By Steve Rhodes
Wow, that really sucked. You’d think the swine flu would be more fun to have considering it’s named after a beast that gives us so much goodness.
LISA: I’m going to become a vegetarian.
HOMER: Does that mean you’re not going to eat any pork?
LISA: Yes.
HOMER: Bacon?
LISA: Yes, Dad.
HOMER: Ham?
LISA: Dad, all those meats come from the same animal.
HOMER: Right Lisa, some wonderful, magical animal!
But it was no fun at all. In fact, I’ve never felt worse. As some of you who know me personally know, I offered at one point to sign over our $35,000 grant from the Chicago Community Trust to whoever would come over and smother me with a pillow.
I couldn’t even manage to craft a joke out of swine flu not being kosher, though I did steal a line from Beachwood regular Jash and ask several people to send over the hambulance.
I can’t tell you what a delight it was to wake up in a pool of sweat over and over and over. Or to cough so much and so deeply that I pulled every minute muscle in my body . . . over and over and over. Or to feel like my skull was giving me a personal lesson in plate tectonics.
I swear, I do not know how people persevere through serious disease. I would not be a hero.
Anyway, now I’m on an antibiotic to make sure I don’t lapse into pneumonia but – unlike the economy – I’m on the recovery curve. I’m just very weak. I ate a real meal on Sunday for the first time in seven days, so it’s gonna take some time to get my strength back.
He’s Jay Cutler!
Our good friend Tom Latourette is back with a new work of musical genius.
Bear Monday
“Just when it looked like the sustained mediocrity of the NFL was going to keep the Bears in the playoff race, the 2009 season took yet another disappointing turn on Sunday night with an unremarkable 24-20 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles,” Mike Mulligan writes in the Sun-Times.
“A victory would have put the Bears back at .500, just one game removed from a wild-card spot. Instead a loss puts them in the middle of nowhere. Not good enough to contend in an ordinary conference and not even in position to benefit for their failure in terms of draft picks.
“Moreover, this game was a further stripping away of the devices the Bears have used to defend themselves. It was the third straight loss after the humiliation at home by Arizona and a bad loss in San Francisco. The Bears have lost five of their last six, with the only victory coming against Cleveland on Nov. 1. You can argue they haven’t had a legitimate victory since before the bye week on Oct. 4 against Detroit.”
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Our very own Jim Coffman was there.
Generation Gap
“Half of drivers 18-34 admit texting on the road.”
And half of drivers 55-70 admit to reading a newspaper while driving.
Beachwood Sports
While most of the site went cold when I did – and will remain so this week due to the holiday – our esteemed sports staff kept cranking it out. What you might have missed:
* Help Fire Lovie.
* If an NFL coach says it, check it out.
* Stupid and arrogant is no way for the Bears to go through life.
* And the horse of the year is . . .
P.S. Oprah
We were pretty much on the ball with this one.
Political World
I made a few NBCChicago.com posts this morning as I jumped back in the saddle here.
* Quinn’s crappy clean-up job.
* Illinois pols have on interest in fighting fair.
* Burt Natarus’s red light district.
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The Beachwood Tip Line: Using all of the pig.
Posted on November 23, 2009