Baby Ralph and Baby Billy

Cleaning out my email box, here's a story from last fall.

On a trip last fall to California, just before the election...

I saw a talk hosted by author Stephen Elliott with special guest rock star/wannabe poet Billy Corgan.

Corgan can be a tough interview, slouching and sparring with the interviewer until he warms up. But definitely interesting and not afraid to be full of contradictions.

The crowd was younger than I thought it would be and aside from the digital camera flashes very polite, like high school English students. I should have expected as much. I saw the Pumpkins on one of their last tours, a stop in Rosemont Horizon as it was called then, about seven years ago.

Easiest concert EVER to buy beer, as the average age was about 16, and lots of kids were with Dad and Mom or had the minivan waiting for them afterward. MTV I guess.

The topic of voting came up, and the rock star said he wouldn’t be. (After all, he did once write that the world is a vampire - so what would be the point?)

He said the standard nonvoter line about how it doesn’t make a difference.

It reminded me of my viewing of Ralph Nader the day before at San Francisco State University. Old Ralph and Billy are on the money, so to speak, about the system being corrupt and needing to be fixed.

Not voting? It sounds romantic, but ultimately lazy (as is writing poetry without reading it first, as Corgan claimed he did, but that's another story).

Taken to its extreme, if everybody decided not to vote, then the system would have to change? I fail to see the logic.

Sure politics is corrupt. So is the business I am in, and you are in, and, most definitely the one that has paid Corgan’s salary.

But apathy doesn't fix anything.

Neither does being petulant like Nader. I'd have had more respect for him (and I do respect the great things he has done by being an advocate) if he had said in January he was going to run and worked his way to polling larger numbers. What he did when he did seemed merely an attempt again to muddy the waters (to Bush's advantage).

Again, taken to its extreme, what next, that things will get sooo bad under Bush's second term the system will have to be changed? If Ralphie Boy is right about him, he’s willing to take that risk?

Judging by the applause-o-meter for both Corgan's and Nader's statements at least in their own crowds, not a good number were buying it.

Nor were they buying Nader.

In one of the strangest moments (after Nader tossing aside a bottle of water left at the podium, or the socialists and LaRouchies in the lobby, or the sweet, chubby Palestinian kid with a speech impediment), after Ralph spoke, one of his buddies spoke then begged for donations in that PBS sort of way.

He got one college coed to pledge $1,000 (on Mom's Visa?) but not too many other takers (it's a campus for Christ’s sake -- he should have offered a kegger). And like PBS, if you pledged $75 you got a Nader book.

Needless to say, I bought neither Nader’s tome nor Corgan’s “poetry.”

The ghost of Tom Joad: Bush or Obama?

My father just got out of the hospital. I think he had an allergic reaction to Bush being reelected President. Or at least that's what I'm going with,
truth be damned. And I better stop swearing, lest I offend a morals voter. --

Anyway, my dad's stomach, which is normally a pot belly, grew to the size of carrying quadruplets in the third trimester. It happened the day after
Bush got his 51-48-1 "mandate" with big help from the "moral voters."

My dad was was in the hospital for four days and had a tube down his nose and throat. It made him talk like a cartoon mouse (or Harvey Pekar) for a day.

My dad thinks eating one bad thing a day equals staying the course on a healthy diet. And, though not tubby (like I am fast becoming), he
doesn't exercise. But these are back burner concerns to his distress over Bush being elected President for what actually is his first time.

This, of course, is hyperbolic subterfuge on my part, a writer's tool and one politicians use very well, too. Such a term may be hard for our President to
pronounce but skills at which he is the Grandmaster Flash working those wheels of steel.

Even in victory, the man is a master at it. Winning by one state and by 3 percentage points is hardly a lopsided victory. But there he was claiming a
mandate.

Then the spin goes to how morality played such a role in the election.

And all the Monday morning quarterbacking going on in the press and TV about this, finally, just made me laugh.

See, I still think Bush is a big fraternity boy-style liar. He ditched out of Vietnam, let his buddies slime John McCain four years ago and others smear Kerry's war record this time, convinced the public that Saddam had something to do with 9-11 and was evil villain pals with Osama who is still running free; gave a tax cut that helped the rich more than the middle class;
at the very least misled the public about weapons of mass destruction; and had that mysterious bulge in the back of his coat during the first debate.

When he was young he was a drunk, probably used cocaine a lot, probably slept around, but then he found Jesus. The Republican version.

Am I sounding like a cultural elite? Sorry. But like Jon Stewart pointed out the GOP Jesus is elitist, too, a sort of my way or the highway savior, who
says the only way you can get into his big afterlife party is to be "born again," which sounds painful.

What's funny though, is the GOP combines Jesus with Ayn Rand, a seeming contradiction. When you got an affable "regular guy" like W delivering the message, though, it goes down smooth, like it's the most
natural thing in the Free World.

Again with the hyperbolic subterfuge, the punditry, like I'm auditioning for a space on the couch next to the unctuous Chris Matthews.

For, despite all the post-election talk, what I think it came down to was personality - or what Willy Loman told his son, Biff, was the key to success in America, that it's important to be well-liked.

To paraphrase the suicidal salesman, John Kerry was liked, but not well-liked. He did get more votes for president than anyone, ever, besides
W. But he can't help that he commits a cardinal sin in the TV age (no not being a "liberal") -- being as stiff and a mortician.

He's just being himself, which is to say Charles Winchester III from MASH, or a rich guy from the
East. The cool Carhart coat couldn't change that. He is what he is.

Now Bush is a rich guy from the East too, but his Daddy moved the clan to Texas, sort of like Green Acres (Imagine that blueblood Barbara Bush at
home on the range. LMAO as they say on the Internet.) But Bush, has "it": the ability to seem, if not inspiring, at least comfortable, like a talk show
host (though hardly Oprah).

Clinton was the best Oprah president thus far, feeling our pain (and feeling up interns). But Bush is the PTL Club version of that.

Which is a really longwinded way to bring me to why I don't have this despair about the Democrats being spread in the media -- some of it
self-flagellation another part Bush-spin I am sure.

They just have to start looking harder and deeper (that sounds like a porn term; sorry, again) for a TV star of their own. Heck, Barack Obama is already being anointed one.

If this "moral values" crap were as cut and dried Republican as the after-talk would have it, Obama would have had a tougher time in his race. After all, he ran against Alan Keyes, the epitome of the moral virtues candidacy (whose own daughter is going to hell by his way of thinking).

Obama trounced Keyes and is now the junior Senator from Illinois.
I have seen Obama in person twice, the Saturday before the election and at his victory party.

He spoke out in pretty Republican West Dundee, IL and packed a place that holds 650 people. The big BUSH sign across the street was manned by 2-4 cold GOPers who took abuse from union guys about their man ditching out of Vietnam (ah the 60s, the decade that won't shut up).

Obama is everything Bush is before a crowd, and then some. Meaning he can pretty much talk in full sentences. Unlike Kerry, those sentences aren't
out of an inpenetrable novel. Like Bush, he doesn't shoot for the rafters like a preacher, but kicks it new school, like one of those guys at a "modern" church like Willow Creek, which is to say, like a TV guy, in
soothing tones.

So far at least, Obama is the Tiger Woods of American politics, the multiracial guy that our better instincts allow us to root for.

Obama's extended family is a virtual rainbow coalition - white, black, Hawaiian,
heck all that seems to be missing from the stage at the Hyatt victory fest was the "rainbow" which is to say a gay person.

His luck is such that no shady GOP operative was able to insidiously attack his Arabic-type name
or this melting pot family in the general election.

His wife is a pretty good speaker, too, and actually used the phrase "my babies' daddy" when introducing Obama.

There was one awful move though: a short movie, a montage of clips from his announcing his candidacy
to his speech at DemCon, which launched him into national stardom, like an ingenue on Broadway. Sad to say, it had a soundtrack with some sappy
song sung by (and probably written by) the same team that put out those “I Wanna Be Like Mike” Gatorade ads, with godawful Michael Bolton-like
vocals. Yet, how perfect the tie to Michael Jordan.

Obama’s campaign slogan was a curious, one, too: Yes We Can! That also is the theme song for kids'
show Bob the Builder.

I don't know a lot about Obama’s policies, but that he seems a pragmatic moderate/liberal (probably projecting my "values" onto him, like voters
do).

The “Yes We Can” theme took on a resonance I think can help the Dems - at both the suburban rally and the victory bash he closed with a
story about a 105 year old woman he met who voted for him.

He recounted her struggle over her century, in terms of advances scientific, technological but mostly social -- from segregation to the civil rights
movement (the 60s again) and beyond.

The Dems lost the south after Lyndon Johnson managed to get civil rights legislation passed in the 1960s. Johnson knew that might happen. He made a
moral choice, one he knew could cost plenty of votes for a long, long time.

Obama didn’t talk about this, but it was there just under the surface, that sometimes moral choices aren’t about manipulating voting blocks but doing the right thing, that right thing being based on tolerance.

They still have that part in the Bible, right? The part about judge not, lest ye be judged.

What about the part about loving thy neighbor?

......anyway, the Friday before the election I got into a heated discussion with a Bushie by accident. I violator a big rule: never talk about politics with strangers at a place that serves flaming cheese.

I opened my big mouth by saying I thought the election would be close and probably a mess like last time. He thought Bush would win in a landslide -- because of how he is handling the war.

I couldn't resist challenging his point of view.

I told him he listens to Rush Limbaugh too much, which it turned out was right assessment.

What's wrong with Rush he asked? Leaving the
hypocrisy of his drug addiction aside, I said he does nothing to advance the debate; plays to his base; and finds ridiculous examples of those who have
differing views.

(I happen to know quite a few loopy right-leaning Christians. Like people who make their kids take purity pledges. Or, more to the point, ones who if were secular/liberal that ass Limbaugh would be all over -- like the women from the local community college who teach at Cook County Jail in summer, a class for cons in a church-run program focusing on the Seven Habits of Highly effective people. Students from the same school head to Chicago on weekends trying to convert prostitutes to Jesus.)

Hell, at the high school this guy sends his son, (I heard from a friend’s son that) a kid was worried if he voted for Kerry in a mock election if it would be considered a sin. And a coworker of mine was shunned by some of his congregation when he admitted he was indeed going to vote for Kerry...

Anyway, I’m posting this now, a week or so after Bush’s inauguration - Freedom Fest 2004, with the tightest security ever, $40 million in parties and a promise to end tyranny, like a Republican Tom Joad protecting Dust Bowl migrant workers.

Who do you think read the book, Bush or Obama?

What a Stass-hole!

So I'm watching TV Friday night, because that is what I do on Friday nights: sit in my apartment and flip through the dial. It's not even cable, because I am too cheap to pay for endless repeats of home decorating shows, lists-o-plenty, sports no one should care about and angry white men yelling at each other.

Speaking of, I happened upon a "special" on ABC from the "reporter" who from now on shall be referred to as John Stass-hole, as he is a virtual rectum of slanted and disenchanted information.

Shallow Hal that I am, I immediately took a disliking to Stass-hole the first time I saw him. I don't remember when that was, but I do recall the mustache and the perm. He looks like a '70s porn star, which is fitting as he's a dick.

He's become famous for his catch phrase, "Gimme a break." I am among those who would gladly oblige, if he means his nose or his legs.

What pisses me off so about him? For starters, the gimme a break shtick is typical whiney white male crap. He's always miffed at some type of perceived injustice or goofiness.

Thing is, even on the rare occasion when he has a point, he ruins it with his own lack of logic.

Last night he railed about how surburban sprawl is not a bad thing, but a chance for more people to own homes. Well that may be true, but it sort of glosses over things such as: the lack of planning going on; companies playing towns off of each other for huge tax breaks that don't necessarily benefit the people; a lack of concern about availability of natural resourses, particularly water; a lack of culture; the dominance of the automobile which is contributing to isolation and the collective huge ass of this nation.

He also seemed to imply that privatization of the ocean might be a good way to protect it. He showed this high school class example where the teacher passed around candy and let each person secretly take whatever they wanted, and if there was any left at the end of the pass, she'd redouble the amount.

Of course, none was left. But when she made the kids responsible for their own candy (which represented fish), they tended to it, for the reward coming.

And this shows how privatizing the oceans could work?

Well, wouldn't better enforcement of existing laws do the trick too? And exactly how do you divvy up water? Do you put big pens up so fish can't move from one area to the other.

In Stass-hole land this all was related to how bad public parks and toilets are. Well maybe where he lives, but the parks in Chicago and in the suburb where I live are generally well-kept and maintained by the government for all to use. Maybe it's just where I travel, but I haven't seen a totally repugnant public toilet it a long time -- though I'm guessing Stass-hole spends more time in them than I ever would.

He also railed about how outsourcing is really helping the American economy, not hurting it. Tell it to anyone who has lost a job, Stass-hole.

Of course, he is partially right on this. Outsourcing in and of itself may not be a bad thing. But what happens when those foreign workers start making too much money, too? Where do the jobs go next?

And the middle class in the country is shrinking. There are figures that show this, just as he had his chart to show how prices have deflated over time.

Stass-hole claims he is debunking what so-called experts say. Yet, he fails to respect the complexity of the issues at hand, too.

But complexity and nuance don't play well on TV. It's better to act pissed off.

Give us all a break and retire, like that annoying Barbara Walters and the strange Dan Rather.

I wanna be a producer

It’s funny how the country is so homophobic about Broadway musicals and show tunes. You say a guy likes them and it’s shorthand for him being gay.

Oh sure, there is a certain fabulousness about them. But it’s a fabulousness middle-aged housewives adore, too. In fact, I dislike so many musicals because they seem like something you’d see at Great America or a lounge in Nevada, not because I fear that I may have a feminine side.

Back to paragraph one, aside two: Yet, men watching men in tight pants line up with their asses in the air to play football is considered a perfectly fine way for heterosexuals to spend an afternoon. Mind you, the “pigskin action” doesn’t start until after the smart one puts his hands right when the big fat one’s ball sack is.

Come to think of it, it’s surprising more gay guys don’t admit to liking sports. Same should hold true for straight guys and musicals as they usually contain bevies of leggy chorus girls.

That was the case with Spamalot, the opening night of which I recently attended (geeze, I sound like one of thsoe smarmy gossip columnists). That the dancers seemed right out of Show Girls only added to my amusement.

And that’s not even mentioning sexy Sara Ramirez who stole the show as the Lady of the Lake. Ramirez knows how stupid it is to sing with histrionics like Whitney Huston and her demonic spawn on American Idol, and mocks them all.

If you’re not familiar with Spamalot, it’s an adaptation of the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail. As Broadway is New York’s biggest tourist trap, most shows these days are adaptations. Too many producers figure that rubes from the Midwest only want to see the tried and true, that which will make them comfortable.

Don’t get me wrong. Spamalot is a lot of fun. It has many of the movie’s funniest bits, and the songs are by and large funny parodies of typical show tunes of the late 20th and early 21st Centuries.

That’s to say, the numbers take the piss out of crap Andy Lloyd Weber puts in excrement like Cats and The Phantom of the Opera -- over-emotive, pseudo-operatic schmaltz. Every time I hear such drivel it makes me think of that old hag Margaret Thatcher, and it causes me to picture her listening to Memories while she soaks in a milk bath.

Now, if you remember the movie, you know it doesn’t exactly have much of a plot. It’s basically a Bob Hope/Bing Crosby movie on acid, making silly fun of the English obsession with royalty and its Camelot myth. It’s 1970s vaudeville with an edge.

The play does the same, and throws in good-natured mocking of big budget musicals. But it also misses many opportunities to be more cutting for the sake of settling for are (tongue-in-cheek?) attempts to please its intended audience.

Where it goes south is in the second act. With writing skill right out of an entry level Second City class (and I should know because I was in something stupid called Revenge of the Muffin People and I took one of those classes) the quest for the Holy Grail becomes a quest to get to Broadway.

This largely seems an excuse to have a song about the need to have Jews in anything you bring to Broadway. It’s a funny song in a Mel Brooks sort of way, which is what this show is to a large extent. And that’s not a bad thing.

Knowing, too, that a large part of the theater crowd is indeed gay, the show also has Lancelot come out of the closet and marry a prince.

And the show ends with Arthur and his men finding the grail under the first seat in the first row, bringing the “peasant” (a guy who pays for front row seats is a peasant?) on stage for the last number.

Given the nature of this era, there certainly are more topical and more pointed ways to deal with the grail thing:

The knights could learn that Arthur paid the Lady of the Lake to make up the whole grail story in order to shore up his power. But, since they have learned to like being knights, it won’t matter to them.

Arthur could look for the grail under the round table.

Snoop Dogg could sit in the front row for the Broadway opening. Those rappers love their golden goblets.

OK, maybe those aren’t funny either.

The show also could take more jabs at the Lord of the Rings phenomenon. That last part of the trilogy is well made, but way too long and way overrated.

Stop me before I turn into a theater queen -- I mean critic.

Besides, Spamalot at least knows with a wink and a nod the goofy fun a musical can be.

I’m not so sure about the other headed for Broadway show I got to see last week. (Hey, I get free tickets as part of my job. And I dig the fact that the good people at the PR firm are nice enough to give me seats as good as any of the writers at the big boy papers. It makes me feel important, if just for a few hours.)

That show would be All Shook Up, which uses songs sung by Elvis Presley in a story that combines elements of 12th Night and Midsummer’s Night Dream, but sets it in 1955 Middle America.

What the play shows is that it’s hard to make songs fit a story, instead of the other way around.

The plot here proves that Shakespeare has his faults, too. The zany tale here involves a roustabout coming to town and all the wackiness that ensues, most of it involving people falling in and out and in love over the course of his short visit.

As this is set in an imaginary 1955, the black people and white people get along and even hang out in the same bar. And the leading lady in the play is a young mechanic.

Of course, she falls in love with the roustabout. To win his affection she disguises herself as a man (not very convincingly) to gain his confidence as a friend. Only the roustabout falls for what he thinks is a guy.

Hey, like I said, producers know their audience, and that means a little something for the tourists a little something for the Village People.

This was all very silly, and it played like the Johnny Bravo cartoon crossed with one of those skits from the old Carol Burnett Show. It really needed Harvey Korman and Tim Conway.

Instead it had a guy named Cheyenne Jackson in the Elvis-like role. Who names their kid Cheyenne? He must have taken this name when he was a stripper.

Yet, I can’t imagine this being any dumber than Mama Mia! which uses the super sounds of that 70s band, ABBA (who could barely understand English); or Movin’ Out, which uses Billy Joel music for a dance recital that recaps the standard Baby Boomer sob story of surviving the Vietnam era to become a happy suburban yuppie.

“It was cheese-tastic,” is how a coworker described All Shook Up. But she could have meant any of the above.

But so what? Into every life a little Velveeta must fall. Just don’t make a steady diet of it.

Army of One? (But it takes a lot of seamen to make up a Navy)

Channel surfing on Saturday I happened upon a high school football all-star game on NBC, which was sponsored by the Army.

It raised so many questions.

First, parents and friends of players and college coaches excluded, who the hell is so starved for entertainment that they would watch a high school all-star football game with interest from start to finish? It seems so Jacksonian, if you know what I mean.

Second, one of the jocks -- I'll call him Randy Moss, Jr. -- had a breakaway touchdown. But the dumb-ass decided to showboat by doing a somersault into the end zone. The stunt backfired, and the ball hit the ground on the one yard line. He also was penalized for excessive celebration.

Flipping back and forth, I saw that during the game, they would interview players about where they were going to college. It was turned into a sort of game, with three hats placed in a box and the jock taking one out and putting it on to show his choice.

Most of them mentioned the superior quality of the education they would be getting and the opportunities the academic training will provide. NOT.

Most lived up to the stereotype, put on the cap, and said something like, "I'm going to Land Grant U, baby." None were brave enough to mention the hookers and beer bongs it took to convince them.

Now I like watching football, but this sort of showed the hypocrisy of all the hype about Randy Moss-hole last weekend. The high school game gave evidence that, at least to some degree, boorish behavior is tolerated at the high school level.

And kids: it is not cool to talk like Dick Vitale. Plus, he covers basketball.

Anyway, the game was basically an only slightly subtle commercial for the Army, with some of the player's interviewed mentioning their family members who are overseas in Iraq fighting in a war a president they were sent to under false pretenses.

(You can look it up. They finally sort of admitted it when they gave up the search for those weapons of mass destruction. If they can't find them and really thought they existed in the first place, this would mean the weapons are in other hands right now, which should mean a new sense of urgency, but that doesn't appear to be the case.)

Anyway, in light of Moss, Jr.'s stunt, the Army's slogan seemed perfect: An Army of One. What the hell does that even mean? That an Army is a place where you go to be an individual, a real maverick out on his own?

A one-person Army wouldn't have been effective against Hitler's troupes. In fact, I'm pretty sure it only works in movies and video games -- which is the point: attracting video game players and all-that jocks.

To rephrase the cliche, there's no I in team, but there's meat, tea, at, met and mat, but most importantly, a me.

Larry King for Welch's (Well, he does look like a wrinkled grape)

Have you heard the radio ad with Larry King hawking Welch's Grape Juice?

For a second I thought, "How brave of Larry to mention his special needs kid in the ad, the one who tells daddy he has a purple mustache."

King is 72, so I figure his boy must be at least in his 30s. If I told my Dad I liked his juice-stache he'd look at me funny - which he does anyway. But this time I would deserve it.

Then I find out the old codger King has a young wife and a toddler son.

Now I'm creeped out. Viagra, what hath thou wrought?

Breaking news: It was warm in Chicago in January

It is the middle of January, and it is raining and 60 degrees in Chicago. A thunderstorm even.

That led the TV news tonight. Pretty hard hitting stuff.

Note to TV people: if you are going to cover something so lame, at least provide some sort of perspective. For instance, maybe an explanation of why it has been such a weird winter. Or a look at how rare 60 degree days in January are. Something besides tourists in T-shirts and joggers along the lakefront.

Those TV people sure do love weather stories. I like how they have to stand outside in whatever the strange and/or wretched conditions my be, as if we wouldn't believe them otherwise. It's sort of like auto racing -- you watch because you secretly hope someone will die a violent death.

Last month Chicago stations even sent reporters and camera people to Indiana to show us a band of lake effect snow that caused a blizzard in a narrow swatch of that state. Not to be outdone, at least one station sent a helicopter.

It's as if we were all Australian aborigines who had never experiences winter before. But the TV people all look so damn cute in their outdoor gear, you can't help but watch, for fashion tips if nothing else. OK, for the guys, some of the news chicks look like cuddly ski bunnies -- or icy snow queens, depending on your level of inebriation.

The most ridiculous TV news coverage here in Chicago recently was a fire last month at LaSalle Bank in the Loop. About a year ago, there was a fire at a county building downtown, and the media types believed the fire officials who told them that everything was under control, when actually it was a clusterfuck and a bunch of people died. TV pulled back its coverage and wound up with egg faces.

So, this December most of the channels dwelled on the bank fire. Some of the footage was pretty frightening, flames shooting out of office windows and firefighters battling the blaze from adjacent rooftops.

Again, one of the news teams had to break out the news chopper. Why have a toy if you can't play with it in dangerous situations?

Despite this, after a couple hours, coverage got mighty old, and redundant. They ran out of things they wanted to say, like people at a 10 year high school reunion. Fortunately, no one died this time. Though TV seemed to be on Death Watch 2004.

As usual, there was no attempt to give any insight into the situation, just microphones pointed at officials, interviews with some who made it out of the buildings and the occasional politician blathering about fire codes.

Chicago has major universities, filled with smart people. Not one of them was put on the air to give clue as to how a building is engineered to control a fire, or how a fire spreads, or how it is fought, or anything about the science of what was happening.

Note to TV people: Please be smarter.

I said smarter, not smarmier.

Like that's gonna happen.

It's the Pitts: Why do celebrities keep breaking our hearts?

So I get this message today:

"I think you should do a story on the Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt split. I mean, I was crushed. I've been reading stories, and others feel the same way. Seriously, I think it's because they were married the same year as my husband and I were.

Believe me, I know it is silly to feel this way. The story could be why it's so disturbing for people to get personally affected by a stupid celebrity couple's relationship. You could talk to a psychologist about this phenomenon.

Or, you could do a story about whose side people are choosing. I would be friends with Brad, not just because he's damn cute. Okay, it's because he's damn cute. It was probably Jennifer's fault anyway because she is working so much. Anyway, it could be an intriguing story.

Also, the tabloids were right about this. Does this give them more credibility?"

I think these questions are on the minds of many, if not most Americans right now, so I will leave you all with time to reflect, to rifle through the 31-page spread in US and the 18 pages in People.

WHY! WHY! WHY! Why do our unnaturally attractive friends break our hearts like this?

I take solace that they didn't breed. Imagine the Aryan baby they would have had, the uberman Nietzsche wet dream finally unleashed on the world.

Maybe that's it: The guy who wrote The Da Vinci Code foresaw that if the Pitts had children it would be the start of the Apocalypse. Being Hollywood liberals, they weren't about to let that happen.

Keeping it real, dawg (the swimsuit edition)

I was flipping through TV Tuesday night, and there were four so-called reality shows on at the same time: Richard Branson and his obsequious twentysomethings; annoying people from high school no one wants to see after 10 years; fat people who are now thin (for money); and people chasing around the globe for clues for money.

In honor of such quality entertainment, here is a letter I e-mailed to Sports Illustrated to commend the magazine on its fine entry into such programming.

Congratulations SI, on the launch of your so-called reality show, Swimsuit Model Search. How much more real can it get than to have bio-chem graduates splashing around in the surf for the opportunity to become masturbation material for minors while being judged by a panel of experts?

Not that there's anything wrong with your show or the moneymaking machine the swimsuit thing has become. What boy who is now over 40 didn't get his first look at semi-naked women with your winter-warming edition? DVD players, the Internet, even some TV are just today's equivalent of your Dad's sock-drawer magazine collection, and for that you should be applauded.

As for what your show says to women, maybe they can look anew at modeling as a sport, sort of like beach volleyball, but without all that grueling exercise. And one gal's objectification is another's empowerment, I guess.

I assume, though, that by entering the reality TV game, the magazine won't be criticizing the hypocrisy of money-grubbing college presidents who claim their athletes are students anymore. Ditto for picking on pampered jocks who seem to be going through the motions for the bucks, or, at the other end, who will do anything to win. At least without some us chuckling at the pot (or potbellied writer) calling the kettle black.

It just wouldn't be fair, would it?

Three squares a day for me means money for tsunami relief efforts (a fat guy's kind of fundraiser)

Today at work, one of the reporter’s was given the dubious assignment of talking to a guy who claims he will be running for 121 days, 26 miles a day, all across the country, to raise money for a local charity.

Then I read in another paper about a guy, also from Elgin, who plans to walk from Arizona to Chicago to raise money for diabetes research, as a tribute to Chicago Cub Hall of Famer Ron Santo, who has lost body parts in his battle with the malady.

In the wake of the tsunami, I have come up with my own long-term fundraising idea: I promise to eat three times a day for the rest of my life. For every meal I eat, I will collect pledges which I will give to relief efforts.

It’s a win-win situation. I get fed, they get aid. For only pennies a day, you can help.

A Viking stoned blathers Randy Moss (or words to that effect)

If there weren’t a Randy Moss, would it be necessary for football fans to invent one?

Games are entertainment, and entertainment always has bad guys.

So Moss pretended to moon the Green Bay Packer fans (a genteel lot if there ever was, a regular Opera Guild), and allegedly rubbed his butt on the goal post mount (probably stirring feelings in some better left unsaid at Lambeau).

How many Packer fans do you think have wiped their big asses on trees when they are out with their hunting buddies? And I hear the Cheese-bos really do bare their butts to visiting team busses.

You see cartoon bears use trees to wipe in toilet paper commercials. Worse is the one with the cartoon old ladies at a party with “real” people who claim that they quilt toilet paper sheets. Ever take a quilted sheet? Sorry, couldn’t resist the pun.

Ever watch pro wrestling? Any given telecast is way weirder and nastier than what Moss did.

Sure Moss is a pampered, immature, selfish, often inarticulate dipstick playing a control freak sport. It’s also his shtick, his way to piss off people on purpose. At this point maybe he thinks its expected, and that’s for him and his shrink to sort out.

I do like the Outkast Afro -- that’s a nice touch, bound to frighten or anger older white guys. Yeah, like a lot of sports radio shows didn’t have to bleep the word, “nigger” today.

I never understood all that celebrating on the field anyway. But hey, no big game is complete without a fireworks and laser show; a half-time show with country music for the older white people and some lip-synched mall punk who thinks she’s edgy cuz her drummer has the anarchy symbol on his drums; and lots of loudness.

It’s a bloody, violent sport. Duh.

One thing you can say about athletes like Moss. You know from the get-go they are jerks.

Michael Jordan had a gambling problem, could be a ruthless son of a bitch, cheated on his wife.

Peyton Manning seems like he can be a pain in the ass -- I mean, from what I’ve read all he thinks about, 24-7, is football. How boring.

Kobe Bryant. Nuff said.

As for the role model thing, boorish athletes serve a purpose there, too. You use them as example of inappropriate behavior and explain to them why it is so.

If that doesn’t work, tell them jerks don’t get as many endorsement deals, do they? (Seriously. I’m asking)

If the kids are bright enough to extrapolate to other media creatures behaving badly and getting big bucks to do it, good luck to you.

Finally, it’s just a damn game. Aren’t there more important things to worry about?

He Thought Tsunami Was A Phil Collins Song -- But Back Then He Liked Nose Candy (Another Watershed Mark for The Age of W and Oprah)

350,000,000: 1,000,000,000

35: 100 = .35

Just doing some figuring for my buddy W. I know he’s no mathematician (though some say he should be a proctologist). See, 350 million was what his people initially said the US would give to relief efforts for countries impacted by that terrorist known as Mother Nature and the tsunami unleashed in the Indian Ocean.

A billion dollars is about what it costs each week to keep the mission accomplished in Iraq. So what W’s people said we’d give amounted to less than three day’s work fighting the evildoers.

Initially we were going to give a tenth of that -- or less than W's coronation is going to cost, a $40 million Republican party where everything should be served in silver troughs.

For people so adept at managing a political campaign, you’d think they could have figured out why this seemed like a pittance and got some “liberal” shorts (French cut, no doubt) in a bundle.

Why mention an amount at all, but just say we will do what we can? Why were they so slow on the uptake? Why does Bush say “um” so much? Haven’t they figured out how to use that prompter in his ear yet?

Our record speaks for itself on rebuilding places. OK, be careful with saying “rebuilding,” but still...

Yet, for all their supposed skill as politicians the Bushies aren’t good with world opinion. It’s like the spell only works here, and no matter what he does pisses the rest off the rest of the world. Like they care.

Of course, as the days went on, the old W gang dug itself out of his hole. So did the American people, opening their wallets. More than a third of us have given to aid efforts already.

Not to seem opportunistic, but this disaster presents a tremendous chance for the US in this so-called “War on Terrorism.”

Don’t cowboys like coming to the rescue anyway? Don’t true believers see a reason for everything?

Showing some of that Christian charity Bush so espouses is good PR. It shows we can really be the good guys (plus there’s bound to be work for Haliburton --- and now that the campaign is over, for the ad agencies).

I don’t see Osama bin Laden making any videos calling for Muslim extremists to put down their anthrax vials and flight training manuals for a bit to help out.

Maybe he thinks Allah is punishing the 150,000 who died and the millions left in the literal wake. Perhaps they wore Nikes or watched decadent reruns of Friends -- as if Friends reruns weren’t punishment enough.

Or maybe he blames the US for this disaster, the way Limbaugh still blames Clinton and the Democrats for everything. Then again, how do believers of any faith explain such “acts of God”?

At his beginning of the year press conference -- before someone could script it for him -- it would have been interesting to hear what Bush had to say about that, given he is a self-proclaimed born again. (Quick question: how many times can you be born? Can you be born again, again?)

That would have been an interesting press conference question to a prez whose people spread the word that his reelection was due in large part to people who cast ballots based on “morals” (abortion, gays, Hollywood NOT Enron or lying to justify starting a war).

But DC reporters suck. Covering a politician’s press conference is a shitty gig, almost as bad as covering a lousy sports team and writing down the wit and wisdom of athletes.

One smarty pants did ask about are preparedness if a tidal wave should hit the West Coast.

And Bush, between his weird pauses (maybe the battery was low in his KarlRove2004A, that transmitter thing he wears), said it was a good question, but he was no geologist.

Has he ever been curious about anything not spoon fed him? Come on. Didn’t he Google like the rest of us to find out about what the hell a tsunami is? From that, wouldn’t he wonder if something like that could happen here, and if so, if we have or even could be warned?

He’s all about homeland security, right? I’m guessing it’s way more likely we will have another natural disaster here before some extremists cause more mayhem.

After what happened in Florida (the hurricanes, not the election), you think brother Jeb would have told W over Christmas dinner about how emergency management works.

But no, W gives some glib answer with that dumb ass look he has, a cross between a stunned dear and a drunk frat boy.

Does he do any of the heavy lifting? I bet not, which must make him a fun boss for Type As to work for, in that they can pretty much do damn well whatever they want - as long as it’s in line with what the other A-holes want.

But I digress. It’s a relief for people to have a chance to do help in a situation where the devastation isn’t caused by humans.

And now, like W, I am being glib in the face of tragedy, but...

Another thing about the tsunami is that it trumps all the navel gazing about 9-11. Even as late as Christmas, I read an article that claimed the upsurge in the appeal of Chia Pets was due to post 9-11 baby boomer nostalgia.

Unfortunately, now such lame proclamations have just been shifted to pronouncements about the natural disaster.

Over time, it will be interesting to see which event has “legs” with the chattering pundits, lousy writers looking for a cheesy angle, and politicians looking to exploit voter fears. Which horror will stake lasting claim to the phase, “in the wake of”?

I’m giving the edge to 9-11 here in the US, because there’s a reason there’s an US in USA.
It’s hard to even conceive of 150,000 people dead from the same event, but religious leaders aren’t going to cast God as a villain.

Bush has said that the evildoers we are fighting are like no other the world has ever seen (my vote for evilest doer still goes to Hitler).

You can use military might to fight humans. Kyoto Treaty or not, nature is more of a crap shoot.

But I digress. Again.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s great how people are being so giving. Like I said, it could have repercussions beyond just that fact it is the right thing to do.

It’s interesting too that the Hollywood types -- the whipping boys and girls, so to speak, of Republican politicians, for their Californicating ways -- have been organizing benefits and giving big chunks of change.

Sandra Bullock alone supposedly donated $1 million. After Speed II, who knew she was so well paid?

Bands, athletes, all sorts of people degraded as scourges during the last election for their “values” are helping out.

If I watched the 700 Club I’d say they’re trying to buy themselves out of hell. In hell, they will play that benefit song being written by Boy George.

And do we really need to watch a telethon as part of the healing?

Sometimes it’s best just to shut up and give money.

Invasion of the Cellphone People, Part I: The Devine Rights of Mall Chicks

I wish I had a friend who could puke at the drop of a hat. A talent like that could come in handy in so many situations.

Case in point. I went to a club to hear some acoustic music, a woman I had written about named Gayle Ritt, with a couple other acts on the bill.

Well opening for her was a wispy three-piece named Arlum, real coffee house stuff, college boys who listened to their parents Cat Stevens records and maybe, to give them hipster props, some Nick Drake for depressive good measure.

They said they were from the South Side, which brings forth mullet memories of Styx, REO Speedwagon and AC/DC. So my guess is they are from Orland Park or maybe Palos, well-off south suburbs.

I say this because of their sound and the people who trekked the 60 miles or so to see them: a table full of Trixies who sat behind us, dressed in their Scooby Doo finest, their hip-hugging pants covering asses you can tell are on their way to being, to be polite, Rubenesque.

But being polite wasn’t on their agenda. The little princesses wouldn’t shut up.

Maybe they thought they were at one of those restaurants where they have singers AND saganaki -- or at a Shakey’s pizza, if they still exist.

We were sitting at the table closest to the stage, and the motor mouths were right behind us, chattering a din of dumbness, white noise in so many ways.

Finally, I turn around, tap one of them on the knee to get her attention and tell then to PLEASE SHUT UP.

Playing good cop and bad cop (and maybe wanting to seem a little nuts but nice) I apologize for being rude, for startling the one I touched, and for being so uncool, then turned around to watch and listen.

Well, the one I touched gets another bottle of Bud Lite in her, and a few songs later comes up to our table and threatens so sue me if “I ever fucking touch her again.”

That’s when I could tell they were from Orland Park or thereabouts, somewhere where rich white kids can can do no wrong -- and threaten to get a lawyer instead of getting some lunkhead to beat the shit out of you.

Since there was no threat of bodily harm (to me or them) I tell Ms. Oppressed “if you all would a kept your Goddamn mouths’ shut, nothing would have transpired in the first place.”

Using anger management techniques, I get up and go to the back of the room and talk to the bouncer to cover my ass, which, as I don’t where lo-rise jeans, is usually amply covered anyway.

The bouncer was cool about it. But he didn’t go tell the chatty Kathies to move to the back of the hall if they want to talk, either.

Chalk up another victory for the cellphone people.

Which is when I got the idea for having a puke buddy. Why be nice to jerks, when you can have an offensive tackle turn around and vomit in their general direction?
Act like it’s some sort of weird malady brought on by their presence. Are they wearing cheap perfume? Smoking? Did they spill Bud Lite? He’s allergic to it, maybe some got on him.

Then he could offer to sell them T-shirts he happens to keep on hand for such occasions: Rude people make me puke, they say.

Three Christmas Ghosts (And I Wasn't Even Drinking)

I was born a day before Jesus. This could be a plus, should I turn Republican and want to run for office. But I won’t and don’t.

The end of the year only reminds me of what else I am not and do not. Oops there goes another year, oops there goes another pint of beer is how the song goes.

By mid-January I being to thaw from feeling sorry for myself. Before that I’m a regular George Bailey, who, after all was just a big cry baby who wanted (and got) proof that life wouldn’t be the same without him.

Am I the only one who notices the extreme degree of resentment in that movie, the attitude Jimmy Stewart cops that the people of Bedford Falls are so simple that they wouldn’t be able to keep their town going if it weren’t for his intervention?

I guess even good guys have to be told how good they are every now and again. And again.

Not that I’m good like George Bailey-Jimmy Stewart. Nor do I resent friends and family for holding me back. I figure I’m pretty much where I am by my own accord or lack thereof.

Underachieving is underrated. The are advantages to being the star of “It’s an adequate life.”

Which reminds me I worked Christmas Eve, the police shift, getting cop reports, which at a small paper consists of calling local police and fire departments and stopping by the one in the main town, Elgin.

Mostly you hope whoever answers the phone doesn’t lie to you and that no one’s turkey caught fire or anyone’s uncle stabbed someone with a fork over the last pork chop.

Luckily, Christmas Eve was slow.

I heard on the radio in the morning that the fire department in the small town of East Dundee got a grant from the Department of Homeland Security. Nobody at the department knew this -- which pretty much sums up how DHS seems to work.

Just in case you were worried, there have been no Osama sightings in the Fox Valley. Grants formerly given to fire departments by the Federal Emergency Management Agency now are funneled through DHS.

I did have to check on a murder case, a stabbing of a homeless man earlier in the week. Cops being cops, I was told there was no news (turns out they gave the Tribune the guy’s name).

A few years ago, I had a Sunday shift and a teacher went nuts and stabbed his wife to death in front of his kids. A cop came and told the guy , who was on the lawn by this time, to put down his knife. He didn’t, and the cop shot him.

By the time I got to the house, cops weren’t letting anyone near the place. I played nice and went to the police station to wait for information.

I waited for at least an hour, then went into a deputy chief’s office. They basically retold me what I heard on the scanner, which is to say I was stonewalled.

I found out from the other paper the next day the names of those involved and that the husband and wife both died on the way to the hospital. The deputy chief knew these details, but, hey, why tell?

That’s the kind of crap you put up with when doing police reports. Some cops get it, some think they have to protect the public from ugly details.

Others tell whomever whatever they want, whenever, to, playing favorites in this silly game.

Anyway, on Christmas Eve, there were three homeless people sitting in the lobby. It was a bitter cold day and the station is used as a warming center.

So I go to see if maybe these guys knew the guy who was killed. Two of them were drunk, one of them passed out.

They looked like your stereotypical bums and oozed booze, but for the new coats and that they all had backpacks, like school kids.

The one sitting in the middle of the other two on the bench was a younger guy, maybe 30, with a clean shaven baby face and wearing a Chicago Bulls jacket.

He was super polite but seemed afraid to talk, while the other two were basically incoherent. I’m guessing he was on meds of some sort.

No pun intended, but it bummed me out. Where was this guy’s Clarence?

But what do you do? I could lie and say I got this guy a job and some medical treatment, but I went back to work instead and typed in the reports.

The next day I had another one of those Christmas moments. Over dinner at my folks, I informed them I am going through with the sex change.

Not. Just seeing who is paying attention.

I mentioned over dinner my reluctance to visit my one cousin’s house for dessert. Now my cousins are all nice people, have grown up to be upstanding citizens, even.

But there were seven of them in my one uncle’s clan alone. Seven kids means a shitload of stuff -- and a shitload for each and everyone of them when we were all growing up.

I never felt I got gipped, not even the time I got a lint brush from one of my uncle’s whose name is Tom.

We would usually have our semi-quiet Christmases (but for my dad’s disappearing year), then head over to Uncle Dan and Aunt Irene’s where even Christmas night there were packages still to open, toys yet to be played with.

It’s not like I’m Karl Marx, Jr., or Karl’s Jr., for that matter, which would make me a roast beef socialist.

It just sort of always overwhelmed me. At the same time, being from a smaller family, I wasn’t used to not being a center of attention. Not good at vying for the spotlight, I’d feel kind of left out, too.

So, this Christmas, diplomat that I am, I mention these old memories over dinner. Like I need pie, anyway, I joked.

And I didn’t say we should all stay home and boycott, just that I wasn’t up to going. Naturally, this led to a family squabble. We serve squabble right after the main course with many Danahey family dinners.

Showing how genetics works, my dad started to feel sorry for himself, wallowing about how his brothers never visit his house.

W all calmed down, and headed over for what my mom said would be dessert. I’ve a mild argument and lowered expectations for attending social functions helps, too, so I was mentally prepared.

My cousin and her clan live in a McMansion, decorated much like my aunt’s house, heavy with Italian stylings, which means sort of like an Olive Garden.

But I kid. My place, as I am the only one who frequents it, is often a hideous mess. Rats won’t even stop in, and squirrels confine themselves to a space off the roof.

It is decorated in a style called “Early Dorm” with mismatched furniture, odd, cheap knickknacks (toys really), and an overabundance of books and CDs. I should be the last one to talk about decorating.

Anyway, we get to my cousin’s and just like back in the day, at 7 at night they are still opening presents. I was laughing on the inside, eating chocolates on the outside.

Then my uncle decided it’s family picture time. I wound up being the guy from Sears, albeit one with four digital cameras to snap.

The funny thing is no one asked for any of us to be in any of the pictures, which I thought was sort of odd, and also proved my dad’s earlier point.

Keeping with the extended Christmastime entertainment metaphor, my third and final ghost appeared around the New Year.

On the Eve, I called my niece and nephew to remind them to leave a gift of a diaper and formula for the Baby New Year. (I am the Karl Rove of messing with the grade school set.)

Then I surprised my parents by heading to their house. I’m that kind of son.

OK, you caught me in a lie. My other option was a friend’s party, but there was a Hummer parked in front, which took up the whole street.

I know it’s shallow to judge people by what they drive. But the last time I was out with the Hummer people, I got blind sided into a heated discussion about W with a guy who thought Bush would win in a landslide because of how well the war in Iraq is being handled.

Guys who think like that are why Hummer people make me nervous.

Anyway, we rang in the New Year by watching the holiday classic, Witness, starring Harrison Ford, who falls in love with an Amish women whose son saw a murder.

We were all supposed to go to a movie New Year’s Day, but my mom and brother opted out. They all saw Phantom of the Opera earlier in the week. (Aside from gouging their eyes out with hot tire irons) how could they possibly top that for fun?

So my dad and I went to see the Howard Hughes’ biopic, The Aviator.

Having just had a birthday, it made me feel good, as I was one of the youngest people at the matinee.

I also was one of the few people laughing. I’m cruel and find obsessive compulsive disorder sort of funny, especially when it inflicts a goofy rich bastard.

It was well-made but shallow, glossing over topics like: how they hell did such a creepy guy get to bed such hot women?; what happened to the people whose house he crashed his plane into?; and how come rich people can get away with being so freaking weird?

Hypochondriac I am, I thought I had OCD, too. I didn’t want to wash my hands like Hughes, but felt an urge to talk like Katherine Hepburn and call everyone “dear.”

My dad enjoyed the movie and said he was going to get a book to learn more about Hughes. (Which means matinees are the after school specials for senior citizens.)

And that’s my third Yuletide memory, my dad enjoying a movie, me laughing about a loony genius billionaire.

It beat watching the Cotton Bowl.

Now Boarding for Babble-On

Why do a blog?

What’s the cliché about opinions being like assholes, that everyone has one. Blogs then are cyber toilets, where all the assholes dump their shitty opinions and call them roses.

That would explain Matt Drudge at least.

I better be careful swearing like this. You never know who might find your blog and tell your boss.

Most offices are like high school, so it could be off to the principal’s office for me. Actually my office is sort of like a less glamorous version of WKRP in Cincinnati, but at a newspaper.

In our very pages we had a story about a high school blogger who said something stupid (note to Hollywood: teens tend not to be clever in real life) about like so totally hating his teachers and wishing so and so were killed by an army of Ninja fire ants or stuff like that, a regular cyber Holden Caufield.

And the next thing you know little Johnny was suspended -- due in large part for being such a dumb ass as not to realize that nothing is private on the Internet. Though most people have dark thoughts, you don’t post them right next to your feelings on the latest Autumn to Ashes download.

But there are so many stupid users of the Internet, like people who give their bank account numbers to Zimbabwe foreign ministers promising fortunes they stashed away during a military coup.

Or people who post naked pictures of themselves.

Google the word “nude” and see how many hits you get. One of them should be for a site called Newbienudes.com.

Go there and stare, if you dare: average looking people (or worse) in what used to be called compromising positions, ready and willing to be cut and pasted onto prurient PCs. Blue states, indeed.

In a way, it’s liberating that anyone and everyone can cast themselves as porn stars, as masturbation material for the masses.

In a way, it makes you wonder exactly how high the unemployment rate might be - or maybe why it’s so high.

I mean, if a kid can get expelled for blogging his dark thoughts about wanting to kill his teacher, maybe people have been losing jobs to people in India for smutting it up online. And who but the un- or underemployed has time for such sexual shenanigans?

At the very least, you’d think somebody somewhere has come into work on a Monday to find an anonymous envelope in his desk drawer holding printouts: Tis himself, his drawers around his ankles and a riding crop in his hand.

If you are totally honest on your blog -- that is, if you use it in lieu of a psychotherapist -- you run the risk of being that guy.

Dealing in lies and half truths works much better. Just ask Matt Drudge.
All this is why I am ambivalent about blogging. Sure, there are legitimate writers and journalists doing them. But by and large, it’s an unfiltered place, and I’m a Brita kind of guy.

It seems against my better judgment to do something for free that I normally get paid to to, which sounds like an ethical dilemma for a prostitute. Guilty as charged.

Plus, I am a firm believer in Murphy’s Laws. I figure if anyone might lose his job over his blog, it won’t be the pimply assed freak posing with his goat, but me -- and I’ve grown accustomed to the lower middle class lifestyle my career path affords me.

Maybe I have a Christ complex like Mel Gibson, that I will be persecuted. But if that were true, I’d have a lot of money -- and though my father can say some pretty cringe-inducing things, he doesn’t think the Holocaust was fake.

Maybe I realize the value of editing and old school journalism, where scrutiny is supposed to count for something. Stop smirking.

Or maybe I’ll try a blog because I am bored, opinionated, and feel like a forgotten dog in Pavlov’s lab, am in need of some positive reinforcement. Just like everyone else on the Web.

So, I blog against the dying of the light. (No wait, that’s Bono’s blog).

If this doesn’t work, there’s always Newbie Nudes. (And that’s a pretty frightening thought, per my trip recent trip to the doctor’s office scale.)