“Baker weathers strange spring,” the Trib’s Paul Sullivan reports. No kidding.

If the words if, and and but could hit, field and pitch the Cubs would have a championship team, since they’ve got enough ifs, ands and buts to rival the Yankees. But the giant question mark that is the 2003 Cubs is not enough.

Kerry Wood’s out with an inner ear infection, and closer Antonio Alfonseca slipped on the grass (!) and strained his hamstring. It’s going to be a long season, but I hope to see good things from Wood, Mark Prior, Hee Sop Choi, Bobby Hill and Corey Patterson. They could be the nucleus of a perennial — if … and … but.

That’s how I once heard Bob Dylan jokingly introduce “Gotta Serve Somebody” in concert, but it’s clear that his born-again faith has not disappeared from his music but only become more integrated into his art.

Bob’s born-again period is much-reviled by many, but those gospel songs are as passionate as “True” as Bob’s protest songs, his surrealist songs, his bitter love songs. Put simply, they are great songs. And now the folks who know what gospel is have put together a tribute album called, “Gotta Serve Somebody: The Gospel Songs of Bob Dylan.”

The album Web site is actually very good, and features clips from all of the songs on the album by artists such as Aaron Neville and the Fairfield. No cover is as good as original Bob (even Jimi Hendrix muffed the lyrics to “All Along the Watchtower“), and I’m not particularly enamored of the over-emoting characteristic of black gospel music, but this should be a fun listen because the artists understand Bob’s faith and accept it wholeheartedly.

The capper, though, has got to be Bob’s duet with Mavis Staples on what sounds to my ears like a rewritten version of “Gonna Change My Way of Thinking.” I’m looking forward to hearing this album in its entirety.

Victoria’s Secret will make them shine, of course. Have you seen their new commercial backed by Bob Dylan’s spooky, “Love Sick“?

It’s certainly a better visual than what we usually get with Bob.

… but I never thought it would come to this: “Student killed by strip club,” screams a Daily Southtown headline. A subhead adds helpfully, “21-year-old was shot while in car.”

Obviously, a tight head count forced this headline writer to goof up. He or she wanted to fit in the murder and the strip club somehow. Why not, “Man shot outside strip club”? Sure, you give up the student identifier but you get to keep the murder and sex, which are the important elements here.

Police did say that even after hours of interrogation the strip club had not presented an alibi.

“About Schmidt” — Jack Nicholson deserves the Oscar for the final scene alone. A heartbreaking epiphany of a moment pulled off the way only he could. Overall, a hilarious movie that is deeply moving as well. I’m sorry it wasn’t nominated for best picture.

“The Pianist” — Polanski avoids the Spielbergian excess and just lets this story stand on its own legs, unadorned by anything but the brutal, miraculous reality.

“Cross the Green Mountain” — Bob Dylan’s new original song for Ron Maxwell’s feature film, “Gods and Generals,” has no hook and no chorus. But it features some beautiful organ work and wonderful lyrics and phrasing from the master. My CD came with a DVD that includes a music video for the song — cool!

“The Bootleg Series, Vol. 5: Bob Dylan Live 1975” — Once again, a new Dylan from-the-vaults release brings to the official canon what bootleg trades have known all along. Dylan reworks some of his classics to wonderful effect and his intensity on songs like “Isis” is electric. A few of the solo treatments are duds, save a “Tangled Up in Blue” with new lyrics, but the album does feature the best duets with Joan Baez I’ve ever heard. It actually sounds like they’re singing together!

Alejandro Escovedo at Old Town School of Folk Music, Valentine’s Day — The singer-songwriter was accompanied by two cellists, a violinist and another acoustic guitarist. The sound suited some of his songs better than others, but when Escovedo & co. came down into the crowd, only feet away from where Karen and I were seated, for the encore, it was a moment to treasure.

After two hours of music and as the clock neared 1:30 a.m., it seemed we’d gotten all we could ask for. Then Escovedo introduced what would be his last song of the night, which he wrote as a wedding present for a friend. “This is it,” I told Karen. It was his gorgeous “Wedding Day,” which I first heard a year ago and knew instantly would be the song Karen and I first danced to as a married couple. And it was.

What a Valentine to us, especially since Escovedo had, to my knowledge, never performed the song in concert before. When you write a song like “Wedding Day,” you’re doing yourself a favor because you know people will play it at weddings. But it’s a curse, too. You don’t want to wind up as just another wedding singer. Escovedo doesn’t have to worry about that, I don’t think.

Make your own candy valentine.

That’s Japanese for “Wash your way to a great looking body.”

It just doesn’t get any easier than this, folks. Lose weight by taking a shower, using Aoqili, a seaweed soap. Twenty-eight million Japanese can’t be wrong!

According to this highly reputable site, the Wall Street Journal says, “It’s like slow liposuction but with no suffering.” Jeez, first Fortune scopped them on the Enron story and now this.

Unfortunately, there is a downside. The site indicates, “For best results Aoqili Premium Seaweed Soap should be used as a part of your daily health and beauty routine” (my italics). Daily? I’m supposed to shower each and every day?

Ha! With any old health regime I can get away with exercising only three or four times a week. Don’t these people realize how much standing is involved in taking a shower? And don’t even get me started on baths. Relaxing, my foot.

The Japanese are truly a marvelous people. Their teen-agers score well ahead of obese, non-showering American students in math, science and especially Japanese. And certainly only they would have the fortitude to stick to a regimen this rigorous.

No suffering … where’s good old stinky Zen Buddhism when you need it?

• “Adaptation” — overrated.
• “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers” — amazing.

I’d expound at length, but … enh.

Dole has a great kids’ site promoting fruits and vegetables. Each item is made into a cartoon character. To wit: Kevin Kiwi. Each character’s page opens with a full-throated audio greeting which is without fail hi-larious.

My other faves are Cornelius Corn and Kenny Canned Pineapple. Kenny sounds like he’s hopped up on goofballs but makes up for it by telling us his dream of someday being a mechanical engineer.

“My idol is a person named Henry Ginaca,” Kenny writes. “In 1913, Mr. Ginaca invented a pineapple cutting machine. The machine removes the shell, the core, and the ends of the pineapple so that the pineapple can be canned.” Fascinating. And educational, too!