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This morning, Rush Limbaugh used the term "madcap terrorists."

"Madcap"?

Isn't that like "wacky terrorists" or "goofy terrorists" or "Jerry Lewis-like terrorists"?

He did use it correctly, I suppose. But still- "madcap"? When was the last time you heard someone use the term "madcap"?

Zany.

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I'm old.

Not THAT old. I'm too old to be a real X-Games fan, too young to watch Pax TV. But I'm feeling a little TOO adult right now.

Evidence:



1. I'm filling out forms to refinance our house. Mortgages are not part of the Young Experience. People who guzzle Red Bull and know who Tony Hawk is do not have mortgages. Their parents have mortgages.



2. When I walk through the Young Men's department at Macy's, I realize that even if I could fit into those clothes, which I don't, I could not get away with it. I would be the embarrassing adult trying to act like The Youth of Today. I know the music, the style, the slang, but I will never let on that I do, much less dress the part. I may sometimes listen to Power 106 and KROQ, but I do it in a Volvo. Softly. With the windows rolled up. (It's getting hot in herre... so crank the a/c) (For further reference, please check my friend Greg Behrendt's website and standup act- he does some great material on this very topic)



3. I now own one of those plastic seven-day pill things. This is the first time in my life that I have enough pills and vitamins to fill one of those. This one- $4.99 at Ralphs- has compartments for am and pm, all of which are filled. This became necessary because I started to forget to take what I need to take when I needed to take it. That's memory loss, which is... which... what?

So I'm in that breach between sk8r boi and graying boomer, not old enough to join AARP but old enough to start getting the flyers about it. It's all OK with me, though, considering the alternatives- I wouldn't want to be starting out in this era of war and unemployment, I don't look forward to a future of Glucosamine/Chondroitin and working as a Wal-Mart greeter, and I sure don't want the only other possibility, which is why I'm taking all of those pills and vitamins.

No, I'm not ready for Leisure World yet. But that's me driving by in the Volvo, hip-hop on the radio (at a reasonable volume), a/c cranked. It's on the way to my mortgage broker's office.

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Tonight on the incredible vortex of wow that we call ALL ACCESS TALK TOPICS: PETA tells students to ejaculate, how the "peace" movement drives away potential supporters, a really sick prank call, why people aren't going to the movies, and way too much about SARS, plus other crap.

Would it really be such a hardship to check it out?

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Nick at Nite has been running "Wings" marathons all this week.

It's nice to see TV exhibiting a healthy case of nostalgia for the golden age of USA Network.

(See, before it was whatever it is now and before it was the "WWF Raw" network, it ran "Wings" reruns over and over and... ah, forget it)

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In memoriam: Edwin Starr.

WAR! (huh) Good God, y'all! What is it good for?

Stopping Hitler from taking over the world, liberating countries from tyrannical rulers, establishing America as a free and independent nation, defending nations from imperialist invaders, saving people from torture and death.

But that doesn't have a good beat and you can't dance to it.

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TV Guide is celebrating its 50th anniversary, which is cool- in fact, I wish they'd reprint some of those 1950s editions. I like to look at old TV and radio listings. It's a way to visit the past- you can look at a typical Sunday night lineup and imagine Mom, Dad, Junior, Sis, and Grampa settling into their accustomed spots- Dad in his La-Z-Boy with the dad's-butt-shaped crater in the seat, Mom on a less comfortable, sensible chair next to him, the kids sprawled on the carpet, Grampa snoozing in a chair against the far wall, emitting Grampa odors (a peculiar mix of B.O., cigar smoke, bodily functions, and mildew) that will stay with the kids as they age into adulthood, haunting them, reminding them of their joy when he'd some over to the house and bring them Silly Putty and one of those things where you used a magnet to move the iron shavings into mustache position over a cartoon face, their horror when Mom and Dad would take them to the nursing home in Grampa's last days, when...

...what was I talking about?

Oh, right, TV Guide. Yes, well, you look at, say, this:



7:30:

(2)(10) GENTLE BEN- Drama (C)
The family is thrown into turmoil when
Ben mauls Mark (Clint Howard) and must
be shot by Tom (Dennis Weaver). Ellen:
Beth Brickell.

(3)(4) WONDERFUL WORLD OF COLOR (C)
"Mickey's Dark Side," a collection of
little seen early cartoons in which the
beloved mouse indulges in booze and loose
hamsters.

...and suddenly, it's 1967 all over again. You have a blond crew cut, a departure from the Beatle-like 'do you had when you were 4 or 5, and the term "Butch Wax" doesn't make you dissolve into peals of laughter, because there are still people named "Butch" and it hasn't yet come to connote anything besides tough. Dinner's long gone, and you're there in front of the big Capehart black-and-white console, waiting for it to warm up, waiting for "Gentle Ben" to end so you can see Ed Sullivan and maybe there'll be the Dave Clark Five or something, as long as it's not Wayne and Shuster or that embarrassing Topo Gigio- you're seven, and even so, you're way too old and sophisticated for a talking Italian mouse.

So I like to check out old TV Guides. But they still print the magazine, and I buy it every week. And I DON'T KNOW WHY. It's like Reader's Digest- people buy it, but nobody really reads it, do they? I don't need the listings- I have those on the Dish, in the PVR, in the Times and the Breeze, online, even in my PDA. Yet every Tuesday, when the new issue hits the checkout at Ralphs, I grab a copy and throw it on the checkout belt. I can't explain it. It just is. I don't ask questions. (I bought the new one today- by Saturday, when the listings start, it'll be under a pile of other magazines, catalogs, Pennysavers... gone until the next time Fran orders me to clean the office and I start the recycling pile)

I should save this week's TV Guide. In 30 years, should I still be around, I'll be able to wax nostalgic about the days when Fran and Ella and I would assume our positions on the old grey couch, fire up the dish and PVR, and fast-forward to the important parts of "American Idol." Those were... are... the days.

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Tonight on ALL ACCESS TALK TOPICS: "Nuns Gone Wild," another reason to Blame Canada, and a fleeting reference to "Miami Vice," plus lots o' war stuff.

Mustn't tarry on your way to here.

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U.S. troops have reportedly taken control of Saddam International Airport.

(Warning: Cheap Joke Ahead)

It's already easier to get in and out of than LAX.

(rimshot)

Coming soon: jokes about traffic in greater Baghdad compared to the 405. Topical AND funny!

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It's interesting that anyone in show business could look at what's happened to the Dixie Chicks lately and think "now, THERE's a great career move."

I guess if you're Pearl Jam, any publicity is good publicity these days.

I'm just surprised they still exist. But that's a topic I'll be addressing later, when I have a little more time.

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When does the public's interest in a celebrity go away? For some, the answer is never. And then, there are acts that are riding high in April, shot down in May, so to speak. One day, they're all over the place, huge stars, and the next, they're done. Gone. Not retired, not on vacation, just... finished. How does that work?

I'm asking because, lately, after a number of years of peace and calm, my consciousness has been invaded by- wait for it...

Huey Lewis and the News.

Wait, let me explain.

I was running the other day, listening to the radio, going from station to station in your standard attention deficit disorderly manner, and there, on some AC station in Santa Barbara or San Diego or somewhere, was a Huey Lewis song. Not one of the most familiar hits, either, but another one- I think it was that cover of "But it's Alright" from about 10 years ago. And I filed that under Minor Annoyances, hit the button, changed the station... and on another station, a few minutes later, an ad for a summer concert series mentioned the lineup- LeAnn Rimes, Bill Cosby, Chris Isaak, Huey Lewis and the News, Rick Springfie...

Wait a minute.

Did he say...

Yes, yes, he did.

Huey Lewis and the News.

Now, here's the thing, and, kids, gather 'round the monitor while your kindly Uncle Perry tells you about a magical time when dinosaurs roamed the earth and people complained because the gas cost a dollar a gallon. 'Twas the eighties, and few musical acts were bigger than...

Huey Lewis and the News.

Now, this success was hard to explain. Back then, here's what I thought of Huey and his News:

PROS: His old band Clover, WITHOUT HUEY, played on Elvis Costello's debut album, and he played harmonica on some Dave Edmunds/Rockpile songs.

CONS: Everything else.

The banal lyrics, the bar band musicianship, the blandness of every song, the little I-need-a-urinal-and-I-need-it-NOW dance Huey did in that "Workin' for a Livin'" video:

Workin' for a livin' (workin') Workin' for a livin' (workin') Workin' for a livin', livin' and workin' I'm taking what they giving 'cause I'm working for a livin'.

Uh, yeah.

But you know the song. Chances are, it's stuck in your head right now, and here comes "The Heart of Rock 'n' Roll" and "If This is It" and "Do You Believe in Love" and "HEart and Soul" and "I Want a New Drug" and you see what I'm talking about? When Huey Lewis and the News released a record back then, it was a hit. Period. Every radio station added it, MTV played it, you couldn't escape it.

And then it stopped.

It's not that Huey retired- no, he kept plugging away, touring, releasing albums. And it's not like they broke up- how could they? As long as you had Huey, you were complete. YOU try and name any of the News. No, it was one of those things where the public just decided that we'd had enough. No more hits, Huey. Sorry, News. It happened somewhere around 1987- in '86, they were riding as high as ever. "Stuck With You," "Doing It All For My Baby," and the ultimate Huey Lewis and the News song, the defining moment in the career- no, the life- of Huey Lewis and every individual member of the News, "Hip to Be Square." In 1988, they put out another album, and... nothing. No hit. Finished. There were albums after that- they're still recording today, still touring- but the days of number one hits were over.

Why?

It's not like the earlier music was better- it's Huey Lewis and the News, how good or bad or diferent can the songs be? It's not like Huey was caught up in a scandal, or there was a huge British Invasion-like change in pop music. No, the public just decided Huey Lewis and the News was over. And so they were, doomed to surface only as instant cornball nostalgia for people born in 1970.

I understand the one-hit wonders, and the disposable teen pop concept. They're built to be discarded. And I understand when someone falls due to scandal (Jacko) or artistic stubbornness (Prince) or both (George Michael). But to go from superstar to nonexistent for NO APPARENT REASON is a mystery to me. Who made that decision? Was there a meeting? A vote? What drove people away, never to return? Did they all come to the simultaneous realization that the band sucked?

I need to know. There has to be a way to get rid of Avril Lavigne.

Postscript: Hootie and the Blowfish- the Huey Lewis and the News of the nineties- are back on the charts. Can't have that.

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Tonight on ALL ACCESS TALK TOPICS: Kirby Puckett, kids writing their names in wet cement, breast implants, the poetry of Donald Rumsfeld, and a cute widdle kitty.

They all went thataway.

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This is going to sound harsh. Sorry.

All I could think about when I heard Michael Kelly had died in Iraq is about his family. His loss is a shame on any level, a blow to journalism for sure, but all I could think about is the personal.

What the hell was he doing there?

I know, I know, he wanted it, he loved the excitement, he loved being there. He died while doing what he loved. Great. All I know is that a couple of small children just lost a father, and a woman just lost her husband.

Pointless.

I wonder about guys who go out and risk their lives when they have families back home terrified that they'll get The Call informing them of an unfortunate incident. When you get married, when you have children, you're no longer just living for yourself. You have obligations, and going to a war zone for work is antithetical to doing your duty at home.

At some point, work has to come second, or third. If you have a spouse, if you have kids, you just don't do things that put your life at extreme risk.

You owe it to them.

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Tonight on ALL ACCESS TALK TOPICS: Why "I heard a great racist joke. You all don't mind if I tell it" is something you don't want to hear coming from your own mouth, ever, plus violent customer service at JC Penney, female circumcision in Georgia, and the death of Perri the Drunk, Abusive, Homophobic Clown.

Your New York Timeses and Washington Posts were never like this.

For good reason.

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Nice of Marquette to show up today, huh?

They will be told upon their return to Milwaukee that they had a great season, that you can't forget the good stuff because of a bad finish. They, of course, will be wrong. You don't forget that last blowout. You spend the entire summer reliving it, wondering how you could have left everything at home when you went to play the biggest game of your young life so far. And you don't want to see Kansas- they ran it up, they were so unfair- go on and play Syracuse in the game you could have- no, SHOULD have- been playing in yourself.

And eventually you leave school and work in a beer distributorship in Racine. Occasionally, someone brings up that season. You smile, and nod, and it stings a little, and then you remember how cool it was, millions of eyes on you, for a brief shining moment the center of the known universe.

There are worse fates.

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I'm not big on travel.

Oh, I LIKE to BE in different places. It's the hassle and time and expense of GETTING there and back I don't enjoy. I want to just snap my fingers and BANG, I'm in Vegas. No bumpy flight, no interminable drive across the desert, no stopping at the World's Largest Thermometer in the Bun Boy parking lot in Baker to hit the restroom. Just there. And I want to go home when I want to as well- minutes away, right down the hall, steps from the Strip, open a door and there's the familiar home and familiar cat and familiar everything.

Doesn't work that way. So we point the car north on the 15 and hit the road. See you in Vegas for the Guys in Suits convention.

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I made the run to Vegas today- it takes about 5 hours, give or take and depending on how long you spend eating your burger and strawberry pie at the Bun Boy in Baker (under the World's Tallest and Least Accurate Thermometer). It's cool in Vegas at the moment- 60s and breezy for the high- but I found the one hot spot in town, which happened to be the Convention Center where the NAB and RTNDA conventions are being held. I had to run in, get my press credentials, grab the print materials, and get back out of there, which naturally required the World's Longest Walk in the World's Warmest Building. By the time I walked from the Hilton parking garage, through the Sports Book and casino, down the hall, through the entire RTNDA convention area, across the street, down the block, up the escalator, down a long, very warm hallway, down another hall to the press room, then reversed the process, I was schvitzing something fierce. Why is it that convention halls must always be at least 20 degrees warmer than the legal definition of "hot"? And why am I the only one who notices this?



So, I'm at the NAB. I'll be reporting on the show for AllAccess.com, and I'll post some of my impressions here. Fair enough? Good. Now, I've been driving all day, and writing all evening, so it's time to do what nobody's ever supposed to do in Vegas- sleep. See you tomorrow, and if you're at the NAB or RTNDA, stop by/say hi.

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So far this morning at the NAB Convention: a bunch of Senators and Congressmen said nothing, then Cokie Roberts got an award for, apparently, being Cokie Roberts and Barry Diller told everyone their industry should be reregulated. Then I went to the Media Room and waited for an Ethernet port to open up while a bunch of the foreign press looked me over like I'm an alien.



Oh, yeah, traveling to Vegas conventions is a LOAD of fun, absolutely. I might as well be in Duluth- at least I wouldn't feel like I was missing anything.

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We were heading for a bite to eat when we walked by the Venetian sports book. On the assumption that being in Vegas during the Final Four and NOT betting on the game would be heresy, I went ahead and dropped $22. on Syracuse-plus-5 1/2 to win.



Good move.

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And now, the results of the exclusive Las Vegas Hotel Health Club Poll. Results are plus and minus 100 percent.



When we checked into the hotel, three of the four big-screen projection TVs over the cardio area of the hotel spa were tuned to war coverage on the cable news channels.



On Monday, it was down to two.



Today, the sets had a) Lakers-Dallas, b) Fox News, c) A&E Chuck Barris bio, and d) VH1's airing of "Beavis and Butt-Head Do America."



Our exclusive Insta-Fraud analysis: America is officially "over it."

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Apologies for not posting too much this week- travel and news coverage duties (this week, I'm practically Jimmy Olsen, Cub Reporter) are taking up way too much time. The good thing is that there's a ton of material being harvested, so later this week, and maybe even by Thursday, there'll be so much you'll be screaming for mercy. There's My Lunch With Radio People, FCC Commissioners Run Amok, the Foreign Press and the Free Sandwiches, Why I Hate Photographers... maybe a repeat visit to the Special World of Danny Gans, too.



Meanwhile, I gotta run. Did I tell you I'm running in the black this time? Did I tell you Syracuse plus 5 1/2? Did I? Huh?



OK, I'll go.

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You wake up in the morning. You find the switch on the alarm clock, you slide out of bed so as not to wake your wife, you stumble out of the room. Bathroom, brush teeth, stumble out. Feed the cat, scratch yourself, maybe start the coffeemaker or grab a bagel. Turn on the computer, switch on the radio, discover the world has changed again.



Dancing in the streets. Looting. Statues toppled, victory signs, celebration. Outpourings of emotion about the torture, the suffering, the indignity of life under the thumb of an evil man. You wonder what people who railed against the war are thinking now. Perhaps they don't believe it's true. But you hear the rumble of millions of people running to catch the bandwagon that left without them 22 days ago.



There will be a lot of bumps on the road ahead. The fighting's not even over, the country still not fully liberated, the "resistance" and the terrorism surely ready to keep killing. But right now, there are millions of people free today who weren't free yesterday, and that's worth some celebration.

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On one side of the world, a tyrant is overthrown, the oppressed are free, the world watches in true shock and awe.



On the other side of the world, Danny Gans is king.



Danny Gans, for those who have never been to Las Vegas, is an entertainer who... oh, sorry, he's not merely an entertainer. No, he's ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR, writ large on countless billboards, bus cards, taxi roof ads, and, for all I know, on tattoos placed on each cheek of the Mayor's butt. The moment you deplane at McCarran and go to get your bags, there's the grinning face of the ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR, looming over the baggage claim, perched atop his customary black turtleneck. Here in our hotel room- a hotel right across the street from the Official Hotel of Danny Gans- there's a copy of a tourist magazine, and right on the cover, crouching and gazing from in front of the publication's logo with a please-love-me expression, is the ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR himself. Why not? He's the ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR.



So, what does the ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR do to become the ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR? Well, he sings. He dances. He does impressions. He tells sincere stories about his family, his faith, his baseball career, his TV deals. And he does every single one of them poorly. Check that- not just poorly, but criminally bad. Awful. Sub-Star Search bad. Ted Mack's Original Amateur Hour bad. Cable access bad. None of his impressions are close. His claims to have been a heartbeat away from the majors- are of dubious veracity. The singing and dancing are karaoke-level. He's been telling the sitcom development story for years and nobody's seen a pilot. I've seen the ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR perform live, and I can't remember a more cringe-inducing act, not even the Playboy Fantasy Revue at which I ended up, in an illness-and-alcohol-induced delerium, sitting ringside in Atlantic City inches from the Globe of Death and three male dancers in ape costumes miming to "Abba Dabba Honeymoon." The ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR is horribly, mind-numbingly, incredibly awful.



Needless to say, he sells out every night.



That's because Las Vegas isn't of this earth. It's a parallel universe, with its own customs, own moral code, own celebrities. Ah, the celebrities. Your Jack Nicholsons and Shaqs and George W. Bushes can slide through a casino with no problem, can gamble and drink and dance relatively unmolested, noticed only in passing in Norm Clarke's column or Tim McDarrah's column in the next day's papers. But Danny Gans- the ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR- will get mobbed. The Scintas are royalty on the Strip. Clint Holmes- "My name is Michael, I got a nickel..." Clint Holmes- is still a star here. Michael Flatley hops, Lance Burton makes magic, Rita Rudner slays 'em every night. There's even a Gallic imitation of the ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR, a guy named Andre-Phillipe Gagnon who does impressions of singers that sound like the real thing if the real thing had a French accent and sounded nothing like themselves.



Have I mentioned that it's all great? Because it is. Nowhere else on the planet can you get ripped on paper-umbrella drinks and watch washed-up singers and unfunny comics and people you've never heard of and have no reason to have ever heard of sing and dance and joke their show-biz hearts out in a way that's like watching "World's Wildest Police Chases XIV"- you can't believe you're doing it, you're aware you're wasting time and brain cells, yet you're enjoying the spectacle. (Some of the acts are even- dare I say it- not bad: Clint Holmes does a surprisingly good version of the standard Vegas showroom act, and, yes, he's fully aware of his own comic washed-up-ness) Like the rest of Tourist Las Vegas, it's all tasteless, schlocky, over the top, and exactly what you want from Vegas.



Except the ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR. Nobody should want that.

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Today, Vegas, one last tour of the NAB and RTNDA shows. Tomorrow, it's the long drive back, the Bun Boy, the World's Tallest Thermometer, the Highway Stations, Turn Off Your Air Conditioner Next 16 Miles, the Cajon Pass, and, eventually, home. And Ella.



I wonder if she'll recognize us.

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Back from Vegas, digging out from under- much work, no time, but safely back home. The drive was, for the Vegas run, quick and uneventful. The highlight, such as it was, had to be the stop for lunch at the Mad Greek, which, along with Bun Boy, is the Wall Drug/South of the Border equivalent here- the billboards spread up and down the 15 for miles, and the restaurants are across the street from each other in the only commercial area- the only area inhabited by more than 1 or 2 people- between Yermo and the Nevada line, in the middle of the Mojave Desert conveniently located adjacent to... nothing. (OK, there's a Del Taco and an Arby's and a couple of little convenience stores and the Alien Jerky stand, but that's it)



Sub-highlight- I'm eating my sandwich at the Mad Greek when one of the many celebrity pictures on the wall catches my eye. No, not the Nic Cage head shot, the one two pictures over to the left, the one with the curly-haired guy with the puffy, grinning face. Could it be?



Yes.



Eddie Mekka.



Carmine Ragusa.



The Big Ragu.



From "Laverne and Shirley."



The Big Ragu lives, and he eats at the Mad Greek in Baker, California.

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One of the striking things about what's happening in Baghdad was noted by WKLS/Atlanta "Regular Guy" Larry Wachs, who e-mailed me noting that the Iraqi looters, freed of inhibition and rule of law, went right for the electronic stuff- stereos, TVs, VCRs. It was like Everything Must Go at the Baghdad Best Buy.



This is interesting, because you didn't see women running around looting. If women were involved, they'd be going for boring things like food, medical supplies, personal hygiene products, things for the children. Men go for TVs. That's what they did when South Central caught fire in the Rodney King riots, it's what happens any time law and order break down- guys make a bee line for electronic stuff. Think about it- when the L.A. rioters were shown emerging from a liquor or convenience store, what were they carrying? A 40 and the surveillance monitor and a cash register with drawer flapping open, cashless, worthless, but, hey, it's electronic.



So the Baghdad looters lug the TVs home and plug 'em in. What are they gonna see? You know, I STILL haven't been able to find any information about what Iraq TV airs, except that it tends to air Saddam speeches and Hollywood movies of a few years back, preferably with Bill Paxton or Bill Pullman or someone else named Bill. Is that worth stealing a TV to watch? They're probably going to have to sit there watching snow and test patterns until the new government gets its act together and signs on with the new Fall season, which I'm willing to bet will look suspiciously like last season, because they can't afford anything good and the Bill movies are just sitting there on what's left of the shelf and they do fill up time. Replace the Saddam speeches with Bush and Blair speeches and you got yourself a schedule, don't you?



But it doesn't matter. Guys are guys. Iraqi guys may worship in a different religion, live in a different culture, believe in a different value system, but they're guys, which means that they want big-screen TVs. And porn. But I don't think there was any porn to loot.



Yet. There will be, soon, because they will be free and guys are guys.

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Ah, yes, I'll never forget the NAB2003 convention. What an amazing time- while Baghdad was falling and the world watched with jaws dropping, I was watching the foreign press corps attack a tray of sandwiches and my jaw was dropping, too.



The convention was, as usual, big and tech-heavy and exhausting, and there was a reasonable amount of news to report, so I was busy throughout the week. But the most lasting impression I took from the event was about the behavior of the foreign press. This year, the NAB thoughfully provided Ethernet connections for high speed Net access so people like me could file reports and check e-mail- you know, work. And when I could grab a Cat-5 cord and hook it into my computer, it was great. Getting a free cord, on the other hand, took some work, because the connections seemed to be constantly occupied by people whose badges indicated that they a) were from another continent, which in and of itself isn't a problem, but b) they weren't writers. No, they were photographers, or assistants, or anything but actual reporters. They had the Net hookup, and they were using them for...



...for what? For reading web pages, for checking friends' e-mail messages, for watching videos. I needed to get in there, and they would not budge. Most, in fact, feigned inability to understand English. There was one thing they understood, however, and it was the only way I got to use the Net hookup.



Lunch time.



The NAB provides a small amount of food so reporters can grab a bite while continuing to work. That's not who ate the food. The foreign press, the non-reporters, the photographers, the ones hogging the Net- those were the ones who ate the food. And they got all of it. I walked into the press room, checked and saw that the food hadn't arrived, found a free Net connection, used it for 3 minutes to file a report, got up, walked around the corner to check on the food, and it was all gone, snarfed up in seconds. I saw a guy carrying four sandwiches- two in each hand- away from the table. It was carnage. But at least I could console myself in that the sandwiches looked horrible.



Anyway, I came away from the convention remembering not what happened in the sessions or on the exhibit floor, but what happened in the press room. Next time, I'm brown-bagging it. And if the non-reporters take up all the Net connections, I'll just rip the cord from their computers. I'll bet they'll suddenly understand plenty English.

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This is how travel affects me: I am at a loss to figure out what day this is. I thought this was Thursday all day. I thought yesterday felt like Friday.



And when I went to the Y for a workout, I opened my gym bag to discover I'd packed one sneaker, three shower shoes, and no brush.



What day is this again?

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This is a little test- if you're able to read this, I have successfully figured ouy a way to post from my cell phone. Because I can, that's why.

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OK, so I can post from my cell phone. Here's what was going on at the time:



I was in a movie theater at the time, killing time during "The Twenty," the cavalcade of promos and ads 20 minutes before the 20 minutes of ads and trailers that start when the movie's scheduled to start. I have one o' them Handspring Treos with net access, so I was trying to see if I could post from it. Evidently, I can post to the queue, but not directly publish to the site- it can't handle the FTP function.



Ah, gadgets. What would life be like without them?

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Movie Review


I'm angry. I'm so angry. We saw a crappy movie and it wasn't merely bad in the "aah, I just wasted money on this crap" way, it was bad in the "how could anyone in Hollywood have read this script and thought it would make a good movie" way.


Do yourself a favor. Skip "Anger Management."


OK, so I shouldn't expect a movie with Adam Sandler to be good. I'm not a 13 year old boy anymore. (13 year old boys love Adam Sandler- the theater was packed with them) And the trailers should have been ample warning, too. But I needed an escape from tax forms and receipts, and it was either that or "Head of State." It was a coin flip. The coin flipped wrong, so we saw "Anger Management."


I'll spare you a lot of the details and skip to why I got upset. I guess it's the Writer's Curse: if you write for a living, and you see lazy or just plain bad writing hit the jackpot, there's a certain amount of jealousy/resentment that wells up in your chest. How the hell can something this bad make money while I, great undiscovered talent that I am, toil away in the obscurity of the freelance life? But I don't think this one's bad just because of jealousy. I don't begrudge people success, even people who might uncharitably be termed hacks- hey, I've cranked out stuff I thought was crap to make money (I have integrity, but sometimes I gotta pay the mortgage). This one was worse- a combination of a few stock plots and hammy acting by a cast of big names slumming for a friend. Here's how you could tell this wasn't going to be a good movie:

Celebrity cameos. When athletes and actors show up in tiny walk-ons just because, well, just because, you know there's a problem. It's the Simpsons Guest Star Rule: when a celebrity guest voice is on the Simpsons, the episode will be subpar, and when the celebrities play themselves ("Hey, you're Tony Hawk, the famous skateboarder!" "That's right, Bart!"), the episode will REALLY stink out loud. "Anger Management" has Rudy Giuliani embarrassing himself, Woody Harrelson REALLY embarrassing himself in drag, John C. Reilly in a bad bald wig and robe, Luis Guzman as an effeminate stereotype, Heather Graham in Red Sox underwear stuffing her face with brownies, and Roger Clemens and Derek Jeter as themselves. The movie had no chance.


Hammy acting. Jack Nicholson's worst instincts are all over this one- after one of his best, most understated performances ever in "About Schmidt," he does the eye-rolling wack job thing in this one. And then there's Sandler and Marisa Tomei, which should be enough for anyone to stay away, but in case that's not enough, there's John Turturro as a psycho. Not good.


Weird obsession. Some scripts have an inexplicable focus on something that's clearly a problem for someone who made the movie. This one's homosexuality- there's the stereotype mincer, the crazed lesbians, the two-guys-in-a-bed scene, the staring-at-the-penis-of-the-guy-at-the-next-urinal gag... someone who made this movie's uncomfortable with his own gender preference, or he's a real homophobe, or both.


Adam Sandler's in it.

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This weekend is mostly a blur of taxes and receipts and more taxes. For some reason, I just didn't get around to the gruntwork of getting the taxes finished until the last minute. Maybe I suspected (rightly, it turns out) that I'm not gonna like what the bottom line shows this time. Maybe I assumed I'd get to it when I really wasn't going to have the time.


Maybe I'm just lazy.


I wish I had the kind of finances where I could take a box of receipts, dump them all on some accountant's desk, and say "here, you do it." But I have to do it myself, the curse of the small businessman, too small to hire someone to handle the finances, too big for the 1040-EZ. Usually, it's not too bad- between Quicken and Turbo Tax, a lot of the work's easier than it used to be. But this year, between the war and conventions and business, I've just about run out of time. I should be able to file on time- maybe a day early- because I've buckled down and I've been working for a few days to catch up, but I scared myself by waiting so long. I miss the days before I had to worry about income taxes and property taxes and mortgages and everything about adulthood. I close my eyes and it's a summer afternoon in 1969 again, out in the back yard on the wide expanse of grass with the soggy part out by the property line where the drainage is screwed up, and my dad's throwing a baseball WAAAAAY up in the air, yelling "major league pop-up!" as I circled under it, imagining myself to be the next Willie Mays or Tommie Agee, no responsibilities in sight. And then I wake up, and I'm just some guy who needs to pay the bills and file his 1040 and pick up the dry cleaning on his way back from the gym.


Not that I'm complaining. But it would be nice to take a vacation from adulthood for a little while. You know, I think my baseball glove's in the garage, and I have an old National League baseball on the top shelf in my office. Maybe when I finish the taxes I'll throw myself some major league pop-ups, close my eyes, and be Willie Mays all over again.

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I was browsing in Borders this afternoon when I got panhandled. I wasn't walking in or out, and the beggar wasn't sitting outside by the door looking for change- I was all the way in the back of the store, and this guy, in dirty clothes and with an odor that preceded him, just walked right up to me and asked for money. I shook my head and he moved further into the store, latching onto someone in the DVD section while I moved in another direction.

The problem here is not a homeless guy's right to ask for change. If he wants to sit outside the store and beg, fine. And it's not that he was in the store- sometimes, when the staff is otherwise occupied, someone can slip past them. That happens. But this is not an isolated instance. This particular store, in Torrance, always seems to have a couple of homeless guys in the store asking shoppers for money. It may be the same two guys- one plops down in the magazine section, the other wanders the aisles. They're not shopping for books or CDs or DVDs, they're shopping for soft touches, guilty suburbanites with spare paper money overflowing from their pockets and purses.

Someone ought to throw them out.

Nobody does.

This is not a freedom issue. It's not a public library, it's a private business. They can throw anyone out. But think about the kind of people who work in bookstores- liberal, ultra-tolerant, peace-and-love people. They probably don't call the men "homeless" or "beggars"- I'm sure they use a more tolerant term. But it's evidently the policy of the manager of this store to allow the homeless guys to hang out and panhandle in the store, and I'm not comfortable with that. I want to feel safe in a store. I don't want someone to ask me for money when I'm just trying to check out a book. I don't want anyone doing the same to my wife. I certainly don't want to experience the smell of a guy whose clothes are caked in dirt and bodily emissions while I'm shopping.

No, I didn't complain. I should have- would have, if there was any manager at the information desk- but I've seen these guys at least the last three or four times I've walked into that store. I can only assume that the store's regular practice is to permit