Big Mike: Icy Streets And A Cold, Dead Hand

Having already crowed about how surprisingly cosmopolitan and sophisticated Louisville is (well, cosmopolitan-ish and sophisticated-ish,) I have to reel myself in because I've been reminded again how much this neck of the woods loves its shootin' irons.

I was sitting in Dick's Pizza the other night, nursing a glass of Harp while the metropolitan area was being blanketed by ice. I know, I know, drinking and driving on ice-sheeted roads - I may as well have had unprotected sex with a brace of hotel call-girls. Gimme credit, though, because I considered that option but nixed it in favor of The Loved One's delicate sensibilities and the fact that the roads were too slick to drive to a hotel.

Anyway, sitting next to me were two lovely gentlemen expounding loudly about how Barack Obama not only profited politically from the current financial Armageddon but that he more than likely caused it. I should add that I was leafing through the New York Times at the time.

Naturally, this inspired the two men to express themselves in full voice about the state of the news media.

The fellow nearer me - let's call him Voltaire - harrumphed and launched into his thesis. "How 'bout this Gether or Guyther guy? I don't know what his fuckin' name is," he asked his compadre. "Fuckin' guy's gonna be in charge of the IRS and he doesn't even pay any taxes."

The compadre - we'll call him Thomas Paine - shook his head and snorted. "It's a god damned shame," he said. "A dirty god damned shame. It figures, don't it? That's change, huh?"

The reference to Obama's campaign buzzword aroused Voltaire even more than he already was, which was a great lot. "That's all the fuckin' media talks about. Change," Voltaire tsk-ed. "Why don't they talk about how Obama's settin' up all his rich friends?"

I resisted the urge to remind him that the correct anencephalic complaint about the new president is that he's a socialist. I bit my lip and turned the page loudly.

Paine was just getting started. "And the media doesn't say a thing about this Gether or Guyther or whatever. Not a thing! You can bet that if he was a Republican, they'd be all over it. It woulda been on every front page in the country."

Suddenly, I felt both pairs of eyes on me and my newspaper, whose front page, by the way, carried yet another in a series of daily stories about Timothy Geithner's tax troubles.

"These are bad times we're comin' to," Paine said, dolefully. "Bad times. They're takin' over, slow but sure." Here, I was moved to ask who was taking over - millionaires? Socialists? Tall, skinny men? Chicagoans? Again, I resisted.

"They sure as hell are," Voltaire agreed, leaving me feeling inadequate for not grasping things as readily as he.

"Well, fuck them," Paine announced. "They ain't takin' me over."

"Nope," Voltaire concurred.

"Y'know what they're gonna do?" Paine asked.

"What?"

"They're comin' for the guns next."

"Oh, yeah."

"That's right," Paine said. The men finished paying their tabs and dropped a few coins apiece on the bar.

Voltaire stood up and put his jacket on, bumping me in the process without apology. He remained close to me, too close for my comfort. I shrunk in the opposite direction, turning my pages as if I were sitting on a crowded el train.

Paine provided the coda for the proceedings: "Well, you know what they say...."

"Oh, yeah."

"... they're gonna have to pull my gun outta my cold, dead hand."

"That's right."

With that - and an extra hip check courtesy of Voltaire - the two men strutted out of the place.

I watched them as they said their goodbyes outside the front door. They laughed and shook their heads. Who knows what amused them? Had Voltaire said, Hah, how about that pussy, reading the New York Times? We showed him! Or had Thomas Paine said, I think he bought it. Man, we were good!

If I hadn't invented the latter option I'd have fallen into a funk on an icy cold night.

Benny Jay: Lunch With The Boys

I'm eating lunch at a greasy gyros joint on Halsted in Greektown with Marcus, the lawyer, and Ronnie, the gambler.

Marcus says we gotta try the sandwiches. So Ronnie and I get the chicken sandwich, only Marcus orders the Greek chicken lunch special. My sandwich is good, but his chicken looks really good, all smothered in gravy. It's got this big potato and rice. I'm watching him wolf down that bird -- all but licking up the gravy -- and I'm thinking: Damn, shoulda got the chicken special!

Marcus looks up, a chicken bone in his mouth. "Want some?" he asks, his mouth full.

I wanna say: Hell, yeah, man -- let's swap right now. My sandwich for your chicken. But I'm too proud, so I say: "No, man -- my sandwich is really good...."

We're talking about -- what else -- Blago. Ronnie's starts singing his praise. He's the only guy I know who thinks Blago's doing a good job. Marcus and I head him off -- cause, you know, we love Ronnie and all -- but we've heard his Blago rap before.

"C'mon, man," I say. "You don't really believe that crap....."

"He's got a presumption of innocence," says Ronnie.

"There's a difference between a presumption of innocence in a legal proceeding and in the court of public opinion," says Marcus, "where they've caught him on tape....."

"Let's talk about those tapes," says Ronnie. "I want to know -- how did they get the authorization to tape his conversations?"

"They had to go to a federal judge," I say.

"Oh, what are the grounds for taping his phones?" says Ronnie. "I wanna know. Cause they abuse that power all the time....."

He's making a compelling argument but I can't stop looking at his sandwich. I'm three-quarters of the way through my sandwich. And Marcus? He's polished off the potato. Lapped up the gravy. Eaten all the chicken. Now he's gnawing on the chicken bones and sucking out the marrow.

But Ronnie's one of those guys who can't eat while he's really excited, and he's only taken one bite.

"Ron, are you gonna eat your sandwich?" asks Marcus.

Apparently, his mind works like mine.

"Yeah," says Ronnie.

"But it's gonna get cold," I say.

"I'll eat it...."

"I hate it when food gets cold...."

Ronnie launches into this incredible story about the night in 1984 when four cops showed up at his front door. They said they had a warrant to search his house looking for evidence of bookmaking. He told them that he's not a bookie -- he may make bets, but he doesn't take them. They wandered all over his house, poking through his stuff, finding his roomie's stash of weed, like a-ha they were Sherlock freakin' Holmes. Then they slapped on the cuffs and dragged him down to the lock up and threw him in a cell with this black guy. Ronnie said: What are you in here for? And the guy said, running numbers -- only I didn't do it. Ronnie said he was in for being a bookie, only he didn't do it either. Apparently, no one in jail is guilty, only unjustly accused. Listening to Ronnie, I realize you can learn a lot about Chicago from spending time in a jail. One of the guards told him about a cop -- a sergeant in that very station -- who was a bookie. Another cop offered to get Ronnie out of jail early, if he paid him $100. It was like a Dylan song, where the police are free to break the laws they're supposed to enforce. They kept Ronnie in jail for six hours. Months later he was still getting hauled into court for hearings, and he wound up pleading guilty to some rinky-dink bullshit charge just to kill the case. It was nothing but an exercise in harassment. They had no compelling cause to search his house. The warrant was bogus. Someone with clout had it in for him -- he suspects an ex-girlfriend -- so she got the cops to get a judge to go along. And, yeah, they found the weed. But so what. It wasn't his weed. And they weren't even there to look for weed. And they should just legalize weed anyway. And you can find anything on anybody if you look through their private stuff. Cause everyone's guilty of something.....

He takes a breath.

I have to agree with just about everything he said. Only I can't help noticing -- he's barely touched his chicken sandwich.

"Hey, Ron," says Marcus. "Are you gonna eat your sandwich?"

"I'm gonna eat it," he says.

"It's probably cold," I say.

"I'll eat it...."

"I'm just sayin' -- I can't stand it when a sandwich gets cold...."

"I'm gonna eat it -- I'm gonna eat it...."

Back we go to Blago. Poring over the minute details of his case. We talk about him for an hour. Probably could talk about him for another hour. Can't get enough Blago.

When we leave, Ronnie's only eaten about one-half of his sandwich.

Big Mike: Snap Out Of It!

The Louisville area got four or five inches of snow last night, the equivalent of 25 inches in Chicago. Schools and businesses were closed today, most streets were treacherous, and hardly anyone was on the road.

I got up at the crack of dawn to shovel the driveway. It's about fifty yards from the garage to the street so it took me a good two hours. It was only after I'd finished and was peeling off my sweaty layers that I thought, Hey, I've got freakin' congestive heart failure!

As usual, I overdid it. I drove over to Barnes & Noble for morning coffee and the New York Times but the place was closed. Most of the shops in The Summit - one of only three malls in this city - were closed. Jeez! The Starbucks was open - phew! - so I sat down and began to read. Then it hit me. A wave of exhaustion. I could hardly concentrate. My legs and arms felt like lead. I thought I might pass out.

That's what happens when a CHF sufferer goes overboard, as I did. It didn't alarm me; I knew it would pass after a few hours. I sat back and breathed deeply. Then, suddenly, I started thinking about the last year and a half.

I've gotta confess - I went through yet another of my patented, fall-off-the-face-of-the-Earth depressions last year. The realization that I'd experienced another lost six months was as jarring as if I'd recalled that I'd lost a loved one.

This kind of thing has happened to me before. Somehow, whenever I've found myself extraordinarily worn out by physical exertion, the sun,or some emotional strain, the reality of my depression floods into my consciousness. The first time it happened was way back in the fall of 1979. My little nephew Doug, 11 at the time, wanted to go downtown to see the Pope at the Petrillo Bandshell. I considered counseling him to shun the gaudily-attired leader of the world's most pompous mythology but then decided, hell, it'll be an event and I can disillusion the kid another day. So we went.

The day was unseasonably warm. Doug and I stood out in the sun for eight hours. When we got back home, we collapsed on my mother's sofa, spent and dehydrated. Suddenly, I was overwhelmed by the memories of my first real cyclical depressive episode, one that I'd just been emerging from. I'd been feeling fairly decent the last few weeks but sprawled on that sofa, the feelings of alienation, loneliness, dread, uselessness, and all the other classic symptoms washed over me. I began to sob uncontrollably. I told my mother that day that I wanted to kill myself, the first time I'd ever revealed the secret I'd been holding in throughout the just-passed episode.

I got over it, of course, only to go through the same process all over again more times than I care to recount here.

Today's realization was an epiphany. Here's what I learned: the amount of energy I expend fighting depression, running from it, arguing with it, pretending it isn't there, trying to fix it - all the strategies I employ against it - is enormous. Sure, I see shrinks, I take anti-depressants, I repeat affirmations, I seek joys and answers - I do, in short , what every depressive does to survive. But the most important thing I do each day, every day - every minute - is pretend it isn't there.

Were I to remain in constant cognizance that I carry this gray-matter burden, this six-ton anchor on my heart, this emotional Rubik's Cube, I'd never have a moment to wash my face, write a story, or, well, shovel the snow. It takes gigawatts of energy to shove the melancholia into an unused corner of my brain so I may pursue everyday life. Then, when I'm exhausted, when my energy reserves are depleted, that melancholia breaks out of its closet.

I'll be participating in a gallery show at the Lakeside Legacy Arts Park in Crystal Lake, Illinois in May. The opening reception will be on the first. The show is entitled "Snap Out Of It!" and will feature highly personal works about the artists' battle with depression. I'm doing a video piece. Keep an eye on these precincts for more info.

Benny Jay: Chicken Soup Confessions

My wife and older daughter are out of town, so my younger daughter and I head over the local Chinese joint for dinner.

It's freezing outside and we're racing through the cold to stay warm. At the restaurant I order a big bowl of steaming-hot chicken soup. The waitress asks if my wife's working. Like it's any of her business. I start to tell her that, no, she's out of town and then I stop. If I go there one thing will lead to another and it will be five minutes of answering the who, what, when, where and why of my wife's absence. I'm too hungry to talk. Plus, I don't want to be talking while I'm eating and looking up and over my shoulder. I look at my daughter and see she's thinking the same thing. And I say, "Yes, she's working...."

My daughter and I start talking about this and that, and somehow I launch into a recollection of how I met her mother. It was only going to be a short story, but I wind up leaving the restaurant, magically floating back in time to 1980. I'm 24, just back in town from Connecticut (long story), living at home with my parents (though not for long) and I get a call from Kevin.

He's a friend of an old girlfriend. Haven't seen to him in years. Barely know him as it is. Surprised he even has my number. He says he has an extra ticket to a Bruce Springsteen concert and do I want to go? I'm like -- are you for real? Of course, I want to go. Everyone knows I love Bruce Springsteen.

So I drive to Kevin's house, an apartment in Lakeview, in my `73 Toyota Celica, coolest car I've ever owned. It turns out he's a drug dealer. Had his drugs out in the open -- hashish, weed, cocaine. I remember he had a phone in every room, even the bathroom. Don't know what that's all about -- some kind of drug-dealer thing. People kept dropping by to snort, smoke and buy. I never did coke, by then I was off of weed. I sat on the couch and watched.

Then your mom walks in. She's wearing this pink leather jacket. I'm thinking -- this girl is hot....

"You are so weird...."

I snap out of my trance. I forgot I'm talking to my daughter.

"The concert was in Rosemont," I say. "Kevin drove...."

"You were in one car?"

"Yes...."

"We're you sitting on laps?"

"No, my memory is that we squeezed three in the front and three in the back. I was in the back with mom and my ex-girlfriend. That was weird. Mom was Kevin's date. Once we got to the concert they sat up front in the really good seats. The rest of us we're way in the back. I'm not complaining. It was just after Springsteen released The River. The crowd sang along with Hungry Heart -- everyone knew the words...."

"How's your soup?" It's the waitress.

"Good," I say.

"Are you done?" she says to my daughter.

"Yes...."

The waitress looks at my daughter's soup dish, like she's disappointed, and says: "You didn't eat the chicken...."

My daughter smiles and shrugs. The waitress clears the plates. I return in time to 1980: "After the concert, Kevin drove us back to his place. And here's the thing -- mom asked me to drive her home. I think Kevin was expecting mom to stay at his place, cause, you know, he got her the tickets and all. But mom wasn't playing that game and I drove her home. She took advantage of the fact that I had a car to drive her home....."

"Well, she wasn't going to sleep with that loser...."

I take a sip of water. "You know, he died....''

"Who?"

"Kevin...."

"How?"

"I think it was some kind of drug overdose, but I'm not sure. After that concert I never saw him again. But, you know, I wouldn't be so hard on him. If not for him, mom and I probably wouldn't have met. You wouldn't be here. It's weird -- isn't it?"

Big Mike: Dumb Cubs, Dumb Bush

Took a ride up to Bloomington again yesterday. The Loved One signed the lease on her sublet (the place she'll be staying in Mondays through Fridays.) So the Bloomington job is a done deal. There's no way out for Studs Diamond now.

Before this, I'd held out hope that maybe, just maybe, TLO would change her mind about the Bloomington job, that she'd re-start her efforts to find gainful employment somewhere around Louisville.

Ain't gonna happen.

Ah well, there's always the Cubs. Hungry Jim Hendry peddled Felix Pie to his (Hendry's) old pal, Andy MacPhail in Baltimore. If you've paid any attention to these screeds you know that Felix Pie is yet another in a long, long, long line of highly touted position players to come up through the Cubs farm system and flop on the big league stage.

The boys over at Goat Riders of the Apocalypse relate a story that the Cubs' Latin American region scouts discovered Pie as a teenager in the Dominican Republic. Apparently, he was such a superior athlete with jaw-dropping physical skills that the Cubs inked him in the snap of a finger. Only he'd never played baseball before. The scouts and the front office figured, We'll teach him how to play baseball.

This decision, I remind you, emanates from an organization that is notoriously inept at the arts of teaching baseball skills and developing players. This is the organization that, except for a blip here and there (most notably during the Dallas Green and John Holland regimes) hasn't been any good at producing position players since the 1930s.

Nineteen thirties. One, nine, three, oh. As in Oh my god.

Suddenly, a hundred years without a World Series championship doesn't seem too outlandish a thought, does it?

Speaking of outlandish thoughts, the Bush gang has vacated the White House this week. It hit me just last night. Sort of like when someone wins the Nobel Prize or the Oscar, they often say, It didn't hit me until days/weeks/months later. So it is with me and the end of Dubya's reign.

The former president (man, that sound good!) met with the press one last time before he lammed to Texas. This is the same press he and his plug-uglies had stonewalled, scammed, manipulated, lied to, bullied and otherwise treated like yard fudge for the last eight years. He told them he really respected them. It's like the man who beats his girlfriend and then tells her she's the prettiest thing he's ever seen.

Anyway, the ex-prez gifted us with one last Bushism, sort of a punctuation mark for his era. He said a lot of the wags and critics "misunderestimated" him. This coinage, I remind you, from the most powerful human being in the world.

Well, it turns out that misunderestimated wasn't the last Dub flub. His gang had one more exclamation point for us. That came when Georgie-boy's hand-picked Chief Justice of the Supreme Court tripped over his own brain while giving the oath of office to Barack Obama. The John Roberts gaff will forever be the unintentional definitive statement of the Bush people: We weren't very good at all at what we did. Not a one of us.

The US citizenry has no one to blame but themselves. Sort of like the successive brain trusts that have run the Cubs since 1909.

Benny Jay: Mom Breaks The News

I'm on the phone with Milo, the world's smartest man, and we're doing what we've been doing too much of lately. We're going down the list of reasons for the long, sad slide of our beloved Bulls: Larry Hughes is selfish, Ben Gordon's short, Joakim Noah's flaky, Tyrus Thomas is inconsistent, Vinny Del Negro can't control the team.

We switch subjects to Barack Obama.

"Do you think he's really a good basketball player or is everyone who plays against him just afraid to guard him tight?" I ask.

"Well, Benny, think about it," says Milo. "How good can he be? He couldn't start for his high school basketball team in Hawaii. Hawaii, Benny -- it's not known as the bastion of good basketball. That's like a black kid from Detroit moving to Tokyo and not being able to start on his Japanese basketball team. That would be an embarrassment."

The other line beeps. It's my mother. She's enraged.

"Who is this witch?"

"What witch?"

"That lady...."

"What lady? I need more information...."

"Don't be fresh...."

"You mean, the new senator from New York?"

"Yes...."

How did I possibly know what she was talking about?

"She's a Blue Dog Democrat," says my mom.

"What's that?"

"That's a Democrat who's always a Democrat no matter what...."

"I thought that was a Yellow Dog Democrat....."

"That's what your father said...."

I go online and read the news story on the New York Times web page. "Her name is Kirsten Gillibrand, she's from outside of Albany and she's a moderate Democrat...."

"That's ridiculous. We don't need anymore moderate Democrats -- we need liberals. What'sa matter with liberals?"

"They're trying to reach out...."

"To who?"

"Republicans and....."

"Bullshit, we don't need Republicans. Let the Republicans pick Republicans. When do the Republicans reach out to us. These Democrats are such wimps. What's the matter with that governor in New York?"

"He's just trying to be like Obama, ma. You know, Obama says: `There are no red states and no blue states -- just the United States."

She ignores me: "Look on that thing and tell me if she's pro-choice...."

"What thing?"

"You know -- that thing where you look things up...."

"You mean the Internet?"

"Yes, that thing...."

"Okay, mom...."

Big Mike: Flipping Pizzas Or Flipping Out?

I'd only disclosed this secret to two people: Skip, the trombonist, and Andy, who has a PhD in microbiology and immunology and serves venti lattes at the Starbucks in the Kroger on Westport Road.

Now I'm putting it out there: I've been harboring a desire to work in the kitchen at the pizza joint a half mile down on Goose Creek Road.

Since The Loved One quit her job in November (the job, by the way, that we moved to Louisville for) we've had to tighten our belts here at Chez Studs. Actually, I couldn't be happier that TLO quit - the job was tearing her apart, making her miserable. The change in her has been remarkable - yet another reason why I'll always tell people, If you hate what you're doing, stop doing it now.

Anyway, I need to generate a bit more moolah so our retirement account doesn't drop into the double digits. I play Trivia at this pizza joint every Tuesday night as part of Team Gorlock. Skip and I are the core of the team with three or four other guys occasionally floating in and out. Andy is the emcee for the game; he draws up the questions and then battles the sound system trying to announce them.

Team Gorlock is the reigning champ. You might call us the New York Yankees of Trivia. We lost to the Thrashers a few weeks ago and there was stunned silence when the final score was announced. Then the Thrashers erupted in a noisy celebration worthy of yesterday's inauguration. Since then, we've regained our rightful place at the top.

This pizza joint is pretty much run by members of the species, Pan Troglodytes. If your order comes out correctly, consider yourself fortunate. And trying to get a drink at the bar, no matter how light the business, is like extracting your own wisdom tooth. That's why I won't reveal the real name of the place. Let's call it Dick's Pizza.

So, considering that I need a part-time job and considering that TLO will be spending every work week (with our only car) in Bloomington starting in ten days, it occurred to me that I ought to apply for a job at Dick's. It's a healthy walk away and, jeez, the place needs someone with a brain (that would be me.)

I really learned how to make pizzas when I was the In-Store Educator at Whole Foods Market in Evanston. The boys in deli showed me how to do it quickly and uniformly. They even taught me how to spin the dough high in the air. I'd been making pizzas at home for years but the project would take about ten hours, resulting in one or two pies. Now I know how to churn them out.

I figured, hell, Dick's is always looking for kitchen help so I'll give it a shot. It ain't a glamorous position but so what? I'd make slightly less than a panhandler but, again, so what?

For the last three weeks I've been trying to corral the manager to ask him if he might consider hiring me. Sadly, this manager (let's call him Otis) has been barred from hanging out at the place during his off-hours because he's caused a riot or two after enjoying some after-work refreshments and now when he's on duty he makes himself so scarce even the other employees can't locate him. Hmm.

Then, last night before Trivia, I found out the owner of the place was prowling around. I'd never seen her before. She owns several other locations around Louisville and rarely visits this one. Skip pointed her out to me. Let's call her Leona.

Aha, I thought. Screw Otis. I'll go right to the top and lean on Leona for a job. We had about 15 minutes to go before the game so I got up to walk toward the bar where Leona was pacing back and forth like a caged leopard. Before I took two steps, Leona unleashed a roar.

"God damn it!" she hollered. "Can't I get anybody around here who wants to work? Doesn't anybody care? These fuckers! You gotta take ownership, you gotta care about your job. You can't just come in here and do the minimum. If something needs to be done, do it! What the hell am I gonna do around here? Fuckin' assholes." She took a swig from a bottle of beer and came around the bar to sit on a stool. I'd frozen in my tracks.

Leona looked around at all the stunned customers' faces. "I mean it!" she yelled. "This is shit. I'm tired of this!" She'd worked herself up so much she had to pat the sweat off her forehead with a bar napkin. She took another swig. "Honest to god, the people around here aren't worth a dime. Idiots." She went on in this vein for endless minutes.

Finally, after it appeared she was calming down, Skip tried to break the tension with humor, suggesting, "Why don't you pay 'em more?"

Wrong tactic. Leona started in again. "Fuck that!" she exploded. "I pay 'em too much as it is. If I paid 'em what they're worth, they'd owe me money!" This went on for more endless minutes. Skip looked around, sheepish, and shrugged.

By now, the Trivia game was due to begin. Andy wrestled with his microphone and the PA system as usual. Leona picked up her beer and, sans jacket, stomped out of the place. Andy was at the top of his game. Here are some of his questions:

• Food & Beverage - what product is the company Perugina noted for?
• US Presidents - who was the first president born in a state other than the original 13 colonies?
• Music - which pop singer is known by the nickname, the Duchess?
• The Periodic Table - which element is represented by the symbol Hf?
  

Skip and I labored. The game goes on for three rounds, ten questions each. For each round, you rank your answers on a 1-10 scale, giving the answer you have the most confidence in 10 points and the least, one. So the maximum number of points you can earn in a round is 55 - 165 for the whole game. Team Gorlock, I'm happy to say, finished with a total of 141 points to remain the champs. Our victory was greeted by chants of Gorlock sucks, Gorlock sucks. My chest swelled with pride.

The answers, I should add, to the aforementioned questions are: chocolate, Lincoln, Fergie of the Black-Eyed Peas, and hafnium. Of these four, Skip and I missed only chocolate.

Oh, I've dropped the idea of asking for a job at Dick's. It wouldn't be a glamorous position and I'd probably make more money panhandling.

Benny Jay: Inauguration TV

I'm watching the inauguration with my wife.

The TV's on NBC. Brian Williams is talking to Tom Brokaw. The camera shows Craig Robinson, Michelle Obama's brother in law. Williams says: "There's Reggie Love...."

"It's not Reggie Love," I say.

"One of President Obama's top aides...."

"Stop calling him Reggie Love -- it's Craig Robinson, not Reggie Love...."

"Shh," says my wife, "I can't hear...."

Williams is going on and on about how Reggie Love is always by President Obama's side....

"He's not Reggie Love! He doesn't even look like Reggie Love...."

"Don't be negative," says my wife. "I won't watch the inauguration with you, if you're negative...."

I'm momentarily confused: "Where else are you gonna watch it -- we only have one TV...."

"Shh...."

They show former vice president Dan Quayle entering the capitol. "God, I can't stand that guy," I say. "Let me at least be negative about him. Even you can't say anything positive about him...."

My wife mixes her oatmeal.

They show Walter Mondale. "God, I love Mondale," I say. "Fritz Mondale. He should have beat Reagan. This country's full of idiots...."

My wife looks up at the screen and says: "Mondale's wife looks like an older version of Sharon...."

"My, god, you're right...."

The former presidents come in. "Look, there's Jimmy Carter," I say. "I love Jimmy Carter. Don't say nothing bad about Jimmy Carter. This is Carter country!"

My wife eats her oatmeal.

"And there's Bill Clinton -- the pig. I never went for Clinton...."

"You voted for him," says my wife.

"Yeah, but I never went for him -- there's a difference. Look, he's hugging old man Bush. He's always hugging Bush -- like he really loves him. Classic Clinton, sucking up to Republicans. Look, Hillary's hugging Barbara. Like they like each other. Phonies. You know they can't stand each other...."

Old man Bush, leaning on a cane, limps his way to the podium. From the aisle, Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. leans forward to shake Bush's hand.

"How the hell did he get there?" I say.

"Who?" says my wife.

"Junior. He's on the aisle. He's got the best seat in the house for the cameras. Every time someone famous walks down the aisle the whole world sees Jackson. How did he pull that off?"

The announcer announces William Jefferson Clinton. "Oh, now he's William Jefferson Clinton," I say. "He'll always be Slick Willie to me...."

"Shh...."

"Look, Clinton won't hug Gore. He hugs Bush, but only a handshake for Gore...."

"Be positive...."

The TV shows Obama's kids and their grandmother. Brian Williams is saying the kids will still be making their beds, even with all the servants in the White House.

My wife and I immediately look at each other and say in unison: "Make their beds!"

Our kids are pushing twenty and they still don't make their beds.

"I don't believe those kids make their beds," I say.

"Some parents are really good about that," says my wife.

"Who -- name one...."

The camera shows Baby Bush. And Brian Williams -- or maybe it's Tom Brokaw -- says "the outgoing president very fervently believes history will redeem him...."

"Yeah, right," I say. "If they burn all the records...."

"What a difference eight years makes," Brokaw or Williams goes on. "Of course, we could not see tragedy coming -- 9/11."

"No one could see it!" I bellow. "They only had a report that said Bin Laden's gonna attack us! Gimme a break. They couldn't see it cause they were sleeping. Don't coddle us! Don't shield us from the truth...."

"Shhh," says my wife.

"Show Obama," I say. "Look, there he is." I stand up and start clapping. "Yeah, that's my president -- him and Carter. All the rest of them suck...."

We watch Chief Justice Roberts swear in Obama. Roberts screws it up and mixes up the order of the oath.

"Probably did it on purpose," I say. "Typical Republican. You watch, Clinton's probably gonna French kiss him...."

We watch Obama's speech. I'm not sure what to think. I barely hear the words. I still can't believe this country elected a black guy president. It's like a dream.

Aretha sings My Country Tis of Thee.

"I like her hat," says my wife.

"It's got, what, a bow in it or something," I say.

Obama leaves the stage. The crowd disperses. The Bushes head for a helicopter that will take them to the airport where they'll catch a plane for Texas.

The Bidens and the Obamas stand on the capitol steps and wave as the helicopter takes off.

"Go, good bye -- good riddance," says my wife. "Don't come back...."

I look at her, smile and say: "Be positive....."

Big Mike: The Greatest Day

The East End of Metro Louisville, where I live, is an awfully white section of town. That's why the presence of the man sitting in the armchair at my Starbuck's this morning caused me to do a double-take. He was black.

He was waiting for someone, for a business meeting most likely since he was wearing a suit and he had that expectant look in his eye like the bazillions of others of a more ivory skin hue who do the same thing here everyday. I nodded at him and he nodded back. It was all I could do not to approach him, shake his hand, pat him on the back, and ask, Isn't this the greatest day this country has seen since, oh, who the hell knows when?

Good sense got the better of me, though. I thought, What if he's a Republican? What if he'd be insulted that I'd think he'd share my glee over Barack Obama's inauguration today simply because he's black?

Then, when ordering my coffee, I wanted to ask the barista, who was white, Isn't this the greatest day this country has seen since...? But again, I resisted the temptation, not because she was white but, aw I don't know, maybe because I didn't want to embarrass either of us.

Actually, this is the greatest day this country has seen since, well, I don't know when. We're not celebrating a war victory which entails by necessity the preamble of hundreds of thousands of dead and maimed human beings. We're celebrating the first election of a black man by a predominantly white nation in the history of the world. Man!

All my adult life I've thought the single greatest thing would be to witness the Cubs winning the World Series. No lie. I haven't had kids so I don't have the emergence of a Baby Pal to crow over. (In truth, I really wouldn't have minded having a kid or two - as long as they could live elsewhere and would go away whenever I was feeling cranky.) I haven't won the Pulitzer, the Nobel, or the National Book Award. I haven't made love to (in chronological order of my obsession) November 1968 Playmate Paige Young, Shirley (Partridge Family) Jones, Suzanne Vega, Dana Delaney, or Zooey Deschanel. Whatever dreams I had as a kid, save for earning my living in a creative field, have been so far unfulfilled.

So dreaming of the Cubs bursting out of the Wrigley Field dugout on a late October night to celebrate winning the championship of the whole wide world has kept me going despite living through the experiences of George W. Bush, 9/11, debilitating clinical depression, three specific lost loves, the administration of Jim Frey, and other unspeakable horrors.

Yet, today, as I drove to the Starbuck's and listened to NPR reporters breathlessly describe the early morning scene in Washington, DC I realized that a Cubs World Series clincher would rank a distant second. How crazy, how odd, how wild it is - we've fallen headlong into a world financial collapse and people are giddy with optimism!

I don't know what the next year or two will bring but I do know that I've had it up to here with people bragging about their Hummers, their flat screen TVs, their iPhones that allow them to communicate with the people of the Andromeda Galaxy, their sixth new/bigger/better home in the last dozen years, and all the rest of the trappings they've had to sacrifice their mean little souls for. I read the other day that sociologists and the like are astounded because many people are actually looking forward to living more modest lifestyles in the coming years, that this financial apocalypse will force us to become less materialistic and more interdependent. Hooray - the era ushered in by Saint Ronald Reagan is dead!

It's a great day and I'm lucky to be living through it. I can't ask for anything more - oh, alright - just the sight of Sweet Lou, Big Z, D-Lee and the rest spilling out of the Cubs dugout next October to celebrate the championship of the whole wide world.

Big Mike: Courage In High Heels

Celebrating MLK Day today. CNN is awash in nostalgia. Listened to his August 1963 speech at the Lincoln Memorial for the ten thousandth time. Nevertheless, every time he rides that crescendo into Free at last, free at last, thank god almighty, I'm free at last! I get goosebumps and my eyes start watering.

This needs to be said: J. Edgar Hoover, this nation's premier law enforcement officer, despised King. Hoover hypnotized his agents into believing King was "dangerous" and a "communist." He called him burrhead as a matter of course. No American president had the guts to kick Hoover out on his loathsome ass.

I remember the Monday after King's assassination. Sunday night thunderstorms had broken an unseasonably warm spell. The rain had cooled off the rioting as well. Still, there was no school that day. Over the weekend, newscasters and city officials had filled the airwaves with warnings for parents to keep their children home for the foreseeable future but my friends and I weren't having any of it. We organized a bike caravan to the forest preserve on North Avenue at the Des Plaines River. It was a good five-mile ride, fairly adventurous for a gang of 11- and 12-year-olds.

We started off with Pollack Julian from up my block as well as Louie LaFemina and Ronald Micci. We pedaled to the home of the tough Lenczyck boys, Danny and Terry. As we waited for the Lenczycks to come down, their younger brother Paulie begged us to let him come along. Danny at first was miffed when he heard this, then he relented. "Okay," he said gruffly to his little brother, "but no high heels!"

Paulie was 10 and never usually wanted to come out of the house. He preferred to stay indoors and walk around in his mother's feathered mules or dress pumps. Once, he answered the door wearing lipstick.

None of us ever teased Paulie for these quirks. Either Danny or Terry would have fattened our lips had we dared. They weren't happy about Paulie's pastime but he was still their brother. Paulie rode with Ronald, whose bike had a banana seat and therefore could fit two riders.

When we got to the forest preserve, Paulie started a fire and cooked us lunch. He'd brought a soup pan, a package of spaghetti, and a bottle of ketchup. When it was ready, we dug in and slurped the spaghetti like the Meryl Streep character in "Defending Your Life." By the time we were finished our shirts and faces were speckled red.

Sated, we leaned back and began discussing - what else? - baseball. The traditional opener in Cincinnati, scheduled for that afternoon, had been postponed, like many events in the aftermath of the killing but we were eager for the season to begin. The year before had been the first in decades during which both the Cubs and the White Sox had finished with winning records.

All of us were Cubs fans except for Louie LaFemina. He always seemed a contrarian and so it was with his baseball loyalty. It worked out well for us, though, because every spring he'd trade us all his Cubs baseball cards for our White Sox cards. Louie argued valiantly for the superiority of the Sox that day. We ridiculed him but he only argued more determinedly.

Finally, after 20 minutes of squabbling, Pollack Julian piped up. "Shut up, Louie," he yelled. "The Sox suck. They got too many niggers."

Well, Louie had nothing to counter that argument with and so he fell silent. It was Paulie who challenged Julian. "That's not a very nice thing to say," he said.

Julian snorted, "Whaddya, some kinda Martin Luther King-lover?"

"What's wrong with Martin Luther King?" Paulie asked. "I think he was a good man."

Oh, Julian howled! He laughed until he had to clutch his side in pain. "Didja hear that?" he hollered.

Ever since I'd met Paulie, I'd shunned him. I was afraid of him, quite frankly. What was I to make of this kid who enjoyed dressing like his mother? I was curious, though, about why he wanted to wear high heels. Of course, I never asked him outright why he did so. Merely posing the question might put my own preferences in doubt among the guys and, gulp, maybe even myself.

But that day even a scared rabbit like me realized that Paulie was the bravest among us. God forbid I would have told him so, though. It would be years before I could muster that kind of bravery.

Big Mike: Look Back In Horror - How We Got Here

We're live! Yup, Benny Jay and Big Mike have come out - no, not that way. Jeez. The Third City is now open to the public.

Benny Jay pitched the idea of this blog to me. He told me about these voices in his head that keep him up all night (and I thought I was a loon.) He figures he'd better write down the things they say or they'll be lost forever. I figure, Why not? We both earn our living by clacking on keyboards. Naturally, the notion of gas-bagging our way through life seems too delicious to pass up. So here we are.

We started this blog as a closed forum - the settings switched to private all around - just so the general public wouldn't be able to see us make asses out of ourselves. Benny and I have made asses out of ourselves in front of each other for so long that we're pretty much immune to embarrassment now.

We started posting in early November under noms de plume (Benny Jay was Nicky Silver; I was Studs Diamond.) In retrospect, neither of us knew what in the hell we really wanted to do with this thing. At first, we thought we were going to look at this mad, mad world through the eyes of two fanatic sports fans. Benny's wild for the Bulls and I live and die..., well, just die, with the Cubs. Now we know what in the hell we're doing (we hope.)

We've decided to bare our souls for your pleasure. Also, as writers, we've been fortunate enough to meet the wildest, wackiest characters this side of Jeff Lebowski's world. Here, you'll meet them all. Most of the characters herein are real people; a few are tweaked a little to keep us a step or two ahead of any libel and slander suits.

Make sure you read this every day. Twice a day or more, in fact. We need all the hits we can get so we can make some cash off this monster. Get going!

Benny Jay: Turning Left At Fullerton

(authored Saturday, January 17, 2009)

We're going to the health club to run around the track, and my 17-year-old daughter says: "Can I drive?"

I start to say no. She's just learning to drive. The streets are icy and snowy. There's a ton of Saturday morning traffic....

But, then I think: C'mon, man, don't be so cautious. She's got to learn sometime.

So I flip her the keys and hop in on the passenger side and she turns right on Ashland and left at Henderson and right onto Southport.

I stop being nervous and turn up the radio. And she says, "no, I need to concentrate."

But they're playing "Apples, Peaches Pumpkin Pie" -- and as everyone knows, that remains one of my favorites.

"Nah, you got to learn how to drive with a good song on the radio...."

And I crank that sucker louder. Can't help myself cause I really, really like this song.

And I turn it even louder when they say: "Marry you so you won't roam, baby, marry you so you won't roam...."

With the radio blasting, and me singing, my daughter inches out into Fullerton, waits for the oncoming traffic to pass, and turns left, just as the light goes from yellow to red.

"I did it!" she says.

"You sure did," I say. "You a bad mutha...."

"I did it....."

"Bad to the bone...."

Benny Jay: North Lawndale versus Whitney Young

by Nicky Diamond, authored January 16, 2008

Sammy and I are on a roll. Having watched the Bulls yesterday, we decide to check out tonight's Big Game: Whitney Young High School versus North Lawndale High School.

North Lawndale's ranked first in the Chicago area and Young's ranked seventh and the game's on TV so it's a really big deal.

We pick up Nick -- who used to play football on a team I coached -- then head over to Young. My bowling buddy, Norm, was supposed to come, as was John, the security guard, and Pamela, the referee, and Randy, the retired teacher. But Norm's got a party and John's got the night shift and Pamela's working a game, and Randy's recuperating from an operation on his knee.

We sit on the Young side of the court -- behind a man who used to coach high school basketball in Mississippi. And it's quite a scene. The gym's packed. They've got North Lawndale's students on one side and Young's on the other. And they're going at it -- each side teasing and taunting the other. All good fun.

The game's nip and tuck. As soon as one team goes up, the other team comes back. They're both good -- but neither is good enough to put the other away. North Lawndale misses too many free throws, Young can't make its layups.

It comes down to one last possession -- Young with the ball down by three. Marcus Jordan drives, North Lawndale's defenders converge and Jordan shuffles a pass to Anthony Johnson, who's been left open in the corner. As it unfolds, I'm thinking: Why did the defenders drop off of Johnson? He's behind the three point line. The best Jordan can do is hit a layup which will only cut the lead to one. But if Johnson hits that three....

Game tied! He buries that baby -- nothing but net. Man, those kids from Young -- they blow the roof off of that joint -- screaming, cheering, stomping. It's like all the good in life gets encapsulated in that moment.

That's two OT's in two nights for Sammy and me -- we truly are on a roll.

Young wins and their kids are singing songs of happiness. I feel good for them, but not too good, cause I also feel bad for North Lawndale. Their players look like they want to cry -- got their heads down and shoulders slumped as they shuffle off the floor. I have a whole pep talk I want to give them: Could have gone either way, shot falls here, shot falls there....

"They should have hit their free throws," says Nick.

"They shouldn't have dropped off of Johnson to double on Jordan," I say.

"High school kids," says the coach from Mississippi. "Gotta cut 'em some slack."

As he says that, I flash back to Rasheed Wallace doing the same thing in game five against San Antonio in the NBA championship back in 2005. He dropped off of Robert Horry to cover Manu Ginobili. And, bam, Horry buried a three to win the game. If Wallace doesn't leave Horry, he doesn't hit that shot and San Antonio doesn't win that game and maybe Detroit wins the championship, instead of the other way around.

And the thing is -- Horry's nickname is Big Shot Rob cause, you know, he always hits the big shot. So how in the hell can you drop off a guy they call Big Shot Rob? But that's how it goes. You get a split second to make a decision -- later on you can only hope it's the right one.

The kids stream out the gym, breath turning to steam in the cold. It's hard to tell who's from North Lawndale and who's from Young -- everybody's got their hoods up and winter coats on. Looks like the game's long since forgotten. Seems like everyone's laughing, carrying on and planning where to party.

I try to remember what it's like to be 16 or 17 or 18. But that was a long time ago....

Benny Jay: Beating The Cold

(authored Thursday, January 16, 2008)

I get a call from Big Jeff, an old friend, who says he's got a ticket for me and my younger daughter for tonight's Bulls-Cavs game

So we drive south on Ashland, and hook up with Jeff and his son, Sammy, who's even bigger than Jeff, at the Billy Goat's on Madison Street. And we march through the Siberian freeze to the United Center. Only, like a dummy, I don't fully button my jacket. So there's this tiny piece of my ear exposed to the cold. And it stings like it's on fire. And I'm wondering how long can three blocks really be?

As we climb to the nose-bleed seats in the upper balcony, Jeff and I agree it will only be a quarter - maybe two - before the Cavs, who have the best record in the NBA, put the Bulls away. We predict LeBron James will score forty - at least - and the only Bull worth watching will be Derrick Rose....

But to our surprise, the Bulls come back after the Cavs break out strong, and it's with Kirk Hinrich -- just back from injury -- leading the charge. Not Rose -- he's on the bench. They're down two at half and tied after three, and it's back and forth in the fourth. And Tyrus Thomas -- that's right, Tyrus Freaking Thomas -- blocks LeBron's shot. Then he blocks another. The Bulls fall behind, but Rose hits two free throws to bring them back. And LeBron, covered tightly by Luol Deng, settles for a long jumper at the buzzer -- he should drive, but I think he doesn't want to go anywhere near Tyrus -- and the shot rims out.

In the overtime, Rose takes over. He races by Cavalier guards, drives the lane, draws the interior defenders and kicks a bullet pass to Deng, wide open in the corner. Bang -- Deng buries the three. And then they do the same play again a few moments later. Only this time Deng's shot bounces off the rim, flies in the air, and falls through the net. Hey, sometimes even the Bulls get lucky.

The walk back to Billy Goat's doesn't seem like a hike through the Arctic. The wind's not so strong. Sammy says he thinks it actually got a little warmer. I say it just feels that way 'cause my boys beat the best team in the NBA....

Nicky & Studs: Here We Are!

(Ha! Here's our coming-out announcement from just a little more than three weeks ago. See how we've changed? - The Editors)

Hi. Nicky and Studs Diamond here. This is our coming-out party. No, not that kind of coming-out party.

This blog is about sports and life - as if the two have anything in common. We've been blogging for each others' edification for a few months now, locking out the public, keeping our posts private, honing our skills, getting ready for the big unveiling. And here it is.

It's a good time to come out, what with the inauguration coming up in four days and the world economy being transformed from pathological acquisitiveness to, well, maybe something a little more reasonable. It's a time of change, even in our insular little world of sports fandom. The Bulls, led by one of the most exciting young players in the NBA, are on the verge of becoming sorta good. The Cubs are on the verge of going to the World Series for the first time since humans began using fire. Or not.

Come along with us on this crazy ride. Meet our pals and kin: Benny the Brain, Coach from Kentucky, Jay-Dub and Norm, Big Frank and his Blasters, The Loved One, a couple of Smart-assed Teenagers, and all the rest of the crew orbiting our world. Follow the exploits of the cartoonish characters who run our teams: Hungry Jim Hendry and Chairman Jer. Live and die with Vinny D, Derrick Rose, Luol, Sweet Lou, Big Z, and Fonzie.

Hey, it's something to do. The Third City is more intellectually satisfying than "Deal or No Deal," it makes way more sense than WorldNet.org, and it's better for you than a short sack of Sliders.