Whee - Me!

I’ve been too busy to rant in these precincts the last few days mainly because I’m hustling to accomplish a couple of other things right now.

I’m Learning!

My family’s picnic is coming up on August 3rd. I hope to have the book, “Coping With The Cubs: A Life of Depression, A Year of Hope” completed and published online before then so I can crow about it to all my kin. Also, I’ve been working on getting down the main guitar part for “Brown Sugar,” perhaps my favorite pop song of all time, so I can play it for my nephew Doug, the aspiring musician of the clan. Doug loves the acrobatic-fingered virtuosos like Joe Satriani, whereas I prefer rhythmic kings like Keith Richards.

I bought my first guitar in January and have been teaching myself how to play. My pal Skip Frank, the trombonist and former Louisville-area high school music teacher, has given me a few theory pointers but mainly I’ve depended on instructional books and You Tube vids. It’s a slow learning process but I’m taking tiny steps forward all the time. One obstacle is that my fingers are sausage-like and I have the genetic misfortune to have been born with spatulated digits, meaning my fingertips are abnormally flat and rounded. That makes it only slightly easier for me to master a musical instrument than for an arthritic butcher to become a neurosurgeon.

A Normal Human Hand Over A Big Mike Hand

Still, I’m pretty proud of myself for taking on the challenge in my 50s.

As for the book, my feelings about it are baffling. I love it and hate it. Sometimes I read what I’ve written and think I’m one of the finest scribes who’s ever trod the Earth. Other times I fear my mother won’t even take the time to read it. I suppose that’s the emotional lot of all writers. Then again, I saw Joyce Carol Oates on a panel discussion yesterday and wondered why I couldn’t be more like her. Oates has written 49 complete novels and eight novellas and has published 32 short story collections, at least eight plays, and countless essays, poems, young adult books and children’s stories. What the hell kind of coffee does that woman drink?

Books Written By Oates Last Week

Oates has been quoted as saying, “I’m drawn to failure. I feel that I’m contending with it constantly in my own life.” My response, with all due respect, is “Joyce, shut up.” I can give her lessons in failure.

Failure, oddly enough, has been missing from the Wrigley Field world this season. We go into the mid-season all-star break with the Cubs tied with the Los Angeles Angels for the best record in baseball. The team is clicking on most cylinders and has about 47 players on the all-star team. How weird and unlikely would it be for the Cubs to end their World Series victory drought precisely at the one-hundred-year mark? Not that I’m betting on it, of course. As I’ve moaned here previously, the Tampa Bay Goddamned Rays will win the Fall Classic this year, defeating the North Side boys. It’s only fitting.

“Apres moi…,”

Ben Joravsky continues to lambaste the Farouk of the Fifth Floor (aka: Mayor Richard M. Daley) in the Chicago Reader. If you’re not up on Bennie’s work on the Mayor’s power grabs and tax-financed war chest you’re missing some of the finest muckraking journalism in the country today.

I understand the Immortal Milo Samardzija has just about completed yet another novel, this one with a science fiction tinge. Sheesh, he must be drinking Joyce Carol Oates’ brand of coffee. Anyway, get on “Schoolboy” right now so you can read this new tome when it comes out. The guy sure knows how to splotch a piece of paper with ink.

Oh, and keep a block of time open for “Coping With The Cubs.”

Big Mike

One of the advantages of not being a TV addict is that whenever I turn the box on, everything seems interesting at least for the first 30 seconds or so. I watch stuff that most TV  junkies would click through without a second thought.

Not Actually Me - This Guy Has Hair

For example, today I sat down on my recliner and switched on the tube during lunch. I came across the Rev. John Hagee, the guy whose brilliant insights into people, the world and god embarrassed the hell out of John McCain. I never knew a thing about this fellow before I heard his comments about Roman Catholics, Hitler, the Jews, and - of course - homosexuals. (Why religious bullies are so fixated on homosexuality is beyond me. They think about homosexuality more than homosexuals do.)

He-e-e-ere’s John Hagee!

Whereas a sane person would have zapped the Hagee show in a nonosecond, I hung on to hear what this guy is all about (as if I couldn’t tell by those few comments I heard previously.) Anyway, Hagee was prowling his altar/stage haranguing his flock who nodded enthusiastically or gazed off in some Jesus-drug trance.

Here’s what Hagee was talking about. He said you have to look at the world through eyes of faith, not physical eyes. Okay, so far so good. A nice little poetic image. Any pastor would be proud to have turned such a phrase. Hagee went on.

If you look at the world through physical eyes, he shouted, you’ll see nothing but darkness, evil, destruction, sin, etc. Cool. He’s really into his metaphor here. His flock continued nodding and staring so, obviously, they were into it too. Nobody’s being hurt so far.

Oops, spoke too soon. Evangelical browbeaters can’t let a moment slip without ripping someone’s intestines out (See? I oughta be a preacher - I know how to wield a mean metaphor myself.) Hagee told his audience that “intellectuals” insist on seeing the world through their physical eyes. The camera panned to the crowd again and the nodding became even more vigorous, as if the Hagee faithful couldn’t wait to hear what dumb asses intellectuals are. Those who were busy staring, by the way, continued at their established pace - once you’re in the Jesus-drug daze, you’re pretty much gone no matter what the preacher says about homosexual, abortionist, satan-worshipping, college professors.

A Typical College Dorm Entrance

Here Hagee dropped the bomb on intellectuals. “That’s why,” said he, “they’re always popping aspirin until they become drunks!” (I use quotations marks liberally here - that’s the quote to the best of my recollection.)

The crowd laughed, although it wasn’t unconditionally mirthful. It was a laugh of recognition and agreement, the way my circle and I would titter about evangelicals being fixated on homosexuality. But Hagee’s worshippers’ laugh was tempered by what appeared to be pity for the poor fool intellectuals who study books, observe the world, conduct experiments, and consider different sides of issues. Such practices clearly can drive a person to the horrors of aspirin addiction.

Tearing Apart The Fabric Of Our Nation

You know, I must have been out of it of late. I was unaware that the aspirin scourge had taken hold of the halls of academia until Hagee told me so. Are professors holding up citizens at gunpoint to get money for their Bayer fixes? Are teaching assistants turning to street prostitution to support their tablet habits?

Aspirin Drove Him To A Life Of Crime

I’m certain college-infested Boston, which the intellectual-coddling media is trying to portray as the City of Championships, is actually an Anacin war zone. And, to be sure, other big cities that are homes to universities are awash in St. Joseph bottles. Aha! How neatly the conspiracies tie in! The Roman Catholics and the aspirin pushers - Hagee, you’ll save our country’s soul yet!

How weird is it that the US, alone among the world’s cultures, belittles its intellectuals? Here, you go to college to get a cushy job in a cubicle, not to hone your mind or broaden your horizons. Study philosophy and people will snicker behind your back. Get an MBA and your relatives will carry you out of the commencement hall on their shoulders.

Not An Intellectual, Thank God!

We mistrust smart people. When presidential candidates debate, the guy who uses polysyllabic words and tries to examine the totality of an issue is usually declared the loser. George W. Bush stumbled and mumbled his way through his first debate with John Kerry so badly I actually felt sorry for him. Then I thought how sad it was that our president was such a cerebral lightweight. Then I read the papers the next day and discovered that the wags all agreed that Kerry alienated much of the viewing public by coming off as “intellectual.” Like that’s bad thing.

Well, it is. I know now. John Hagee told me.

Big Mike

Not long ago, I wrote a post about how I couldn’t help but love my newly adopted Kentucky, the site - with West Virginia - of the legendary Hatfield-McCoy Feud.

The H-M Feud is definitive Kentucky lore, what with its backwoods, shootin’ iron totin’, cousin marryin’, moonshinin’ overtones. Now I’ve discovered a forgotten anecdote that is equally as definitive of my hometown, the great City o’ Chi-KAH-ga. Its existence has been hidden in the reams of information concerning the creation and destruction of the original McCormick Place, the nation’s largest exposition hall.

The Original McCormick Place

Back in the dead of winter 1967 McCormick Place burned down overnight before the opening of the international housewares show. The blaze is legendary in Chicago history because, for one thing, it was the biggest local conflagration other than the Great Fire of 1871 and, two, the structure had been touted as virtually fireproof.

Burnt Out and Collapsed

Sitting on the lakefront just south of Soldier Field and across from Meigs Field, McCormick Place was over 1000 feet long and more than 400 feet wide, as big as the Empire State Building laid on its side. Its exhibition space was larger than six football fields. After it was completed in 1960, McCormick Place helped make Chicago the convention center of the nation.

The city’s convention and exposition business came to a standstill after the fire and remained that way until McCormick Place was rebuilt. The new building opened in 1971, bigger, more modern, and - naturally - really fireproof this time.

McCormick Place: Part Deux

The history of the place serves as a primer for learning about the way Chicago does business. The publisher of the Chicago Tribune, Col. Robert R. McCormick, began pushing for the construction of the center nearly 40 years before it opened.

The Colonel: A Big Man In Town

McCormick insisted the place be built on its eventual site despite the city’s unwritten prohibition against lakefront construction (in 1909, architect and city planner Daniel Burnham issued his far-reaching Plan for Chicago, insisting that “The lakefront by right belongs to the people.”) The Colonel, though, would not be deterred. He cajoled, threatened, and bullied a string of Chicago mayors and Illinois governors until he died in 1955, the year Richard J. Daley was elected mayor.

Daley I: An Even Bigger Man

Daley was more interested in transforming his city into a big economic player than abiding by Burnham’s encomium that Chicago was a “Paris on the Prairie” with its green, unfettered front yard on the shores of Lake Michigan. Building a giant exhibition hall on the lakefront would mean thousands of jobs for union laborers loyal to Daley and a river of revenue in the form of visitor dollars spent on hotels, restaurants, taxicabs, and countless other amenities. After weighing his options - hundreds of millions of dollars of economic activity versus Burnham’s pristine lakefront - Daley said, in essence, the people’s right to the lakefront be damned.

Along with a massive expansion of O’Hare International Airport, the building of a University of Illinois campus just southwest of the Loop, and the announcement that the John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company would erect the world’s second-tallest building on North Michigan Avenue, McCormick Place was part of Daley’s personal stamp on the city.

Then, within a span of seven hours beginning a few minutes after two in the morning, one of Daley’s signature shrines was transformed into nothing more than a gigantic smoking pile of twisted steel and crumbling concrete. Investigations into the fire later indicated there’d been glaring construction and safety oversights that contributed to the building’s destruction.

Wreckage

Daley ran for re-election later that year, eventually winning his fourth term in office. His Republican opponent, a harmless man named John Waner, hoped to use some of the findings of the investigations against Daley. He was rebuffed, though, when he approached the Tribune with his charges. The paper was eager to gain quick approval for the monument to its late publisher to be rebuilt on the lakefront so it told Waner to take a hike. At least that’s the story Waner told Mike Royko in the columnist’s book, “Boss: Richard J. Daley of Chicago.”

But here’s the little nugget I dug up tonight. It says everything you need to know about the city I was born in. Time magazine, in reporting on the McCormick Place fire, attempted to calculate the dollar cost to the city. After it listed the value of the building and all the display materials and goods, Time added that $25,000-worth of diamonds were missing. According to the magazine, the diamonds were to be given away as prizes during the housewares show.

Diamonds? What Diamonds?

How beautiful is that? How Chicago? Some 150 laborers and security guards were in McCormick Place when the fire started. Could one of them have grabbed the hot ice as he evacuated the place? Or could a firefighter have stuffed the box of rocks underneath his greatcoat amid all the confusion and smoke?

The diamonds have never been mentioned again. We only know this: some opportunistic Chicagoan became a wealthy man in the early morning hours of that frigid January day 41 years ago. It was a fitting coda for the first McCormick Place.

I love that city.

Big Mike

A man walked through the Speedway gas station lot yesterday, Independence Day. He wore a straw sun hat that had a couple of little American flags stuck into the hat band. He was shoving his change in his pocket as he was getting into his SUV. As he did this, something fell on the ground, unbeknown to him. I couldn’t tell if it was a receipt or a dollar bill so I got out of the car (the loved one, Karen, was filling the tank - we have an agreement: whoever’s driving pumps the gas) and trotted toward his vehicle.

As I neared it, I noticed he had Vietnam veteran’s plates. I pointed out the piece of paper, which turned out to be a receipt. He jumped out of his SUV and thanked me profusely as if I’d recovered the missing deed to his house.

One of the first things you learn about the near south is that people treat everyday encounters with strangers like reunions with long lost relatives. Had this occurred back in Chicago, I could have expected either to be ignored or a terse “thanks.” This fellow, though, clasped my hand and began telling me what a wonderful day it was, how lucky we all are to be alive, isn’t this the greatest country on Earth, and Jesus has made it all possible.

For a quick minute, I thought he might invite home to meet his wife and have dinner.

After trying to say goodbye to him three separate times, I finally was able to extricate myself from his neighborly grip. He got back into his SUV, began backing out of the parking spot, then rolled down his window to wave farewell to me once again. In the process, he almost slammed into another car that was just pulling in.

It was a typical encounter with a god-fearing, patriotic gentleman of the south.

What struck me, though, is that he was a black man. This chance meeting got me to thinking how odd it is that so many black men and women love this country so much.

A Rally Of Patriots, August 1963

When some angry sermons delivered by Barack Obama’s ex-pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, made the rounds earlier this year, many white commentators were aghast. Their reaction couldn’t have been too different from that following a German Bundist rally in 1939 or a neo-Nazi hatefest in 1977. You’d have thought Wright (and, by extension, Obama) was advocating the mass enslavement of American citizens.

Barack Obama (L) and Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Before All The Hysteria

I found nothing particularly alarming or upsetting about anything Wright said, save for the notion that AIDS might have been created by the US government to attack black people. Then again, when you recall the Tuskegee syphilis study scandal, you can’t blithely dismiss any such theory.

In fact, I found Wright’s comments on America and race to be right on target. He talked about how stupid US foreign policy decisions contributed to the atmosphere that led to the 9/11 attacks - I’m with him there. He called for blacks to pull together to foster cultural, spiritual and economic unity - natch. And when he said “God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn American for as long as she acts like she is god and she is supreme,” my reaction was, Amen!

A few centuries of slavery, a hundred years of Jim Crow, and some sixty years of separate but equal ought to have radicalized any thinking black human being. Yet, yesterday I met a black man who was so enthralled with his country that he wore American flags attached to his hat. Not only that, he had fought in an undeclared war for that nation.

Not-So-Ancient History

Why?

The only explanation I can offer is that black people have been able to distinguish between the evils that exist in our society and its potential for eliminating them. Sure, some of the working concepts of slavery were written into the US Constitution, but many of the revolutionaries who created the US loathed the system of human “ownership.” Thomas Jefferson, for one, although a slaveholder himself, called slavery the “great political and moral evil” in his treatise, “Notes On Virginia.”

We humans are an inconsistent, contradictory lot. The so-called “Founding Fathers” were as mixed up as any other gang of guys. They were smart enough to embrace democracy but too obtuse to ensure the participation of blacks and women in that system.

It’s clear there was a notion running through the young country that although slavery existed, its continued existence wasn’t long for the US and this world. A nation firmly and unanimously committed to slavery for the indefinite future wouldn’t have have included the words “all men are created equal” in its Declaration of Independence.

Perhaps many black men and women have clung to the dream of the US despite its temporal realities. Can it be that they love what this nation can become despite hating what it often is? If so, they’ve displayed a sophistication of thought that’s far beyond that of the white commentators who had conniption fits when they heard the words of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Happy Independence Day!

Big Mike

Imagine taking home a $1.4 million-dollar paycheck every two weeks. That’s $2.8 million a month (and even more in those glorious months that contain three paydays.) I’d work one year and be done with it - no matter what it is. My biggest challenge would to to resist the urge to retire after working a single month. Sure as I’m sitting here typing nonsense into a blog for free, I could find a way to live the rest of my life comfortably on a nice $2.8 million nest egg.

Talk Is Cheap

What does one have to do to rake in such riches? Develop a cure for breast cancer? Convince Hezbollah and the Israeli Knesset to co-sponsor Woodstock III? Invent an automobile engine that runs on AAA batteries?

Apparently all one has to do is sit before a radio microphone and demonstrate to the nation what an asshole sounds like. Yup. Rush Hudson Limbaugh III has just signed a new eight year contract with Clear Channel Communications that will pay him a total of $400 million. The deal includes a $100 million up-front signing bonus. All this for a man who once referred to 13-year-old Chelsea Clinton as the White House dog.

I can be a mean prick too! Where are my millions?

Clear Channel probably made the deal figuring that Barack Obama will be elected president this fall. Can you imagine the orgy of bitterness, canard, prevarication, not-so-subtly coded racism, and hysteria his show will become? Oh, that’s right - it is already! Right now, Limbaugh attracts some 20 million listeners a week to his daily syndicated three-hour show. I feel confident in guessing there are many more than 20 million lunkheads in this great nation whose penises will shrink upon realization that Obama has become their leader.

Remember when conservatives put this bumper sticker on their cars?

That was when Bill Clinton occupied the White House. You know, Bill Clinton, the centrist, the most moderate of the eight or so aspirants for the 1992 Democratic nomination for president. After his victory that year, the Limbaugh-led right branded him a dirty rotten liberal and helped transform the word into a pejorative.

What will Limbaugh gang say and do if Obama, who, while not exactly Che Guevara but at least more lefty than Bill, becomes the Commander in Chief? I’ll bet the 20 million who listen to Rush every week now will grow to 30 or 40 million! What agit-prop will they display? This?

So, with recession slamming us, gas prices rocketing toward the moon, the housing market flopping, and the very real possibility that the US will elect a (somewhat) black man as President this fall, the Supreme Court issues a death blow to municipal firearms bans. Yikes!

The Real American Girl

The five black-robed Solomons (all nominated by Ronnie Reagan and the Bush Dynasty) who signed off on the majority opinion last week are essentially telling the American public that its right to keep, cherish, and rub shootin’ irons all over their bodies is, well, sacred. Great. Just what we need in a time of economic malaise and jarring social change.

~ This turn of events might have made me depressed (or at least even more so than I usually am) if I hadn’t discovered that the lovely town of Manitowoc, Wisconsin is holding Sputnikfest on Friday and Saturday, September 5th and 6th.

The First Sputnik

It seems a chunk of Sputnik IV crashed onto the streets of said burgh back in 1962. Now a bunch of awfully cool people have come up with this first annual gala to mark the historic event. It’ll be a combination art fair, music fest, food orgy, beer bash, and overall hoot.

Manitowoc is on the way to Door County from Milwaukee and Chicago, so I’d suggest heading there for the weekend (organizers promise to name a Miss Sputnikfest, as if you needed more encouragement) and then driving up to Wisconsin’s thumb for fish boils, fab scenery, and cherry pie.

~ My pal Ben Joravsky tells me my recent post on the Cubs is prima facie evidence that I’m fairly well along on the road to psychosis. I predicted that the Cubs will break my heart this fall by losing the World Series to the Tampa Bay Rays. Here’s an excerpt of his response:

…and you’re doing this fretting in june, mind you, months before the post season begins. the cubs haven’t even made it to the playoffs — much less the world series — and you’re already worrying about losing the series to the rays. it’s like you’ve conjured up the worst of all possible endings to a wonderful season and convinced yourself that it will come true. i love you dearly, big feller, but when it comes to the cubs, you’re nuttier than a fruit cake….

Yeah. Wonderful season. And he tells me I’m crazy.

The Rays Win! The Rays Win!

~ Hey, have you bought Milo Samardzija’s book, “Schoolboy,” yet? If not, why not?

Big Mike

I’ve been moaning to everyone I know that my heart will be broken this fall when, after the Cubs reach the World Series for the first time in 63 years, they will be beaten by those no-good, dirty lousy schmucks from Tampa Bay, the Goddamned Rays.

Yeah, yeah. Funny and ironic, it’s a scenario that plays in nicely with any good Cubs fan’s dearly-held mystical narrative of catastrophe. But you know what? I’m even more afraid that this coming fall promises a far more real and serious heartbreak.

President Ahmadinejad inspects Iran’s bomb kitchen

Seymour Hersh in today’s New Yorker writes that US military special operations have already begun in Iran, laying the groundwork for the shoot-’em-up that’ll be Bushie Boy’s farewell gift to the world. The Bush administration came into office salivating for Iraq. After the events of September 11th, 2001, the gang decided to remake the entire Middle East. The neo-conservative wonk-bullies who made up Bush’s inner circle saw their mission as quite nearly divine - to conduct a modern Crusade to rein in rampant Moslem fundamentalism and make the world safe for oil billionaires.

Now, at the end of what is without a doubt the nation’s worst-ever presidency, Bush and his croaking toads seem to want to finish the job. The whole thing makes a lot of sense, if your moral position resembles that of Dr. Strangelove. Radical Moslem fundamentalists, we all agree, need to be, well, neutralized. The attacks of 9/11 were so fortuitous for the Bush gang’s long-range plans that conspiracy theorists couldn’t help but adding two and two and coming up with a gazillion. And with China and India suddenly becoming huge consumers of oil, it’s imperative that the Middle East’s black gunk be controlled by trusty fellows who pay more heed to the value of the American dollar than to the writings of the Koran. Finally, an impending war around election time favors the candidate who’s a decorated war veteran and not a martini-sipping wall-leaner.

Future candidates: McCain in uniform, Obama in the library.

I hope I’m wrong. I hope the worst thing that happens in October is a Tampa Bay rally from a three-games-to-one deficit to win the World Series over the Cubs. But this is George W. Bush we’re talking about. Expect the worst.

Big Mike

Looks like Osama bin Laden was located a couple of years ago.

Thanks to dirtycock (see comments - June 25, 2008), I’ve learned that an alert Wal-Mart manager in Argentina fingered the world’s most wanted man (other than Brad Pitt, of course.)

Wanted Men: bin Laden (left,) a young Pitt (right)

Okay, so the guy wasn’t actually ObL himself. But he looked like him! Isn’t that good enough? Bushie boy should have been staging “Mission Accomplished - Part Deux.”

I’ve been to Wal-Mart once in my life. I was out for a motorcycle ride one afternoon, roaming aimlessly through Wisconsin, when I reached the town of Whitewater, where there’s a campus of the University of Wisconsin system. Puttering down the main street I passed a Wal-Mart and curiosity got the better of me. I U-turned and went in.

So, now I know. Wal-Mart is a big store. Big deal! With the way people talked about it back in the 90s, I thought magic happened there. Anyway, the foray wasn’t a total loss. I found a DVD of “The Big Lebowski” for $9.99. Nice deal.

The Dude, Donny, and Walter

Now we know Wal-Mart not only locks in its employees, it locks out guys who merely look like fugitive terrorists. I should have spent my ten bucks somewhere else.

I haven’t thought about our country’s system of terrorism alerts in years.

See The Pretty Colors

Of course, I’m not the only one who has ignored the Bush administration’s attempt to keep us aware of all the madmen out there who want to destroy our good way of life and make it impossible for honest, hard-working oil speculators to ply their trade. But there’s little hard data indicating how high or low public awareness is of the color code system. I only know that Fox News, which at first gleefully displayed the current color level in it’s bottom-of-the-screen crawls 24 hours a day, no longer does so. If Fox isn’t publicizing a Bush initiative, it ain’t happening.

The system suddenly came back to mind today when I read Charlie Black’s recent comments about a possible terrorist attack in the US. Black, who’s a senior adviser to Sen. John McCain, told reporters that such an attack would help the Republican candidate in the presidential race, you see, because scared voters in such circumstances would prefer the rough and tough McCain to that marshmallow, Barack Obama.

How do we know Obama is soft? Karl Rove says so. Bushie boy’s former political strategist and saboteur had this to say about the Democratic presidential candidate: “Even if you never met him, you know this guy. He’s the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone who passes by.” Sheesh! You want a guy like this protecting us against jihadists?

Even though McCain swore up and down that what Black said is a pack of lies, he has to know that his adviser was speaking the truth. If he weren’t why would Rove and other Republicans be spending so much time painting Obama as Neville Chamberlain, Vidkun Quisling, and Benedict Arnold all rolled into one?

Bush Loves His Country With All His Abdomen

The good citizens of the United States are a pack of scared rabbits despite the fact that this country is the sole remaining superpower on Earth. The rest of the world sees us as a strutting bully. No other nation can send its armed forces halfway around the planet to overthrow another nation’s government simply because, um, because, well, we did it - that’s the point I’m trying to make. On the other hand, we see ourselves as beset on all sides by swarthy lunatics and conniving foreigners. The radical Muslims, the hordes of undocumented Mexicans, the wiley Chinese, and even the Mobbed-up Russians are all poised to pounce on us. Regardless of our might, Americans insist on cowering under the covers because of the bogeymen under the bed.

Scaredy-cats are always on the lookout for a protector, a big daddy-o who’ll keep the night safe. Bush and the boys know this all too well - and so must McCain. Bush’s popularity zoomed after the 9/11 attacks. He spoke tough and rattled his saber, immediately issuing marching orders which included the map of Afghanistan. He did what any other American leader would have done under the circumstances yet too many people became slavish in their gratitude that Bush was president in those dark days rather than Al Gore. Ooh, they moaned, wringing their hands, what would Gore have done? Duh! He would have curled up in a ball and commenced weeping uncontrollably. Once he finally stopped sobbing, he’d have sent Osama bin Laden the keys to the White House via overnight courier.

For some reason, Republicans are viewed as decisive he-men while the Dems are clowns and pushovers. Then again, the Democrats did once nominate Michael Dukakis as their presidential candidate.

We turn to the trusty GOP when we’re most frightened of the brown- and yellow-skinned billions hidden out in the woods. During the election season of 2004, when Bush faced a reasonably stiff challenge from John Kerry, his gang raised the terror alert to orange on September 10th, the perfect time to scare the poo out of the electorate. Bush’s popularity rose accordingly. Just in case you were wondering, that’s the only time the threat level has been raised since the system was instituted. The fact that it occurred during election season is mere coincidence. Oh, and pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

How are we to react if the threat level is raised once again between now and November? I don’t know about you, but I won’t be surprised.

Alright, I’m neurotic. Paranoid, too. Obsessed with the Cubs – of course! I don’t buy into the concept of hexes or curses or any other woo-woo claptrap. But I know, I know, I know with every fiber of my being that the team with the best record in Major League Baseball on this date (yep, it’s my Cubs!) is going to break my heart by the end of October.

It Can’t Happen Again - Can It?

In fact, I even know how it’s going to happen. Cubs heartbreaks don’t come in plain brown wrappers. They’re not going to fall short by being beaten by a superior team, a team with a history like the Yankees or the Red Sox. Oh no, that’d be too humdrum.

I’m predicting right here and now the Cubs of 2008 will finally, after 63 years, reach the World Series. Mark it, baby!

The Cubs (and it’s difficult for me to type these words because it all sounds so odd) are the cream of the National League. No other team can touch them, even with Carlos Zambrano and Alfonso Soriano cooling their heels on the disabled list. I love this team.

The Black Cat Will Arrive Late This Year.

The hitters are smart, working counts, not trying to win games with six-run home runs, going with the pitch when necessary, taking the walk when the opposition pitcher gives it to them. Aramis Ramirez is a wonder. Derek Lee is steady and strong. Soriano is a greyhound. Geovany Soto is a dream come true. And Kosuke Fukudome is a ballplayer.

The pitchers have learned to throw strikes. Ryan Dempster no longer tears our guts out with his ninth-inning high-wire act; he’s one of the top starters in the league this year. He, Zambrano, Ted Lilly, and Jason Marquis form a dependable rotation. Kerry Wood now blows guys away in the ninth inning. Lou Piniella moves his relievers in and out of games like a chess master.

And in the field? The Cubs now catch the ball, throw it, and hold on to it when necessary as if someone has actually taught them a few basics of the game. Lou spent the first third of last season demanding they execute plays like professionals. His hard work has paid off.

The Cubs’ record is no fluke. They lead the league in runs scored and have allowed the fewest runs. That’s dominance. World Series here we come.

Now, for the sick part. The Cubs will not win the World Series. That alone shouldn’t be too much of a kick in the belly. If, say, the Red Sox take the Series in six games, we could console ourselves by saying, Heck, they’ve won a few championships lately. They’re the Red Sox!

But Boston ain’t gonna win the 2008 Series. Nor are the Bronx Bombers in their last year in Yankee Stadium. Not even the Angels of Southern California, they of the intimidating pitchers and Vlad the Slugger.

Here’s who’s going to win the 2008 World Series over my beloved Chicago Cubs. It’s a team that isn’t even a dozen years old. It’s a team whose attendance is lower than all but one other franchise in the American League. If this team decided to pack up its belongings and move clear across the country tomorrow, the yawn emanating from its hometown would be deafening. It’s a team whose manager is a bespectacled wonk who, by appearance, would seem more at home sitting in the cubicle down near the photocopy machine. It’s a team full of John Does who, admittedly, are talented, young and exciting, but most of whom probably need to flash an ID every time they want to enter the ballpark.

Make no mistake – the Cubs will take the early Series lead over them. Chicagoans will be dancing in the streets in anticipation of the first Cubs championship since before the development of broadcast radio. But the aforementioned team will come back. The visceral pain I experienced on September 25, 2004, and October 14, 2003, and October 7, 1984, and September 10, 1969 will be nothing so much as preparation for the agony I’ll experience in four months. I’ll even predict the new entry to add to this assemblage of infamous dates: Sunday, October 9, 2008.

Better Stock Up On Kleenex.

That’s the day the Cubs will have the a World Series championship snatched from them by a bunch of anonymities from a town where nobody really cares about them. On that day, the Tampa Bay Rays, will win Game 7 of the World Series in Wrigley Field.

The Tampa Bay Goddamned Rays.

I love the Cubs with all my heart and soul. But I hate them, too.