SWEET HOME CHICAGO

My name is Joe Pendleton, and I'm an awful flyer. That's right, an awful flyer. Any hint of turbulence has me in a cold sweat, has me grabbing the hand of the person next to me, has me thinking I'll never see my wife Brenda and my kids Kurt and Georgia ever again.

I'm pretty much a pussy when it comes to air travel. That being said, I find it virtually impossible to sleep on a plane and have plenty of time to think about lots of shit. Well, flying home from Chicago Sunday night on United Flight 330, I had plenty to think about. You see, the previous 52 hours were a whirlwind in the Windy City. From seeing the Cubs clinch the NL Central in public, to seeing Brian Griese throw a football 67 times in person to seeing a midget dance on a bar while pouring shots into Bachelorettes' mouths, I had plenty to reflect on.

So, despite sleeping approximately 9 of the 52 hours, I just put the I-pod at full blast, ignored the cries of release from the chili-cheese fries sitting in my gut and let my mind wonder about what I just been through. Here's a glimps into my brain - which was operating at half capicity on the flight.

-- Minneapolis might be an awful city: On our trip, about 90% of the people we met on the trip were down from the Twin Cities (including a dame who spent $240 on a pair of jeans). Down, meaning they drove 7 hours or trained it about 12 hours to get there. Seems like nobody flies there. So I start thinking why would you make that trip just for Chicago? Then it dawns on me, when you think of Minneapolis, you think of two things: A big mall and a huge bridge collapse. Ok, maybe the Vikings, maybe the movie Fargo, but that's about it. For those folks, 7 hours is nothing. We met one cat at Soldier Field so bored in Minnesota, that he paid $110 for a football ticket and didn't know the difference between a football and a plate of nachos. When I told him - in the 20 seconds he wasn't talking - I was from New Jersey, he asked if I was a Patriots fan? When he spotted on the out of town scoreboard that the Giants were down 10-6 in the first quarter, he said, "looks like your Giants are gonna go down today." Nice guy, but just wouldn't clam up. The seven hours in the car back to Minny with that cat must be unbearable.

-- People in the Midwest are nice - Too nice. Like our clueless NFL friend, everyone from Chicago to Minnesota is very friendly, and very chatty. Perfect example came when Slim Steve went to get a pretzel at Wrigley Field, only to find the stand he went to were out of them. The woman behind the counter explained that someone had gone to get more, and then she went on a 15-minute diatribe on how they had run out of pretzels in the first place. About 40 seconds into the diatribe, Steve said the pretzel wasn't that important to him and walked away.

-- Chicago is the Bachelorette Party Capital of the World: I challenge you to walk through the streets of Chicago on any Saturday night and not find some dame having her last fling before getting hitched. You could go into a White Castle and there will be about 10 dames in there, one of them wearing a veil and other embarrassing shit. It's unreal. And these parties are dumb. They turn into mini-scavenger hunts. Yes, the bride to be has to collect stuff on her trip. Want to know how wild one party was that we ran into? The dame had to get from a strange man - a sock. Yes, a sock. Boy, those friends of her thought of everything. I mean this dame's fiance probably has about 10 strippers sitting on his grill and she's out collecting socks. WHOA BOY. It's a huge thing in Chicago, though. One place we were at, we must've seen about 4-5 bachelorette parties going on, with most of the attendees wearing their "I need a man" dress. A few bachelorettes did get wild, jumping on a bar to dance while the house midget (that's him in the green shirt) poured shots of something down their throats. Speaking of shots, to get into the spirit of things, yours truly did something called a Jagrbomb with a few brides-to-be.

-- There aren't many ugly dames in Chicago. Either that or the ugly ones stay home: It's pretty nutty, actually. The ratio of hot chicks to ugly ones is wider than the girl-to-guy ratio at James Madison U. Of course, me and the other cats were there to watch baseball and football, not midwest dames in high heels and tight dresses walking around.

-- There's a dog in Chicago that is livng my dream life. We ran into a pooch that lives with an attractive single woman who takes the dog to bars in a gym bag. Think about it. The dog lives with a hot dame, is carried to and from bars in a bag, and has the ability to lick his own nuts. Some guys have all the luck.

-- Cubs fans hate White Sox fans: To me, the relationship between Yankee fans and Mets fans is a practical lovefest compared to the animosity in Chicago. I saw more anti-Sox shirts outside Wrigley than I saw pro-Cubs shirts. It's unreal. If the White Sox ever beat the Cubs in the World Series, I predict there will be a few murders that night. I'm not kidding. It's vicious. Speaking of the Cubs, seeing them clinch in person was quite cool, and a part of me would really love to see them go all the way. However, with the Mets possibly facing them in the first round, I want to see them fail. But if you hang around Cubs fans for a while, you really start to feel sorry for them. Even during the clinching celebration, I got the feeling that some of them already knew that the season, like it always does, will end badly. Speaking of Wrigley, all of you who remember my favorite 7-11 list, well, let's just say I walked into Wrigley with a Double Gulp of Diet Pepsi.

-- I'm a loser: Yes, that's right, a loser. Of the 42 hours I was awake, the fate of the Mets was somewhere in my brain about 40 of them. Even while watching a great Bears-Bucs game in person, I couldn't stop thinking about what was going on in Atlanta, what the Brewers were doing and how the Mets are gonna blow it again. On Friday night in a bar loaded with Chicago women, I spent more time watching the ESPN crawl for a Mets score. Two of the dudes in our group labeled me as gay for this behavior. Maybe they are right, but I think loser is more appropriate.

-- I'm old. Want to be depressed? Go into a bar filled with cats/dames in their 20s and watch them dance to songs from the mid-80s. At first, the concept is pretty cool, but then you realize these kids think of these songs as oldies. At about 4 a.m. on Saturday, Glory Days started blasting over the speakers at my favorite place in Chicago, and all these kids were into it, but I realized most of them weren't even born when Born in the USA came out. I like to think I'm young at heart - my screaming Highway to Hell at 4:30 a.m. that same morning is proof of that - but let's face it, I'm an old fuck, at least in the eyes of the yuppie 2o-somethings at this place. I thought knowing all the words to Rick Astley's never gonna give you up was cool, others didn't. Speaking of this bar, the DJ proved to me something I've know for years. Billy Joel is a ripoff artist. At one point of the night, the DJ played R.E.M.'s "It's the End of the World as We Know It," and then followed it right up with "We Didn't Start the Fire," which I've been saying for years is a ripoff of REM. Of course, about 15 beers in I wasn't praising the DJ for this back-to-back play, I was ripping him for playing the Joel song in the first place. If it wasn't for the 20-year-dames getting into the song, I would've left.

I can't believe it, we've already landed. What a smooth flight, I guess I have nothing else to think

about until . . . I get into the car and listen to the end of the Yankee game on the radio. A few quick thoughts. Quick, I promise.

-- John Steling is a bafoon. He seemed more interested in the line score than the goings on at the Stadium after the final out.

-- Derek Jeter's speech was a joke. Could the cat look any more uncomfortable and scripted making that speech? Real original DJ, praise the fans. It's funny, he kept saying how great Yankee fans were, yet didn't mention that the organization will be squeezing every penny out of those people when the new stadium opens next year. I mean, $850 for a baseball ticket isn't that out of line. Good Riddance Yankee Stadium. Good Riddance Yankees for that matter.

-- Mets are in big trouble. What kills me about the Mets, is if they don't make it this year, people will talk about how they collapsed again. Of course, no one will mention they were 7.5 out when Willie got the ax in June. No one will mention they made a nice run with the shittiest bullpen in baseball (thanks Omar), no one will mention how the Braves laid down to the Phillies yet played the Mets tough this week. Last year was a collapse. Epic. The worst in baseball history. This year, they will be falling short. It's just as painful, but let's not compare it to last year. That being said, with six games left and a 1-game lead, I think they'll make it. Johan will start two of the six games, so if they can win both of them, they just have to split the other four games to go 4-2 over the last six, meaning the Brewers would have to go 5-1 to tie them and 6-0 to beat them out. That being said, if they lose tonight with Johan on the hill, they might be done. Speaking of Willie, he sure seems to be embracing his past life as a Yankee. As someone said today, if he had shown the same fire he did sliding into second base Sunday night when he was leading the Mets, he might still be the manager.

That's enough venting for now. I'll check back whenever the Mets are eliminated/clinch for my thoughts on the Mets.