My son...

I have no idea why, but, for some reason, my son's farts smell like month-old murder.

He is only four months old. However, his flatulence has the aromatic force of a college sophomore after a month-long spring break in a Milwaukee junkyard.

Moreover, he rivals me in terms of volume and force.

Lastly, judging by the smile on his face after he does it, he seems to get a really big kick out of farting on someone, not just near them, but on them.

His diet consists of mother’s milk with an occasional bit of regular, run-of-the-mill, over-the-counter formula. When that formula content gets too high, sweet Mary, mother of God have mercy on me.

I really hope this is only a phase.

I learned how to post pictures!

Why I Hate Soccer

Every four years the world cup comes around, and with it a swarm of soccer nerds, hooligans and Europhiles and/or Self-hating Americans try to remind us how "backward" and "provincial" we are for not appreciating soccer.

Do you know how much the average American cares about the world cup? So much that, despite the fact that the term "world cup" is a proper noun and should be capitalized, I did not even think of capitalizing it when I wrote that sentence, nor this one.

Following is a personal list of reasons why Soccer is a horrible sport:

1) It is a kids game. Always has been, always will be. It simply lacks the complexity and drama to capture an adult's mind.
2) Ralph Macchio. He once starred in a movie in the 1970's where Soccer was the main theme.
3) France is successful at playing soccer. They are a culture which has perfected the art of surrender. The fact that they can win in this game speaks volumes.
4) Soccer is boring. Soccer is absurdly slow and plodding. I have spoken to soccer apologists who say, with bravado, that the average soccer participant "runs" 4 miles in a game. OK... a game is ninety minutes. right? Do the math, "running" four miles in a game? I think not. They are averaging less than 3 m.p.h. This is jogging. However, since I do see soccer players running, this means that they are mostly standing around doing nothing.
5) Soccer Players are wimps. If a Soccer player gets hit, they all do their best impression of Sgt. Elias in Platoon, with Adagio for Strings playing in the background for effect. Meanwhile, real athletes like Steve McNair, Walter Payton, Johnny Unitas, Bronko Nagurski, Bret Favre, and every hockey player (save Wayne Gretzky) play with broken ribs, hands, legs, etc. The fake theatrics are a product of managed economies where the government doles out favors. Competitive economies are about playing through the pain. That is why Americans will always win and Europeans will always lose.
6) Too Simple.
7) Ties. A tie is abhorrent to the American mind. We need a winner and a loser. Someone has to go home and nail the prom queen and someone else has to go home and get all philosophical about why the game doesn't really matter. This is they way life is, this is the way sport should be.
8) Circular reasoning. Soccer fans will cite the sport's popularity as a reason why it is great. Look, just because rice is the most popular food in the world does not mean I should like it better than steak.
9) Different jerseys. Soccer players on the same team have different jerseys. This is just silly. Are soccer players that obtuse so as to not know a goalie when they see it? Clearly, the higher intelligence of hockey (e.g. goaltender) or football (e.g. offensive linemen) fans and referees is evident, since we don't need a different uniform to indicate a different set of responsibilities in the rule book.
10) Soccer phrases are stolen. A pitch is something an option Quarterback does. A draw is a running play designed to counter a strong pass rush. Football is a real sport that involves athletes in pads and helmets, not sissies playing kickball without bases.
11) Soccer has no honor. There are codes of behavior in sports like hockey, football and even in lesser activities like baseball and basketball. There is no code of behavior in the activity of soccer: the number of pictures I have seen which involve penis biting should make this self-evident.
12) Intrinsic worthlessness. If soccer were really worth anything, Dan Snyder would already own it.
13) It is for Women. Soccer is the Apple Martini of sport. American men drink Vodka or Gin with a dash of vermouth, or no vermouth at all, shaken, not stirred. If they wince when they drink it, they are still in college and need to go back to training camp. When you are a man, well, an American man, you can take the good with the bad, and learn to appreciate the subtleties of it all. American women take that same vodka, put Apple Schnapps in it and top it off with Contreau so they do not actually have to taste the vodka. That is why American men play football and hockey and American women play soccer.
14) Soccer is not for real athletes. Lets face it, what the soccer players and/or fans really want, in their heart of hearts, is to eliminate any sport that utilizes arms and hands. Why? This is because other sports utilize the full athletic talents the human body is capable of. Why do they want this? They are the ones who couldn't play those sports growing up, the ones who got chosen last or not at all in the pickup games. To them, soccer is a better sport because it eliminates the swiftest and the most powerful and takes for its physical standard the average European male. In other words, the average soccer nerd's own height and weight. Don't believe me? Quick, name me four, three, or even two leading athletes in any or all other sports who hail from Western Europe or South America (I'll even start you off: Britain had the heavyweight champion, Lennox Lewis.) I will wait.......

What a Morning!

What a music selection this morning!

I have well over 11,000 songs on my iPod at this point. Some songs are awesome, some songs are great, some are ok, some are "a'ight" and some, well, they are there...

This morning was the best random line up I have ever heard in my iPod life....

I hit "Shuffle Songs" walking to the train stop....

First, the ghostly voice of Malcolm X greets me;

Have you forgotten? That once we were brought here we were robbed of our names, robbed of our language, we lost religion our culture our God, and many of us... by the way we act... We even lost our minds...

Chuck D cuts in like a lightning bolt...

Here it is BAMMM
And you say Goddamn
This is the dope jam
But lets define the term called dope
And you think it mean funky now no
Here is a true tale....

Waiting for the train to arrive I can not help but close my eyes and bop my head.

Second, I am in my seat now....

Piano... maracas... YES... Mais Que Nada from Sergio Mendes and '66.

Next, double guitar, the first band to use it, yes, it is the Priest... Judas Priest... The Green Manalishi (with the Two Pronged Crown). My lips purse into a Sgt. Slaughter scowl as I look out the window.

Next... we come down a notch... fiddle and guitar... Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn with Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man. Damn she has a sexy voice.

Next... WOAH! More maracas.... Cuban Pete by Desi Arnaz. I sit and think how cool it would be if adults had "clubs" they could go to and be entertained without trying to act like a teenager. Suits, cocktails, classy bands, little lamps on the tables with tassles....

Next...piano intro, the single guitar, "Look, if you had one shot..." Yes, it is Eminem and Lose Yourself. Not his hugest fan, but, this song kicks ass.

Next...80's punk.. Oh yeah... Suicidal Tendencies with Institutionalized. I can't help but smile in delight.

And now for something completely different... The fingerpickin' sounds of the great Jimmie Rogers singin' Blue Yodel No. 8 (Mule Skinner Blues). I am tempted to stick my thumbs under my armpits.

Next... I can name that tune in one note... Wheel in the Sky by Journey. They got cheezy toward the end, but, this was a great song. Now all I need is a Camaro and I am in 80's Long Island Heaven.

Then, just like that, I am back in my aforementioned club... Perez Prado with Mambo No. 5.

Then, just like that, I am not in that club... The smooth execution of Follow the Leader by Eric B. & Rakim makes me feel like I am in a spy novel.

WHAM! Look Back and Laugh by Minor Threat brings me back to those days in High School when I was drinking beers at some rich girl's parent's beach bungalow.

WHAM! Carmina Burana fills by ears. To this day, I can not hear this song without thinking: Guards...Knights....Squires....Prepare for Battle!

More double guitar.... OH YEAH... A double shot of Priest this morning, Heading Out to the Highway. I am doing a half-inch head bang...

Well I've said it before, and I'll say it again
You get nothing for nothing: expect it when
You're backseat driving, and your hands ain't on the wheel
It's easy to go along with the crowd,
And find later on that your say ain't allowed
Oh that's the way to find what you've been missing

And, just like that, I am BACK in my imaginary club, for the third time, when Ibrahim Ferrer's Ay, Candela has me tapping my fingers and biting my bottom lip.

Next, my heart takes a step back and mellows out... Dave Brubeck's Take Five gives me a smooth, relaxed repose...

What is that? am I at a Giants game? No, I am on the train and it is Hells Bells by AC/DC.

I'm rolling thunder, pourin rain
I'm comin' on like a hurricane
White lightning's flashing across the sky
You're only young but you're gonna die

It is all I can do to keep myself from singing out loud.

I am reeling...Jimi Hendrix.... All Along the Watchtower... I am looking around to see if anyone else could POSSIBLY be hearing this line up!

Blinking in disbelief as to how cool this has been... guitar picking again... John Lee Hooker... Boom Boom Boom.

Curtis Mayfield Pusherman is followed by Fell in Love with a Girl by the White Stripes. Aerials by System of a Down is followed by Wake Up by Rage Against the Machine. Unchain my Heart by Ray Charles is followed by Smashing Pumpkins' Zero... and... as I am pulling into Penn Station...

Nineteen-ninety-mutha-fuckin'-one...
NWA back in this mutha fucka yo
taking out all you commercialized-ass niggaz
and we on this laid back track
and we doin' this one kind smooth...

Damn.... My day can only go down from here.

Life can turn on a dime

It has been a while since I posted.

Not that anyone actually reads this.

Recently, my life has been going really well. I mean, REALLY well. I am gainfully employed at one of the largest law firms in the world, have a boss that loves my work, and have risen to the level of competence where I have attorneys who are working for me. I make enough money to be able to have my wife stay at home (and still pay for her student loans) and take the occational trip to AC with my friends. Life is pretty good.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, my wife called me into the bedroom and said those four words that are still echoing in my head:

"I found a lump."

How many times have I read a story where it describes how it feels when news like this hits someone? Couldn't really say. All I know is that I felt as if the blood drained from my face and fell onto the floor.

It is moments like this in your life when you know what you are made of. For the most part, our day-to-day existence is routine repetition of activities you are accustomed to engaging in. When something like this comes along, something where you have no "script" to work off of, you are really yourself.

After taking a breath, and another one, I composed myself because, well, I guess that is what I do when my life turns upside down.

Doing an unintentional impersonation of Alec Guinness at the end of Bridge Over the River Kwai, I walked over to the bed where my wife was holding my sleeping daughter. However, being the quintessential Thomist, and an attorney, I sought to define the terms of the discussion... "What do you mean by lump?" By the light of the television, I saw the tears welling up in my wife's eyes when she said "right here, on Elizabeth's neck."

It was as if, after being shot in the stomach, I got shot in the face.

My daughter, Elizabeth Seton, is the light of my life. She is 19 months old and those two words, "da-da" could make me walk to the ends of the earth and back again. If I were a more adept writer, I could articulate the feeling I get when she runs to meet me when I come home from work and, when we reach eachother, I lift her high in the air and spin. I would also be able to explain how my heart swells when she reaches for my hand to walk down stairs or points to the sky when a bird flies above. Perhaps, no matter how effective a writer I was, I could not translate these feeling into words as they are so intertwined with my existence that they could not be reduced into static form.

Still maintaining my Alec Guinness composure, I spanned the last three feet of space separating my wife's words "I found a lump" and the reality of finding it for myself. Having still not received a real answer to my question, I spoke: "let me see." However, when the words left my mouth, they sounded like a quivering teenager whose voice was changing in the most violent, savage way while he was attempting to portray Henry V.

Then, I closed the gap between the concept of sadness and the reality of horror.

I felt Elizabeth's neck.

My wife's shaking fingers guided my hand right to the spot. My hand went cold, but, from the middle of my forearm up to my shoulder, the rest of my arm went hot. I felt a lump the size of a small jelly bean, hard, and ovaline. My mind put its feet in the racing chocks, lifted its butt in the air and prepared to race when it heard the sound of the gun, but, then, something happened...

One of the perks of being an attorney is the amount of things you learn that have nothing to do with being an attorney. By way of example, when I worked for the City of Newark, I defended all the City's civil rights cases. In this capacity, I learned more about heroin, and the effects it has on the human body, than anyone I know because addicts would go into lockup, get sick, often die, and their families would sue the City. As I left public life and began work in the private sector, the list of things I became intimately knowledgeable about got bigger and bigger, luxury helicopters, the sewer system of Jersey City, brake pads, underground power cables, scuba diving protocols, the thermodynamics of airline crashes, and, well, ALOT about cancer.

As I felt the lump on Elizabeth's neck, an image flashed in my mind, the image was from an expert report I had obtained in one of my cases when someone had contracted lymphatic cancer. I remembered the image of a man's neck with little round, green tabs placed on his neck at the sites where the lymph nodes are. Elizabeth's lump was situated along the external jugular vein, right on site of the superficial cervical lymph node.

The superficial cervical lymph nodes often swell during respitory infections.

With my left eye squinting a bit I felt the lump. Thereafter, with the clinically detached demeanor of asking a question at a deposition, I asked my wife: "hasn't Elizabeth been coughing for the past couple of days?" The sweet, sweet, answer dropped into my ears like a bead of honey...

"Yes."

Crashing back into the realm of reality like a ten-foot wave on the sand, and doing my best Marcus Welby M.D. in the process, I confidently proclaimed that it is a swollen lymph node. While I said we should still get it checked out, it was probably nothing.

After a visit to our pediatrician the next day, it was confirmed, a swollen lymph node due to a respitory infection.

Life can really turn on a dime, and, just as fast as it turned, it can turn back again.