October 2003 Archives

I was running and punching buttons on the Walkman today and I landed on a college station from Santa Barbara. It sounded bad- adenoidal kid stiffly reading PSAs, a couple of guys awkwardly bantering, lots of pauses and confusion.

You can guess by now that I loved it, because I've told you before how much I miss small-town local-yokel radio. But more than that, it reminded me of... well, of me, the me that wandered into a water-damaged, grimy studio in the basement of the college dining center one day in the fall of my freshman year and read liner cards between Clash and Specials songs. There was nothing more exciting to me than opening the mic and talking, knowing that someone- probably only one or two people, but someone- was out there listening.

And it's still that way for me, though the medium's changed and I write instead of talk for a living now. Here's the thing- radio, as show business goes, is an embarrassment. It's looked down upon by everyone, trashed by a public whipped into a frenzy about consolidation and voice tracking by people with agendas of their own, and, frankly, those of us in the business do ourselves no good by acting like circus geeks, getting frozen alive or living on billboards or emceeing wacky promotions or naming yourself "Boner" or touting whatever weight loss fraud the sales department sold this month. Working in movies or TV means more money, more respect, more free food. Working in radio is mostly being buried in a dark, cramped studio at weird hours, getting little recognition and low pay, having food thrown at you when you're introducing Gary Puckett at some county fair event.

Yet we love it. And trying to explain why is sort of a fruitless pursuit, except for this: it's sometime late in the 1960's or in the early 70's, and you're listening to the AM radio at night and hearing these voices, these high-energy, reverb-drenched voices from hundreds of miles away- Buffalo! Chicago! Charlotte! Hamilton! Fort Wayne! A veritable geography lesson- and thinking, wow, that sounds like fun. And then you're riding down some nondescript road in the back seat and you see it- the towers, the blinking lights, the sign on the little cinder-block building. You know that's where the magic is, and you want to be there.

So I went there. I went to places like Asbury Park, Trenton, Schenectady, Garden City, and finally the Promised Land of Los Angeles. I got to do everything in radio, from programming some of the biggest stations in the world to passing out bumper stickers to unwilling recipients in a mall parking lot. I saw how the magic was made, first-hand. And I saw the man behind the curtain, and he wasn't a magician and he wasn't anything special.

He was me.

So at some point, I forgot that feeling. The heroes had feet of clay, the Xanadu was actually a plain, depressing hole of a cubicle farm in the poor part of town, and being part of it all meant dealing with too many morons and idiots and angry, bitter people and substance abusers. I sort of slid into an associated field, trade magazine editing, and that's where I am today. Radio isn't really magic for me these days- I know too much, I know many of the people I hear on the radio, I know how the trick's done.

And then I hear those stammering, awkward, scratchy and squeaky voices on the college station, and I remember the studio with all the band and surf and radio stickers on the walls, the wobbly turntables and the records with cue burn, the balky vintage-1953 cart machines and the reel-to-reel hand-me-downs in the production room with splice tape and razor blades everywhere. I remember the innocence, the days when we actually believed in the music, the thrill when someone would call in and say "I love your show." And that's where the magic lives, somewhere down below 92.1, in amateur land where the kids still do radio just because they love it.

Not that it's any good, or that I want to hear that stuff very often. But it's good to check in every once in a while and be reminded why I did what I did and, really, why, no matter what else I do, I'm always going to be a Radio Guy. And I still look for those towers and those studios and, despite all that I've learned and seen, there's still a part of me that thinks it's magic.

I think I might be in a cult.

No, really, it seems that way. I own a Handspring Treo 600, which is a cell phone. But it's more than that. It's a PDA and a cell phone... er, a "Smart Phone." It gets your e-mail. It lets you surf the web. In color. It lets you edit Word documents. You can even play games on it, play MP3s on it, take pictures with it. It's very cool, cooler even than my older Treo 300. I just love the thing. It's always with me. I'm always using it.

And that's where it gets cultish. Other people who own this thing- it's only been out for about a month- are similarly smitten. There are even several Internet bulletin boards about it, including an entire website. Naturally, I read it daily.

But when I find myself telling people about it- "yeah, and I can write my columns on it, and, look, see, my e-mail just came in"- I realize that I'm being exceptionally boring, mindless, cringeworthy. I'm trying to entice them into my little Treo-centric world.

Yeah, it IS a cult.

Most people don't need one of these things. 99% of the world doesn't. I do, and the more I use it, the more insufferable I get, going on and on about it, wondering if people are seeing me use it when I pull it out in public, bringing it up in conversations out of the blue. I know it's stupid. I can't help myself. I'm in the clutches of the Treo cult. I think I might need to be deprogrammed.

Think they make a cult deprogramming program for the Treo 600? I'll check on Google. See, I can do it right here on my phone...

See those white puffy things above the ocean?

Clouds.

We hadn't seen clouds in almost a week, since the ash and smoke moved in to block them.

At last, the air's no longer chunky.

There are people up in Arrowhead and Big Bear who aren't leaving their homes. They've been told to evacuate, they smell the smoke, they may even see the flames in the distance, and they know that at some point, they may be faced with the problem of the world on fire and no way off the mountain.

It's like the people who hold Hurricane Parties. There's a sense of bravado, a big gob of spit in the devil's face. These things, they think, never live up to the hype. Then a Hurricane Andrew blows through.

But fire's a different thing. You can't ride out flames hiding in the basement or some interior closet like with a hurricane. You do that, you're cooked. Literally. The people staying behind to face the flames can't even give a coherent reason for doing it- I heard a couple from Big Bear on John and Ken's KFI show being asked why they chose to stay in their house, and the answer was a non-answer, just a "we'll know when it's time" response. But by then, it'll probably be too late, especially now that the wind's picked up. They can't save their homes, not up there where the trees are set to explode when the flames lick against their bark. You leave now, at least you know you're going to be alive. You stay, all bets are off.

So you don't stay. You go. You run like the wind. You gotta know when to pick your fights, and who to fight. Fire, you leave to the professionals, the guys on the big red trucks. This one's not a fight you can win.

After watching the season premiere of "24," I've developed a new, improved version. We can wrap the whole storyline up in one episode, one hour, even one minute. Here's my pitch: CTU Agent Jack Bauer, realizing his idiot daughter Kim has either been responsible for or a nuisance in every single major catastrophe he's faced, loses his composure and kills her. That would happen in the first minute. The rest of the series- call it "1"- would just have Jack disposing of the body while whistling "Happy Days are Here Again."

It's a guaranteed smash. Get Fox on the line immediately.

The NBA season starts tonight. I shouldn't care. After all, the league has degenerated into a fundamentals-be-damned free-for-all in which thug style and selfish play are valued over guys who can execute plays and shoot with accuracy and handle the ball. It's the ultimate triumph not even of freewheeling chuck-and-duck ABA play but of the Rucker tournament, the Jersey Shore league, the Sonny Hill League, guys out more to impress their friends and girls than to actually play basketball well, a spectacular miss better than a boring hit.

It's been this way for years. You watch an old game, a game like, say, the Knicks and Bullets when the matchups were everything- Reed and Unseld, DeBusschere and Johnson, Bradley and Marin, Frazier and Monroe (pre-trade), Barnett or Stallworth and Loughery- and what strikes you, besides the impossibly short shorts (what were we thinking?), is that the game seems more deliberate, slower, but exciting anyway. Scores were high, but, in the NBA at least, you didn't get the run-and-gun of the ABA. ABA games- you don't see much of that on cable, because the tapes weren't kept- were geared more towards the three-pointer and the slam, but there was balance- you needed a long range gunner and good free throw shooting to win even if you had the big man or flashy forward. Kentucky needed Louie Dampier as well as Artis and Issel. Indiana lived and died on Billy Keller and Bill Netolicky's shooting as much as it relied on McGinnis and Brown. In either league, there was balance. You needed all the pieces to win.

Now, it's different. The Lakers won three championships with superstars who both wanted the ball, with a bench of I-can't-believe-he's-still-in-the-league rejects. The Nets are now the perennial Eastern finals rep without a single reliable outside shooter, and they were weak in the middle until Mourning showed up, too. You don't go to see the Magic, you go to see T-Mac. The Wolves are Garnett. You go to see the stars, and you're disappointed when the stars don't play like stars. It's the Jordan effect- one or two guys overshadowing the whole league, making you forget that you're paying to see Bill Cartwright or Bill Wennington or Luc Longley play center.

But Jordan's gone, the next wave of stars are no Jordans, and with few exceptions (mostly in the West), it's a chaotic, shoot-miss-slam game. The players are far from admirable citizens, favoring the gangsta look, coated in tats and attitude. Coaching is mostly playing therapist or staying out of the way unless you run the triangle, in which case you let your assistants run drills while you pick out books for the players to read. And for all this, you pay top dollar.

So why did I pick up the phone and order the NBA League Pass satellite package again? Why did I drop $159. to get all the NBA games on TV?

Because it's a habit I can't break. Because I enjoy yelling at the TV when Iverson takes a horrible, off-balance, selfish shot. Because I enjoy cheering when that horrible shot finds its way through the hoop. Because it's fun to complain about Derrick Coleman.

Because it's basketball. I admit it, I'm an addict. Now, what channel's the Sixers game on?

The local TV news coverage of the fires has been pretty much useless. Oh, they're covering the fires, all right. They're all over the fires with choppers and reporters and live shots. But this is the general tone of the coverage:

Look! Fire! Lookit lookit lookit!

Now, there's a strong case for wall-to-wall radio coverage, because the people who are being directly affected by the fires- the ones living in the way- are going to have battery-powered radios to hear what to do. Drivers need that coverage, too, to find out which freeways are blocked and where to go. But TV's a different story- there's absolutely no point to continually showing the fires, because there's nothing we can do with that information. The people affected can't watch, and we're not affected. It's just a case of showing titillating real-life-danger pictures for the amusement of the viewing audience.

Oh, but there are ways everyone's affected. The air quality everywhere in Southern California remains horrible- there's floating ash and the air is redolent of charred brush, even far away from the blazes. That's the single most important thing about this catastrophe for most people. Second is the danger to power transmission, third is the closing of freeways. The loss of homes and property and, especially, life is tragic, no question about it, but do we need to see people's homes burn to the ground? Not really. We need to know whether the crap in the air is going to cause respiratory distress and what to do about it. We need to know whether there'll be any power loss if the transmission lines over the mountains should burn up. We need to know what roads are closed.

We don't need long hours of scenes of houses burning and people weeping. A short clip will tell the story. Watching for a few hours, that's pointless.

I'm way off base here, of course. The TV news I want would be nothing but practical, what-this-means-to-you journalism, and the fire coverage would be a stream of information like air quality and alternate routes. My news would die in the ratings. I know that. The people want the pictures of flames out of control and taking people's homes and trailers and pets.

They can have it. I've got fire fatigue. I'm gonna go watch the end of the football game or something. Anything but fire. I can smell it, but I don't want to see it right now.

What does it say about me, this site, and/or my readers when one of the leading search engine queries that leads people to find their way here is "Heather Graham in Red Sox Underwear"?

Try it. Go ahead. Put that phrase in Google. See what you get.

It's my own fault. I did, indeed, mention Heather Graham in Red Sox underwear, in the course of reviewing "Anger Management." (It's on DVD now, in case you want to review that particular scene) But that doesn't explain why so many people are searching for Heather Graham in Red Sox underwear.

And if you're one of those people, really, shame on you.

Now, if we're talking Heather Graham in Eagles underwear....

It began to snow sometime late Saturday evening, a light, almost imperceptible flurry that increased to more visible flakes Sunday morning. But the smell arrived first- a strong odor of charred timber, like when the neighbors have a fire going in their fireplace, except this wasn't localized, it was everywhere. And the snow wasn't snow, either.

We live about 60 air miles from the mountains north of Claremont and Rancho Cucamonga, maybe the same from the hills in eastern Ventura County around Simi Valley and Moorpark and Thousand Oaks. Nevertheless, it wasn't very long into the fires that we got hit with the scent, the smoke, the ashes. They were blown towards the ocean by the Santa Ana winds, blown right at us, in one of the last few houses before the land drops off into the ocean and the ash forms a thick layer of gray haze hanging over the surf. It's there now, and so are the smoke and the thin layer of ash on the car in our driveway and on the asphalt and the mailbox and everything.

Southern California is a tinderbox, of course. We know it, those of us who choose to live here, and we know that the earth occasionally erupts and cracks beneath us, too. We know the dangers. We stay anyway, and every once in a while, something happens to remind us that this may not be the ideal location for human habitation. Sometimes, nature does the reminding- lightning sets the trees ablaze, or the plates shift and crumble the freeways and buildings under the less fortunate among us. Sometimes, and it appears at this early stage to be the case today, it's man-made. They say arson may be the cause of one of the fires inland, and they know that the huge fire down in San Diego County was started when a lost hunter shot off a flare to alert rescuers of his location. But it can be as simple as a cigarette butt tossed out the window, which is why it struck me as the height of idiocy for a driver alongside my car on Hawthorne Boulevard to flick his cigarette ashes out the window. Doesn't he know where he is? Doesn't he smell Barbecued San Bernardino? Doesn't he know how these things happen?

Guess not. Or he just doesn't care. That's more likely.

This is, in many ways, paradise, but I guess some would argue that we sometimes have to be reminded of the danger inherent in living here, where the land is bone dry and man probably wasn't supposed to thrive. I could do without as graphic a reminder. And then there was this: a sign on the door of the local La Salsa this evening that apologized for the mess on the floor left by people tracking in ash from the parking lot. "Apologize for dirty floor: can't clean ash from lot," it read in letters stenciled onto a plain white sheet of copy paper taped to the door. I think that under the circumstances, we can agree to give them a pass for this one. The stuff's everywhere, our very own version of a snowstorm. Next time I gloat about the weather when New York's under three feet of snow and we're 70 and sunny, remind me of this.

Bwa HA ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

No, really, the Yankees hung tough and got outstanding pitching in the...

Bwa HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

Did you see Brian Cashman's face at the end? His whole career was flashing before his eyes, and it should, the way Steinbrenner was squirming and...

Bwa HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

(gasp, cough)

Bwa HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

Favorite moment- while the cameras were focused on Josh Beckett's parents celebrating another big out, a guy looking very, very much like WFAN's Mike Francesa was right behind them grimacing, clearly disapproving.

Disapprove all you want, dude. Fish win, and... to paraphrase the execrable John Sterling...

YANKEES LOSE! YANKEES LOSE! THU-UH-UH-UH-UH-UH-UH YANKEES LOSE!

Bwa HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

(Oh, yes, this IS a good evening...)

Traumatizing.

Flabby.

Hindilicious!

Motivation? None. I'm laying on the couch idly watching DVDs- "Bend It Like An Overrated Player For Whom Real Madrid Grossly Overpaid" first, and now "Charlie's Angels: Full Bladder," featuring extended cameos by Matt LeBlanc, John Cleese, and Cameron Diaz' ass. I'm too unmotivated to rip this DVD out of the player and frisbee it into the pool.

It's been a long week. Screw it. Talk to you tomorrow.

This item ran in my other column, but as those of you who read it know, it's buried behind layers of registration logins, so here it is for readers of "Day by Day" linked here by grace of its creator Chris "Why Isn't This Guy Syndicated?" Muir (P.S.- additional thanks to Cam Edwards for the hookup), with an explanation that it's one of hundreds of weekly items in that "other column," "Talk Topics" (I didn't name it) at AllAccess.com, and it's meant for talk show hosts to read to get ideas for their shows, as opposed to the longer-form drivel you get here at the don't-call-it-a-blog daily columnette. So, here it is, enjoy, and do feel free to check out Talk Topics at AllAccess.com- you don't have to be in the radio business to register, it's free, and if you uncheck the right two boxes, you won't even get the regular news-headline e-mails if you don't like 'em...

I wouldn't have a problem with the proliferation of "controversial" comic strips doing political material on the comics page if they weren't 95% leftist. Worst: the one "conservative" comic, "Mallard Fillmore," is awful in every way- badly drawn, ham-fisted, unfunny. The L.A. Times carries liberal comics like "Doonesbury," "The Boondocks," "La Cucuracha" (as bad as Mallard and possibly less funny), and "Bizarro" (in which Dan Piraro inserts anti-Bush commentary on occasion) and a grand total of zero conservative strips ("B.C." doesn't count- it's not conservative, it's religious). There ARE funny, well-done conservative comics- the web daily "Day by Day" is one- but no papers will touch them. Ah, well, as long as "Get Fuzzy" is in the paper, I'll be OK. Bucky rules, even if he IS a "Yankers" fan. And a cat.

I didn't win the Lotto. I'll never win the Lotto. This much is clear.

I'll never be that rich, multimillionaire rich, don't-care-what-it-costs rich. Won't happen. This too is clear.

State lotteries are often called a tax on the stupid, and in some ways that might be true- we need not explicitly enumerate the chances of winning, because everyone knows what they are.

50-50. You win or you don't.

Everybody who plays the lotto, or Powerball or MegaMillions or Loto 649 or the football pools or the casinos, knows that the real mathematical odds are long. They also reason that someone's gotta win it. And that's true, as long as you're a retired teacher or one of 357 factory workers who pitched in a buck apiece for the office lottery pool or a recently documented worker with several leech-like relatives who crowd into the official Winner's Photo Op smiling and spending the money in their own minds. If you're none of the above, you are not going to win.

I'm none of the above.

This doesn't prevent me from throwing a few bucks into the toilet of the California Super Lotto, doing the simple calculation of what I'd get if I won- cash value minus taxes, not too shabby- and what I'd do with it. Oh, what I'd do with it. I'll tell you what I'd do with it- I'd tell the entire freakin' world to go to hell. I'd retire. I'd travel, I'd build a second house in the desert, another in the Keys. I'd buy the best car... no, I'd hire a limo. And I'd put a lot of it in tax-free bonds and live off the interest, spending primarily on sumptuous meals and spa treatments. I'd be there reclining on the chaise longue with a cold one in my hand, and I'd turn and look at Fran and she'd be there with her own cocktail and we'd grin broadly at each other and we'd think, yes, yes indeed, we've made it.

Won't happen. Nice dream, but it won't.

It happens to other people. It happens to people like Ben Affleck, who appears to have virtually no acting talent or charisma but has managed to enter the world of the super-rich anyway. It happens to NBA benchwarmers who happen to get in the way of the kind of cash they throw around in pro sports. It happens. But it won't happen to me. I'm too old now, too far along. I'm going to be working until I'm dead or left drooling into a cup at the home. I'll have to.

Unless.

Unless I win the Lotto. Oh, I won't. I know that. But it's my only chance at the kind of F-U cash that makes life finally, truly, completely stress-free.

And, you see, that's why the lottery isn't, really, a tax on the stupid, not entirely. If you're rich, you look at the poor people lining up to spend their meager paychecks on the Lotto and you think, what morons. But if you're not rich, you aren't going to BECOME rich by saving those dollars. Put it in the highest yield savings account and you STILL won't become rich. In short, these people will never, ever become rich unless they win the Lotto. It's their only shot. It's most people's only shot.

Scoff if you will. Laugh at the dummies with their Lotto slips in the plastic holders the agents give their biggest suckers... er, best customers. Call it stupid. But are you going to deny them- us- me- the chance to dream that, someday, maybe, lightning will strike, hell will freeze over, the Cardinals will win the Super Bowl, and we'll finally be the kind of rich that really does buy happiness?

Go ahead, laugh and save your pennies. And I'll waste mine on the Lotto. Let's compare net worths when we're dead.

Fred "Rerun" Berry died today. We can learn a couple of important things from his passing.

First, it is a reminder that Hollywood sitcom writers- white upper-middle-class Hollywood sitcom writers- should under no circumstances attempt to write "hip," "relevant" scripts for "hip," "relevant" sitcoms set in an urban African-American setting. This can be proven, of course, by the entire run of "What's Happening" and "What's Happening Now!!", but it is especially clear from the episode when Rerun (portrayed winningly by Fred "Rerun" Berry) got involved with bootleg tapes of the Doobie Brothers. It would have been no less inauthentic had the script placed Rerun and his tape recorder at the sound board of a Pat Boone concert. "What's Happening" wasn't remotely reflective of what was happening.

Second, it reminds us of the sadness inherent in the life of a former sitcom actor who can't quite let go of his character, or whom the public will not allow to let go of his character. Bob Denver, when he materializes from his West Virginia home, still will put on the red shirt and moron hat and, just like that, he IS Gilligan, a weather-beaten, senior-citizen Gilligan but Gilligan nonetheless. Some of the Star Trek actors will always be their characters from the show, no matter how hard they try to convince the public that they're serious actors, damn it, and they're not just a science fiction cardboard cutout with a tricorder. Gary Coleman will be prodded to say "whatchoo talkin' bout, Willis?" forever, and he'll be saying it to the walls of the nursing home when he's 80. And there was no Fred Berry. There was Fred "Rerun" Berry. If he'd tried to shed the image, shed the happy, somewhat dim fat guy persona (and he did try losing a lot of weight), the public would have none of it. It wanted Rerun, not Fred Berry. And Rerun is what it got, for the brief period of time that it cared.

But is that such a bad thing? Not if you can get past the embarrassment of, say, running around in Eddie Munster drag if you're Butch Patrick and someone will pay you good hard American cash to do it. It's not Broadway and it's not what your acting peers consider a decent career, but, you know, there's no shame in putting food on the table and paying the mortgage and maybe driving something a little nicer than that '86 Accord with the leaking transmission in your driveway. So it's uncomfortable to show up at some autograph-signing convention and repeat your catchphrase over and over. It's a living, and not a difficult one at that.

So if you're Fred "Rerun" Berry and you're so mortified by your lack of non-"Rerun" success that you end up having to rescue yourself from addiction, you give up and embrace your trivialness. You embrace the clown-like outfits, the cap, the whole image. You embrace your Rerunness. And America will embrace you back, not the way it did when millions watched your every move on TV, but well enough for a decent car, an OK house in the Valley, maybe a couple of weeks with the family in Hawaii if you're lucky.

And then you die, and the obituaries all read the same, and they're all Rerun. That's the legacy. You could have gone on to win the Nobel Peace Prize, and the AP would write "Fred 'Rerun' Berry, who entertained millions as the loveable buffoon 'Rerun' on the situation comedy 'What's Happening' before winning the Nobel Peace Prize, died..." That's it. You're Rerun, you can't escape it, it's what you are.

There are worse things to be. Goodnight, Rerun.

So I'm at the Y around lunchtime and the basketball court was empty, so I did what I often do, grabbed a ball and began to shoot around. First shot from 3 point range- swish. Second, from just left of the free throw line- nothing but net. Third, from 3- perfect. I was on fire. Then I missed, and the ball caromed off the board to my right. I went for the rebound and...

pop

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH!!!!

I've pulled muscles before. This one was particularly unfortunate, my right calf muscle- I HOPE it was the muscle and not the achilles tendon- going blooey in a flash of pain. I had to hop off the court, hop upstairs- OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW- and hop into the shower, then hop back downstairs- OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW- and to the car, the drug store- we may have a 4 inch wide Ace bandage around, but I wasn't going to go searching in the garage for it- and home.

Needless to say, I won't be running tomorrow, or the next day, or probably for a while. Exercise is going to be problematic. WALKING is going to be problematic. So was sitting at the desk writing, but the laptop came to the rescue so I could elevate the leg and ice it down. It's actually feeling a little better now, although I'm sure that come tomorrow morning, I will know I pulled a muscle.

And that's the last time I try to act like Allen Iverson. Until the next time the court's open. And I can walk.

13 years.

13 years and it seems like forever and no time at all, all at once. I can remember life before that day, but it doesn't seem real, or right. I can't remember all of that day or night, either, except for a few flashes: standing at the altar, nervous and pale, then seeing her come into the synagogue, resplendent in white, and feeling the blood rush back to my face. I remember saying "I do," both of us involuntarily laughing as we said it. I remember the dance with my mother. And I remember going back to the hotel, ordering a late-night pizza, munching and checking out the cart loaded with gifts and looking at her and saying "we did it" and laughing over and over and over.

October 20, 1990. Can't remember everything about it, but it was the most special day of my life, 13 years ago today.

I love you, Fran. Happy anniversary.

You get used to doing everything on the Internet after a while, so when something doesn't work, it can throw you for a loop. I was trying to rent a car online this afternoon, and I got a decent rate, yet when I went to close the deal, the system kept raising the rate on me. In the space of five minutes, I got three escalating rates. I sat there staring at the numbers, getting increasingly angry- why is this happening? Why are they doing this to me?- when I suddenly had an epiphany.

Call them. On the phone.

The phone? How... retro.

I called anyway. Within 3 minutes, I had the lowest rate and a reservation all set.

Interesting. I'll have to try that gadget again sometime. The phone, is that what you call it? Clever.

Rocks.

Amusing.

Not to beat a dead horse, but we finally went to a non-picketed, union, full-service grocery today, because we needed stuff that the gourmet and granola markets don't carry.

Oy.

First sign of danger: no carts. I had to search the parking lot before finding one. I was lucky- I saw people wandering in the parking lot fruitlessly looking for something in which to carry their groceries.

Second sign of danger: the moment we went in, we saw checkout lines curling around corners. The world was shopping at this store, all at once.

This market had been picked over. Entire shelves were emptied, and the stockers were not keeping up. Elderly customers unfamiliar with the store's layout meandered slowly through the narrow aisles, clogging traffic, confusedly looking at items with brands they'd never seen ("Springfield?"). I didn't like the produce, the beef, the chicken (fresh skinless chicken breasts are not supposed to be that shade of yellow). We ended up filling the cart anyway; it took about a half hour just to check out.

While I was queued up, some guys in the next line were chatting about the strike. One was a striking worker at an Albertson's, the other a sympathetic if misinformed soul:

"I'll never cross! They're trying to, you know, cut by 50 percent, cut the... things. And they're making everyone part-time!"

Ah, no, but thanks for playing.

They also said that the two Food 4 Less stores nearby, also not being struck, were cleaned out of everything. One said that the store we were in had been like this since the strike began, and will be far worse on the weekend. They agreed that this was a good thing, that the public will not cross and that they'll shop at this overcrowded, low-stock, expensive market until the strike's over, however long that takes.

No again, but here's the home version of our game.

Shopping like this is a nightmare. You can't get everything you want, you have to drive 40 minutes round trip out of your way, the meat sucks, the service is understaffed and overwhelmed... how long do they think people will put up with this?

Forever, apparently. The union is now threatening to shut down the Big 3 chains' distribution centers so no food can be delivered to the struck stores. So what they want is for consumers to have no food- the open markets are devoid of stock, and the struck markets will have no food, either. It's for our own good, right? No, it's for THEIR good, so they can continue to have all or most of their insurance and medical costs paid instead of kicking in money like the rest of us.

Driving past an Albertson's on Hawthorne, I saw the pickets. I also saw a stream of people going into the store right past the picketers. The union has the upper hand now, but every day people have to wait in interminable lines at the "approved" markets, every day they have to go without their favorite items is a day closer to the union losing that advantage. It may be happening faster than they expected.

The grocery strikers and management are not talking. No negotiations, no mediation, no nothing. It looks like a long one. A VERY long one. Weeks? Try months.

What did I say about the over/under on masses of customers crossing the picket line? It may not be more than a week before people get tired of going way, way out of their way to buy their food. Here's the progression:

Outset: I like the people who work at our market and everyone deserves good health coverage. I distrust the owners and suspect them of trumping up the threat from Wal-Mart and non-union groceries to bust the union.

A week into it: I sympathize with the workers, but we're running low on some staples and Bristol Farms and Costco don't carry the brands I like. I don't want to drive 20 minutes to How's or Food 4 Less, and those places are madhouses right now anyway. But I'll stick with it for now- I don't want to disrespect the nice people at my market.

Two weeks in: Hey, the pickets aren't looking- maybe I can sneak in and... no, can't, but I might go to the Albertsons in Redondo and cross THAT line, because they don't know us there...

Three weeks in: You get 100% of your health coverage paid by your employer and NO CO-PAY? And you're complaining because they want you to pay $15. a month for FAMILY coverage? Take a look at MY insurance bills! And you're making $12. to $18. to swipe Chips Ahoy packages over a scanner and make change? Out of my way! I need Bumble Bee Solid White and some Junior Mints!

Unions often overestimate the goodwill they have from the public. This union needs to know one important fact: the public does not have unlimited patience. You have only a couple of weeks to get everything in order before people start to stream back into the stores. They're not against the union, they're not pro-employer, they just want to buy their milk and ground beef and TV Guide. I'm not saying that's right or wrong, it's just the way things work. The clock is ticking.

Golfers are awful drivers.

OK, that's a gross generalization. In fact, it's based entirely on observations of people who drive to and from two local golf courses. Every time- EVERY time- a car cuts me off at high speed on Crest Road and veers all over the road, then either runs the red light at Hawthorne or stops and sits at the green light and fumbles with his car phone, oblivious, the car eventually turns into Los Verdes. Every time someone is driving at least 15 miles above the speed limit through the landslide zone on PV Drive South, they turn into Ocean Trails.

Is it THAT important to make your tee time?

No.

So stop it.

We needed a few food items, but we weren't going to cross the picket line at Ralphs, so we decided to go to our nearby Trader Joe's. Mistake, not because there were lines- there weren't- but because the locusts had descended on the joint and the shelves were cleared out. People who had never set foot in the place were suddenly snatching anything and everything, and our favorites- the cheeses, the nuts, the breads- were all gone.

OK, plan B- Whole Foods Market. We never go to Whole Foods, because they're a) expensive and b) crunchy granola, if you know what I mean. We don't eat that stuff. If it ain't got Polysorbate 80, it ain't for us. But necessity is the mother of going into strange markets, and, besides, it was just across the parking lot from TJ's, so we went in.

The first thing you notice about a health food supermarket is that it carries virtually no brands of which you've ever heard. None. Well, OK, they had Bull's Eye BBQ sauce and the beer was all familiar, because it's hard to get too Vermonty with beer. But the rest of the place was, you know, alien. Like the Bizarro World Safeway. The labels look amateurish, everything is a slightly paler color than it should be, and there's tofu. Lots of tofu. Several varieties, many brands, prepared and uncooked, in sauce and plain.

The stuff you want? Sorry, only NPR listeners feel comfortable here.

We were not the only disoriented shoppers. Several- most- of the people in the store were holding packages and staring at them with quizzical, what-the-hell-is-THIS looks on their faces. Many threw caution to the wind and were lined up with full carts at the checkout stands, but I knew what would happen to them- they'll all get home, rip open the bag of no-animal-fat VegeSnacks and dig in, only to realize halfway through the bag that it has no taste. Nothing in that store has any taste except for some of the cakes. Their pies and tarts and breads- awesome. Excellent. Everything else? Weird. Brand X. Not even Brand X. Call it Brand Pi, or Brand Tilde or something else. Brand X is too familiar.

We abandoned the cart and got the hell out of there.

Eventually, we broke down and bought a few items at the ridiculously overpriced gourmet market just to get through the next few days. And we've already plotted out trips to the nearest non-strike, non-weird supermarkets for the weekend. They're a long drive away, but it's what we have to do. If a grocery doesn't even carry Ruffles, it's... it's not a grocery.

I swear, the moment I saw the fan interfere with the foul ball in the Marlins eighth, I knew what was coming next. Mark Prior or no Mark Prior, I knew that the Marlins were going to win this game. I knew because these are the Cubs, and this is what happens to the Cubs.

Crack open another Old Style, Harry, it's going the distance.

The grocery strikers were out on the picket line again today, lingering at the driveways into the Ralphs on Hawthorne Blvd., waving and laughing. I noticed that the parking lot behind them was fairly crowded with the usual Mercedes and BMWs- it looked an awful lot like a regular shopping day.

I wonder how long people will stick to the boycott- obviously, several people are ignoring the pickets (and at a nearby Pavilions store, it wasn't easy to actually find the strikers at all). On one hand, I understand why the union's upset- they're being asked to pick up a share of their health insurance costs without a commensurate pay raise, so it's effectively a pay cut. On the other hand, who in the rest of the workforce gets to not only have 100% of their insurance premiums paid by the company, but also has no copayments? Do they understand that the rest of us have always had to pay? I'd hate to lose something I had for years, too, but I don't think they realize how unusual their deal was.

Over the years, the public has become less and less tolerant of job actions. These strikers are starting out with a lot of support from people like me simply because we know each other and like the workers and don't want to see them hurt. But if this goes for a long time, there's going to be a point where the public just throws up its hands and crosses the line. I'd put the over/under at two weeks, three at the latest. People will go out of their way for a couple of weeks, but at some point, 20 minutes each way just for a loaf of bread and a bottle of grape juice is just not going to be worth the trouble anymore, not if it's just to support people with a better deal than you have.

We drove by after sunset and the strikers were still there, unlit, shadows skulking along the sidewalk. They weren't laughing and they weren't waving. For their sake, I hope they can go back inside soon. Everyone else might not be so patient.

No matter how misguided I may ever be, no matter how wrong, no matter how stupid or off course or quixotic or confused I may get, I will never, ever be as deluded as Dennis Kucinich.

Down day today.

Lots of existential angst, lots of stuff with which we had to deal, lots of little aggravations, the kind of day that reminds me that I'm not necessarily who I think I am. I know that people look at me and think, OK, middle-aged guy with wife-house-mortgage-job-car-cat. I don't FEEL like that guy. In the mirror, I am. In my mind, I'm somewhere between 12 and 30, still a kid.

Age isn't important, we tell ourselves, and that's true to an extent, but you can't outrun time. As much as I think I'm still a child, free of mundane and aggravating responsibilities, I know I still have to work, have to pay the bills, have to pay taxes and get the groceries and pick up the mail and meet deadlines and be an adult, just the way my dad did and his dad did and dads and moms and people everywhere always have done. I'm not Peter Pan, I'm not really the overgrown kid who exists in my mind. I'm a responsible adult, and that means that no matter how blue my mood gets, no matter how crappy a day I'm having, no matter what indignities and sadness and anger may arise, I gotta suck it up and get things done.

Which I do. But I reserve the right to whine about it. That's the kid in me.

So we went over to the Starbucks up the road at the end of the day to decompress. Fran suggested it- I'm not a coffee drinker, so I tend not to hang out there, but it seemed like a good idea. And it was. We sat there talking about life and the road here and the future and we watched the sun set over the Pacific and the fog roll in off the water and it seemed cinematic, if that's a word. We talked about how we got here and where we are and what might come next, and I kinda just took in the moment. The moment was this: I am that middle-aged guy with a wife-house-mortgage-job-car-cat, with a great wife-house-mortgage-job-car-cat (OK, not the mortgage, but everything else is great). The kid's still in there, too. And this evening, whatever else may be happening, at this moment, right now, I'm sitting at the edge of the earth with a cold drink watching the sun go down with the one I love beside me, and there are worse ways to end a blue Monday.

The grocery workers around here did go on strike today, or, more precisely, they went on strike against one chain (Safeway's Vons-Pavilions subsidiary) and two others (Albertson's and Kroger's Ralphs division) locked their workers out. That led to the sight today of the staff of our local Ralphs with picket signs at the entrances to the store, laughing and waving to passing cars and yelling at those who crossed.

I saw that and I wondered how long the smiles and laughs and camaraderie would last. These people are not experienced at striking, and most don't really make a huge salary- the high hourly wage is offset by the paucity of hours (most arent full-time). After a few days of this, they'll be hurting a little, financially and emotionally.

That's, after all, what the chains are hoping. This strike isn't about wages as much as it is that the chains want to off-load the costs of insurance onto the workers without a commensurate raise in salary- in other words, an effective pay cut. And I can't blame them for wanting it- heath insurance costs are out of control. You pay more for it and get less coverage, and it's only going to get worse.

It's really one of the most important issues nobody's addressing, because the obvious answers either won't work (socialized medicine) or aren't working (letting insurers dictate costs). Any halfway solution- setting price controls on services rendered, for example- won't fly, because if you limit revenues, you limit salary, and prospective doctors would rather work in a field where their earnings potential isn't artificially limited. Essentially, there's no solution.

Except one. Imagine this:

High speed, continuous transportation from anywhere in America to the Canadian border.

You take the plane or bullet train, you walk across the border, you collapse in pain, they take you for treatment, and the Canadians pay for it.

Hey, they owe us one for the Iraq thing.

Uh oh, I have the sniffles. Excuse me while I head north. Let freakin' Chretien pay for it.

One thing overlooked in the widespread condemnation of Rush Limbaugh's comments on Donovan McNabb: Rush may have been off on the racial stuff (blame the OxyContin), but McNabb really sucks right now.

Really, really sucks.

I know some of it is his receivers' difficulty getting open, and some of it is Andy Reid's abysmal play calling, and some of it is a pourous offensive line, but even with all of that, he can't run and he can't throw. He can't. Look at the tapes. The guy's clueless and getting worse. And once again, with his back to the wall and needing to lead his team in the clutch, he... fumbled.

He can recover, but he'd better do so soon. In the meantime, it's painful to watch.

It was fun to watch the Miami-FSU game this morning, not because I like to watch the 'Canes- although I do- but because the game was played on water. Florida's stadium may be called the Swamp, but FSU's LOOKED more like one. Every step was a splash, every handoff a potential disaster.

Games are better when the weather sucks... at the game. And you're not there.

Think about it- does football get any better than those Thanksgiving games in Detroit with snow coming down so hard at Tiger Stadium that the hash marks became rumors? Will they ever stop talking about the Ice Bowl? Would we even know about the tuck rule if it hadn't been practically a white-out at Foxboro? Do I have to even mention the Fog Bowl?

And were you at any of those games? I hope not- the conditions were torture for the attendees, but the rest of us were safe at home with turkey and beer, watching the fiasco, saying stuff like "look at that, you can't even see the sidelines!"

That's why today's game was fun. The rain came down for most of the game, leaving large puddles all over the place and everyone covered with mud. And when the rain let up, the winds kicked up and some of the cameras had raindrops all over, like you were watching the game through your windshield with the wipers broken.

I loved it. But then again, I wasn't there. It was 70 degrees and sunny here. That's perfect- me in the sunshine, everyone else in a Weather Channel Special Report. We always love to see others suffer.

We were trying to get home tonight but the main road- the only road- that goes to our neighborhood was blocked by two police cars. We were about a block from home when the cops turned us away. The only other way to our house is a half-hour's drive all the way around the peninsula, up and down the hill, and back on the road from the other direction.

When we finally reached the neighborhood from the east. I could see all the way to the roadblock, and I could see that the cause of the traffic diversion was... nothing. No accident, no gas leak, no... nothing.

So why the hell did they send us on the Grand Tour of Los Angeles County? I don't know. I'll check it out and report my findings.

(Don't EVER make me go out of my way.)

This is what having a cold does to you: I can't remember what I've already written. Did I write about Rush? The Red Sox? I don't know. Let me check...

Nope. But I had to look.

I don't think it's the actual cold that's fogging my mind, it's the fact that I didn't really sleep much, primarily because I had to cough every 30 seconds. I just wrote another column and I have no idea whether it's coherent or even in English. I don't even know whether THIS is in English. For all I know, I could be channeling Telemundo right now.

Anyway, that's my excuse and you're free to believe it or not. All I'll say now is that the weekend is coming just in time. Puedo utilizar realmente el sue�o.

I ordered a new cell phone this morning.

The one I have is a couple of years old and it works fine. It's a Handspring Treo 300, a combination Palm PDA and phone, and it lets me get e-mail and work on the web and write and edit stories. The new one became available this morning- it's a Handspring Treo 600, a combination Palm PDA and phone, and it will let me get e-mail and work on the web and write and edit stories. In other words, it will do for me what the one I already have already does.

But cooler.

It's smaller (and thicker, and the same weight)! It can play MP3s (as if I really need my phone to do that)! The screen's brighter (I don't have a problem with the 300's screen)! It runs the new Palm OS (I have no apps that need the new Palm OS)! It's... uh... way cool.

And that's the bottom line. The thing is way cool. I mean, look at it! You whip one of these babies out, everyone swoons. And it has a slot for a memory card, in the event you need more memory, which has never once happened with the old phone with a lot less memory built in. One clear positive: no lid to snap off and screw up the phone. Otherwise, it's, you know, cool-neat-fab-boss-hep-phat-gear-rad-smashing.

I want to be cool-neat-fab-boss-hep-phat-gear-rad-smashing. I must maintain my gearness, my heptitude. I need this phone.

Women, of course, don't need stuff like this. There was an article in the New York Times today about how the gadgetmakers are designing phones and CD players and radios to appeal to women, including a Sony radio shaped roughly like a clutch purse (!). It won't work. Women are still more practical, and men are still going to drool at plasma HDTVs and PlayStations. That's just how it works. I'm thankful that my wife understands the appeal of gadgets- she not only acquiesces when I come to her after the fact and say "guess what I just dropped $400. on?", she encourages me, pointing out how valuable these things are for business purposes. And they are- as I said, whip this baby out, you're money.

Until, that is, the next, cooler-neater-fabber-bosser-hepper-phatter-gearer-radder-more smashing model comes out. Treo 900? I'm there, dude.

Why is it that at the same time I've been rough on the L.A. Times, they keep quoting me?

Of COURSE they're playing the race card.

Check this from L.A. Times columnist Peter King's "final column on the recall":

Now as always, the anger in California politics appears to be rooted, more than anything else, in the unexplored, nostalgic notion that the state was a far better place to live only a few years before � before "they" swarmed over the border, before all those shabby subdivisions overtook the land, before Davis.

That must be it. It's racism against immigrants- THAT's why the recall happened. Ah, now I see. So it had nothing to do with a governor who, faced with a growing deficit, gave sweetheart deals to unions that contributed to his campaign, then turned around and paid for it by tripling the car tax. It had nothing to do with a governor who, faced with an artificial energy crisis, didn't react at first, then signed deals that left California with the highest energy costs in the country for at least the next decade. It had nothing to do with the granting of drivers' licenses to illegal- illegal, not legal, not supposed to be here, not paying taxes- immigrants at a time when national security is in danger and other states have stopped giving those licenses out. It had nothing to do with the arrogance of career politicians and a news media contingent that abandoned all pretense of objectivity to root, root, root for the incumbent or his fraternal twin Lieutenant Governor. No, it was racism. That must be it.

King isn't alone, of course, in his interpretation of the recall. The liberal pundits, the Democrats, the newspapers would have everyone think this was mob rule. That's what democracy looks like to them. When the public doesn't agree with the elite, it's a mob.

If that's the case, call me Edward G.

It started with a couple of general aches, then some soreness in the back of the throat. A few sprays of Chloraseptic didn't make a dent. Then, in the morning...

...urgh...

I've been sick all day. Couldn't exercise, couldn't think. You get this and it seems the world swirls around you, and you can't understand how the worls could keep going while you can't.

I think I wrote the same words last spring, the last time I felt like this.

I spent 10 minutes in the COLD-ALLERGY aisle at Long's Drugs staring at various pills and syrups and unguents and they all looked the same except for price. So it's Benadryl Cold, some lozenges, more Chloraseptic. All of that's completely useless, of course, but at least it makes me FEEL like I'm doing something.

So forgive the incoherency and the occasional phlegm. I have an excuse. At least for this time.

�What do we do now?�

That was the final line of the movie "The Candidate," when Robert Redford's idealistic candidate, having won a race by following his handlers' lead, contemplates what had just happened. I imagine that's what Arnold Schwarzenegger is thinking right about now.

Here's what he can do now: line up the Tom McClintocks of the state, turn them loose finding waste and programs to cut, get to work on the legislature to see if some Democrats can be enticed to work along with the new team, work on repealing the tripled car tax and the illegal immigrant licenses. Start immediately, be ready to hit the ground running as soon as he's sworn in.

Naturally, he'll probably just bask in the glow for a while and then wade into the Sacramento muck without a clue, but we can dream. Meanwhile, it might be a good idea to send some suicide prevention specialists over to the L.A. Times building, because they backed the horse that broke down a few steps out of the gate.

If this is to be a revolution, it happened in a fairly banal way.

We drove the three miles or so to the polling place, a large, empty room in a community center at the edge of the barren hillside that used to be an elementary school but now houses day care and nursery school programs. We walked in, signed the book- they didn't ask for ID, took the punchcard, slipped it into the machine, punched the holes, removed the ballot, checked for chads, slipped it in an envelope, handed it in, got a receipt. That's it.

And now, we wait. Place your bets now- the window closes soon.

Upon returning home from the east coast, I noticed one very important change in the landscape around our town. A new growth had taken root, sprouting on every corner, in every median strip. And it all had the same message:

Join ARNOLD

Before we left, there was little physical evidence that an election was about to take place. When we returned, the signs were everywhere. I imagine there are BUSTAMANTE signs in East L.A. and the Central Valley, MCCLINTOCK signs in Simi, ARIANNA signs in state mental health facilities, but in our area, the signs all say the same thing:

Join ARNOLD

Why? Is he falling apart?

The L.A. Times is doing its best to ensure that. The paper has become so comically one-sided in its coverage, it appears that the editors have made the conscious decision that stopping the recall (or making sure Bustamante is the only other option) has become more important than the paper's integrity and reputation. Not that it had a great reputation to begin with: this is, after all, the L.A. paper that has as many Calendar section lifestyle columnists covering New York (one) as it does L.A. (one). It's the paper of Berkeley Bob Scheer, Steve "You Don't Pay Enough Taxes" Lopez, and the Israel-Is-Evil Middle East Bureau, the same paper that will send a reporter to Burundi faster than it'll bother to send one to Redondo Beach. The South Bay could break off at the El Segundo border and float out into the Pacific and the Times would run a wire service brief on page B-8.

The Times' march to glory, of course, has been highlighted by its spectacularly outrageous last-minute Parade of Gropees, a move so brazen- less than a week before the election- that even some Democrats are embarrassed. But you know all about that. The only good thing about the Times' descent into the world of the Party Organ is that it may hasten the flight of readers from the daily paper to blogs and alternative news sources. Maybe it'll even get Dick Riordan's new weekly off the drawing board and into print at last. Maybe it'll prod Dean Singleton to make the Daily News a real city-wide alternative to the Times. Maybe... nah, the Times is what it is. We're stuck with it.

And we'll be stuck with whatever we decide on Tuesday. If we're lucky, we'll wind up with real change, with a new team cleaning up the mess and restoring integrity to the office, with business and individuals alike being given a fairer shake. We'll have true budget restraint, sane deals with state unions, no more free ride for Indian casinos, real workers' comp reform, an end to the insane illegal immigrant drivers' license and community college giveaway.

Or we'll have more chaos.

Call me a cynic, but I'm betting the over on the chaos line.

Whatever happens, it'll start tomorrow. This oughta be entertaining.

We returned home this afternoon. Ella the World's Most Famous Cat was fine and even emerged from under the bed reasonably quickly. It's about as hazy and gray as it ever gets around here, but it was still nice to see the palm trees and familiar territory as we drove home from LAX.

What I learned after a week back in Philadelphia and New Jersey:

I still love hanging out in Philly.
I can't eat that many cheesesteaks anymore.
All cities need daily tabloids like the Philadelphia Daily News and New York Post.
There is no better ice cream than Bassett's in Reading Terminal Market.
I need to get me one o' them HDTV things.
Lincoln Financial Field is very nice, but it ain't no Franklin Field.
Certain household name talk show hosts have no sense of humor at all.
On the whole, I'd rather be in California.

And we be- are- back.

One last night in Philadelphia and we hit the road again. The city looks especially good tonight- the sunset was Pacific-worthy, the tallest buildings topped by pink lighting (in honor of a breast cancer awareness event), the weather's clear and cool. It's a nice way to end the week, and a nice image with which to end the week. (I'd post a picture, but the ones I took didn 't come out quite right)

So we'll take home good feelings from the week. And heartburn. I ate way too much, way too bad. Cheesesteaks from Jim's and Mama's. Bassett's ice cream. Chicken Parm at Portofino. Pretzels, bagels, chocolate, whatever we can't get back home. Most of it was smothered in cheese, glorious cheese, wonderful cheese, marvelous cheese.

And now, it's time to pay.

Next week: fasting to make Dick Gregory look like Dom Deluise.

It's cold here.

DAMN, it's cold.

Okay, it's not all THAT cold. Still, I've been away from this kind of weather for about a decade, so 50 degrees with a stiff breeze blowing up Broad Street feels like Edmonton in January to me. It's one reason why I bailed on east coast living- man wasn't intended to inhabit places where several months of the year are conducted in temperatures this low.

When I was growing up on this side of the country, I told myself I liked the change of seasons, that I could never like living where the sun was ALWAYS shining and the weather NEVER got too cold. I believed that. I don't anymore.

I still love Philly, every grimy street and every fantastic Reading Terminal Market food stand and every cheesesteak (pizza sauce, provolone, no onions) in the city. I love the weird accent with the multisyllabic "o" ("Are you gaowing to the Wawa? Get me a haowgie and some Krimpets"). I love the way the lights look atop Liberty Place and the big PSFS sign all lit up, advertising a bank that doesn't exist anymore. I love gazing in the shop windows and checking out the freak show on South Street, I love the gentility and beauty of the Main Line, I love the people whining about the Iggles on WIP.

But I hate the cold. I hate walking out the door and seeing my breath. I hate spending several months unable to do anything outside. I can't live like that.

Anymore.

We've had a great, great time in Philadelphia this week. And we will absolutely be back soon.

In summer.

I've made the official determination in the Rush Limbaugh case. My findings:

1. Rush was wrong to suggest that McNabb gets pumped up and given a free ride from the media because he's black. McNabb gets brutalized like any other player who performs poorly in Philadelphia. He gets fried by the guys on WIP, sliced and diced by the Daily News writers, treated like any other quarterback who couldn't find an open receiver if there was a 30 foot neon arrow blinking over his head.

2. It was clearly an opinion about the media. An uninformed, knee-jerk opinion about the media, but an opinion about the media nonetheless.

3. Ergo, it should have been a case where his co-workers called him out on it, but hardly a big controversy. No punishment except the embarrassment when the other guys slap him back down.

4. The drug thing's more fun, anyway.

There's the ruling. Glad to clear that up for everyone. Next!

Conventions kinda freak me out. I always feel awkward, shy, uncomfortable, the geek sitting all the way in the back of the classroom, on the side, trying to dissolve into the wallpaper so nobody will notice me. I never know if people will remember me or know who I am, or how they'll react when they do. So far at this convention, I've been recognized by people I wasn't sure would remember me, and I've gotten blank stares from people I've met dozens of times. It's about as uncomfortable as social situations get.

Not that this is rational. I'm here to write and to represent my (other) website, and I shouldn't care whether anyone is friendly or cold or whatever they are. And if I think about it long enough, I get over it. Besides, enough people know me or know of me so that I really should be in my glory, walking around like I own the place.

That's the key to life, I think. If you act like you're a raging success, bigger than anyone else, a God among men- in other words, a flaming asshole- that's what people will think of you. (That you're a raging success, not an asshole. OK, an asshole too. They're not mutually exclusive)

The other element that makes things difficult at conventions is the fact that I can't remember names. I can remember the name of the San Diego Padres' first manager and the premise and cast of the 1960's one-season sitcom "Hank" and the store where I bought "Sgt. Pepper" the day it came out. I can't remember names. This is why people wear name tags, but I really feel stupid doing the name-tag peek, walking arould with eyes fixed at navel level reading tags to scope out who's who. And God forbid I have to introduce one person to another. Fear has a new name, and it's "Third Party Introduction." I'm not good at that.

So it's a relief when, at the end of the day, I could head back to the hotel, get Fran, and go off to that good little Italian place next to Mitchell and Ness on Walnut Street for some serious overeating. No conventioneers in sight, the "Mob Hits" music playing over the stereo, the maitre d' and waiter treating us like long lost family... feels like home. And I don't have to sneak any peeks at name tags, either.