David Bruce Sinclair 1940-2009

To those of you who know me, you may or may not have known my dad. For the years that ensued after my parents split, his was a life of roller coaster up and downs, and in the end he is right where he always wanted to be. Sitting next to Christ.

He grew up on the north shore of Chicago attending New Trier HS in Winnetka. He lived on the stage there, and yearned to become an actor and singer, eventually attending The American Conservatory of Music where he met my mom. He had a tremendous voice, eventually touring the country with the Norman Luboff Choir in the early 60's. But the stage was not to be, and missing his young children back home, he fell back on his other passion, golf.

Starting as an assistant pro at Park Ridge CC, he went on to be head pro at Lake Shore CC in Glencoe. This was his the pinnacle of his success, and he stayed there for years. I have many fond memories of that place, including working summers there in the shop, cleaning clubs and shagging balls on the range. And endless lessons hitting balls into a net in the ladies locker room in the winter. Oh and he had a 1 for a handicap. It was during this time that he bestowed a great legacy on my brother and I, the perfect swing. Not to be followed by that handicap tho, I am still like a 15. OK, 20.

A bad back forced him out of the job he loved, and it was not long after that that he started a new family, eventually blessing us with new siblings Christine, Doug and Laura. In the intervening years, he tried his hand at numerous ventures, but I find it curious that he settled on a career as a painter. After all, Christ was a carpenter, no? And it was in His love that the final chapter of his life was written. At Cornerstone Community Church, he poured his all into the youth and the choir and was the producer of the Christmas musical for years. I can't even imagine the hours and sweat that went into producing a show that only ran once a year. But he loved it.

Then in 2001, he was diagnosed with dementia, a horrible disease that kills the brain and takes away a persons identity, bit by bit. It was hard watching the dad that I loved slowly fade away. When he could no longer sit and watch a simple soccer game, (he attended tons of my kids' sports events with pride and fervor over the years) I knew that it was the beginning of the end. But throughout it all, he always kept his temperament, and knew that this was the Lords plan for him. And he was OK with it. Not OK with having his life stolen from him just when he should be reaping the benefits of a long life, but OK with eventually being where he said he always wanted to be. At peace, sitting next to God.

To shovel or not to shovel...Is that a question?

As I lay vision to the frozen white wasteland that what was once my cul-de-sac, I am faced with one of those tough little life challenges. Do I shovel now, or wait until the snow plow buries my driveway on his way around the bend with a berm the size of a mini van? I know, not a great thinker in the grand scheme of things, but non-the-less a decision all the same. Why are we faced with these perilous choices so early in the morning? I guess I would rather only have to shovel once, but by waiting, I am opening a whole new can of worms.

If I shovel now, I can avoid the little tire treads of ice that will eventually form if I back the car out of the driveway without shoveling. But then that means having to put the boots back on when the plow comes, which in turn means all that lacing of the laces. Such a tedious chore, for a 5 minute jaunt into the face of the blizzard. And the gloves will probably still be wet from the first time out. Putting on wet gloves is like donning Derrick Rose's socks after a basketball game. Eeww. Plus, it is still snowing, thus the accumulation continues. Sort of like watching the inbox in your cubicle. Only drier and not as cold.

But have you ever sat and waited for the plow to come? It's like watching water boil. You know that the little bubbles will surely appear at some point, but if you sit and stare, it's like they are playing hide and seek, waiting for that moment when you leave the kitchen for one nano-second to break up an argument over the game TV in the basement. (XBOX or Wii?) When you return, the little baby bubbles are now full blown grown up bubbles escaping the boiling pot of water like a lobster only wishes it could. (Do they really scream when you put them in?)

And how is it then when I am out there in that one magical moment when the plow DOES appear, that the driver still has the nerve to fly by my driveway sending out a wake of snow that reminds me of a water skier spraying the crowd of onlookers? When the wife is out there, he not only slows down, but he ACTUALLY will plow the end of the driveway and remove the impending mountain. Should I dress sexier? Or flaunt what I got in the hope that the next guy is gay? Or buy a house not on the end of a cul-de-sac?

No, I am going to stick with my tried and true plan that never (almost) fails. I wait until I hear the roar of my next door neighbors snow blower, then innocently walk out with my shovel with a look on my face that says, "HEY, fancy meeting you here? What brings you out?" As I am typing this, I can hear the distinct "Ka-Blam!" of the driver dropping his plow on the street, followed by the grating din of metal on concrete, knowing full well that when I look, the berm will be there, and the decision of "To shovel or not to shovel" has been made for me. Now I know all you city dwellers without cars are either laughing at me or scratching their head saying, "Huh?" But I'll take the suburban "Berlin Wall of Snow" over putting my lawn chairs in the street any day.

Bear down, Chicago Bears, put up a...oh forget it.

OK then, so I called for a 12-4 season and to get twelve wins at this point the NFL would have to extend the season to 19 games. And we would have to run the table. I think it's that time Bears fans. No, not time to abandon ship and jump to the promising young Blackhawks or the maddening Bulls. It's time for Lovie to go.

Everything about the team sucks right now. The offense can't score in the Red Zone. His defense can't defend anymore. They took possibly the most exciting, dynamic, ridiculous return man in the history of the game and turned him into another nobody. Even the field is a joke. I mean, who installs new sod 5 days before a home game in the friggin' winter? Did you see the players slipping all over the field against the Rams? This is the biggest no-brainer decision they could make. Put in the damned artificial turf.

But back to what really matters. Now have the players completely lost their ability to do their job? I kinda doubt it. We could use a few upgrades but we have some talent on this team. The defense was supposed to regain it's dominance this year under the tutelage of our illustrious Lovie, who demoted the last guy because, guess what, the defense sucked. He infamously ran Ron Rivera out of town because he had the gall to suggest to Lovie that as defensive coordinator he should actually get to run the defense his way. His reward? He got canned. So King Lovie put himself up on his pedestal and did it his way. And his way sucks too.

We aren't fooling anybody on either side of the ball. Offenses run roughshod over us because our defense is outdated and Lovie can't see the forest through the trees. Defenses have our run game bottled up, our passing routes clogged with defenders, and our quarterback looking over his shoulder because, surprise, WE AREN'T FOOLING ANYBODY. Sitting on my couch I know what's coming, you don't think the opposing defensive coordinators got that figured out as well? Even special teams has been quite less than special this year.

I could go on and on. But I just want to remind everyone that teams used to fear playing us. I want some fire. I want some creativity. I want some freakin' wins. I want Bill Cowher. He is out there, somewhere, waiting for a call from the Bears that is never gonna come. And we're stuck with Lovie.

Who are we really fighting? The enemy or ourselves?

On most every morning, I hit the snooze 3 or 4 times, prop open my eyelids with a couple of hypo-allergenic toothpicks, grab a cup of coffee, and read the Sun-Times cover to cover. Sports first, real news second. If somethings prods me to sit down and type, I do so when I hit the classifieds. But this morning, after laughing at Mike North and his assertion that D. Rose will never be a great player, I hadn't gotten past page 2 and I am fuming.

I want you to take a good hard look at this picture from 2004. In it, dead Americans are hanging from a bridge in Iraq, the work of some really nasty bad guys. The ordinary citizens of this region are cheering in triumph. And the dead bodies aren't just dead. The really nasty bad guys took the pleasure of mutilating them first. So it's fair to say the last few precious hours of their lives were spent in excruciating agony. And everyone in the picture is happy because of it. But that's not why I am so upset.

We eventually caught the really nasty bad guys, or at least the head really nasty bad guy, and took him into custody. Allegedly, 3 Navy Seals had been in charge of interrogating him, and in the course of their questioning, he got punched in the mouth. I'm sure it stung for a while, but he recovered to eventually be held accountable for his crimes. But here's where it gets absolutely ridiculous. The three Seals are facing court martial charges for assault. They are going to be kicked out of the Navy for a punch in the mouth. Now most of you know that to get to become a Navy Seal, you have to go through some of the hardest, grueling, and physical training this country can dish out. I'll guarantee you that the really nasty bad guy didn't receive one tenth of what these guys went through in Seal boot camp. Or one twentieth of what he dished out to the dead Americans. We trained these men to be the baddest on the planet, and now we are persecuting them for it. And that makes me furious.

This country's priorities are as messed up as Drew Peterson's. The rest of the world laughs at us as our President bows to foreign leaders and we punish our own soldiers for capturing our enemies. Didn't we capture and eventually put to death Saddam Hussein? We may not have put that rope around his neck, but we sure as hell gave the Iraqi's a big thumbs up when it happened. And now we have to ruin the lives of three of our bravest for basically giving a really nasty bad guy just a small taste of what he deserves? And how far up the ladder does the order come from? Is this Obama's idea of placating his party? Or the rest of the world for that matter? And who were the rats that squealed on them? How weak we have become in the face of our enemies.

I can hear the liberals charging in from the fringes already. We don't torture. We are not like them. We are above all this. I say, and pardon me, but FUCK THAT. This wasn't some bloody rampage by a couple of black sheep. These guys were doing their job. There aren't even one out of a hundred people that could do what these Seals do. Maybe not even one out of a thousand when you throw in all the tree huggers. These guys have been to hell and back for their country, trained to be bad ass mothers. And when they show how bad ass they really are, they get court martialed for it. You can't win a board game let alone a war when the 2 sides are playing by different sets of rules.


The other day, Brent Seabrook of the Blackhawks won the game in a shootout as the 11th player to shoot, a club record. In the interview after the game, pressed by hungry reporters, he refused to say what his strategy was on the game winning shot, unwilling to give any information to his opponents that could later be used against him. It's too bad we can't do the same. It's too bad that "Don't ask, don't tell" couldn't be extended to guarding our own interests, whether it be how we treat out enemy combatants in custody or telling the opposition in Afghanistan when we will stop fighting. It all boils down to the fact that in the eyes of the really nasty bad guys, the US is weaker today than we were on 9/11/2001. It's us against them. Haven't we learned anything?

The magic of the open mic night.

Ahh the open mic night. They can be fun. They can be magical on occasion. They can be loose and free, or they can be strict and controlled. Sometimes the overwhelming level of talent can be amazing. And sometimes not.


So I decided, being unemployed and not having to worry about getting up the next morning (except for the fact that I had to drive the 13 year old to school because she still doesn't realize that blow drying and straightening her hair is less important than setting her alarm herself and actually MAKING the bus), that I would have a little jam night out. Used to be, the old Donelli's Tuesday night open mike could turn into a musicians warehouse. Great drummers, guitarists, singers, and the like would turn out in droves for Tommy G, and you couldn't script that shit. A couple of nights it would be one drummer, him and me and maybe one other guy. Can't get off the "stage". But he always kept it loose and fun, knowing everyone by name, creating instant chemistry between sometimes complete strangers. And then there was last night.


Not that I am bemoaning anyone's heart and or ability, but in the end, a good set of earplugs would only have set me back a few bucks. I am sure in my turn up there I started to get annoying to a few of the patrons as well. Loud guitar, over the top solos. But there always seem to be the same people week in and week out who have made this their personal stage. The older couple singing duets to songs that NOBODY has ever heard of. The bass player who suffers from TMN syndrome. (too many notes) The drummer who really can't keep a beat. The singer who does the same 3 or 4 songs nearly every time. The guitar player who makes Neil Young's guitar solo's seem dynamic. The guitar player who doesn't know when to stop. The "white guy singing the monotone blues". The harp player that plays about 3 notes. And of course, the blues song with no foreseeable end in sight. Ever heard the 14 minute version of Mustang Sally? Or Watchtower with 3 guitar players each taking a turn after every stinking verse?


Now being in a band I get to do my thing on some kind of regular basis. I know, this is their night to stretch out a little and have some fun. But I never leave without having cringed at least 4 or 5 times a night. Maybe I should just stay at home and leave them in peace. But I really miss Donelli's.