Some Barenaked thoughts about ...

So, here we are -- my son, his friend and I -- standing in a long line outside Border's bookstore in Oak Brook on Saturday.

We're waiting to get in to see my favorite band perform a brief concert of songs from the children's album they've just recorded.

An elderly gentleman drives by. He slows his car and leans out the window a bit.

"Are they giving something away?"

Nah, I said, we're waiting to see Barenaked Ladies.

"Oh," he said, looking somewhat appalled, "good luck."

Guess he wasn't a fan of BNL, I tell my posse.

"He was a priest, Dad," my son Rob says. "Didn't you see his collar?"

I tell you this because: 1. It's a rather humorous story, even if it does personify my cluelessness yet again. 2. I was struck by a thought about local news and our coverage of it during the concert.

My thought was: This a great event; we should be covering it. Maybe the adults outnumber the kids, but about 300 people are having a terrific time listening to Barenaked Ladies perform such songs as, "7 8 9." ("123 and 4 more makes 7, and 6 is afraid of 7 … 'cause 7 ate 9! Nine was minding his business talking to 10 about Gordie Howe's clothes; why 7 ate 9, nobody knows.")

OK, on the off chance you're not familiar with BNL, they're a Canadian rock 'n' roll band that's been together for almost 20 years. They had a Billboard No. 1 hit in 1998 with the quirky "One Week."

But as I enjoyed the concert, I also lamented the Daily Herald's not being there. It's not like we were goofing around that day, though. We were covering: Mary Tillman, mother of former NFL player Pat Tillman who was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan, doing a book signing in Naperville; a Scout-O-Rama at Cantigny Park in Wheaton; a kids garden party, part of the Lilac Festival in Lombard; a Mardi Gras party at Marklund home for the disabled in Bloomingdale, and the wildly popular plastic duck races in the raging currents of the DuPage River in Naperville.

We had our trained, professional photographers and a trained professional reporter at those events. But there was no reason why I couldn't have taken along a digital camera (Note to self: Gotta pick up one of those contraptions some day) and e-mailed a photo of the Ladies to the Saturday editor with some basic caption information.

But, hey, news flash: This is the era of interactive, participatory journalism. Just about everyone has the ability to take photos and send them to the local newspaper. And many people, not just professionally trained journalists, have the ability, and interest, in putting together a profound sentence or two.

In fact, evidence of this "citizen journalism" exists nearly every day in our Neighbor section. Survey after survey has showed Neighbor to be the second-most-read section, only slightly behind the front news section. I'd love to tell you we've gotten a wide array of local people involved with Neighbor because we're so visionary. That may be partly true, but the fact of the matter is we just don't have as many reporters and photographers as we did a few years ago. And especially with the growing interest to get news posted on our Web site, there are more demands on our staff; we've had to ask for the community's help in covering itself.

And you have responded in spades. I promise to crow about your many fine efforts in next week's column.

jdavis@dailyherald.com