had a fever off and on, and...look, do you have a list of doctors?"

"There's a hospital nearby."

"Okay, so you don't really have a list..."

"Mostly we just tell people to go over to the hospital. They have doctors there."

"Uh, okay. Thanks."

IN MY PATH FOR A REASON: I'm lucky enough to be working on a corporate project with a playwright by the name of Alex Dinelaris. Seems like a very good guy, talented, upbeat. Best of all, he's about my age, and he was telling me this morning about how just a few short years ago he was a guy that felt he ought to writing plays, but he hadn't really put it all together yet. All of a sudden the stars aligned, he made the commitment, took some time off to write, finished a play...and now finds himself with a play ready to open on Broadway this summer with Danny Aiello and Rosie O'Donnell in the leads. Inspiring!

YES! I have been immortalized in the Urban Dictionary.

BOO HOO: Sitting in a Hertz Business Center at Dallas-Fort Worth airport, just about to launch my rental Taurus or 500 or whatever they give me at Richardson, Texas. Unbelievably, I'm sick again. Very sore throat and body aches. Did the strep come back? Gonna look into a doc-in-the-box by my hotel. Sucks.

By the way, does this win my most-boring-post-ever?

ON GENIUS: Here's MSNBC's pretty solid take on the glory that was the first episode of SKATING WITH CELEBRITIES.

EVERYTHING I WANT FROM TV: You know, I thought AMERICAN IDOL was the most entertaining show on TV, but after only about 15 minutes of this SKATING WITH CELEBRITIES show, I gotta say:

Goddamn! How can I be sitting here laughing like a loon, grinning like a baboon at this show! Bruce Jenner in some kind of admiral's getup! This Sir John guy affecting the grumpy Simon role! This is just too much.

I think I love it.

(Addendum: For the love of God, Willis (as in "Whatchew talkin' 'bout Willis") is about to skate! From Rikers to the rink! I love it! I love it!)

SLICE OF LIFE: There's something in the air at my hotel.

The place is packed with some serious yahoos. For a second, I thought I might be among my NASCAR brethren, this horde of rural-seeming, puffy men hell-bent on whooping it up and/or squiring their wide-eyed families through the large hotel lobby. But these folks, salt of the earth and all, are just a little too...down-market for NASCAR. These are some odd folk. I started looking at their name tags, trying to make out the logo. Hmmmm. Looked like it said they were with the PARK CONGRESS. Maybe that's it. These are national park-type people. Wilderness folk. Then I saw this sign:

Pfizer Animal Health & Hormel Happy Hour, 6:30PM

Then I stared harder at the name tags: Pork Congress. Pork. As in porcine. Piggies!

"Excuse me," I say to a man in the elevator. "Does your name tag say 'Pork Congress?'"

"Yes, indeed," he says. "We're pig people."

SPECIAL TO CASEY THE ENTERTAINER: A-ight, Case! Way to go! I'm sure Mom "had a chuckle." 

WHAT HE SAID: "Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation." - Graham Greene

WHY IS EXERCISE STUCK IN THE GYM? I'm standing at the Baggage Claim yesterday, waiting and waiting to retrieve my suitcase (so much for the PRIORITY tag they always stick on it due to my frequent-flier status), and it hits me: What about a public exercise movement?

Why can't I just drop down right there and knock out some push-ups and some sit-ups? Why can't I do some step-ups on the baggage carousel or knock out some dips on the chairs nearby? Why not?

Well, I'd look like a goof, right? But why is it that we don't feel ashamed when we do unhealthy things in public, like knock down a Cin-A-Bun or smoke a cigarette or polish off 73 frozen margaritas? Why are those behaviors more socially acceptable?

So what about it? Should I launch publicexercise.blogspot.com and document examples of people exercising in public, making their waiting time in doctors' offices and supermarket lines and so forth add up to something healthy?

The answer is no, no more blogs. But I think I'm onto something, nonetheless...

THIS & THAT: As I mentioned in my COMMENTS, I somehow had the big Mo to head down to the workout room last night upon arrival in Minneapolis. In typical me fashion, I had a bit of a spaz-out down there, using the treadmill, the elliptical, the weights and weight machines, the pool, and the hot tub. Had a nice dinner of local walleye and some veggies, and I slept pretty well. I also made the mistake of making a late-night run to the local Borders store which, according to their website, should have been open until 11PM. Alas, when I arrived there entirely frozen (no, Mom, I did not bring a hat or gloves) at 9:55PM they told me I had five minutes to thaw out on accounta: "We're closing, bub." Nice. I had head-freeze on the walk back which was quickly remedied by a big to-go glass of the house Zin. And...scene.

Just finished Michael Collins' LOST SOULS, a book I grabbed on a whim in Santa Monica 'cause I liked the cover and one of the blurbs on the back. And wow! This guy can write his ass off. Sort of David Gates meets Michael Connelly. Artistically sound, rather bleak prose that organically pulls the reader from page to page like a Grisham...with none of the aftertaste. A definite model for the kind of novel I hope to write.

PROOF THERE IS RACISM IN THIS COUNTRY: New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin is really something else. Can you imagine if the mayor of some super-white city...like, say Minneapolis or something, where I am right now, and where it's so goddamn windy and cold they oughta shut the whole city down until spring...I digress...can you imagine if the mayor of some white-guy city said, "We want to keep this city the only way it can be, white as snow!" (Yep, snow. Works for Minneapolis.) It's a wonder he didn't start a chant of "No more honkeys!"

YOU'RE JEALOUS: Off to icy Minneapolis for the rest of the week!

BULLY FOR SULLY! The new AndrewSullivan.com launched today under the auspices of the Time.com mothership. My initial take: Splendid. Jolly good. Love it.

FUNNY? YES. SMART? NO. I love Letterman. I'm a fan. I'm more of a Letterman fan than an O'Reilly fan by a long stretch. But Letterman comes off so badly and O'Reilly comes off so well in this clip, that I have to wonder if my allegiance is in the wrong place.

GO WEST: This blogger is bound for glory, this blogger. Or at least bound for Los Angeles.

Repeat after me: Monday night, Anaheim; Tuesday night, West Hollywood; Wednesday night, Santa Monica; Thursday night, arrive in Chicago around 10:00PM. Long week.

Both boys have strep throats; and I woke up with a golfball in my throat this morning. Luckily my doc phoned in an amoxicillin order, so all is hopefully on the mend, or at least headed that way.

THE BOOGEYMAN CHECKS HIS CLOSET FOR CHUCK NORRIS: If you haven't yet seen the "Top Thirty Facts About Chuck Norris," you've gotta check 'em out. High, high comedy. One of my favorites: "Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits."

GOOD ADVICES: A good pal just reminded me of something I already knew: To be a writer, write.

Sort of like, to be a vegetarian, eat vegetables. To be a meditator, sit your ass down. Etc.

'NOTHER HAIR FLASHBACK: Here's more of the mid-college "new wave" look, as forwarded to me from an old friend. I think I look a bit like a lady. Oh, well. 

WHAT'S ALREADY STICKING IN MY CRAW IN '06: I wake up thinking, "I want to be a writer." Some mornings, or more likely some nights after wine, that thought twists into, "I am a writer."

Of course I'm not.

I proudly told one of my sisters-in-law that one of the great things about me is I know what I'm good at, and I know what I suck at. I have a healthy sense of shame, I told her, a filter that allows me to "know better" before I run out (into the marketplace, the town square, the public space) and embarass myself. I have a real and functioning governor on my own idiocy. Keeps me from making a fool of myself. And she pointed out, in so many words, that that same governor is what stands between me and really taking a chance, putting myself out there in a way that I might fall, might fly, might feel really and fully alive.

Doorway to greatness? Governor's minding it. Why bother?

Clearly I've grown older, and with age and experience I've grown more reasonable and responsible. Heck, look how nice my hair looks now!

:-)

And yet...as I've grown I've had to shed a layer of skin (along with all the hair). I used to think that "skin" was just the shadow part of me that was reckless and selfish. No big whoop. Farewell and such.

Now I wonder if maybe there weren't some strands of my soul wrapped up in what I stepped out of .

Wow. Talk about a "Happy New Year" post! Off to the soul-searching races in '06!

MORE HAIR, LESS WEIGHT: Eventually I lost some weight and grew some hair. This is pretty much how I've looked, plus or minus a few pounds a quarter-inch of hair or so, for the past five years. 

CURBING HIS FABULOUSNESS: Larry David on BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN. Hilarious.

CLIPPED: During my music biz days I just shaved it all off, boho-style. I was also a bit fat. 

KOOKY CONSULTANT: Here's my look when I got the gig at Andersen Consulting, which was also right around when I got hitched. The hedge is back! 

COLLEGE GRAD: Thankfully by graduation the hedge had been trimmed back to youthful respectability, with a touch of flair. 

COLLEGE RAD: By the time I got to college I smoked cigarettes, braided and colored my hair, and had completely lost my mind. 

THE MANY MOODS OF MY MANE: Okay, so here are some haircut shots...


First, here's me in seventh grade, sporting the basic straight-hair look, medium length. 

HAIR-DO YOU DO: After a long layoff the only way for me to break the seal on this blog, so to speak, is to just start writing and see what comes out.

I went for a haircut this morning, distinguished perhaps most of all by the fact that it wasn't much of a haircut. For the past several years I've been wearing my hair very, very short -- triple-zero blades on the sides and finger-length on top -- and before that I wore a shaved head (wore!) for about four years, which I clippered down myself once/week and then razored smooth in the shower. So today when I went to Sheila, I was like, well, hold on a second there, let's just clean up the thatch up there and set it up for growth, you know? I told her take the ends off, more or less, shape the frizzies into something topiary-like, but mostly just leave it alone.

I've had hair periods in my life actually. I remember from like zero to about seventeen my hair was basically medium-length and straight, albeit with a quick perm-detour in seventh-grade when I was inspired by Mike Ditka (dude, *everybody* was doing it) and some of my black friends at school to go with an unnatural "natural." And I mean it was a rush, a cross-cultural buzz to carry a pick in my back pocket. That was about the same time my friend Scott Bowling (the blackest white kid at school, really) introduced me to parachute pants and Giorgio Brutini pointy-shoes. We listened to Zapp on WDAO ("White Days Are Over") and we did our best to learn line-dances with turns and twirls and funky backsteps and shit. Lordy. And then we moved to Grosse Pointe, Michigan. Won't you take me to...preppytown! I'll tell ya, my parachute pants were not winning me a spot at the cool-kids lunch table in that town. Faster than you can say makeover my new friends were helping me pick out plaids and polos and busting down by billowing backthatch of mullet-tude, saving the day for me.

But alas, I was talking about hair periods. Straightish, with the permed and mulleted variations tossed in, from about zero to 17 or so. Then I began to notice that, left untended after a shower, the top of my head actually had something of a wave to it, a curly flourish that was friggin' perfect for teasing up into a Thompson Twins tuft (made all the more dramatic by shaving the sides high and tight). And that's where my college nickname, one of 'em, came from, the Human Hedge. I had this big old hair-stack on top, spilling down toward my big forehead like a Seuss character, all through college (granted, there was that brief flattop era) and even up until my wedding around the age of 26. Rest assured, I look like an extra from the movie VALLEY GIRL in my wedding shots, sort of Lyle Lovett in a bad rental tux with a floral cummerbund. Lovely.

When the billowing new wave 'do started to suffer from hairline recession, well, I pretty much just went apeshit and shaved my head one night, drunk, on my wife's 30th birthday. It's a funny story, but too long for now. And for about four years I kept the cue-ball look, Mr. Clean plus a paunch, I hate to admit. Somewhere five or so years ago I actually got my butt back into some shape (all of me, really) and, at the same time, let some hair grow in. And I figured out this high-and-tight, cleaned-up look I've been sporting, sort of Bruce Willis meets OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN. Somewhere along the way I discovered the goatee, an ingenious way to look thinner and make shaving take less time.

Where I sit right now, in addition to being off the schneid on Blind Camel for '06, is with a slightly fluffy, almost "Chia" look, the transition point between my manicured, quasi-military look of the past five years and the follicular folly that is to come. Stay frickin' tuned. Makes for gripping blogging, I can assure you.

WHAT I'VE BEEN READING OF LATE: Seems like I've spent most of my writing energy on other people's blogs of late, writing comments and advice and whatnot. I am the king of unsolicited guidance...

I've been especially entertained and engaged by the writing on The Phone Rang and Infidelity Bites. On the first, a whimsical man channels his inner child *and* his wise old man while dealing with the aftermath of his wife's infidelity. On the second, a very grounded-sounding woman alternates between her inner lawyer and her magnanimous lover, sifting through the rubble after her husband's infidelity. I read both regularly, and I can't help myself from weighing in on their complementary plights, perhaps far too often.

I also make regular visits to Do Over, The Least of My Worries, Nobody Knows It, and Just Procrastinating. (They feature, respectively: more post-infidelity blues; child-rearing and self-actualization blues; still more post-infidelity blues; and light musing about most anything.)

Finally, I've enjoyed keeping up on my brother and his wife, on their dual (and every once in a while, dueling) blogs. He writes Mission From Dog; she hammers out Phaneromania.

For whatever reason, I've spent far less time on the political blogs of late, although I do still go for a fairly regular dose of Andrew Sullivan.

When I'm really bored, I dig into Perez Hilton, perhaps my faoorite guilty pleasure of '06.

So what are y'all reading, when you have the chance?

TOP SECRET SKUNK: You gotta love this.

Also, this will be fun: Laurel, Mom...where do you think his nickname comes from? What do you think it means?

MY TWO CENTS ON TOOKIE: I'm against the death penalty. I believe in the sanctity of life, that a society must make laws and endorse practices that celebrate and embrace and protect life, even the life of a murderer. That said, if we're going to have a death penalty (which, again, I'm against), it certainly seems like Tookie Williams is the kind of guy that should receive it.

WHO ASKED ME ABOUT THE OSCARS? Look, I'm usually terrifically shy about expressing my opinions...but the subject of who hosts the Academy Awards is simply too juicy for me to leave alone. I must be heard.

Apparently it won't be Chris Rock. Fine. I think he's overrated, and his stint last year wasn't particularly funny. (I know I'm in the minority when I say that David Letterman was, for me, by far the funniest host since Johnny Carson. Loved him.)

According to this article, the candidates look to be: Steve Martin, Jay Leno, Whoopi Goldberg, and Conan O'Brien.

C'mon. There's only one person in that list who deserves consideration.

Steve Martin's career over the past ten years has been an embarassment. That CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN franchise is actually beyond embarassing. Horrifying. And that thing with Queen Latifah? Steve is out.

Jay Leno? Not funny. Not. Funny. Not even a little bit. Sure, he seems like a nice guy. But. He. Is. Not. Funny. The word 'painful' comes to mind, actually.

Whoopi? The most loathsome possibility of all. Big fat overrated sanctimonious loudmouth who must be the luckiet person alive. Host? Nost.

So...it's Conan. I mean, I'd watch that. (I'd at least Tivo it.) I'm counting the days 'til Conan takes over the Leno debacle. Let's give the carrot-topped nutball a shot at primetime.

Here's hoping he gets the gig and does running gags about Sean Penn and Tim Robbins.

TAKES AFTER HIS GRANDFATHER: We got like a zillion gallons of snow dumped on us last night, as you no doubt know, given the horrible tragedy at one of our airports.

Anyway, after my no-shit three-hour-plus commute home last night, I had a fun exchange with CJ while watching a TV show on Disney World:

"Daddy, where is Disney World?"

"It's in Florida."

"Is it summer in Florida?"

"It's always summer in Florida."

"Can we go to Florida right now?"

"No, we can't. It's far away from Chicago."

"Daddy, I don't like Chicago anymore."

WHO LOVES KANYE? KANYE! It's offical: Kanye West is an arrogant twit. As evidence I give you Kanye's comments about the upcoming Grammy awards, plucked from a recent MTV interview:

"If I don't win Album of the Year, I'm gonna really have a problem with that," said West. "I can never talk myself out of [winning], you know why? Because I put in the work. I don't care if I jumped up and down right now on the couch like Tom Cruise. I don't care what I do, I don't care how much I stunt — you can never take away from the amount of work I put into it. So I don't wanna hear all of that politically correct stuff. You put the camera in front of me, I'm gonna tell you like this. I worked hard to get here. I put my love, I put my heart, I put my money [into Late Registration]. I'm $600,000 in the hole right now on that album and you tell me about being politically incorrect?

He goes on to suggest that the song "Gold Digger" -- the one where Jayme Foxx yells "tell me, mama" using a retarded accent -- is the clear-cut song of the year.

What the fuck is he talking about?

First off, who cares who wins the Grammy, any Grammy? Since when has the Grammy ever been a true measure of merit? Next, can he really believe that his work -- the product and the effort that went into it -- so far exceeds everyone else's that awarding him Album of the Year should be a foregone conclusion?

Is it just me, or is this guy so far up his own shorts that he's hanging from his uvula?

Given all the hype, I've tried repeatedly to find even one Kanye song that appeals to me. No dice. Uck. Sucks. Sucks. He's a lame performer, a mediocre MC, and a boor. Rumor has it he's a good producer, but if that's the case I wish he'd just park his ignorant ass behind the board and shut the fuck up.

THE WORD POTBOILER COMES TO MIND: Just finished BLACK, a none-too-literary but fairly enjoyable debut novel by former FBI Hostage Rescue Team member Christopher Whitcomb. Lots of fun, breezy, etc., but unfortunately stuck with a stupid, tie-up-all-loose-ends-cheaply ending. Was totally planning on reading WHITE, the sequel, until about the last 15 pages or so. We'll see. Will definitely wait for the paperback. In the meantime, to cleanse my literary palate, am contemplating picking up the new Coetzee. (His DISGRACE is one of my fave books of all time.)

SAY HI TO HELMULLET MANIA: Please don't forget to visit my other site. I'm convinced I'm doing some of my best work there.

GLADLY TURNING BITCHES OUT: Sometimes the stuff that gets posted in my COMMENTS section is just too good not to reprint. Here's my brother Eric holding forth on seeing Snoop Dogg on the ELLEN show:

Please don't ask why, but I happened to see Snoop do his new hit "Drop it like it's hot" about a year ago on the "Ellen" show. It was somewhat of a watershed pop culture moment for me.

At one point, Mr. Broadus danced up into the audience, composed mainly of young to middle aged females, many of whom were no doubt soccer moms. They were having a good time dancing to the rap music- some even got to dance solo with the man himself. And Snoop's doing his thing-singing about being a pimp and turning bitches out. They obviously didn't understand that Snoop would gladly turn any of these bitches out as well (explanation for Laurel [here my brother is giving a shout-out to his wife,, Laurel, who never gets anything like this]- this means Snoop would become their pimp and earn money when they prostituted themselves to men on the street).

I have to believe that Snoop's posse must have been watching this back in the green room and having the same type reaction I was having... almost as if they'd entered a parallel universe. Or perhaps they knew their message just needed time and that this was where it was all headed anyways.

(by the way, these types of juxtapositions seem to happen all the time these days- I think one of the first I can remember was when Rage Against the Machine played Saturday Night Live when they were hot- the final goodbye scene on stage showed the lead singer for Rage arm in arm with that night's host, Steve Forbes.)

I'M BAD, I'M NATIONWIDE: I'm in New York...but not for long.

Sitting in the JFK Red Carpet lounge. Flew in here yesterday morning -- up at five, on the way to the airport by six, on a plane at eight, presenting right after lunch, dinner, then out to the Hampton Inn at the airport. Did manage to have really good sushi with an old friend, so that was nice.

Now am awaiting a five-hour-or-so flight out to LAX (so my 5AM wake-up call here had me up at 2AM L.A. time -- oy), where I'll land and drive in to Burbank and chatter some more. Had the good sense not to make dinner plans tonight, so I'll probably just melt into my room in West Hollywood. More chattering tomorrow morning, then a bird back to Chicago in the late afternoon, arriving home around 8PM.

This kind of travel dulls the senses, the emotions, everything. It's not a big deal, not as if I'm doing anything so terribly hard. But it just kind of kicks your butt, little by little by little. I am amazed at how easily and vacantly I can wake up in a strange bed, get myself dressed and packed up, and stagger through security and onto a plane.

Nice thing on my upcoming flight is that it's a three-class flight -- United's "Premium Service" -- and I've got a cushy business class seat with my own power outlet. Several times ago I had the good fortune to watch NAPOLEON DYNAMITE on my complimentary personal DVD player. Alas, this flight will be filled with editing, e-mail triage and, hopefully, a cat nap or two.

It's a living!

STRANGER THAN FICTION: Good gracious do we live in ridiculous times.

THE NEXT BIG THING IN PARENTING: A little more than a year ago I stumbled upon a parenting philosophy that was so effective I considered writing a book so I could share it with the world. This morning, while my youngest son was objecting loudly to my dual diaper-changing and nose-wiping activities, it came back to me:

"Who cares what you think?"

I really think it's a franchise. I'm tellin' ya, just saying those words I felt a sense of empowerment.

HELMULLET MANIA: One day the sun will never set on the expanding Blind Camel empire.

LIVIN' LA VIDA LOCA: As much as I bitch about my travel, it can be cool sometimes. Just back from dinner on South Beach at Nobu. Pretty much one of the finest sushi restaurants in the world, in one of the coolest locales. Great company at my table, and NASCAR drivers Jeff Gordon (draped by hot babe) and Casey Mears (sans babe, possibly sitting with Brian Vickers, but not sure given his ballcap) one table over. Not bad.

WHICH DO YOU WANT FIRST? The good news: Kurt Busch wasn't drunk. The bad news: He's that big an asshole when's he's sober!

DUMB & DUMBER: I posted something loosely about "intelligent design" and science inside a comment a few posts ago, and I thought it was not bad...so I'm reposting it here, on accounta I think it might inspire some fun back-and-forth. Here goes:

The whole "intelligent design" debate is kind of funny to me. I have no problem if intelligent design is presented in the classroom for what it is: a non-scientific explanation invented after the fact by religious people who want to merge biblical prose with scientific knowledge. Something like that. I mean, evolution is only a theory, too. It works better than intelligent design, if you play by the rules of science. But the thing I always hated 'bout science class was that scientists thought that creating some kind of language and classification system and memorizing it somehow represented knowledge. Science and Mathematics are amazing and useful tools, but they're just a lot of hand-waving at the end of the day. They can be used to produce tremendous good, just like the Humanities. But there's nothing absolute about the blueness of blue or the hydrogenness of water. It's just semantic hand-waving, useful for communication and even exploration, but a million miles short of any kind of absolute explanation of the intrinsic nature/meaning of life.

Discuss...

UNHOLY ALLIANCE: When Terrell Owens and Jesse Jackson get together, which one looks worse by association? I call it a toss-up.

I also enjoyed Ralph Nader's insane two cents. Wow, I was totally wondering about his take on this. So good of him to weigh in.

Still waiting to hear from Janeane Garofalo...

PLEASE JUDGE ME: I often enjoy identifying my own character flaws, and I just stumbled on a major one. Here it is: As much as I'm into the NASCAR these days, as much as I don't mind wearing a NASCAR ballcap here and there, sporting my AC/DC-looking NASCAR t-shirt, and playing NASCAR Hot Wheels with my son in public areas...I still don't want to be pigeonholed. I want points for my eclecticism. Like Whitman, my ralling cry is something along the lines of "I contain multitudes," or whatever whoever said.

Back in the day, in high school and college, one of the ways I was able to advertise my catholic tastes was via my "wall stuff." My friggin' walls in my room were a testament to my good taste, to my wide-ranging interests and enthusiasms. Walk in my room and you were treated to a page ripped from INTERVIEW (some fashion photograph of the latest Edie Sedgwick-looking model), one of my poems writ large via photocopier, a ticket stub or backstage pass from some obscure rock show or another, a signed 8X10 glossy of Don Knotts or John Ritter, an old Polaroid of me in a high-school band, etc. It was all there, all of me, all my many moods and attitudes, etc. I remember distinctly an episode where I was trying to woo a girl -- this is way back in my Cincy days, when I had no money and no game but a ton of energy -- and she walked into my room and was like, "Wow, that's really incredible, all that stuff up on your walls." And my roommate, one of my oldest pals, just sort of rolled his eyes and chimed in with, "Yeah, you could call it that."

My younger brother Casey has, at times, isolated one of his own character challenges as not liking to be judged. I'm sorta the opposite: I'm dying to be judged, so long as I can kibbitz with the judges, glad-handle 'em, have some one-on-one interview time, turn on the old charm, etc. My worry is not that I'll be judged -- c'mon, lookie-lookie, I love it! -- but that I'll be misjudged. As the song says, "Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood."

And I was reminded that this is an issue of mine just recently, when a new Blind Camel commenter (and the author of a captivating blog about marriage woes) opened her post here with the remark that she didn't care much for NASCAR (or something like that). She went on to say some hugely nice things about your humble blogger, supernice, but for the life of me I haven't been able to get over the fact that, for her, I may have been pigeonholed as "that NASCAR guy."

Funny, it just occurs to me that this blog...have I written this before...I'd swear I have...that this blog is just another example of my "wall stuff," tacked up on the ethers for all to behold.

No wonder my old pal never reads this. He's seen it all before.

SULLY GOES BIGTIME: As you no doubt know by now, I'm a huge fan of Andrew Sullivan's blog, and so it was with great interest that I read about its impending move to the TIME corporate servers. In a nutshell, TIME will host Andrew's blog and provide the kind of back-office support that an entity of its great size is made to provide. According to Andrew, he'll maintain full editorial control and ownership. This sounds like a win/win to me and only serves to intensify my sense of brand loyalty toward TIME, an entity which I've long considered one of the best of its kind.

NO MORE SCIENCE HATERS NEED APPLY: Let me go on record early: In '08 I'm looking for a candidate that's unabashedly pro-stem cell research. In fact, I'm looking for someone who can reconcile his or her spiritual wishes (faith, whatever) with scientific reality. Do I think science is the be-all and the end-all? Nope. Do I think there's a place for religion in one's governing temperament? Indeed. But do articles like this make me pissed off that Bush 43 has been a foot-dragger? You bet.

If the Dalai Lama were more of a hawk on defense, he might be my guy...

BUSCH TO THE BENCH: Dumbass gets what he deserves. I'd love to see the video of him lipping off to the cops. You just know he was giving it the "do you know who I am" treatment.

IT'S THE LITTLE THINGS: One of the reasons I'm loathe to consider leaving Chicago (for better weather and/or career options) is this: I get to watch the Bears/Cubs on TV pretty much all the time. Sometimes I wonder how my brother in Ann Arbor and my dad in St. Clair Shores can stand missing the Bears game. I'm sitting HERE watching, feeling totally excited and immersed, and I can't believe they're not sitting THERE wondering, wishing, missing.

Such is the grip of sports.

WHAT A STROKE: Further evidence that defending NASCAR Nextel Cup champ Kurt Busch is a total doof.

SAY IT AIN'T SO, GOB: I may have turned half-Republican of late, but I can still dust off my elitist bonafides from time to time. And this story reminds me of one of the bedrock theses of my young-adult life: The mass of Americans have no friggin' taste.

ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT is like the one good situation comedy on network televison in the past decade, and nobody's watching. You can't blame the network for cancelling it. I just marvel that Leno and EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND are what passes for many for the mass of Americans. Maybe my Inner Snob will reintroduce me to my Inner Democrat.

CUE BEAVIS-LAUGH: Whoa! Check out the name on this guy who's the third-string center for the Clippers. (Heh heh, heh heh heh.)

ROADBLOGGING: I've been a lazy blogger of late, but it's not because I don't love you.

Last week I was in Seattle. It was foggy and raining, believe it or not. And yet there's something about foggy and rainy in Seattle that feels just right. Seattle is a Fall or a Winter, if she had her colors done. Had a great dinner at a place called Wild Ginger, an Asian-Fusion hotspot downtown.

Started this week in Laguna Niguel, at a conference at the Ritz there. Hertz slapped me into a Jaguar, which was nice. Spoke at a conference, then rolled up to LAX to fly to where I am now, Sacramento. Turns out I'm here on the day the state votes up or down on their Governator, more or less.

What else? My son turned one, developed another double ear infection, decided he hated cupcakes. (Good for him. Me too!)

My wife threw a fantastic little shindig at our overstuffed, undersized urban hipster casa, a fiesta rife with sushi and rice crackers and old friends.

I finished another Hard Case Crime book, finished THE GAME. I fell in love with The Postal Service.

Anyway, the lid is back off my posting again. This was one of those "break-the-seal" missives, aimed at getting me back off the schneid. More from a Red Carpet Club near you soon.

TO PRAISE THEO, NOT TO BURY HIM: I love the Theo Epstein story: Boy-wonder gets promoted to GM of his hometown ballclub, takes 'em to their long-awaited World Series championship.

From everything I've heard and read, he sounds like a heck of a guy. I think I'd like him. And yet...I've had about enough of this drama, the idea that this story is anything more than a new general manager for a baseball team.

C'mon, guys. "This will make me stronger," says Epstein. The principal owner Henry near tears. (It's all in the story, in hand-wringing commentaries across every medium.)

Thing is, all the talk about having to put body and soul into the job, the sacrifices...this ridiculous world of professional sports where the coaches and execs give up a normal family life for some kind of manufactured glory...it's, well, silly.

I'm a sports fan. I get what it is to be carried away by the uberstory, the metastory of your favorite athlete or team. But this thing, this fandom, is a kind of willful suspension of disbelief. It's not real. Somehow I'm not so sure Epstein, who's been doing this since he was 18, remembers that this whole mess is over a dumb job that pays him a fortune. The kid was blessed. Here's hoping he's blessed again. And even more, here's hoping he learns how to lighten up a bit. (Granted, the whole Red Sox Nation needs a chill pill, which is one of the reasons Manny's going to be Manny somewhere other than Boston next year.)

PUSH-UPDATE: Although it's been a while since I last mentioned my ongoing push-up campaign, rest assured I'm still on the job. Just knocked out 62 pretty good ones on the floor of my Hilton Seattle hotel room. Going down for another set, minimal rest...

(pause)

Okay, only 25 more, which means that 62 effort wasn't half bad. One more try...

(pause)

25 more, and I'm wiped. Not bad.

Pity I can't muster enough willpower to go for a run. I have a cold. Sniffle.

SI, TIMEX: Look, it's a bit of an understatement to say that Bush 43 is something of a polarizing figure. (And I know, he's a bumbler, a stooge, in bed with crazy Christians, etc. Let's not go there.)

Nonetheless, my brother Casey forwarded me an article this morning that reminds me what an immensely, intrinsically likable figure he can be. I love this:

When the reporter from La Nacion asked Bush to show him what he carries, the president stood up, fished in his pockets, then dramatically pulled his hands out holding nothing but a white handkerchief that he waved playfully in the air.

"Es todo," Bush told the Spanish-speaking reporter, meaning the handkerchief was all. "No dinero, no mas. No wallet."

I'll save you the effort, my friendly commenters. Here's your joke:

"His pockets are just like his head -- empty."

There you go. No charge.

GET YOUR MOUTH SHUT: In an article about ongoing teen riots in Paris, French "Equal Opportunities Minister" Azouz Begag has this to say:

"It is by fighting the discriminations of which young people are victims that we will re-establish order, the order of equality. Not by bringing out more CRS (riot police)," Begag told the newspaper Liberation in an interview.

My reaction, in reading that quote, says everything about where my politics are today, versus where they were even five years ago.

Five years ago I would have been right with him, I bet. Root causes. Oppression. Che Guevara! Billy Bragg!

Now I just look at that quote and think, Bulllllll-shit. There are always some idiots looking for a reason to flip over cars and light shit on fire. NBA Championship. Social ills. Mad at the president. You name it. Bottom line is that idiots who are lighting cars on fire are idiots. Put me in the Zero Tolerance camp. Bring on the riot cops!

BTW, the title of this post is a direct quote once uttered by Mike Ditka to a reporter. I love it.

CUE THE STEVE MILLER: Throwing stuff in a suitcase this morning for a quick run (if there is such a thing) to Seattle. Dinner downtown tonight, then running out to Redmond for a meeting tomorrow. Then dinner back in the city Wednesday night, followed by an early AM flight back to Middle America.

My new standard work ensemble includes some stylish black trousers, a sleek black t-shirt, and a mini-V-neck black sweater with subtle black piping running vertically. Yes, ich bin ein Sprocket, or something like that. Black seems to go nicely with black. Plus it makes your average teen luminary seem that much more luminous, or so I hear.

More from the Red Carpet Lounge later today.