Get Out of Line

Do you bleed Cubbie blue? Are you guilty of any of the following:

• You’ve grown vines up the fence in your backyard…
• You feel compelled to crack a cold Old Style at 1:20pm on a sunny June day…
• You sport a headband featuring the Japanese “Rising Sun” in honor of your new favorite right fielder…
• You truly believe “next year is here!”

If so, you should come back and see us on Monday (6/23) at 8:00am CDT, as we have something VERY cool to unveil. For the first time EVER, Chicago Cubs fans can purchase DIBZ to see their Cubbies in the 2008 Playoffs and World Series - and we’re talking inside Wrigley Field!

It’s been a long, long time since the Cubbies vied for a World Title. If this is (finally) the year, don’t let a minor detail - like, the fact that it’s only JUNE - hold ya back from your shot at BEING THERE!

“A good friend of mine used to say, ‘This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains.’ Think about that for a while.”

-Nuke Laloosh, Bull Durham

Two of my favorite things to do during the summer in Chicago are watch the Cubs and play softball. Softball is a Chicago institution; after all, the game was invented here…and I’m not talking about Jenny Finch, fast-pitch, and an oversized baseball; I’m talking wood bats, cold beers, and softballs of the 16 inch variety. No gloves.

Well then, I guess you could call this past Saturday the perfect storm: the Cubs had a 2:55 PM CDT start out in LA and I had my first softball game of the summer at 5 o’clock…glorious. One of the harshest winters in decades, and a nonexistent spring, had finally given way to some appropriate temperatures and my spirits couldn’t have been higher. Unfortunately, despite Sweet Lou and the boys boasting the best record in baseball to this point, my softball season did not get off to quite the same start. Just before leaving for the field, the Cubs’ broadcast was interrupted for a severe storm warning (tornadoes had touched down to the south and west) and by the time I showed up to the park a fifteen minute down pour had rendered our diamond unplayable…a perfect storm indeed. Ah well, as my tenure at FirstDIBZ has impressed upon me, often the anticipation of an event far surpasses the excitement of the event itself. So I’ll be looking forward to the first game of the season for one more week…in the meantime my spikes are shined, my bat has some fresh tape on the handle, and the beer is most definitely cold. Stay thirsty, and go Cubs!

New Kids on the Block tickets

Let’s get serious. These kids got hot. Talk about ‘The Right Stuff.’ In the early 90’s I swore upon Jordan Knight, but now I look at this platter of man goods and I don’t think I can choose just one. Joey? Good god sir, what have you been doing for the last 10 years because I suggest we all do it. Your sparkling eyes seem to be staring into my soul. (Don’t judge me when I re-release my NKOTB bedsheets and comforter).

Visiting the set of “90210hhhhh Noooooo they Didn’t!”

Things just keep getting better for those of us who left our hearts in the 90’s. I have been worried about Jennie Garth for quite some time now and am glad her career can take up where it left off. I do worry however that there is no Brenda or Brandon or Luke Perry. Will these young sultry nooblings be prepared to stab each other in the backs without smearing their lip gloss? TBD.

Guitar Hero Aerosmith Edition

I spend every waking hour in a gray cubicle, I have failed every lame attempt to be a guitar playing lord, and the only ‘rocker’ element in my soul is various fist-pumping sessions at the local pub. Therefore, I praise the creators of Guitar Hero. I have found deliverance. And then, when I thought it couldn’t get any better they said, ‘Yo! Who wants to wail lyrics with Steven Tyler? Who wants to tickle strings alongside Joe Perry?’ And I raised my little corporate geek arms in the air madly and said, ‘I do! I do!’ And they said, ‘Then our little head-in-the-Aerosmith-cloud fan, thou shalt not ‘Dream On’ but shall feel ‘Sweet Emotion’ at this little ditty of a game.’ Sigh.

Since I was a squirt, I’ve been a fan of the race cars. Every Indy 500 Sunday, Dad would fire up the TV and we’d do a bit of male bonding amidst the whiz and flash of the open wheelers. Even on a crappy old B&W set, I found the Indianapolis 500 something magical. Late in the Summer of ‘69, “World’s Greatest Dad” even went so far as to insert a trip to the Brickyard smack-dab into the heart of an otherwise dull family vacation. Yep, while the big kids were turnin’ on in the mud at Woodstock, I was experiencing a little nirvana of my own from the showroom floor of the Indy museum.

I still have a gift shop postcard of Mario Andretti’s #2 Ford which carried him to his first (and who woulda thunk only?) 500 victory earlier that year. Is it any wonder that Super Mario instantly became my favorite driver, or that I’d find it my duty to suffer right along with him as circumstance (many would claim he flat-out pushed the cars too hard) seemed always to bid him an early exit.

Admittedly, watching the 500 on television lost some of the zest for me as I grew older; perhaps it was all of the adult responsibilities calling out (in a voice that sounded eerily like that of my wife), or the impending sense of guilt attached to committing a holiday Sunday afternoon to something as trivial as watching large heaps of metal, fiberglass and rubber go round and round and round a 2.5 mile oval. Alas, we all must grow up sometime.

But an incredible thing happened to me three years ago. I received an opportunity to attend my very first Indy 500. Having never lived close enough to Indianapolis before, and with the drive from Chicago now easily manageable (oh yeah - the boss handing me tickets to watch the race from the Penthouse was pretty pivotal too), there was really no way to refuse. And friends, let me tell you… until you have actually experienced “Indy,” you have NO IDEA. None whatsoever.

There is indeed a reason the Indy 500 is called the “Greatest Spectacle in Racing.” The sights you’ll see on the walk-in alone will remind you of what a great (if not utterly bizarre) country we live in. I would dub thee a curmudgeon were you not to dig the opening ceremonies featuring the F-16 flyover and release of a zillion balloons. And I dare ya not to get sucked into the Midwestern whimsy of a “Back Home Again in Indiana” singalong led by the inimitable Jim Nabors. Why, there’s even an opening prayer - a sobering reminder that what’s about to take place on the asphalt is literally gonna have folks flirtin’ with the supernatural. Gulp.

But once the famous words (now altered slightly to accommodate Danica & Co.) have been uttered, and the rolling beasts are sparked to life, one encounters a unique mix of sensory and tactile sensation unlike any other: stunning flashes of color, the odd smell of rocket fuel, and the sheer rumble of SOUND (rookies buy the cheapo foam earplugs and pray they’ll stay in; wily veterans rent the driver/pit crew headsets to literally dial right into the cerebral cortex of the race). And, to be completely fair to the other olfactories - you’re even allowed to bring in your own cooler! “Back Home Again,” indeed!

There’s nothing in sport quite like the anticipation of that green flag droppin’. From my vantage point in Penthouse B (high on Turn 1) I could see the cars hurtling at top speed down the main straightaway right at me, deftly down-shifting to negotiate the corner, and then blowing all the way through the short chute into Turn 2. A bonus was being so close to the frenetic activity in the pits. It truly gets nutty down in there. Now I can’t help but keep coming back every year, because once you’re there, and it’s started, you just don’t want it to end. But I could go round and round and round like this for hours…

“Indy” - just another one of those bits of authentic Americana ya gotta KNOW to LOVE.