This Monday marked the beginning of Week Six at camp and Day One of the Maccabi Games.

The Maccabi Games are pretty much the child’s version of the Olympics, with colors rather than countries competing. Orange, green, gray, purple, yellow, white, blue, and — most importantly — red, go up against each other in different events.

I’m writing this blog Monday night, so I’ve only been able to record the first day of the games. Which were pretty hilarious.

Teams were announced on Friday, which gave everyone the whole weekend to plan their outfits and come fully decked out in colors on Monday.

Alas, my group of second grade girls still showed up in whatever color they felt like wearing that morning. Which, for all but one girl, wasn’t red.

Thank goodness — just a few minutes later we covered them in face paint, duct tape, glitter, and anything else that would stick to them.

When I told a little red team boy he shouldn’t put duct tape on his bare skin because it would hurt when he had to pull it off he replied simply, “I’m tough.”

That’s how we roll in Red!

After each team covered themselves head-to-toe in team colors, there was the first counselor competition. Yes, we counselors also have to compete in random challenges, like “Face the Cookie” where one counselor from each team has to try and wiggle one cookie from his/her forehead to his/her mouth without moving his/her head.

We could have used him on our cookie-eating team!

If that sounds nearly impossible, that’s cause it is. Well, except for one counselor who managed to manipulate five cookies down his face and into his pie hole.

Then there was the T-shirt relay. Each team stood in height order and passed an official Maccabi Games T-shirt down the line until every kid on every team had one. Whichever team did this the fastest won. I’m guessing the camp director’s motivation for creating this game was a desire to quickly pass out those T-shirts.

Lunch break.  Yay – everyone wins!

After lunch my team took on the dreaded Yellow Team in a riveting game of “Everybody’s It.” The title is literal. Everyone runs around trying to tag everyone else on the other team. One of the red team players asked the all-important question, “What’s the point?”

When that clusterfuck concluded, we took on the White Team in the highly civilized game of “Stuck in the Mud.” That’s where two people from each team are “it” and once you’re tagged you have to stand frozen with your legs apart until someone comes and crawls under you, setting you free to re-enter the rat race.

I was in charge of waving the Red-team flag, which is apparently a lot harder than it sounds. At least, another counselor informed me that the flag wasn’t a Goddamn sparkler, and that I had to do a better job.

Well, excuse me!

Once time was up in that game, a team won by having the least amount of people still “stuck”. The officials counted those still trapped by telling all the kids who hadn’t been tagged to sit down. Of course, my team sat down whether or not they were still “stuck”. We won both rounds.

All the teams then gathered for a song/cheer competition as well as one last counselor competition. Rather than sliding cookies into their mouths, this time counselors had to stack five apples and have them stay stacked for five seconds.

Again, one counselor did actually figure out how to do this.  But, it wasn’t me….

The cheer competition is exactly what it sounds like. Each team tries to come up with the most creative way to continuously shout their team color.

Taio Cruz — Red Team for Life!

The song competition consisted of teams rewriting popular songs to make them about their colors.

Red: Dynamite-Taio Cruz

Blue: Party in the USA-Miley Cyrus

Orange: Baby-Justin Bieber

Gray: Tonight’s Gonna Be a Good Night-Black Eyed Peas

Green: California Girls-Katy Perry

White: Play That Funky Music-Wild Cherry

Purple: Dynamite-Taio Cruz (We had the idea first!)

Yellow: Party in the USA-Miley Cyrus

And that was just day one.

WHOSE HOUSE?

RED’S HOUSE!

Damn, straight….

By No Blaise

Editor’s Note: When she’s not leading her Red Team to victory, No Blaise is writing bits for The Third City, like this one.

An old Chinese guy serenades me and the other waiting passengers by playing Silent Night on his violin. A drunk in a Cubs hat and T-shirt spits on the rail. The train finally arrives. The car I choose is crowded and smells like sweat and old cheese.

At this point, I’ve been in Chicago for about two months and public transportation is still kind of a novelty for me.

I’m from Colorado Springs, where trains only exist to haul in coal from Wyoming. I love not having to drive everywhere. I love the fact that trains come every few minutes. Tonight the train is filled with tired-looking travelers from the airport, kids heading home from parties, and people going who-knows-where.

At Chicago and State, a teenage boy—white as can possibly be—gets on alone. He’s wearing baggy pants, a backwards baseball cap, and bling in the form of a huge chain necklace.

Bling looked a little like Eminem….

I turn away and zone out, but it isn’t long before I hear somebody shouting. Talking like a “gangsta.” I turn back and realize that, yes, it’s the white boy with the bling. He reminds me of a lost puppy.

He’s asking a girl in a red miniskirt about her cell phone, and he’s not really making sense. He’s informing her that she’s been on her phone all day. The girl tells him to go away.

He switches seats and starts other conversations with similar results. Finally he stands and surveys the rest of the car. By this point I’m watching his every move.

His eyes alight on a morose-looking twenty-something guy with greasy hair and a goatee.

“Yo, dude,” says the kid. “Ya’ straight?”

Goatee guy looks up. “Yeah.”

And Goatee kind of looked like Johnny Depp — though not as handsome….

Longest pause in the history of mankind. The entire train car is quiet now.

“But, ya’ straight? Tell me, man.”

“You know, I don’t like people fucking with me,” Goatee says through his drunkenness.

“I ain’t fuckin’ wit you. I just askin’.”

Goatee sits there, looking straight ahead. He’s as still as ice. Then in a flash, he explodes like a firecracker. Jumps up and decks Bling — hits him right in the face.

And just like that, fists are flying….

Goatee and the kid run back and forth along the train car, hurling punches. Goatee pins Bling against the filthy floor, but Bling manages to slither up. The two of them roll and writhe over every available surface.

At some point their shirts come off , and they lock in some weird, hostile embrace. Cuts and bruises appear on Bling’s shoulders. They fall onto the seat next to me, and I shrink against the wall.

Bling continues to hold his own until Goatee starts slamming his head into the window glass. The remaining passengers crowd around the doors, waiting to escape at the next stop.

“Stop!” shouts one passenger, a fat matronly lady who looks like she wants to ground the pair of them from video games. She’s strangely calm. How many of these fights has she seen?

“Both of you sit down right now,” she says.

They ignore her. Blood gushes from Bling’s forehead.

As much as I don’t want to attract the pair’s wrath, I decide that I also don’t want Bling to die. Nobody else is doing anything. Am I going to be a hero? I get out my cell phone.

“Stop,” I say hesitantly. “Or I’m calling the police….”

It works right away. They stop fighting. Bling gets down on his knees. “Please, ma’am, don’t call the poh-lice,” he pleads. “I’m on probation. Have you called them already?”

“No.”

“Please, ma’am. I’m begging you.”

“Why don’t we get off at the next stop,” says an elderly black guy. The matronly woman nods. The guy takes Bling by the elbow and escorts him off the train at Granville. Goatee sits in the seat in front of me.

“I’m sorry about that,” he says.

I don’t reply. What kind of guy would beat up a misguided, forlorn, intoxicated 15-year-old?

From this point on I’m not surprised by anything the train can throw at me, literally or figuratively.

By Brenna Swift

Editor’s Note: Brenna’s last bit was Random City….

Sun-kissed sky

Orange warmth

Pink breath

Ambiance

Filled above

A private love

Befallen upon us

Color-consumed clouds

Keep floating

Keep roaming

The sky is maddened with life

Its blue churning

Making anew

More colors

Until the sun sets

And the kiss

Is over….

By Sharday Cage

Editor’s Note: Sharday’s last poem for The Third City was I Love You.

Fortunately, I’ve never had to go far before finding some places where randomness thrives like weeks in a neglected garden — or maybe mold on an old cheese.

One of them is on public transportation. The other is any thrift store, the older the better. Or sometimes I encounter it while along Navy Pier.  Life is a big mess, and I think we like it that way….

I think I can guess what the CTA’s policy is about taking cats on the train. But now that I’m in on this woman’s secret, I won’t let the cat out of the bag. Well, at least not to the CTA….

Before it moved, the Urban Thrift Store in Lakeview was one of the messiest I’d ever seen. This mannequin was right by the cash registers….

Her boldness worked. A couple of weeks later, she’d nabbed herself a man with an awful tie….

“I think we should revisit our wild days and have a party at Navy Pier. Except this time I would like all of us to wear purple and red, which won’t clash at all. I think my shirt should say `Hats!’ And I think we should just walk around looking proud….”

These two hippies were riding the train home from a dumpster-diving expedition. They smelled like it, too….

Ah, if only everybody was this calm and pensive on the train…

By Brenna Swift

Editor’s Note:  Brenna Swift has got the city covered for The Third City….

Went to see Big Boi (AKA the guy in Outkast who didn’t do the song about Polaroids) at Pitchfork the other day.

Put on a great show, pulling out just as many Outkast classics as stuff from his solo career. The crowd loved it.

But I think there was one pretty off-color moment that went over their heads. Shortly after Bombs over Bagdhad, 27th Ward Alderman Walter Burnett showed up on the side of the stage. He seemed to be enjoying the music, showing some pretty conservative bobbing rhythm. Well, at least until Big Boi and his hype-man started asking girls in the crowd to expose themselves.

“Show yo racks!” They chanted over that song they play at Bulls games as the alderman hung his head and stared at the stage with a look of bitter displeasure. “I don’t see no titties, man,” muttered the hype man. “Y’all bullshit.”

(Note to Benny J – what’s the name of that song? You know the one — where there’s a buildup and the whole crowd shouts: “hey!”)

Okay, a little misogyny from a rapper at a rock concert – nothing new, right? But it was probably more the timing and context that made the alderman frown.

In the same breath as the “titties” rant, Big Boi’s hype man let Big Boi know that “I got a little fan club of yours backstage.”

That pumped the audience up. “Here come the titties,” they were probably thinking. At least Hooters girls, right?

Enter a group of roughly 8-10 year old breakdancers.

Smooth, Big Boi — real smooth. Now you know why Burnett was pissed.

Here’s that video and some photos from the event, taken with a point-and-shoot because supposedly Pitchfork Media has the authority to tell Chicagoans that they aren’t allowed to bring cameras with detachable lenses into a public park.

Video link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/samadamsphotography/4809722893/in/set-72157624415928909/

Meanwhile, enjoy the photos….

“Show yo rack!”

Free condoms: The New Beachball….

Q: “What’s a rack, mommy?” A: “A country in the Middle East. And don’t play with the balloons….”

“I know Big Boi asked the ladies, but I’m an equal opportunity kind of guy….”

Crowd Control….

Plenty of this going around….

Baked Hotdog….

She should teach her man a thing or two about style….

Frisbee Dance….

“You can’t use a camera in your public park, but we’ll record you all day!”

By Sam Adams

Editor’s Note: When last seen, Sam was thinking about Twilight while taking up jogging. By the way, the Bulls song in question is Gary Glitter’s Rock `n Roll (Part 1 & 2)….

I loved him because he loved me

Without reason

But that our skin the same

That I’d be striking to him

With no knowledge

Of who I truly am

I love you came

With an outpouring

A knowing

With no common language we shared

But short English Spanish phrases

He loved me still

I love you still rains

Our love remains

Without question

For my love he fought

And won victoriously

With his enemies

Rotten beneath his foot

And his heart ripped from his own hand

He stood like a conqueror

For my love he’d die

No need for my name

Or the substance that filled me in-between

My face was his dream:

Mi morena

Save your ring finger

It’s mine….

Te amo mi amor

Un beso para Luis

I love you

By Sharday Cage

Editor’s Note: Sharday’s most recent poem was Ascension….

I told Benny Jay I’d be a regular blogger right after my high school graduation. But here I am, over a month after tassels have been turned, struggling to hammer out 400 words.

I’d like to say I’ve had a lot on my plate lately, but that’s a lie. See, the life of a high school grad consists of two things: Party and Bullshit—to quote the late Biggie Smalls.

Biggie knew….

Ask any eighteen year old what they’ve been up to this summer and, assuming they aren’t putting up the “adult conversation façade”(talking in a high voice, laughing at stuff that isn’t funny), they will all answer the same. Party and bullshit—or some variation on that theme.

To better illustrate my current life, I have compiled a chronological list of the top 10 most memorable things I have done in the month since graduation.  Here goes:

1.   Party: Open houses at Desi’s.  There’s nothing I enjoy more than an  evening in Bridgeport, home to the last of the city’s racist rednecks. At Desi’s I can always count on a fun-filled night that ends with me on the living room floor, red-eyed and sleep deprived.

Christmas decorations in July — only at Desi’s!

2.   Bullshit: Prison—I mean camp orientation. Forty unpaid hours with a bunch of awkward adults playing icebreaker games, while the bosses shriek at us through a bullhorn. Passerbys thought I was involved in a special needs adult day camp.

3.   Party:  The Garden. Great blogging distraction – free party and friendly hipsters! Also, there’s a half pipe in the living room.  Never have I wanted to embrace my inner skateboarder more.

4.   Bullshit:  Babysitting—not the actual child watching, but the procrastination that comes after the kids are asleep. I always bring my striped-composition notebook to write the next Great American Novel, or at least my first blog piece. But I wind up watching cable.

5.   Party: Some Payton kid’s open house. I ended up eating tacos at two in the morning at the always delicious but less than nutritious Burrito House.

6.   Bullshit:  Doing my laundry. Only I can turn something productive into a form of procrastination.

7.   Party: Passion Pit. Singing off key to Michael Angelakos’ heavenly falsetto is worth every precious blogging minute I waste.

Passion Pit — Yay, Whee!

PP Recovery….

8.  Bullshit: Family reunion. This was worse than the time my sister slammed my thumb in the car door — every relative I know sitting around a dinner table on Friday night.  Please pass the gun.

9. Party:  Jen’s house. Cut me some slack, Third City, I needed some sort of recovery after the family dinner. Should I have used blogging as a form of therapy? Yes. Did I? No.

10.  Bullshit: Five straight hours of dental work.  I kid you not. Starting at seven-twenty in the morning, I went to the orthodontist then the dentist then back to the orthodontist and then back to the dentist.  I would have liked to have spent this time writing a meaningful piece for Third City, but I couldn’t due to the fact that various dental tools were violating my mouth.

No more dentist!

Editor’s Note: Ray Jay 3000 makes her Third City debut — finally!