Sign up for our newsletters Subscribe

First of all, it wasn’t my idea. It was Tal Rosenberg’s idea. He’s the digital genius at the Reader in charge of building our Internet empire. He said, “Ben, here’s what we’ll do: We do a live feed of you tweeting the Bulls game.”

I told him I don’t know how to tweet. And he told me, “No problem! I’ll type it as you say it.”

So what the hell, why not meet at Father & Son in Logan Square. Spend the first half eating the garlic chicken. Dang, that shit is good.

At halftime, Tal types the intro. “@joravben about to live tweet the Bulls game. Said, ‘Bet you lead’s down to eight at halftime’ ten minutes ago.”

By the way, at the time I made that prediction the Bulls were up by 20, so you might say we were off to a great start with the tweeting.

So then the second half starts and I’m just winging it, saying the first things that pop into my mind like: “Weak shit, GO STRONG.”

Cause as every Bull fan will tell you—Boozer is weak.

And....

“I’m so sick of Ricky Rubio.”

I think all of Chicago agrees with me on that.

And....

“Terrible pass, Boozie. I don’t blame Jojo for being mad.”

Well, it was a bad pass.

And then the pièce de résistance, “What’s with the Ashton kutcher dude behind the Bulls bench?"

I mean, the dude was a dead ringer for Ashton.

And then I see Tal’s not typing anymore. He looks a little pale.

“What’s going on?” I ask.

“We’re getting some criticism," he says.

“You’re kidding, you mean, there's actually people out there reading this shit?”

“Yes. Frank Sennett wrote, ‘Why is this weekly newspaper’s live feed randomly tweeting a Bulls game?'”

"Who’s Frank Sennett?"

"He’s the editor-in-chief of Time Out Chicago."

"Time Out Chicago? Is that rag still around?"

“Now Dan Sinker’s ripping you.”

“What did he write?”

“'OHMYGODYES,' responding to Sennett's tweet."

Then other people write in to say my tweeting sucks. Suddenly, this tweeting doesn’t look like the greatest idea.

We take a break to discuss.

Conversation goes a little like this…

Me: Tell Sennett to go fuck himself.

Tal: I don’t know about that.

Me: No, even better. Tweet to Sennett, “He can kiss one cheek,” and tweet Sinker to kiss the other. No, even better—tell them both to kiss my big Jewish ass. I’d bet they’d like that.

Tal: I don’t know.

Me: No, even better: Tell Sinker, “Hey, fucker, nice job closing the libraries.”

Tal: You can't call him fucker.

Me: But Rahm would.

Tal: Also, he’s not Emanuel. He’s just the guy who wrote the Emanuel twitter feed.

Me: Ah, fuck him anyway.

By now, it’s late in the fourth and we're ready to let it rip, when . . .

Get a call from legal. Tell them what I want to write. They tell me: "Ugh, Ben you might want to refrain from telling Dan Sinker and Frank Sennett to kiss your big Jewish ass."

“You think?”

“Yeah, maybe so.”

All right. I won’t tell Frank Sennett and Dan Sinker to kiss my big Jewish ass.

In fact, I’ll be magnanimous. Thank you, boys, for your constructive criticism.

But if you happen to be reading this—I’m bending over.