March 22 Steroids hearings day two

"Steroids been berry berry good to me." Sammy Sosa said to congress with a smile so wide and infectious even Mark McGwire chuckled as he mimicked stabbing his posterior with a needle. "The leetle children grow so beeg when they have their Jooce!" He kept the senators laughing "And you knows how I loves the leetle cheeldrens!" The laughter died down somewhat with that last comment, but started right back up when he added "Joo theenk I was buying Sunny Deelight in the hotel lobby for tweenty tousand doellars?"

How refreshing it was today in the secret hearings, nobody took the fifth, everyone told the truth. Raphie Palmeiro, the spokesman for Viagra, still says he never used performance enhancing drugs. "There was no such thing as the blue pill when I was dating Ryne Sandberg's wife!" he exclaimed. "Unlike Sammy, I never needed cork in my bat to knock one out of the park."

The most stunning admission came from the bad boy himself Jose Canseco "I was in love with Mark McGwire, sure I was in a toilet stall naked with him on several occasions, but not to inject him with steroids, that's just my cover story, I just wanted him to notice me, spend some time with me, I wanted him to want me, Jose, all the way, 110 percent."

President Bush in a special taped message admitted to knowing several Texas Rangers used the now banned substance when he was an owner. "Sure I knew, I even had a secret code name for it WMBD, Weapon of mass baseball destruction we called it, I took some myself when I went to Yale and it had no negative affect on me, except for making it virtually impossible for me to eat a pretzel without choking!" The entire hearing went up for grabs on that line. Denny Hastert peed his pants.

A peeved commissioner Bud Selig left the chamber spouting "No Comment!" to reporters waiting behind the locked doors. He left in such haste the "Kick Me" sign taped to his back came loose and floated down the capitol steps. A little boy picked it up, and with a tear in his eyes uttered "Say it ain't so ridiculous Joe, say it ain't so!"

March 21 Former Fireman

Edgar Watson Howe once said "If the fools do not control the world, it isn't because they are not in the majority!" This isn't just the most important truism you will hear today, it is also the answer to today's Cryptoquote puzzle in the newspaper. Somewhere in between doing my work, raising my family, playing golf, and screwing up my marriage, I have become addicted to crossword puzzles and cryptoquotes. What's next Jumble? It's not a hobby, let me make that perfectly clear, I don't have hobbies. A hobby is a leisure activity that brings a person pleasure. Every hobby I've ever tried has become a possible career path, from bowling, guitar, golf, you name it, I've attacked it with the goal of becoming pro and hated every minute of it. I have accepted the fact that I will never be a pro golfer, and yet I still work at is as if my livelihood depends upon it. I write songs on my guitar with the belief that someday the masses will be screaming for a middle aged rock star.

This crossword thing is perplexing, I can't begin my day without finishing the morning crossword in less than 20 minutes. I can't go to bed without the evening crossword and cryptoquote. I'm not learning anything at this point. I'm obsessed. OK, I have learned a few things, like when a crossword maker needs a word with a lot of E's, he will rely on a few basic words. 1. Fencing foil...EPEE. 2. a great lake ERIE 3. Scary..EERIE 4. Big shoe size...EEEE. I imagine crossword makers, wringing their hands, and sweating profusely when they finally resort to Big Shoe Size. "I'm holding that one back for the Sunday big crossword!" they must say to themselves.

Maybe if I spent a little less time trying to figure out a 5 letter word for "unvoiced" and a little more time trying to figure out my own psyche, I wouldn't be in the horrible situation I find myself in today. Tacit, the word is tacit. Maybe if I attacked the world's problems with the same vigor, or a cure for cancer, or a really great shoe that slides on and off easily and doesn't set off metal detectors in airports. Maybe if I found a cure for the Flu, which I have right now, and is making write silly things in my blog, then I would be able to write a really good blog, but I am totally unable to do that at the moment and I beg your forgiveness.

But I know that the words I write will be accepted by the wise and eschewed by the ignorant. Just as Moliere said " In clothes as well as in speech, the man of taste will shun all these extremes that give offense." Love that cryptoquote!

March 15 The Butcher of Martin County

I remember being a freshman in high school, sitting in Study Hall, doing a total Napoleon Dynamite. I was sitting there drawing pictures in my notebook of Mr. Clean. I felt like Mr. Clean was the funniest looking person in all of television advertising. He was bald and muscular, that meant he was a badass, he wore a white t-shirt and white pants that meant he was either a massuese or a janitor, and he had a gold loop earring that meant he was gay. Pete Bruner was sitting across from me, chewing about 7 clods of bazooka bubblegum. He blew a bubble so large it engulfed his entire head and then popped. He had wads of gum on his face and in his hair. I laughed. The next thing I knew the study hall teacher, who was also the basketball coach had me by the arm and drug me and Pete to his private office. Pete's crime had been blowing bubbles in study hall, and my heinous crime was.... laughing at Pete being a dumbass. He told us to turn around and bend over and not to look back. He began giving us a speech about how normal people are to behave in this world, becoming more agitated as he spoke. I didn't turn around, but I could see his distorted reflection in a gold drawer handle. I won't say he was masturbating, but I did detect rapid, rhythmic motions coming from his direction. His voice got louder, and then he took a large wooden paddle, with air holes (for speed), and swatted Pete with a loud crack. Pete started crying like a little girl, I felt so ashamed of him. Satisfied that he had hurt Pete enough, he turned his attention to me. He whacked me five times before he stopped, and I turned around and smiled at him. He swatted me again, this time above the kneecap. He told me that it was only a "Love Tap" and it should be a valuable lesson for me. I noticed a wadded up towel behind him on his desk.

Jack Butcher is the winningest high school basketball coach ever. They erected a sign in his honor in my home town of Loogootee, Indiana. They have similar looking signs here in Chicago, but they say things like "No Turn on Red." Recently I heard that he wrote a book about his experiences in life. Initially, I thought I heard that he had Read a book, which I would find even more astonishing. The basic difference is, I know that you can always have a book written "for" you. (see Jose Canseco) I decided that I needed to get my own copy, just to see if he could provide any insight to me on his behavior. I tried all the internet sites, but the answer came that the book was a "Vanity" book and was unavailable for purchase, he had paid for the publication out of his own pocket. What publishing firm in it's right mind would not leap to publish the biography of the winningest coach in high school basketball history?

In my small town there were two schools, a public, and a Catholic. The summer before my Junior year it became apparent that the Catholic school had some top-notch players on it's basketball team. The public school, coached by Butcher, was ok, but it could've been really good with the Catholics on board. Fate took a hand. Just weeks before the start of the school year, the Catholic school burned to the ground. It was decided that the schools be merged, and one great basketball team was born. The Loogootee Lions were unstoppable, they were a juggernaut. That year the little Cinderella team from a Podunk town in the hills of Martin County went all the way to the State Finals! It was just like in the movie "Hoosiers" only with arson.

The next year, I had another run-in with Coach. I had defied his plan to make the Senior boys sit in the back bleachers of the stadium for the ensuing season of basketball. We put together an anti-cheering squad that bought a block of seats on the opposing side of the gym. Every game, when they announced his name "And the coach for the Loogootee Lions, Jack Butcher!" We as a block would scream in unison "SUCKS!" We would then all sing the Mexican hat dance song, singing Tawna wanna wanana banana, while making the motions of 150 boys jerking off. By the time half the season was over the school staff had figured out what we were doing, and I was called into the office to be warned on behalf of the entire unit. As I stood there in his office, he looked small and weak, with his flat top haircut, and his corn yellow teeth. He told me again about the proper behavior a person needs to follow to be a success in life. Frankly, I mentally slept through the conversation. I nodded my head agreeably, shook his hand, and headed for the door. His paddle was nailed to the wall over his transom, now against school policy to be used. I couldn't help but notice the fur-lined jock strap hanging on the coat rack. I looked down at my hand, it was damp and sticky, "where did that come from?" I wondered. I began to whistle the Mexican hat dance song, and walked on down the hall.

I remain bitter and sad about, not only my run ins with the Coach, but with the non-existent level of education at Loogootee High. One thing I can take away from those pathetic 4 years is..Mr. Clean cleans up dirt and grime in only just a minute, Mr. Clean cleans your house and home and everything that's in it!

March 14 Hummus

Here it is Monday again and I've survived yet another weekend away from my job for two days. I work extremely early in the morning because I'm a Director on a snappy peppy morning show. Yesterday the city celebrated St. Patricks Day and this morning, when I was driving to work I was nearly clipped by a drunk driver, going at a high rate of speed and swerving back and forth. He eventually ran off the road in front of me and came right back at me, skidding and swerving. I had the radio on and a really crappy song was playing. I had some issues over the weekend and I was mad. It occurred to me that I might have died this morning. What's worse is I may have died listening to bad music while I was pissed off!! I don't know what happened to the driver of the Death Car, but I'm sure that he ran into something and bled green the rest of the morning.

So I started thinking about the ideal situation that I would like my last few on earth to be like. If it happened at a movie, it would have to be a film that I've already seen and am well versed on how it ends. If it were during a sporting event, I'd like it to be hockey because it would be a relief to be dead. If I were eating at the time, I think I like to choke on the bone of a Frog's leg, that would be sure to make all the snappy peppy morning shows. If it were in bed I want it to be while I'm watching an episode of Curb your Enthusiasm, I like that Larry David guy. If it were in a car, I want the song "Bluesmobile" by Lil Ed and Blues Imperials playing on the stereo, and I want to be hit by a car with "fins" since Fin is Italian for "The End."

What I'm saying is I want to go happy. I want St. Peter to look at me and say "What's so freakin funny?" I want the big guy to take the cigar out of his mouth and ask me "So you gonna let me in on the joke?" I want my dead relatives to come to me and say "This isn't any relative of ours, he's too happy, let's leave him alone for eternity!" I want my dead friends from High School to ask me if I have any more of what I was smokin.

That being said, I don't want to go anytime soon. I'm pretty darned happy with respirating and such right now. I was relieved that the car missed me this morning, and I honestly hope he didn't take anyone else to their grand reward. I do hope however, that he was arrested and raped in jail.

So what am I going to do with my extra life that God hath bestowed upon me? I'm going to exercise, get plenty of rest, and take Geritol every day. That's a line from a commercial back in the 60's. They claimed that if you took Geritol tablets, you would live a long, healthy life. My Uncle Roy took Geritol and he died under an electric blanket turned up on Hi Ho Silver. When they found him, days later, he was nothing but Uncle Roy soup. That makes me wonder if they still make electric blankets? Anyway, I'm going to make the effort to have every day be special, and I'll sniff the flowers once they emerge from the black snow, I'm going to hug everyone I love a little tighter, and I'm going write that novel I've been dreaming of, and I'm going to chop down a mountain with the edge of my hand. Cos' I'm a voodoo chile. That's what I want playing on the stereo, the Stevie Ray Vaughan version, with extra bass. Today is the first day of the rest of my life as a snappy peppy morning show director, and what I don't bring snap to, I for sure am gonna apply some pep! An electric blanket could save money on heating the whole house, you're just warm where you are and the rest of the house could be freezin cold. So excuse me, I have a date at Hugo's Frog Bar tonight. Fin. XXXXX

Come back I wasn't finished

I was saying that I'd wait until you got back from the restroom! That was so rude of you.

Anyway, as I was saying. How about those Cubs?

I have been seeing a therapist to work through some of the problems that have gotten me thrown out of my own home. My wife is seeing a therapist to work through some of the problems that have gotten me thrown out of my own home. Today I scheduled a meeting with a therapist that we can both see together. I have added up the amount of money we've spent on therapy and discovered that I could have a giant screen plasma with surround sound, a new Ford Mustang GT, a Gibson Les Paul guitar, and a vacation to the big island of Hawaii if we weren't mentally ill.

That brings me to the Ford Mustang GT. I really like that car. I need to have one. Maybe if I buckled down.......

This was supposed to be about phrases that I wanted to eliminate from my brain, but they really don't want to go. I was going to tell you that when I was a little boy, my mom told me to write what sells! When I told her I didn't want to she said "Life is a shit sandwich, and everyday you take another bite." That is why I have so many therapists. I have never told my own kids that life is a shit sandwich , they figured that one out all by themselves. They don't care, they continue to draw great and bizarre pictures, and write strange songs, and color their hair purple and green, and refuse to take a bite. Dear son, don't buckle down, it's a mistake, you can live off of me for as long as I live and never move out of your room if you don't want to. (geez,I wish my wife had said that to me) Dear Daughter, I like the way your hair looks, I really really do, when you run out of different colors, start from the beginning again.

Together we can get through the tough parts, and laugh our way through the funny parts. Together we can learn a whole new set of phrases we can use...like... "Welcome to Jiffy Lube, would you like a new oil filter?"

March 11 Letting it all Go

Recently I told my son that if he didn't "Buckle Down" he would "Wind up working in a gas station!" I was astounded to hear myself say this for two reasons. 1. I don't believe I've ever said anything like that before. 2. Gas station work is in these current days just grocery store work. When I was a young man you got a job in a gas station if your only other talent was slobbering. Gas station attendants used to pump your gas,wipe your windshield,check your oil, and try to trick you into buying new wipers. Now you can only get such service from homeless guys on street corners or at Jiffy Lube. My own sister works at a Speedway, but she didn't buckle down in school.

What bothers me here is my use of the phrase "Buckle Down." I don't talk like that! Nobody has talked like that since my mother had a massive stroke. So I've decided to find all the useless and ridiculous phrases that are festering in my head and let them go. Awlrighty?

I have wound up working at a television station. It's a great big one in a great big market. I worked for many years in little tv stations and slowly inched my way up to the big time. I am a Director, a very responsible and skilled position that once explained, causes peoples eyes to glaze over, and makes them say "So what then, you run a camera?" I almost always say "Yes" because it's just not necessary for anyone to know or care. Sometimes I say "Steven Spielberg is a director, we belong to the same union!" When I say that I'm usually drunk and whoever I'm talking to has to go to the restroom suddenly. My main job is to pump tv shows, wipe your tv screen, and try to trick you into buying a myriad of things via well produced commercials. I didn't buckle down in school either.

Recently my wife told me, for very personal reasons, that I need to find another job. She studied broadcasting in college, did some radio work, and threw me out of the house the day after christmas. It's hard to explain to her that jobs like mine are hard to find, but she tells me that she knows all about my job and that a man like me can find work running a camera anywhere. My job is kind of like leading an orchestra. A TV show is put together and broadcast by a large team of producers and technicians. Elements must be gathered, scripts written, cameras operated, tapes edited, talent ass kissed, live shots established, and commercials scheduled. I put the show on the air by directing people to perform their jobs in a precise and timely manner. The shows I direct are live and there is no stopping, no rests, and no mulligans when you make a mistake. I must know everyone's job so I can go about making them do the jobs that they don't really like, are too good for, or jobs that can't be performed that well while drunk or high on cocaine. When something goes horribly wrong it is my responsibilty, so therefore my job is considered "High Stress." I like my job most of the time, and I have been lucky enough to find one that pays better than working in a gas station. I'll wait until yo

March 7 Major Corporal Punishment

In a suburb of Chicago recently, a mother was called to her young son's private school to discuss the boy's bad behavior in his 1rst grade classroom. At the conclusion of their meeting the mother was ordered to take the boy home and spank him. When the woman refused she was told that if she did not, the boy would be suspended and the 6 years olds permanent record would be soiled for life. Now I don't care where you stand on the beating of small children, and maybe the little monster deserves a good kick in the pants, or a stick in the eye, or a trip to Neverland Ranch. Maybe a school "does" have the right to insist you whack the living shit out of your children. My question is this...How would they know if you spanked your child or not? If you really did spank your child, is there a rule about how hard? Do they send some kind of meter home with you? Do they check for fingerprints? I think they should videotape the spanking so the gym teacher would have something to watch while he....Works out. This school is a Christian academy that believes the right, no the duty, of spanking comes directly from the Bible. I am reminded of the car accident in Texas where a bully ran into an older woman's car with his pickup and then got out and began screaming at the lady, calling her names. The woman and her friends beat him unconscious with their King James Bibles. God Spanks.

When I was much younger and poorer, I was in a Laundromat in a small Indiana town. I was washing my feeble white underthings across a row of washing machines from a large woman carrying a baby. She had another toddler holding the hem of her skirt and another little girl sitting in the chairs behind her. Her loud and obnoxious son ran up to her while she was in the act of feeding about 7 machines full of laundry, he grabbed her wrist and shouted "Momma I want a Cokie-cola!" That's how Hoosiers talk down there. She hauled off and slapped him flush across the face with the palm of her hand. "Shut UP!" she cried. Moments later he returned, grabbed her wrist and shouted"Momma, I want a Keet Kat Bar." WHACK "Shut UP!" she said again. Thinking that the worst had passed I began sorting and folding when I suddenly felt the hand of a little boy on my forearm. He clutched my arm so he could raise himself to be seen by his mother over the washers that divided us. "Momma I want EEM an EEMS!" he screeched. The mother without looking swatted at the empty air and said"Shuuuu...whu?" She looked to see that he was standing by me, too far for her to reach him. She then focused her attention on me and said "Heet Him!" I quickly slapped the boy on his little shaved head, grabbed my freshly laundered clothing, and ran for my life in fear that perhaps I didn't hit him as hard as God may have wanted. I often wonder what happened to that little boy. If his mother continued hitting him like that throughout his teen years, he probably looks like Joy Behar by now.

The school that demanded the boy be spanked was well within their rights. The mother had signed a contract with the school that stated the parents must administer corporal punishment when prescribed by the school. The school can't slap the children around themselves because that is against the law. I keep thinking about the guy in the movie "It's a wonderful Life" that owned the soda shop/pharmacy who boxed young George Bailey's ears so hard he suffered permanent hearing loss in one ear. If that happened in the last 20 years Bedford Falls wouldn't have just a Bailey's Savings and Loan, it would've had a Bailey's Soda Shop/Pharmacy as well. After studying the fine print of my School contract, I discovered that if so ordered by the school a student would have to spend an unsupervised weekend with Uncle Roy. Nuff said. I say make the parents spank their kids, and they don't even need a reason, but if they have a dispute with school, like say half the teaching staff couldn't pass a driver's exam, then the parents should be allowed to physically abuse the principal. They should be allowed to pull his or her white, bacon stripped underpants down to their knees and smack them so very hard, so very painfully, that everyone would be able feel God smile.XXXXX

March 4 Lists

I need to make a list of things to do. Remember the Menendez Brothers? They were the two young men that were found guilty of slaying their own parents, for what seemed like and endless number of reasons, but what the prosecution boiled down to "They wanted their money." Now I am sure that two young men that could do something as horrifying as take a shotgun to the people that gave them life, had some higher grievances against their parents besides that their allowance wasn't enough to buy a Rolex "President", but they did raid the father's bank account and did indeed buy a Rolex "President." The point here is that their own meticulous planning was what finally did them in. One brother had made a list that said things like "Pick up dry cleaning", "Take out trash", "Wash the beemer", "Kill Mom and Dad." It sounds awful, but when they were arrested, the house was clean, the car was shining, they looked very nice in their freshly pressed suits in court, and Mom and Dad had been brutally murdered. The list really worked! Although they should have added "Throw away list."

My life has taken a turn that is not a solitary story, it has happened to many people and has ruined many a relationship. I have been a nice, straight shooting, tax paying, married father for many years, but inside I've been, as James Taylor once put it, a "Churnin Urn of Burnin Funk." I realize now that's quite a thing for the whitest man ever born to say. I also realize that I am quoting a man who's first and greatest hit song, Fire and Rain, was about his stay in a mental institution. My wife and I went to marriage counseling to save our relationship, that led to me seeking personal counseling, and has led to our separation. Once I was pushed into getting my own place I thought I would accomplish all the things I've wanted to finish in my life. I would, after all these years finally become the Renaissance Man that everyone knows I'm hiding inside. I was going to finish my novel, write a play, record my songs, write a whole new album, shoot clever photographs, and take my shirts to the dry cleaner. So far In 3 months, I've washed my car once and had my haircut. I know I should make a list, but I find it highly presumptuous to put "Write the great american novel" on a list after "Buy Saran Wrap." How contrived it would be to write "Have an inspirational moment and write the best song that you've ever heard!" But I guess I should start small and list myself to just write, and to make time to play, and even time to do nothing at all but think....and buy Saran wrap.

One very wise and now nauseating writer once penned, "Today is the first day of the rest of your life!" It was the opportunity for all who had created a melange of wasted days and pointless ramblings to pick themselves up and start doing meaningless crap like crazy. There used to be a personality test for joining the Peace Corps in which you were shown a glass and asked if the glass was half-full or half empty. If you answered half-empty you could just forget about ever getting into the Peace Corps buddy! You would never get the chance to go to a third world country and hide in a hut until your year of global service was up. I told them that the glass was half-full of shit, and so is the Peace Corps. Oops!

Today "is" the first day of the rest of your life and tomorrow is too. The day after that is yet another chance to fix what you screw up tomorrow and so on and so on. Life is an M.C. Escher painting being viewed by a society on acid. The stairway to heaven disappears into a stairway to Marshall Fields that by the way will probably be called Field-way in 2006, and then back to meld with your feet. My sister once told me that the stairs that an escalator makes, once they disappear, just pile up in a giant heap in the basement of the department store. I accepted this theory because I couldn't stand the thought of that escalator continuously performing the same mindless act over and over, until the day it died. At least making a mess in the basement would have to be addressed someday, and poor people who didn't have stairs would get them for free from the magnanimous store owners.

So remember my children, make a list, it's never to late to start again, hold on to the hand rail, the glass is half-full, and the Rolex "President" is one of the finest timepieces you can buy.XXXXX

March 3rd Witches in the workplace

Today was a difficult one for me. I work for a major broadcast outlet that is suffering bad ratings during a big rating period. Up until now I have never been suspect of causing the bad ratings, largely because I have always been fairly successful in what I do, but now after an exhaustive series of changes in the way we do business, my area has come under scrutiny. I have authored many theories in my life, but hold a personal patent to 2 profound ones; 1. The sympathy for any illness will never last as long as the illness. 2. No one, no matter how intelligent, pious, or good looking can escape the damage of "close scrutiny."

Over the last week I have been told on several occasions that this scrutinizing is not a "Witch Hunt!" Someone is going to get hurt in this process, someone may be fired, and everyone is going to end up sorry and embarrassed, largely because the problems that come from my department are only a tiny piece of the failure pie. Frankly it's just a little flattering to think that I could bring the whole place down, based on the level of energy they are expending to examine me, if I survive this I should ask for a raise based on how much they value what I do. It occurred to me that this is in fact not a "Witch Hunt", but if you could see the circumstance as a whole, you would realize that the owners have made physical changes, personnel changes, spent buttloads of money, tried everything humanly possible to improve their slice of market share and the ratings continue to plummet. Perhaps the cause of our dilemma is, in fact, supernatural. Perhaps a "Witch Hunt" is called for here. I know there are witches in the office, I know there are women here who look like witches, and I have at one point seen a very well known air personality fly on a broom. I know it may seem chauvinistic to assume that just because a woman has a boil on the face, or that her nose is all pointy, or she can elevate herself on a cleaning device, that she might be a witch, but I am after all a man. As I was saying to a group of my female coworkers standing around a bubbling cauldron just yesterday "Do you think that the "Goth" look is going to fly on a local television newscast?" They just cackled their pointy black hats off! Nobody in the shop has been "transformed" into a newt or anything, but there was a tape supervisor who was changed into a alligator last year. Coincidence? Maybe.

In the end I know that I did everything I could to make my job run smoothly, I have given 110 percent, and I've used the word "pointy" 3 times so far. My favorite words are "Tuft", "Chromium", and "Pointy." That makes 4. If I lose my position I'll have the satisfaction of knowing that I left nothing in reserve, that my coworkers may steal my Pringles, but when the burning starts, I've hidden a bag of marshmallows in the bottom drawer of my desk. XXXXX

March 2 tragedies 2005

How tragic. Such bad things in the news. There are the details of Hunter S. Thompson's death by natural causes, a self-inflicted gunshot to the head. According to the accounts by his wife, she found him slumped at the table with a pin-hole exit wound in the back of his head. Very neat, very final, a well placed missile leaving no mess, no splatter. I would guess that if his brains had flung themselves on the wall, either the EPA would've ruled it a medical waste spill and had the wall dismantled, encased in concrete and trucked to a toxic dump off in one of those square states out west, or it would've been named an historic landmark by the readers of Mother Jones. As it was, the bullet passed through his firm but pliable brains like a toothpick slides through a well cooked swedish meatball. No muss, no fuss.

That being said, it's not the most tragic thing I've heard today. "Adventurer" Steve Fosset may fail at being the first person to fly solo, nonstop around the world, because he's running out of gas. Adventurer Steve has made a name for himself by failing on a number of occasions trying to circumnavigate the globe in a hot air balloon until finally designing a balloon that could fly in space,with jet engines, and a sealed titanium cockpit. Oh what Steve has given to Hot air balloon technology! I'm reminded of a line from the classic motion picture "The Big Bus". While dedicating the new nuclear powered gigantic bus at a press conference, the designer spoke of his dreams, that "One day there will be busses that can fly!" I am as afraid that A. Steve will fail on his mission as I felt that Chuck Norris might never set the speed record for crossing Lake Michigan in a power boat, or Ron Santo will have to wait to die to make the Baseball Hall of Fame. What's even worse is the fact that he's up there all alone with only a thousand or so technicians monitoring his every move in a state of the art control center, the unrelenting support of the United States Government, and Richard Branson. "Here am I floating roun my tin can, far above the moon...." Everytime I look at my paycheck and see how much the government takes away I ask myself if there is some way I can give a little more just to make sure that a U.S. aircraft carrier is ready to fish Adventurer Steve out of the ocean. And with Branson involved you know that they're only thinking of the future of mankind, because nobodys gonna get laid in this deal.

When I was very young people used to go over Niagra Falls in a barrel and die. Back then it was referred to as "Suicide." People used to line up 3 abreast with their barrels, anxious to plummet to their deaths. That's adventure! Thousands of people would also go to Niagra Falls on their honeymoons, with equivalent results. They created a law against going over the falls in a barrel, so guys would sneak out there in the middle of the night to kill themselves. Finally somebody built a titanium barrel with air bags and a microwave oven, went over the falls and stepped out smoking a cigarette and eating popcorn. I picture Steve Fosset hearing this news on his crystal radio and screaming "That's for me!"

I'm not proposing that Steve be stopped from his quest to bring the kind of technology that would allow a person to fly non-stop from Chicago's O'hare airport to Chicago's Midway airport in just a matter of days. No, my thoughts are 360 degrees from that idea. I hope that on the next attempt, and God knows there will be a next attempt, that Steve be given a copy of "Fear and loathing in Las Vegas" to read during the quiet moments of his trip. Just that one solitary work of art. Just that one magical tome, and a small caliber handgun.