Where do ideas come from?

WHETHER THEY COME FROM the unconscious, the spirit realm, or both, or neither, it's an amazing process -- and all the more so for its mysterious opacity. You feel sometimes like a passive conduit, an inbox just sitting there minding its own business. And then, when you least expect it, you've got mail.

Some poetic licenses should probably be revoked

POETRY IS THE one form of entertainment loaded with hoards of mediocres completely unconscious of the fact that they are supposed to be entertaining. Lest "entertainment" evoke only fun and jokes, I don't mean it that way. Entertainment is diversion that can evoke the entire range of emotions. But it should evoke something more than tears of boredom.

24/7 nostalgia

THE THING THAT'S so cool about growing old as a Gen-Xer is that for several years now, VH-1 has been replaying our entire youth for us.

This nostalgia barrage is a trap, yes -- but such a sweet sticky one. Who doesn't want to relive his formative years: the years when life was simpler, when everything -- especially music -- was just better?

In addition to transporting us back to carefree youth, the retro resurgence does us another favor by setting us up as guides -- elder statesmen of cool, you might say -- to all the MySpacing iPod kids who've never owned an analog sound recording and are just now discovering '70s and '80s music.

KID: Dude! R & B artists actually played real instruments back then? They had bands? Get out!

ME: Well, yeah. That was pretty much the norm until the mid-'80s.

KID: What's that thing their voices and instruments are doing? It's weird. But it makes me ... it makes me feel good!

ME: I believe you're referring to the melody and harmonies and chord progressions? Musicians used to know those, but they kinda went out of style in the '90s.

KID: Thanks to bands like the Killers (who I was into way before anyone had ever heard of them, by the way), I'm really discovering a lot of really cool, totally underground bands from the '80s who influenced them. Like New Order, the Cure, Duran Duran...

ME: [Erupts in peals of laughter.]

KID: What's so funny? Hey, do you like my ironic Hall and Oates t-shirt? [Glances around nervously, then whispers:] But just between you and me, I really like those guys!

ME: You know, some of their best songs were never even released as singles. You have to get the albums. Did you know they go all the way back to 1969? You know, Daryl Hall used to sing backup for all these Philly soul guys -- ever heard of the Delfonics? Anyway, he was with this band called Gulliver for a while. They put out this crazy album that sounded like the Beatles, with a little more soul. I might let you borrow my CD ...

KID: [Stares blankly.]

It's little perks like this that make growing old a little more tolerable.

I'm not here to start no trouble,

but I'm so tired of the Super Bowl Shuffle gettin all the play in the wake of the Bears victory, while the sweetest '85 Bears charity single of them all goes ignored!

Sadly, everyone hasforgotten Walter Payton's clearly superior song "Together As a Team."

Together as a team, we have a dream
Everyone can win together
If we hold hands in this great land
We can make life a whole lot better
‘Cause the people of the world, we are the ones,
Everyone should get involved,
If we hold together aloft our hands
Our problems can be solved!

By the way, what was that I heard about the '85 Bears returning to the studio to record a "darker" album?

Cruise-ify him

TOM CRUISE IS a "Christlike figure" in Scientology? So says a high-ranking member of the celebrity-stalking cult.

At least, so says the British tabloid the Sun.

Or rather, so the Sun says of the Scientology source's saying so.

Ugh. I'm getting my typing fingers all tangled up.

Plus, I do not like to make fun of the mentally challenged.

I will stop here.

"When we're not on, we're not watching either"

ONE OF THE THINGS about my career trajectory was that I'm probably one of few people to have both:

1) interviewed Mayor Daley as a reporter, and
2) nine years later, served him smoked salmon canapes as a server at the 410 Club.

I've also had the great pleasure of serving canapes to some of the same media people I used to compete with, chase stories with, or rub shoulders with in professional groups. For instance, the NBC5 holiday party. Hey, there's Warner Saunders, who I hope doesn't recognize me in the dim light as one of the supposedly smart up-and-comers from the NABJ/Chicago in the mid-90s. There's Carol Marin, who exclaims "hi!" as if she recognizes me, though maybe she's just all full of holiday cheer -- and who knows, maybe it's her cougar instinct coming out. There's Anna Davlantes, whom I used to run into sometimes when I was editor/reporter of a little neighborhood newspaper and she a newly minted reporter at Channel 5. We'd exchange a flirtatious smile and a "hi," but we were so busy. (I resolved that the next time I saw Anna, I'd take the time to introduce myself and exchange info. Before that could happen, though, I got myself fired from the newspaper and I was out of journalism for a long, long while.)

Later, as I'm lugging HiBoy chairs upstairs up to the balcony, there's a nice-lookin blonde sitting by the now-closed balcony bar. She wants to know if it's still open -- or can I open it back up? I say sorry, it's closed and I can't bartend -- they haven't trained me on that yet.

"I always wanted to be a bartender," she remarks. She was a server once too, she tells me -- until she got into her "real job," which only earned her half as much money! But since that time, she says, she's worked her way up the pay scale a bit.

I ask what's her real job. She works for NBC. What does she do at NBC? She's an on-air reporter. I recognize her name only vaguely, because, as I let her know, I don't really watch TV news.

With a knowing nod and a wry smile she replies, "To tell you the truth, when we're not on, we're not watching either."


SO THEN WE GET into the fact that I've done reporting too: I mention that I did some time at City News, among other places.

"Oh yeah. We used to use their stuff."

"Yeah -- you TV guys would rip if off the wire and read it -- and we never got the credit!" We both laughed. I reminisced about the low salary -- how I could barely afford beans and rice.

She asks me why I was waiting tables: was I trying to figure out what I wanted to do?

"Really," I tell her, "I still want to write. But I'd rather do it on my own terms. I'd rather free-lance, and write books."

"You almost have to be unemployed to do that."

"Yeah. Unemployed with lots of money."

"Or have a sugar mama!"

"But you're probably not rich enough for that, are you?" I tease.

"Nooo, honey!" she laughs. "I'm married with three kids. That's enough!"


QUOTE OF THE NIGHT: "WHOOOO! IT'S NOT OVER! [to the DJ:] 'PROMISCUOUS GIRL!' [to the partygoers leaving the dance floor] GET YOUR F*CKIN' ASSES BACK ON THE FLOOR!"

(The above, from a certain young anchorbabe -- first name Anna-- who commandeers the DJ's mic at closing time. Sadly, we have to inform her that the party is, indeed, over.)