John's History of Dating: Part One: From Jr. High to College

Next Week: Part 2: The Cindy Years

Today's Order of Business: June 18, 2010

1 The Only Game In Town - Sportswriting from The New Yorker - Edited by David Remnick
Did you know there's a region in China where crowds at basketball games, instead of chanting "Airball, airball!..." instead yell the Chinese equivalent of "Impotent, impotent!..." - and you thought Philly fans were tough.

2 Good Advices - From Fables of The Reconstruction - R.E.M.
I was reminded by Aquarium Drunkard today of how brilliant this song and album were/are. Remastered reissue coming soon.

3 Elliot Allagash: A Novel - by Simon Rich
Quick and devastatingly witty.

4 The Bullpen Gospels - by Dirk Hayhurst
About baseball - and not. A sports bio for people with triple digit IQs.

5 Ain't Blues Too Sad - from True Love Cast Out All Evil - Roky Erickson with Okkervil River

6 The Imperfectionists - by Tom Rachman
I burned through this in three nights, all the while slipping into a mode where I felt like I was reading non-fiction. Storytelling so good, from a first time novelist.

7 Raw Power - Iggy and The Stooges
Remastered, reissued, and if you love these guys fight the urge to think this is a ripoff re-ish and get it, worth every penny.

8 Blessa - from Causers of This - by Toro y Moi

9 Farewell, Mona Lisa - from Option Paralysis - by The Dillinger Escape Plan

10 Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip With David Foster Wallace - by David Lipsky
Better if you're a Drooling Fanatic for DFW - one time I wouldn't have minded riding on the passenger side. Dig for the gems.

My Son, The All-Star

I just found out that my son Matt made his Little League all-star team this year. It's the fourth year in a row he's done that, but this one definitely feels more special than the others.

In early spring, right at the beginning of the season, Matt spent a few days in the hospital and was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. It took a few months for Cindy and I to help get his blood-sugar numbers in control, and all the while he was going to school and playing baseball and everything else a ten-year-old does, he was contending with a pancreas that would start and stop making insulin in a rather unpredictable pattern. With those highs and lows came mood swings that were quite uncharacteristic of him, but after awhile things settled down and he's acting like himself again.

Kids and their parents are forced to contend with much worse than this - we got a real dose of reality walking through his hospital's cancer clinic on the way to our car more than once - so I'm trying not to overstate this. But he has basically shrugged his shoulders and dealt with all the life changes he's had to make to accommodate his condition - and other than the occasional bout of candy craving and the grouchiness that accompanies it, he's made us proud with his ability to adapt, and he continues to thrive.

Baseball-wise, he played on a young team, and he was pitching for the first time in a year, and coping with the peaks and valleys of all of that was tough on him sometimes. I asked his coach not to change anything about the way he approached Matt, as a way to keep things normal as possible, and his coach Jeff was great about that.

So as if there was any possibility of me ever taking my son's accomplishments for granted, well, that's just not going to happen. I am as proud of him as any father can be, all-star or not. He really is everything I could have imagined a son to be. I figure I've got a few more years before he tells me to go f--- myself in the way that sons seem prone to do when they figure out their dads are as full of s--- as anyone else is. I'm going to make the most of the time I've got with him before that day comes.

Happy Father's Day Everybody!

Greatest Tweets Ever

More important than what your dippy friend is having for lunch
and funnier than Sh*t My Dad Says:

http://twitter.com/bpglobalpr

And go to this link to buy a t-shirt and join in their fundraiser:

http://streetgiant.com/

You Cannot Be Serious

Note: My post of May 27 was just (I thought) a bad joke - read the link below to see a list of people who are definitely not kidding about this...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/03/us/03nuke.html