Oh yeah, tell ‘em Da Coach sent ‘ya! Send a postcard!

I also signed you up for the following activities:

• How to swear eloquently
• How to eat steak
• How to hate the Rollerdome, and everyone from Minnesota
• How to wear sweater vests – all season long
• How to like things a lot, and suggest others to “really like it to”

He’s doing great. He’s now a sophomore at Whitney Young. Since the news about Cutler, I’ve been trying to teach the boy…

Being a football-loving ten-year resident of Chicago that grew up in Denver, recent events have confused and irritated me.  When I was 8, I started playing little league football just outside of Denver. My uncle Wayne said to me “If you’re going to play football, you’re going to be a Notre Dame fan, and a Pittsburgh Steelers fan.” But then Denver got John Elway and I fell in love with the Broncos. Uncle Wayne left my aunt after that, so he’s a dick anyway.

Also, I am one of those annoying people from Colorado, which is everyone from Colorado, that can’t stop talking about how great the weather is, and how there’s so much sunshine, and how no matter how much snow we get, it’s going to be 70 degrees with blue skies in two days, yada yada. I also still refer to events in Colorado as affecting ‘we.’

So this Jay Cutler situation has really f—ed me up.   I was a Denver fan when they routinely went to Super Bowls so that other teams could break Super Bowl records. I was a fan when Dan Reeves’ best trick play was to act like he was going for it on fourth down only to have Elway punt it. When time expired and they finally won the super bowl in 1998, I simultaneously clocked my friends on both sides of me with closed fists out of pure excitement – one of them receiving my crushing blow to their broken ankle, already in an air-cast. Then all 10 or so friends in the room picked me up and carried me around the living room on their shoulders, as if I had just personally won the game. No bit. That’s true. THAT’s how much of a Denver fan I am.  So for Denver fans, this has been a long ten years. The arrival of Jay Cutler was heralded as a new age. I’m no expert, but I think Cutler is awesome. His record in Denver, at 17-20, doesn’t demonstrate that, but he is. I’m not going to talk about why he’s awesome here. Just trust me. He is.  Kyle Orton on the other hand, was 21-12 as a Bears starter, 15-2 at home. And I think his beard has actually chopped wood itself.  But Denver screwed themselves. Cutler is one of the best QBs in the league and now he’s gone. Unfortunately, Chicago gets a quarterback that, I’m certain, it will have no idea what to do with.

So you see my dilemma. I have nothing against the Bears, but I’m a Denver fan first and foremost. It should be awesome to watch Lovie Smith slowly, slowly, discover that Cutler is NOT a linebacker.

When is a team no longer your team? Do you hang around after the quarterback retires? How about the star running back? Receivers? The entire defense? I was hanging on to head coach Mike Shanahan when he got axed over the summer. Who’s left for me? Head Trainer Steve “The Greek” Antonopulos?  If I remain a Denver fan, I either cling to Orton’s beard, or their new head coach – this guy: http://www.denverpost.com/portlet/article/html/imageDisplay.jsp?contentItemRelationshipId=2380146

Golf is suddenly starting to seem really interesting.

Hey gang! Glad you could make it today! They say Thursday is the beginning of the weekend – and Chicago does NOT disappoint!

I’m not sure who met you at the airport, but I sure hope it was O’Hare. Although Chicago has 2 airports, many believe that is 1 too few, and if all goes according to plan, there’s one in Michigan and one in Indiana that we’ll just co-op. The one in Indiana flies Hooters Air, so we’ll be ale to get all the athletes from Florida into the city without a hitch!

I also hope that someone showed you around to the various neighborhoods. At least the ones north of Madison Street. I know, there’s a South Loop, and some stuff going on down there – but mostly that’s for people who get lost or looking for Moo & Oink – but not for real tourists!

Also today, we were trying to keep it a secret, but our ex-Governor, Rod Blagovich Blogouvich Blago, was just indicted on 16 felony charges. WOW! How’s that for excitement. We had a deal with the Tribune to keep it quiet, but the bankrupt Sun-Times effed it all up by putting “EX-GOVERNOR TO ROT IN PRISON” in big white letters on a black background on their front page. Oh well – we’d like to think of it as Illinois “doing the right thing” by exposing this sort of nonsense, and getting the right people in office before the Olympics get here (nudge nudge wink wink).

Did you notice the signs yet? How about the fresh plants and flowers? We even carried a sign through fresh plants and flowers during our famous St. Patrick’s Irish Day Parade of Drunken Festivities. What? You don’t like glorifying alcohol? Ok, we’ll cancel the parade. But we still showed our Olympic Pride! We’d like to think we are doing our part in keeping Chicago beautiful and stimulating the economy by planting flowers that are going to die in two weeks because winter is lasting into May, and printing a bunch of signs that just might become irrelevant by May as well. Oh well – we know how to throw a party! Even if it is just for you!

But – I think the BIGGEST news is that GM Jerry Angelo made a move that at least INSPIRES citizens of this fine city to believe again – not only signing a Pro-Bowler Offensive Tackle, Orlando Pace BUT ALSO signing a young QB by the name of Jay Cutler. This is the kind of move that everyone in Chicago stops what they’re doing, looks up and before any excitement, says, “What?” It’s unorthodox, it’s risky (especially because everyone knows we don’t really have any awesome offensive weapons), but it’s a sign that somebody actually cares whether or not the Bears become a winning team. Ah – you gotta love it. Besides – the Bears knew that no one was going to drop a PENNY on a Kyle Orton jersey – but Jay Cutler… There are gonna be sales through the roof!!! Yay Capitalism!

And that’s how I’d like to end today. I’d like to end it on the note that if you bring the Olympics here, you’ll have fancy stadiums, you’ll have transportation, you’ll have enough hotels, restaurants, rented condos downtown for people to stay in – but most importantly – we will provide the HIGHEST PER CAPITA of useless swag than any other candidate city. Who else is gonna say that? Buenos Aires? Fuck ‘em.

Goodnight IOC.