May 2003 Archives

A Day At the Home Show



So, how did I end up at the Jerky Hut? Good question. Here's my story.

We decided, on an idle Saturday with nothing in particular on the schedule, to stop by the big Southern California Home Show in Long Beach. This kind of thing happens when you're a homeowner. You go through life without once ever having a single thought about pavers or roof tiles or refinancing, and then you buy a house and WHAM you're suddenly harboring an interest in solar pool heaters and window treatments. That's when Home Depot and Lowe's enter your life, and that's when you're paging through the Press-Telegram and see an ad for the Southern California Home Show and you think, say, why don't we spend an afternoon there? So we did.

Remarkable Thing Number One:



These shows bring out a lot of people. A LOT of people. But, and here I'm going to measure my words carefully lest I insult anybody who happens to a) read this column and b) be a home show habitue, the clientele generally appears not to be the kind of people whose homes are likely to be featured in Architectural Digest. Or HGTV. Maybe Handyman Magazine, or, if there is such a thing, Hovels Illustrated. At least, that's what I assume their homes are like, because I observed this: the crowd at a booth was in inverse proportion to the quality of the goods therein. The Jenn-Air indoor grills, the real-stone, real-slate patio tiles, the high quality goods were being ignored. The battery-free "Forever Flashlight," the "free car" contests that are obvious fronts for time-share pitches, the booth selling a lifesize Elvis statue? Mobbed. Any booth resembling one of those infomercials with some guy shouting the virtues of some miracle spot remover and barbecue sauce had crowds five deep.

Remarkable Thing Number Two:



There were at least six Tempurpedic mattress booths. There were also about four Dish Network sellers, and two dueling National Association for the Self-Employed booths. I gather that all of them use independent local enterpreneurs to sell their goods. That doesn't mean the products are bad- we have Dish Network ourselves and like it a lot- but it does mean that the Home Show takes on an aura of live telemarketing. Memo to the Dish and Tempurpedic people: it makes your products look cheap.

Remarkable Thing Number Three:



There was a booth selling an item that was supposed to help you sleep and feel comfortable on airplanes. Unfortunately, it did not involve anything to do with the space your legs are supposed to occupy. Worse, take a look at the picture above- they're selling a strap to tie your head to your airplane seat. No, really. You slip the band around the headrest and across your forehead. It's S&M Lite!

Remarkable Thing Number Four:



Memo to my radio brethren: if you're going to do a live appearance, at least TRY to drum up some excitement. Make it a show. Have entertainment, music, prizes. Be loud and fun. Give 'em something to look at. And for God's sake, make sure your booth isn't hidden way in the back of the hall behind some it-slices-it-dices thing. This is K-Earth 101's booth at the Home Show- it's the yellow banner in the back, obscured by the demonstration next to it. There's a dispirited, bored DJ back there, sitting behind a card table with a street-teamer. They're not doing anything. I was tempted to put a mirror under their nose to see if they were still breathing. This is why radio is often considered lower on the show business ladder than organ grinders and mimes. If, when I was a kid, I'd seen a radio remote this dull and lifeless, I'd have scratched radio off the list of possible vocations. Even 500 watt Mom-n-Pop daytimer WKER in Pompton Lakes, New Jersey circa 1971 did more impressive appearances. And K-Earth- owned by Viacom!- probably bills more in a week than WKER did in an entire year. Unbelievable.

Remarkable Thing Number Five:



So we ended up at the Jerky Hut. I'm not sure what jerky has to do with home remodeling, but take a look at this booth. There's tons of jerky there. A zillion jerky flavors. Jerky as far as the eye can see, or at least wrapping around the corner, all bagged up and ready to be taken home or consumed on the premises. We looked at a lot of booths, and only one delivered what it promised with no caveats, no preposterous pitches, no qualifications or "special deals" or requirement to fill out a card asking for your income and the names of your children and pets. The Jerky Hut. God bless 'em.

We left with a bag full of brochures we'll never look at again, several companies who will be calling our house every few hours for the next few months trying to sell us something, and... um... that's it. But we highly recommend home shows as weekend entertainment, because they're educational, they're fun, and they're six bucks each we'll never get back, so we'd feel better if all of you got ripped off, too. Misery loves company. And jerky.

I hit the wall on the Peterson case today. I was writing a story about today's "development"- something to the effect that Laci's family sent friends into the house to get her stuff- and I zoned out about halfway through. Later, in the car, John and Ken were talking about the case on KFI and when Ken said something about decomposition of the body, bothe Fran and I lunged for the button.

All news stories have a shelf life. Even the war had one- a few weeks and people were looking for something else to worry about. This one, on the other hand, is more than just exhaustion with the Peterson case. I just don't care about these true-crime stories any more. I don't want to hear about them. If Robert Blake dropped by to confess in my living room, I might just ask him to quit blocking the TV. I don't want to hear about strangled newborns, limbless bodies, smarmy suspects. I don't want to hear about slimy lawyers, inept prosecutors, satanic-cult theories. I just can't do it anymore. I want happy. I want relaxing. I want stress-free.

I think I want elevator music. That's not good.

My job requires me to stay informed on these stories, so I guess I'm stuck, but I am absolutaly not happy about it. These stories won't stop coming, and I won't be able to stop covering them. But I can dream, and that dream has lush green grass and flowers and bright primary colors and motion and I think I just dreamt about the Teletubbies. I need a break. Is it the weekend yet? It is? OK, that's it, I'm gone. I wonder if there'll be a line at the next showing of "Finding Nemo."

There are a few message boards on the other web site for which I write, and, as I've noted here previously, the discourse tends to run towards the coarse, the ad hominem. Much of it is just radio guys sniping at each other, some of it is political, and a lot of it deals with the prevailing mood in the industry, which isn't very bright.

There are a lot of unemployed or underemployed radio people out there, and a common thread running through their posted comments is that, somehow, the industry is to blame for their plight. More to the point, it seems that everyone blames a) consolidation, b) voice tracking, and c) Clear Channel. Most consider a), b), and c) to be the same thing, which may be correct. But I think the people who blame external forces for their own plight are missing something, and I think it's time for some tough love.

Guys, here's the deal: your industry did indeed change, and perhaps it's been for the worse. Fine. And, yes, in many ways there are fewer opportunities. Let's say we agree on all of that. But let's try to understand it by dragging out the old buggy whip example. You're a buggy whip maker, the world's transportation needs change to motorized vehicles, you go out of business. You make slide rules, they invent the calculator, you go out of business. You make anything, someone invents something to replace your product, you go out of business. Right? Well, no, that's not right. You're sitting there with a buggy whip factory, cars come along, you take a look at what you have- leather tanning facility, stockpile of hides, distribution system- and you determine what you can do other than make buggy whips. And your leather jacket, chamois, and belt business becomes a success. You can't tell your friends you make buggy whips anymore, but you're making a living.

Here's a bulletin for small-market or marginally-talented radio personalities: you're making buggy whips. Time to reconsider your career.

But, you say, but, I'm good! And I belong on the radio because I'm better than those guys in New York and L.A.! How DARE anyone suggest I leave the business! Ah, but I'm not saying you should give up. Far from it- I would encourage anyone who really, truly desires to be a radio star to keep plugging away. But instead of cursing Clear Channel and Michael Powell because your local market consists of a bunch of computer-fed voice-tracked stations and no local staff, you should be ready to do two things: move to another market, or at least temporarily get out of the business so you can pay the bills. Unfair? That's life. Nobody owes you a living, and the radio industry doesn't owe you a job.

Think of voice-tracking and satellite and computers and consolidation as the new way the business works, just like cars became the new transportation and calculators became the way people did math. You're making buggy whips, but you can change, even if it's temporary. Instead of sitting around the apartment whining about how you're being beaten down by The Man, get a job doing something else. Write, sell cars, flip burgers, push a mop. As a wise man (OK, it was Atlanta morning radio host Larry Wachs, but the advice was still wise) once told me, there is no shame in doing whatever you have to do to support your family. He told that to me when I was in a between-jobs funk. Shortly thereafter, I found myself doing data entry to pay the rent. The data entry led to a neat job in I/T. After another radio job, the I/T experience led to temp work for a big tech firm and side work for a company I eventually joined in another capacity. The people I met became important as friends and business contacts, and the experience I gained was invaluable. I could have said that all of these jobs were beneath me- I've been a radio programmer in one of the largest markets in the world, I've been on the air, how could I possibly accept a low-wage job typing in vital statistics and crawling behind workstations cracking open Power Macs?- but I took the wise man's advice and never looked back.

I guess this is all an incoherent way of telling my radio brethren to get a grip, to understand that the radio world has changed and whether it's a good or bad thing is irrelevant. Clear Channel didn't "do" anything to you. The FCC isn't "doing" anything to you. So you can't read liner cards and spin records right now. Keep trying to get back in, sure, but in the meantime, swallow your pride and do something else. You might even end up liking it.

I'm going to hold the post I was originally going to make for a day or two- I want to think about it and get it right. That's important, because it's way too easy to spout off and post something and later think, geez, I should have said this and shouldn't have said that and... I wrote a very long piece for tonight, took a lot of time on it, and I think it needs editing. So I'm going to knock things off for the evening, if it's OK with you. There'll be more tomorrow. Until then, here's a picture of the palm trees in our driveway.

The Mysteries of Southern California: An Archaeological Odyssey

Chapter 5: The Pyramid of Palos Verdes and Swinghenge



These structures were recently unearthed at a site near the coastline on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, approximately 30 miles south of the center of Los Angeles. Research has thus far failed to determine what the significance of the objects are, although the pyramid (far right) is believed to be a form of memorial or tomb constructed to celebrate the life of only the most powerful or culturally significant Socalians, such as Spielbergkhamen. The other structures remain mysterious, as is the pattern of their construction- is the order of their placement significant? Is the presence of two identical figures (first and fourth from left) at a 90 degree angle meant to signify any religious message, and why are the two structures separated by what appears to be a variant on the sundial set three hours forward and a white curved sculpture of indeterminate utility (the four structures known collectively as "Swinghenge")? One may never know the answers to this mystery of the ages, and one may presume that the Socalians of the era were not fully able to explain the significance of the Pyramid either.


Pictured (L to R): Swingline I, Westclox Cube, Scotch Modern, Swingline II, Great Pyramid


(OK, I can't explain the two staplers, either, but the clock's for east coast time and the pyramid is a remote control gadget. Satisfied?)

No baseball today. Oh, sure, there were games on, but there wasn't baseball the way baseball used to be on Memorial Day. They don't play doubleheaders anymore, of course, and, in a dollop of additional blasphemy, there were several teams that DIDN'T EVEN PLAY today. The Dodgers were off, so were the Angels, and the Padres were in Arizona. No baseball in Southern California on a day synonymous with baseball.

It really sank in at barbecue time. After the honoring of those who have given their lives to protect us and to preserve America, Memorial Day means barbecuing on the backyard grill while the transistor radio- no boombox, no stereo, just a cheap pocket AM radio- sends the sounds of Vin or Harry or Scooter echoing across the patio. Memorial Day demands the presence of Vin Scully. I checked. No Vin. Vin was off, and Ross and Mo were, too. So were Rory and Terry on the Angels network. There was a pre-game show for the Padres game, but it wasn't the same.

This is, of course, a minor loss. The sun was still shining, the meat sizzling over the flame, the beer still cold, the memory of the valiant soldiers still clear and sobering. I can live, ultimately, without a local ballgame on the radio- it's just another Thing That Isn't There Anymore, something remembered fondly and wistfully but with a certain amount of resignation. But Major League Baseball is crazy if it thinks this is no great loss. In the paper today, an MLB spokesperson was quoted as saying that, well, teams don't want to play on Memorial Day because- she said this, seriously- they fear that attendance will be low, because people are off doing other things. Low attendance? On Memorial Day? You gotta be kidding. At least Dodgers VP Derrick Hall said the opposite, that he wished everyone WAS playing and that attendance would be good- SOMEONE in baseball gets it. But as interest in the sport continues to shrink and kids turn to other things- not just other team sports, but video games, "extreme" sports, "The Matrix Reloaded," anything- the people who run it need to think about what they're doing. There are many traditions that had no reason to survive, but the big Memorial Day baseball game did not need to go away. That it did is suicidal. On a day when millions of kids and adults are ready to come on out to the old ball game, the old ball game locks the gates and shoos away the customers. That's no way to run a business, and no way to treat a tradition worth saving.

We were about 20 miles from home when I realized I'd forgotten my phone. My phone! My lifeline to the world! My pocket Internet connection, e-mail fetcher, link to my address book and sports scores and long-distance calls. "That's OK," Fran said, "I have mine." No, that's NOT OK. It's not MY phone. Not MY contacts, MY e-mail, MY precious PDA phone.

I should go without that thing more often. It was nice not to take calls, not to be linked to the world, not to be bothered for a day. I was... free, at least for a day.

Naturally, the moment I walked through the door when we got home, the computer went on immediately, the phone was switched on, the lifeline reestablished. There's only so long I can be Nature Boy.

And sometimes, all it takes is a little of this:



I've been irritable since, I suppose, shortly before the last time I told you I was irritable, which was quite a while ago. There's been no particular reason- I've just been getting up on the wrong side of the bed, on the wrong side of 5 am. Clearly, a change of scenery was required.

You get there from Los Angeles via any freeway heading east in unreasonably slow, aggravating traffic through the grandly-named Inland Empire (motto: "(cough)") and through the San Gorgonio Pass into the desert, which is, um, "there." You have a few choices out that way- you can head into Palm Springs, where they've imported grass and trees where they probably shouldn't be and where silver-haired retirees in "resort wear" and gay men in Tom of Finland gear stroll down Palm Canyon Way to the theatre to see entertainers you thought had passed on long ago perform vaudeville routines, or you can head up through the Morongo Valley past the Wal-Marts and Carl's Jr.'s of Yucca Valley into Joshua Tree park, which looks like what you might imagine the moonscape to be. Either way, it's over 100 degrees (a dry heat, but it's still way hot); either way, you either love it or loathe it. We're in the "love it" category. The rocky foothills beneath snow-capped mountains, the heat rising in visible waves off the car and the pavement, sitting on the patio of the Blue Coyote under the mist machines in the late-afternoon sun with a cold drink... aaaaahhh. Oh, yes. Lovely.

Everyone has their getaway. Ours happens to be brutally, don't-sit-on-the-leather-car-seat-in-shorts hot. There's nothing like it.

One of the bad things about having no plans for Memorial Day is that when the weather sucks, there's nothing on TV. OK, there's basketball, but nobody's going out of their way to see the Nets and Pistons these days. Otherwise, it's all reruns and crappy movies. Blockbuster- yes, we live right near Hollywood and the best we have for video rentals are Blockbuster and Hollywood Video- was out of anything we might want to see. We've watched everything on the PVR, and there's only so much Food Network and HGTV you can take.

Somewhere on earth, billions of people are wallowing in poverty and disease and war and violence. I'm upset because there's nothing on my satellite dish right now. I'd think about how shallow my life is, except that if all of those people had comfortable homes and satellite dishes, they'd be complaining, too. Think there's anything good on MogadishuVision right now? I'll check the guide.

Movie Review: "Bruce Almighty"

It sucked.

I don't care about Annika Sorenstam right now. I don't care about LeBron James and his sneaker contract, either. Tax cuts? Road maps to peace? The Peterson trial? Nope, nope, and nope.

It finally sank in about lunchtime, when I realized we're going to wrap things up for the week a little early, close the office, hit the road. Three-day weekend. Time to relax, turn off the work mode, go do something mindless.

I'll try.

Once again, I find myself out of sync with the world. Part of me is fully aware that Memorial Day is this coming Monday. Part of me refuses to accept that. As a result, I've been walking around without acknowledging that the holiday is THIS weekend, that I need to have plans arranged NOW, that the question "what are you going to do for the holiday?" is not properly answered with a shrug and a muttered "I dunno."

So, what ARE we gonna do?

(shrug) I dunno.

Maybe we'll take a ride to the desert, or go to see the Angels- Tampa Bay's in, which sucks, Saturday's Bat Day, which also sucks, and they're off on Monday, which should be a criminal offense. No baseball on Memorial Day? There should be mandatory doubleheaders. Maybe I'll broil up a couple of non-Canadian steaks. Whatever. I just should have figured this out sooner. The holiday snuck up on me.

Shoulda bought a calendar. Another strategic error.

Ruben won.

I realize that a lot of people don't care about "American Idol," and I can understand that- after the first rounds when it's fun to watch bad singers get skewered by Simon Cowell, the show's kinda boring and very Vegas in the lounge-at-Sunset-Station sense. But I work with radio talk show hosts, and I know that many, on Thursday morning, will be thinking "I'm not gonna talk about THAT crap. Nobody cares when there are so many more IMPORTANT things to discuss." And there are, but, look, how much can you say about the Orange Alert, or the tax cut? We NEED the "American Idol" kind of crap, just like we NEED "The Matrix Reloaded" and the hazing story and LeBron James and just about anything but the important stuff. Listen, people hear the talk about terrorism and taxes and the lousy economy and they CAN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT THEM. It's useless. And the bad news is so pervasive, so depressing, it's no wonder people need relief.

In the movie "Sullivan's Travels," Joel McCrea thinks he has to make a "serious" picture about the poor, only to discover that those poor people want nothing more than to be entertained by a cartoon, to laugh a little in the face of misery. And that's why "American Idol" is important. It's our cartoon. It makes us laugh, with it or at it. And that makes it important enough to talk about on the radio.

Back at the other website for which I write, there are message boards where people in the radio industry can post stuff and kinda chat. I never post, preferring to lurk and stay out of it when the going gets rough. Lately, the going's been more than rough- it's been downright crude and hostile. That's not surprising, because all message boards experience that. No, what surprises me is that people are sometimes putting their real names, or stuff that clearly identifies by inference who they are, on their posts.

I am generally an advocate of being above the fray, avoiding trash-talking, remaining more neutral than the Swiss, which evidently ain't all that difficult. Not that I'm always successful. In fact, catch me at the right moment and you can hear some interesting stuff. But, officially, I wouldn't do that. I suppose I'm old-fashioned, too timid, out of step, but when I see people attack each other and former employers and co-workers and PUT THEIR NAMES TO IT, I'm astonished.

Let me tell you this: I have left certain jobs furious at certain people responsible for my predicament. I could have spread negative stuff about them, could have posted nasty accusations, could have gone on the attack for revenge. Something held me back, and many years later, those same people all played significant roles in very good things happening to me. Some went out of their way to make sure I was included in projects that turned out to be rewarding on every level.

Meanwhile, people who really should know better are out there feeling better about life because they got a dig in at someone who they feel did them wrong. That's nice. But the price for that momentary thrill is way steeper than they'll know. The people they're trashing know people. Someday, they'll lose out on a job or a project, and they won't know why. All they'll need is a mirror to figure that puzzle out.

The terror alert is up to orange. I went and had a burger at Hennessey's. They do 2-for-1 burgers on Tuesdays.

The terror alert is up to orange. We watched "24" and "American Idol" and an old "CSI" on the PVR, then a "Simpsons" before closing it out for the night.

The terror alert is up to orange. I ran, worked, paid some bills, picked up some stuff at Ralphs, washed the dishes- in other words, I continued to live my life. And that, essentially, is what America is all about. We're handed information- terror alert raised, be on the lookout- and it's information with which we don't know what to do. Are we to turn in the neighbor for something? Are we supposed to patrol the harbor for suspicious cargo? Are we supposed to run every time we see a truck, a package, a guy with olive skin? What, exactly, does "be aware" mean? Isn't that the FBI and CIA and Department of Homeland Security's job?

The terror alert is up to orange. If they're counting on me and you and the rest of rank-and-file America to act as rent-a-cops, we're in trouble. But there's nothing we can do about it. Short of having advance warning, there was no way the people who died on 9/11 could have avoided it, and nothing any regular American Joe could have done. Over a year and a half later, there's still nothing we can do, not unless we see someone in the act.

The terror alert is up to orange. I'm going to sleep now. I can't think of a better idea.

Interesting end to the Detroit-New Jersey game tonight. Just an observation: if you have less than two seconds remaining and you're down two points, you don't try and draw a foul instead of getting a good, and close, look at the hoop, especially at home. You go right to it, you try to make the shot instead of getting free throws, which the Pistons were missing in the clutch. That's how the Detroit players and fans ended up pleading for a call and the Nets ran off the court jubilant- you don't leave the outcome to the refs. And it wasn't a foul.

I've been irritable lately. Not sure why, either, but little things have been getting on my nerves. The bad driving around here seems worse, the slowness at the Post Office slower, the out-of-stock favored brand of deodorant at Wal-Mart- yes, I checked the top shelf where they put the extras- more annoying.

I've felt that way since returning from New York, and I wonder if that had anything to do with it. New York is a little more... aggressive than L.A. Maybe exposure to that for a couple of days triggered that switch in my personality that's been in the Off position since I moved away from there years ago. Maybe I'm just tense anyway. I don't know, but in the meantime, you might want to give me a wide berth.

I do bite.


("In every sense of the word." Ha, ha. Don't make me angry.)

New York: last look from moving vehicle

The cab was waiting when I checked out of the hotel at 4:30 am this morning, groggy after a sleepless night- when you're used to sharing a bed with your wife and the cat, lying all the way at one side while wife and cat occupy 70% of the available bed space, you think having a king bed to yourself will be a treat, but it isn't, and you end up sleeping at the edge of the bed, just like always. Except that the room is devoid of that reassuring sound of the wife's snoring, the little silhouette of the cat's head you see staring back at you from just above your wife's leg isn't there, and the view and sounds at the window are definitely not home.

So, anyway, I'm groggy and I'm in the cab mumbling about needing to go to JFK for Sky Blue... er, Jet Sky... Jet Blue, and soon we're speeding past Ground Zero, looping onto the FDR, and we're off, onto that side road, up and over the Brooklyn Bridge, winding through warehouse neighborhoods in Williamsburg. And I'm looking out the window at a city I know very, very well, a city near which I grew up, looking at familiar places in the pre-dawn darkness and I thought the following:

Geez, this city looks old.

Geez, this city looks rundown.

Geez, this city looks poor.

Why didn't I notice this before?

New York: a day in Theater 4

My world today was a blur of guys in suits. I'm at a convention, a talk radio "seminar" in New York, and while I've been told that I'm good at these things, I tend to feel a little uncomfortable at stuff like this. I feel more comfortable at funerals- at a funeral, I know what to say, which is nothing. At a convention, it's more uncomfortable- I never know what to say to whom without appearing to be in incoherent idiot. I also never know who'll even remember who I am. I have to be here to show my face and represent my publication to the industry, and I guess I've managed (by longevity or by the attrition of others) to become reasonably well known and/or important in the business. (Obviously, it must not be very hard to do so) But I still feel concurrently invisible- I don't know that many people all that well- and like I'm sticking out like a sore thumb- I look different (no suit, ever), I feel different, and I have that paranoid-delusional sense that everyone's watching me (and thinking I'm an idiot). Lately, I've been reacting to this social discomfort by bolting from the scene, walking out the door and disappearing, but I'm aware how that's just avoiding the issue. I watched some people do the convention thing- always gladhanding, talking to everyone, carrying themselves with aplomb- but that's not me. I'm more the nervous type, always waiting for someone to find me out and get security to escort me out the door, probably like in cartoons when they grab you by the shirt, haul you by the collar to the door, and dump you on the doorstep.

They never did find me out, so I made it to the end of the day without, I think, embarrassing myself too much. Then the conference ended and I walked out into the chilly New York twilight for freedom and a decent corned beef sandwich.

New York: some self-indulgent observations at Ground Zero

It's a year and a half later, a little longer than that, to be accurate, and a lot of things in the area have returned to an approximation of the way things were before then. Offices are back to work, people are shopping and eating and working out and going to the movies, and there's this big gouge taken right out of the middle.

I know, another overwrought Ground Zero column by some emotional hack. You'll have to bear with me for a moment.

I came back to Lower Manhattan for a conference. They decided to hold it in a hotel a block from where the towers were, which annoyed me for a couple of reasons- first, it's a little far from most of the things I like to visit in the city, a long subway ride or an expensive cab ride. Second, I didn't want to be reminded. But I went anyway, and, while the Guys in Suits held a cocktail party, I bailed and decided to take a walk to see what was left of what I remembered.

The World Financial Center is populated again, although a lot of the part facing the towers emains empty and in a state of suspended "under construction." The part where the restaurants are, where I remember grabbing a Cosi sandwich before catching the subway to Yankee Stadium, is back to normal and reasonably busy for a Friday night, but the big glass-domed hall with the spectacular staircase where they held the concerts, while it's open and the concerts are back, seems to be only an approximation of its former self, the room oddly quiet on a Friday evening, the cleaned-up stairs looking almost unfinished, reaching up to... well, they used to reach up to the Twin Towers, but now they just seem to go nowhere. The boats still rock in the marina, people trudge against the stiff breeze and misty drizzle while a few hardy volleyball players practice in conditions the polar opposite of those back home. But this is on the river side, where you can look across past the Circle Line boats and the ferries to the skyline of Jersey City- it has a skyline, now, an impressive one- and Hoboken and Ellis Island, and you can forget for a minute what's a block behind you.

What's back there still packs an emotional wallop- right here, so many people died. Right here. They were here, now they're gone- but you expect that, and even the whistle-clean state of Ground Zero and the nice new fence with the official memorial plaques instead of that messy, emotional, emotionally messy makeshift memorial stuff that used to be there don't hide the horror or lessen the pain. It's still possible to pause, look, think right here, there was that Borders store, and you could take the escalator down to the concourse right by the subway gate and the lottery stand and all those people died and look, there's one of those light poles that used to be in the plaza but there's only half of it left and feel it like a punch in the gut. The weird thing I immediately noticed was that the buildings immediately across the street from the towers on the west and east side were relatively unscathed and returning to their previous state, but the buildings across the street to the north and south took it hard. There are several buildings with facades that just got ripped right off the frame, and they're still there with netting holding the debris back. Others are gone- the Amish Market with the great baked goods, the building just across from the concourse entrance with the dispirited-looking lunch patio about two floors up, the pizza place and the little bodega next to it, all gone. But the department store across Church Street is open and looks exactly as it did on 9/10, and the Millenium Hilton is, too- there's a bar facing Ground Zero, and if I was the manager of that hotel, I think I might move it. Clubs have opened a block away, a hip-hop crowd hanging outside one, a trendy sign above another- but it's otherwise quiet at night, just the way it used to be.

However tentatively, life has returned to the neighborhood. Soon, the new complex will be built, and it'll have a nice big memorial in the middle and shopping and restaurants and for a while, maybe decades, people will pause and remember 9/11 and remember where they were when they heard what was happening and there will be tears. And sometime after that, when the survivors are dead and their children are old and new generations take their places, you wonder whether they'll understand what the memorial's all about and what happened and how it profoundly changed some things and didn't change other things and life will go on. That's what happened with Pearl Harbor, known to the Youth of America as a bad war movie with that guy and that other guy and a Baldwin. It always happens. That's not all bad- it's a sign that no terrorist act can stop the human spirit and they can't take our way of life away from us and all that. I just hope that when the history books or videos or datastreams of the future teach about this place, they leave in the part about the market and the pizza shop and the sad little patio and how, in a moment of madness, the things in our life we take for granted can be taken from us. I'll never have lunch in that market again, never grab a slice at the pizza place before catching the subway across the street. It's not as profound as the loss of lives, but they took that from me. A year and a half later, that still makes me mad.

Well, whaddya know. I made it across the country without incident, a little turbulence along the way but not too bad. I'm now on east coast time for a couple of days, so bear with me.

Proper postings later. Thanks for your patience.

Some people travel well- they spend no time worrying about arriving at the airport on time, they don't think about the worst-case scenarios, they don't worry about the weather, they just go. I can't do that. Oh, I try to act like it's no big deal, and I've always traveled extensively for business, so I know HOW to travel the nonchalant, businesslike, "right" way. I KNOW how. I don't DO it.

Travel, for me, goes like this:

1. Book everything well in advance.
2. Forget everything.
3. A few days before the trip, think, "am I supposed to be going someplace one of these days? Oh, yeah..."
4. Immediately get nervous. Queasiness sets in.
5. Wait until the last minute to pack. Pack way too much. Dither over which shirts to bring.
6. Go to sleep way too late.
7. Get up way too early.
8. Rush out of house, forget something.
9. Drive to airport, wondering what was forgotten.
10. Arrive at terminal way too early.
11. Kill time with newspaper.
12. Fly.
13. Encounter difficulties getting luggage, finding cab/rental car shuttle.
14. Hit hopeless traffic.
15. Find hotel, check in, turn on TV, collapse.
16. Do whatever it is trip was taken to accomplish.
17. Repeat steps 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13.

The beach ball materialized around the bottom of the second, somewhere in the pavilion seats out beyond right-center. Red, white, and blue, it popped up from the thicket of fans, bounced back from the third row to the eighth, then further towards right field, up, back to the middle, then, quickly, too quickly, inexorably, over the rail and into the Atlanta bullpen, where it disappeared behind the yellow box seats and never returned.

Batting a beach ball around an audience is, in sports, a strictly baseball affair. You don't see it in basketball, or hockey, or football. (Beach ball plus Raider fans would equal a very, very bad situation) You'll see it in baseball, especially in a place like Los Angeles where the crowd is more easily distracted. Like the Wave (not a native L.A. abomination, actually, but it might as well be), the beach ball infuriates purists, who would prefer that fans sit there and pay attention, analyzing each pitch as Kaz Ishii takes every single hitter in the Atlanta lineup- yes, even Robert Fick- to a full count as the night wears on towards midnight. But the reason the beach ball shows up at the ballpark and not for other sports is simple- what makes baseball unique, its own internal pace that doesn't involve a clock or a prescribed time period, makes it easily ignored even when it's right in front of you.

That's a charitable way to say it's boring.

Hey, listen, I love baseball. Always have, always will. But let's be honest here- do you sit and watch the game intently? Do the players? That would be "no" on both counts. It really hit home last night at Dodger Stadium- I caught wind that the Lakers had made a furious comeback and there were only two minutes left in that game, and at about the same time the Dodgers started to mount a scoring threat, with a couple of guys on base. I decided to slip into the press box cafeteria, where they had the Laker game on TV, and stood there, just a short walk from a close major league game in progress, watching basketball. Several other members of the media chose to do the same, which is to be expected. But with about 20 seconds left, I was joined by...

...Tommy Lasorda.

Mr. Dodger Blue, a baseball icon, synonymous with the game, decided to bail on the baseball for a few minutes to watch the Lakers. The Dodger game was still going- runners, if I recall correctly, at first and third- and Tommy Lasorda himself decided to catch the more exciting action.

I don't know what you do to fix this- I don't know if you CAN do anything about it- but put yourself in a typical 14 or 15 year old's place. You have PlayStation and GameBoy, "Vice City" and "NBA Live 2003." You have MTV and a zillion channels, many targeted right at you. You have VCRs and PVRs so that your favorite show is always on. You have the Net and MP3 players and a million and one things to occupy your time. You've known nothing but fast paced entertainment and fast food and fast everything. Are you gonna sit there for three and a half hours watching a game like baseball?

So you get the video board blooper reels and ultra-loud music, and, every few innings, you get the beach ball. Don't like it? Neither do I, but it's the beach ball or its empty stands devoid of the young casual fans. Take the beach ball and learn to love it- it may be all that stands between the game you love and extinction.

Maybe it's me.

Maybe I'm the one who's culturally out of touch, but I saw the first "Matrix" and I thought, OK, decent movie, great effects, the usual embarrassing wooden Keanu, enjoyable. And then I walked out of the theater and forgot about it. I haven't been waiting with drooling anticipation for the new one, haven't been camping out or buying tickets in advance. I'll see it when there's nothing better to do, maybe this weekend, maybe the next, maybe when the DVD comes out. Is that so wrong?

But wait, you say, you're not a 16 year old boy. 16 year old boys are the target, so that's who's lining up. Maybe so, but I wasn't lining up for any movies when I was that age- I did go see "Star Wars," but weeks after it came out. OK, I'll admit, I was queued up for the first "Star Trek" movie, but not because I wanted to see it- everyone from my school was going, and I tagged along because it was the last movie to be screened at the old, majestic Fox Theater on Market Street in Philadelphia and I wanted to see a movie there before it got torn down. All I remember from that evening was feeling and hearing the Market-Frankford Subway rumbling under my seat. (That's my story and I'm sticking to it) I love movies, always have, but I've never felt that excited about a movie.

So I won't be around for the big "Matrix" opening or reopening or whatever it is. You won't have to save me a seat. Something tells me I won't be missing too much. It's a Keanu Reeves movie, after all.

All I can say about the guy suing to force Oreos out of California kids' mouths- you will not take my Oreos. You'll have to pry them from my cold etc. Give me Oreos or give me etc. You don't mess with Oreos. Trans-fatty acids, feh- we've been eating that crap for, what, a century? And life expectancy has done what? That's right- we live longer. And happier. If anything, we should be making sure our kids eat Oreos. There should be a Snack Food Pyramid- Oreos at the top, Doritos and fudge pops and M&Ms in the middle, fries and In 'n' Out and Bassett's chocolate chip on a sugar cone filling it out.

Healthy? Happy. And happy's the harder part to achieve. Let that lawyer and his friends eat tofu and rice cakes and sit around listening to Leonard Cohen records while discussing Sylvia Plath. I'll be the one with the Ring Dings and Twizzlers and Crunch bars and Newcastle Brown Ale. Which party would YOU rather be invited to?

Another example of the kind of stuff I've been on about lately: if the Boston Celtics could hit their free throws down the stretch, they'd have won Game 4 in regulation, or at least in the first overtime. They didn't hit the free throws, they didn't win in regulation, they didn't win in the first overtime, they didn't win.

Toldja.

El Segundo is attempting to change its image with some downtown renovation. Presently, El Segundo's image is... what? A bunch of office buildings just south of LAX? The TRW and Hughes plants? The punchline to a Johnny Carson joke? Umm... that's about it.

I'm not sure which displays more hubris, a town that thinks it can change its image or one that has no image but thinks it does. El Segundo is a little of both- it has no image, and it's mistaken if it thinks a few palm trees and new street lights will turn it into Beverly Hills. There are cities right nearby that DO have images: Torrance is all malls and suburbia, Manhattan Beach is Yuppieville-by-the-Sea, Hermosa is "like Manhattan Beach with frat guys instead of yuppies," and San Pedro is... well, there's another place that's tried to change its image and managed only to make things worse.

So El Segundo's going to spend about $4.1 million to fix things up, some of which is needed- there are structural problems that needed attention years ago- and some of which isn't going top make a difference. I've seen it elsewhere, in the hopeful urban renewal projects of Paterson and Camden and Bridgeport and Oakland and a thousand places you'd never consider going to visit in a million years, in the mistaken impression that putting an aquarium in a rundown neighborhood or closing off a shabby street from traffic to create a "mall" would bring people in to spend money. It rarely works- what DOES work is when artists and musicians and other cash-poor people move in and start their own scenes. But that won't happen in El Segundo, cursed to be not shabby or cheap enough for the arts crowd yet sitting there with a terminal main street.

And that's what El Segundo's problem is- its main street is terminal. You don't ever see downtown El Segundo if you're not specifically headed there as a destination. It's a dead end. You'd have to reroute Sepulveda Blvd. or the 405 through downtown to get anyone to go there. Since that won't happen, the best course of action would be to patch what needs fixing and accepting that downtown El Segundo isn't Rodeo Drive, isn't Old Town Pasadena, isn't anything but a local Main Street for local people offering the kind of thing that won't bring 'em in from the Valley or Orange County, but will serve the locals nicely. And there are worse images to have. Ask Oakland.

Warm and sunny and dry, the light glistening off the ocean. The neighbor's sudsing his SUV, Vin Scully echoing from the radio propped on a rock nearby. Birds are swooping from the sky in one direction; someone's model plane is going the opposite way. Guys are toting surfboards to the path down to the rocks and the break, while planes taking off from LAX are streaking across the blue. Kids imitating Tony Hawk, runners and bikers and walkers and gawkers trotting and rolling and striding and standing around...

...and you expected me to stay inside and write on a day like this? Please.

Snapshot of a Los Angeles Saturday afternoon: driving up the 405, hitting a wall of traffic, bailing at Century and taking the slow road up Sepulveda through Westchester, looking at the vintage convertible in front of us, thinking "geez, that huge bald man driving that car looks like... no, it can't... is that...," noticing his license plate: Florida, "HOOP-T," thinking, yes, he has his home in Orlando...

Shaquille O'Neal, top down, chatting on a cell phone, waving to the excited people in other cars who would pull right up alongside him and wave and yell encouragement and give him the thumbs-up.

In a city jaded by celebrity, there are really few people who can make heads turn. Consider this: Jack Nicholson pays to see Shaq. Jack Nicholson pays a lot of money to see Shaq. Some of the most famous people in the world take the time and, sometimes, even pay to see this guy perform. And on a sunny, warm afternoon on Sepulveda Boulevard up through Westchester and into Culver City, there he was, right in front of us, causing a commotion by his very presence.

I don't care too much about celebrity sightings. I know some celebrities, and, with all due respect, they're just people (and some aren't even very good people, either). And I've met plenty of athletes, from stars to scrubs, friendly and not. But sometimes, no matter how jaded you are, you have to gawk and nudge the person next to you and whisper "do you know who that is?" and call people on your cell phone and say "guess who's right in front of me?"

And then we went to Linens-n-Things and picked up sheets for the spare bedroom. That's Saturday afternoon in L.A.- driving behind a world famous guy on your way to do something utterly mundane.

I love this place.

One woman was reading while driving. A truck swerved back and forth in the lane, sharply and rapidly, the driver oblivious to anything and everything around him. Another reader. About a dozen inattentive cell phone drivers. ANOTHER reader. Two idiots who raced to beat the light for a left turn, only to have no room to get through the intersection and wind up blocking the road into gridlock. More drivers who refused to allow anybody in the gridlocked lane to maneuver around the blockage. Several cars filled with young men, speeding at roughly 80 mph on a local road (speed limit 45). Many tailgaters.

It's Friday in Los Angeles, and the traffic makes a mockery of the term "Friday Light." Every road is packed with (bad, careless) drivers, traffic is at a standstill, and for the life of me I don't know why. Does everyone in this city leave for the weekend? No. Does everyone get off work early? No. Is there a significant difference in the number of people working on Friday as opposed to, say Tuesday? No.

So where are all these cars coming from, and where are they going?

No, really, I don't know. I drove up to Hollywood for lunch and then back, and the trip was a nightmare of traffic and terrible, unsafe driving that started right in my neighborhood and just got progressively worse as the day wore on. Suggestions and theories are welcome. In the meantime, I'm staying home. Unlike what seems like everyone else, I DO have to work today.

The guy who cut his own arm off- he will henceforth always be known as "The Guy Who Cut His Own Arm Off"- was trooped before the cameras today, kicking off another round of admiring comments from pretty much everyone. "He's so brave," "so courageous," "so amazing." "I could NEVER have done that."

That's right, nor will you ever HAVE to, because you DON'T GO HIKING ALONE IN DANGEROUS TERRAIN WITHOUT A FUNCTIONING CELL PHONE. You are not a moron. You know that certain things are riskier than others, and some of those are best not done at all. The Guy Who Cut His Own Arm Off does not share that knowledge. The Guy Who Cut His Own Arm Off likes adventure. The Guy Who Cut His Own Arm Off goes to dangerous, inaccessible places with no means of communication because it's an "emotional escape." And it's because The Guy Who Cut His Own Arm Off went to a remote canyon where people really shouldn't try to go that The Guy Who Cut His Own Arm Off had to cut his own arm off.

I'm not saying what he did didn't take amazing fortitude. I'm not saying that you can't get your arm crushed in other places, in other ways. I AM saying that the chances of ending up having to cut your own arm off are fairly remote, and even remoter if you stay within cell phone range and stick to paths and roads and areas where people occasionally pass by. Make a movie theater or a town park or your backyard your "emotional escape," and it's unlikely you'll be pinned by a boulder or eaten by sharks or trapped by an avalanche.

Maybe that's too safe, too boring for The Guy Who Cut His Own Arm Off. All I know is that among those safe, boring people, there aren't too many called The Guy Who Cut His Own Arm Off, and, all things considered, you really don't want to be known as The Guy Who Cut His Own Arm Off. You'd hope The Guy Who Cut His Own Arm Off would agree, but he's already talking about going back out into the wilderness. I guess he aspires to be The Guy Who Cut His Other Arm Off. Now, THAT would be impressive.

In this morning's Philadelphia Inquirer: "Reading, Writing, Rapping: Hip-hop's going from the top of the charts to the head of the class, even into Scholastic children's books. Teachers are using it as a learning tool - sometimes on the sly." And I thought, oh, no, not the dreaded "Cool Teacher" syndrome.

This wasn't a problem in the 1950's. Teachers weren't cool. They were square-jawed Butch Waxed guys with horn-rims or cat-glassed beehived women in sensible shoes. Anyone who was "hot for teacher" back then needed corrective lenses. But you knew who was boss- Mr. Square Jaw wasn't going to take any nonsense from punks like you. You shut up, shrank back in your desk-chair combo, and behaved until recess.

It began to go bad in the 1960's, the mid-1960's, when some of the female teachers started to let students know- subtly, obliquely- that they really, really liked the Beatles. The beehives dropped into flips and then straightened out, the cat glasses disappeared. The male teachers were still dorks.

Everything went to hell in the 1970's. Suddenly, without warning, it was acceptable for teachers to show up for work in- gasp!- jeans and long hair and massive Mike Nesmith/Neil Young sideburns and sit on, not behind, the desk crosslegged and "rap with," not instruct, the students. They'd show "relevant" movies like "2001: A Space Odyssey" in class and slip rock lyrics into the discussion. This is also when male teachers started to hit on female students and go off with the class stoners to partake in the weed and generally behave like students. At my school, you knew that one of the English teachers was sleeping with a student instead of his wife- they did a poor job of hiding it, and, eventually, when the student became legal and the divorce final, they married. You knew which teachers were hardcore stoners- they showed up glassy-eyed and mumbling. But unless you were a stoner who partied with them, you had no respect for them. The only Butch Waxed square jaws left coached the football team and taught Social Studies; the only beehives and cat-glasses were on the lunchladies.

And so it went until you ended up with "Boston Public." Monday's episode featured a storyline right out of "Room 222" or "The White Shadow"- hardened, uncool teacher and streetwise rapper kid clash, then eventually meet halfway and help each other grow and respect each other and even exchange the kind of rhymes only Hollywood would think passes for hip-hop, whereupon the rapper kid gets killed in an offscreen run-in with police and the teacher is devastated. Needless to say, this is not how it works in real life. What you get in real life is what's in that Inquirer article, where teachers are using Jay-Z songs to teach English instead of Shakespeare and teachers create raps to teach history. I haven't heard that one, but I am willing to go out on a limb here and say that a teacher-created rap song about American history has to be embarrassing. Any time teachers try to reach the kids by trying to BE like the kids, it's embarrassing. That was true when Mr. Campbell wore a tie-dyed t-shirt and referred to Jerry Garcia in his lessons back in 1976, and it's true now when the teacher stands in front of the class and does a rap straight outta Scarsdale.

Kids don't need their teachers to be hip or cool or fab or gear or boss or phat or ginchy or groovy. Teachers aren't any of those. They never were. Kids need someone to respect, someone who's the boss and lets you know it, someone who you want to please because you fear the alternative. They need the Butch Waxed square-jaw and the cat-glassed beehive, now more than ever.

Happy birthday, Mom. You'd have turned 70 or 71 today, though you'd only have admitted to 69-and-holding. You'd have insisted, like you always did, that we not make a big deal out of it, not get you anything, not really even mention it. Sorry, Mom, but I'm going to have to ignore that. Again. Almost 9 years since we lost you, and I miss you still, miss you enough to be writing to you and talking to you in the hope that, if there is a life after this one, you'll hear it. I don't have an address to send you a card or present, so this'll have to do: Happy birthday, Mom. I love you. I miss you.

(I hope there's high-speed Internet access in the next life, and I hope that Mom's doesn't periodically drop the connection like mine in this life)

We signed all the closing paperwork on our refinancing the other day. As we drove home, we couldn't get past one thing. We'd just refinanced our home- REfinanced. Second round of financing. We own a house, we refinance. We pay bills, pay taxes, invest, make money, lose money.

My God. We're adults!

Nothing drives home the idea that you're really on your own like a half million dollars of debt and your name on a deed. I mean, I've been of majority age for a long time now, I've been able to vote and drive and drink (not at the same time) and marry and somehow, none of that hammered home the fact that I'm not a kid anymore like refinancing. I guess it's because refinancing is the kind of thing your parents did, something you never had to think about, something alien and uninteresting as you concentrated on whoever the hot indie band was at the moment, or the hot TV show or fashion trend. Now, it's refinancing and health concerns (Arthritis! Polyps! Hip pain! Oy!) and you're just like your own parents were and now you see how tough it was for them.

Dad, how DID you do it?

I guess he did it like I'm doing it- you just plow ahead and do what you have to do. Multiple jobs? OK, fine. Furnace needs repairing? OK, fine. Baby needs a new pair of shoes? OK... wait a minute, we don't have a baby. Cat needs shoes? OK. Whatever. Order some from the cat shoe place and I'll pay the bill...

...because I have to. Because this is what adults do. Because at long last, I realize that life isn't really about glamour and ballgames and rock 'n' roll and sex and a fridge full of beer and pizza. No, it's about mortgages and bills and family and love and a fridge full of beer and pizza.

Some things are just too important to leave behind.

Let's see, there's Ted Nugent making headlines for using racial slurs in the context of saying they're bad. There's the Boston Globe's Bob Ryan suspended for saying he wants to "smack" Joumana Kidd for her Nets boosterism in the front row. There's the whole Dixie Chicks thing, the Todd Jones no-gays-on-MY-team thing...

Perspective, please, people.

None of the aforementioned speakers have encountered governmental oppression for their words, only public reaction, which hasn't all been negative. Fine, First Amendment protected, great.

What's strange to me is that any of this is taken seriously at all. Someone please answer this for me: why does it matter what any of these people say? What impact on world events can Natalie Maines have? What control does an obscure Colorado reliever have over the nation's thought processes or tolerance for alternative lifestyles? Why does it matter if a sportswriter makes an unfortunate choice of words to describe what he'd do to a spousal abuse victim, but one that clearly wasn't intended to promote domestic violence? Since when does anything Ted Nugent says have any importance at all? The man did ze-Wango ze-Tango, for heaven's sake. He's not the President.

Life is better when everyone, no matter how insensitive or stupid, gets to talk. Come on, even the staunchest hawks were amused by Tim Robbins' blather. The most liberal among us loves to hate Ann Coulter. It gives everyone something to do. But I wish people wouldn't act like the world's going to explode because some celebrity or athlete said something controversial. Boycott if you wish, but you're only shooting yourself in the foot. A world without stupid celebrity comments is like, well, baseball without John Rocker, and no matter what you thought about him or his comments, you gotta admit, it was more fun when he was shooting his mouth off and throwing 100 mph. We don't need to silence these people.

We need more idiots.

Larry Eustachy resigned, Mike Price got fired before he even signed his contract, and whatever you think about their offenses and whether they should have lost their jobs over them, you have to ask yourself this: What the hell is WRONG with people? Someone wants to give me $10 million or a 10 year contract or both, I immediately turn into an angel. I do NOTHING wrong. I don't jaywalk, I don't go even a mile over the speed limit, I don't do anything. Every night, I'd stay home with the family studying the Bible and/or watching PAX. Giving a lap dancer the school credit card to order everything on the room service menu? Hitting on girls a lot younger than half your age? Jeez, are sex and drinking so important to you that you'd risk millions of dollars and your entire career for it?

Don't answer that.

The trouble is, there are people like me who keep their noses clean, do their jobs, stay away from cheating and scandal, and there are guys like Eustachy and Price who can't help themselves, and who gets hired? And why, knowing what these guys are like, are their employers surprised when they get caught up in scandal? Alabama and Iowa State are all about morality and family values on this one, but they knew what they were getting. They sold their souls long ago for a shot at the conference championship. They don't wear the moral thing well at all.

So these guys went from moderately well known (Price) or obscurity (Eustachy) to household words in a week. They may be looking for another shot at a head coaching job, but if I were them, I'd be thinking career change. What can someone who broke the rules and kicked away millions of dollars just for a few beers and some action on the side do for a living?

Radio talk show host.

What else?

It's our own fault.

Cinco de Mayo, and we just HAD to go to a Mexican restaurant.

Three words: strolling mariachi band.

And not a very good one, either- the fiddles were in tune, the guitars not, the trombone, well, let's not discuss the trombone. They did all your favorites, too- the one that goes "ay, ay, ay ay..." that those of a certain age can't help but follow with "I am the Frito Bandito...", the other one that, um, you know, the, er, other one. And "La Bamba." And "My Way." I was going to request "Free Bird," but I don't like that song in its original form and something tells me I wouldn't like it performed mariachi-stype by guys in full sombrero-and-embroidered-costume regalia. I'm sitting there trying hard not to burst out laughing at every sour note, because I didn't want to insult anyone, and I clapped like everyone else at the end of each song, probably in relief.

But it could have been worse- we went early, and as we left, the lobby was filling up with revelers. Cinco de Mayo, like New Year's Eve and St. Patrick's Day and a few other holidays, is amateur night, a draw for people who don't drink much to drink too much and behave like idiots and, worse, drive drunk. You don't want to be on the road tonight, dodging idiots with a dozen Dos Equis and a couple of margaritas in them. It's a night for entire offices to head to the Mexican-themed chain restaurant, drink heavily, and embarrass themselves.

Do you really think it's a good idea to be at the local Chi-Chi's or Chevy's or ChrandomstereotypicalMexicanname's tonight, surrounded by sales guys and receptionists reenacting sophomore year at Loser State? Of course it isn't. Stay home, have a cold one and maybe open a jar of salsa and a bag of chips. Put on Telemundo or Univision if you're in the mood. Leave the revelry, the mariachis, the projectile vomiting to the amateurs tonight. You'll thank yourself tomorrow. Ole!

I didn't do anything today.

Oh, well, sure, I ran, but I do that every day; I wrote my other column and this one, which I also do every day; we watched some of the fourth quarter of the Dallas-Portland game and some of the stuff we'd PVRed but hadn't watched yet. Ate, read the Times, Daily Breeze and New York Post, took the garbage out, went to Ralphs and bought some food for the week. But it feels like I did nothing today, nothing of any import, nothing I'll remember tomorrow.

I guess you need days like this sometimes, days when nothing happens and you just sit there watching the palm fronds sway in the breeze and the bluebird flutter across the lawn, think about nothing, accomplish nothing greater than doing the L.A. Times crossword and setting the PVR in advance so you don't miss "24." Strangely, I don't feel all that rested, but that's OK- I never do. It's enough that I'm here and alive and, for the moment, things are OK. There are worse ways to spend a Sunday.

The mall was packed today. So was Costco. While we were driving around the Del Amo parking lot trying to find a space in the same time zone, I asked Fran why the place was so crowded, and she looked at me like I was an idiot. (No argument there.) "Mother's Day," she reminded me. "Mother's Day is coming up." Aha. No wonder she wanted to go to buy her Mom a gift. Now it all becomes clear.

My mother died eight and a half years ago- Wednesday would have been her birthday. She passed away fairly young. In some ways, I'm glad she didn't have to see what happened in the world over the intervening years. I think 9/11 would have been tough on her, and the Middle Eastern crisis- she was a Holocaust survivor- would have eaten her up. By the same token, I'm sorry she couldn't stick around to see what became of us, sorry she never got to come out to California (we moved out here the next year) or meet our cat or just, you know, be around.

I guess what I'm saying is the same thing you always hear: be good to Mom while you still have the opportunity. Talk to her more often, visit her, be there for her. And, you know, you don't have much time left to get a good present and a halfway decent card for Mother's Day, so go to the mall now, before all the parking spots are gone. You can have mine.

Had a whole column done and, you know, I never learn- clicked "post" and Blogger went down. Column lost. That'll teach me- again- not to write the thing in Word first and save it. Let this be a lesson to you all, in the event you all are as stupid as I am.

Scott Peterson's gone and hired himself a celebrity lawyer, Mark Geragos, the guy who defended Winona Ryder and Susan McDougal and Gary Condit, so you know he has experience with Modesto guys whose alibis are a little shaky. Geragos will apparently defend anyone who can pay his fee and get him in front of TV cameras, which makes him not unlike most criminal defense attorneys. It also turns out that he went to the same college as I did, and that explains some things to me.

What makes a lawyer take on a case like Scott Peterson's, or the Unabomber's, or the terrorists'? I always thought it was greed and desire for publicity, and those may be part of it, but when I heard Geragos went to Haverford College, I thought about why someone from that Quaker intellectual liberal haven would defend a guy who everyone (including Geragos, two weeks ago, on Fox News Channel) thinks is guilty as sin. And I think I know why.

At the core of the idealism inculcated in college students is the idea that the underdog is always right. Big is bad, might makes the opposite of right. Big business, bad. America, wrong. The "little guy," right, always right. David yes, Goliath no. So they graduate comfortable in the knowledge that it's always better to be on the side of the underdog, because the big guys HAVE to be bad. That's how they pick up the anti-war position, the pro-Palestinian position, the Europe is better than America position. It's that gravitation to the side they perceive as disadvantaged.

But what if the underdog is wrong?

Wrong? Why, the underdog CAN'T be wrong.

And so you have these people pleading the Palestinian case while assiduously avoiding the harsh fact that the Palestinians want to murder innocent people and erase Jews from the Middle East entirely (and from the world, just to be sure). They oppose war against a murderous tyrant, by extension supporting him. They're in love with Fidel Castro despite his treatment of his own people, because he's a "little guy" and America's, well, America. And they'll take up the cause of a guy who probably murdered someone, because that's less important than that he's one little guy against the big bad government/prosecution/public/world.

So one week Geragos is on TV saying that the prosecution has a great case, and another week he's proclaiming his new client innocent, the victim of a community, a prosecution, and a media pack that ganged up on the little guy. The little guy is always right, you see.

When I was growing up, you couldn't root for the Yankees. The Yankees were big. They were winners- they always won, and when they became losers by 1965, they STILL had the arrogance of winners. You had to root for the underdog- the Mets, naturally, underdogs even after they became good, or the Red Sox (just to be irritating to Yankee fans), but not the Yankees- too big, too powerful, too good. They're bigger, more powerful, better than ever now, and they're still hated by a lot of people, myself included. They're Goliath, they're big business.

They're America.

I might have to stop rooting against them. It's too... Geragos.

Yes, the string was snapped, the Phillies won, and I'm probably not going to be welcomed by the Dodgers as a good-luck charm anymore. Talk about mixed emotions. At least they won't throw me out next time I drop by. Will they?

Perry the Jinx Update: I'm in the press box and the Phillies opened up a 3-0 lead in the top of the first. Perhaps the jinx is over. Part of me wants that not to happen- if the Dodgers keep winning every time I show up, they may keep wanting me to show up. Ah, Cabrera just hit a double, maybe... No, I can't do this. I have to root for the Phillies.

But quietly. This IS the press box. No rooting.

I guess it's a big deal that Aaron Sorkin and Tommy Schlamme are leaving "The West Wing." I wouldn't know. I've never watched the thing.

That's a shocking disclosure from someone like me who prides himself on total television immersion and knowing what's new and popular and boss and gear with all the crazy hep cats out there. But here's the deal: I really have a hard time watching shows that are supposed to be good for me. Let's clarify that: it doesn't mean I don't like good television, or TV that's critically acclaimed. "The Sopranos": good show, critically acclaimed, I watch it. "The Office," "Six Feet Under," "Scrubs," all good, all critically acclaimed, all on my list. No, I mean the shows that aren't just rated highly by critics but shows that are characterized as shows you SHOULD watch, MUST watch, because, well, you'll LEARN something. PBS shows, for example. I haven't watched a PBS station in years, not since all the British sitcoms came off except for "Are You Being Served?" and "Keeping Up Appearances." PBS shows are "educational even when they say they're not. They fall into the category of cultural events described in brochures as "Serious Fun!" They may be serious, but fun they're not.

Which brings us to "The West Wing." I can't watch it. I have no idea if it's any good, but I suspect not, because it's an Aaron Sorkin political show, meaning a) everyone talks reallyfastandsnappylikethey'reDorothyParkerattheAlgonquinRoundTable overlapping each other's words and generally being as artificial as only Aaron Sorkin can write, and b) it's going to be misty-eyed liberal, pining for the good old days when Democrats controlled Washington and they weren't afraid to RAISE taxes and sexually harass the interns. I've seen Aaron Sorkin in action- "SportsNight"- and I know he has a tin ear for dialogue, but it's the kind of tin ear that critics think is just dead on perfect ("The Gilmore Girls" is another show that mistakes snappy talking and characters finishing each other's sentences with wit and accuracy). And the liberal part- well, you don't have to watch the show for that. It's Hollywood. You can safely assume it.

So I assumed it, and assigned "The West Wing" to the list of shows I can't be bothered to watch. I don't think I missed anything. Excuse me now while I avoid watching "ER."