PMSimon.com

OK, I'm fried. Just added about a zillion new stories to my other column at Allaccess.com, plus three other sections, and that's all for me.

Some "day off." I worked longer than on days I'm supposed to be working.

Go. Read the Talk Topics column, already. Good stuff there.

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I listened to Arnold Schwarzenegger get interviewed by John and Ken on KFI this afternoon and I'm still unclear on a few things. Sure, he talked about his general policies- yes to education, no on the tripled car tax, that kind of stuff, just like he did on the Sean Hannity Lightning Round last week. He does, despite what you've heard, answer questions.

But those answers are kinda, well, half-answers. He talks about how important education was for his own assimilation into this society and his achievement of the American Dream (cue patriotic music and flags), but he doesn't say how he'll pay for it. He says he'll repeal the car tax hike, but he won't say for sure what he'll cut to make that work, or whether he'd raise taxes to fill the void instead. He gives sound bites, sometimes plows directly through a follow-up with his planned talking point, and generally proves himself worthy of being called a Los Angeles Dodger. In short, he's a politician, and a good one. But about those half-answers- is this political footwork enough to drop all ideas about voting for the guy? Is it enough to go looking for someone more absolute and direct about not raising (or, if you're Bustamante or Huffington, raising) taxes?

Nah.

Why?

a) They all do it. b) They have to, because if they get any more specific c) you won't vote for them.

If Arnold says he won't raise taxes, ever, that's Bush I, you'll call him a phony, game over. If he says he will raisde taxes, that's Mondale, you won't vote for him, game over. If he doesn't really say anything... you complain he's not being forthcoming, but you don't rule him out, because every other candidate is in the same three categories. Might as well be in the one that voters haven't crossed entirely off the list.

Schwarzenegger's slicker than that, of course- he has REASONS you won't get a straight answer on budget issues from him. He says he hasn't seen the budget specifics, nobody's seen the budget specifics, can't make a decision until he sees exactly what the deficit is. All true enough, but he goes a step further with his economic "summits"- see, I've got experts ready to analyze the situation! Everything's in good hands! If I have to raise taxes, blame them!

So after his whirlwind tour of talk radio, we really don't know much more about the guy, which is the plan. We know the negatives of keeping Davis, we're learning the negatives of Bustamante, nobody likes Huffington, and Ueberroth and McClintock have deficiencies in either name recognition or electability, so Arnold, steering between the depth charges, stands a good chance of pulling this one out.

The good news is that he's proving to be an adept politician. The bad news is that he's turning out to be an adept politician. The best news is that he's not Gray Davis.

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I'm hooked on "The O.C.," which is not to say I either LIKE "The O.C" or pay enough attention to it to determine plot lines or character names or anything like that. It has all the elements that made "90210" and "Melrose Place" the guilty pleasure they were:

a) Babes.
b) California scenery.
c) Babes.
d) Um, that's it.

The show is ostensibly about a kid from the "wrong side of the tracks" (a fantasy Chino transformed from an average suburb with a Starbucks to something akin to a Caucasian Watts or East L.A.) who becomes a ward of a wealthy Orange County family headed by a public defender (!) played by Peter Gallagher wearing a haircut that screams "trendy," "now," and "ugly as hell." There are several young and not-quite-as-young women in various stages of babeliciousness, lots of fake melodrama (the boys go to a party in the LBC! THe neighborhood women in a steambath verbally catfighting!), and my favorite element- fake scenery. Oh, it's shot on location, but a lot of the scenery is NOT in Orange County...

...it's here.

"The O.C." in TV-land extends way into L.A. County, past Long Beach and right into Palos Verdes and the South Bay. The golf course in the opening montage and in other scenes is up the street from my house. The skateboarding-by-the-beach? Hermosa, with P.V. in the background. As far as anyone outside of this area knows, it's all Orange County. And I'm sure the producers would say "the O.C. is not a real place, it's a state of mind."

It's a fantasy. So is the idea of people calling Orange County "the O.C." Never HAVE heard that before, and I've lived here long enough.

But this show covers all the bases AND I get to see my neighborhood on TV. Can "ER" do that for you? I think not, unless you spend a lot of time in a Chicago emergency ward. So it's "The O.C." for me. If I actually paid attention to the script, it probably wouldn't be. So I don't. TV's better this way.

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A Dodger Dog. A seat behind the plate. A warm, dry evening. The one you love in the seat next to you. A baseball game in September that means something to the wild card race.

Priceless.

Okay, the dog's $4.50 for the Super version, the parking's $8., the program's $4., a bottle of water's $4.50, and I'm not used to spending anything at a game because I usually end up in the press box snarfing the popcorn and frozen yogurt. But on an evening like this, it's all worth it.

Dodgers lost. Team can't hit.

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While fuming once again over the Sacramentoids' headlong rush to grant the privilege of obtaining drivers' licenses to illegal immigrants, I realized that I was wasting my time. It's a done deal, and will be a done deal as long as the Democrats hold the Assembly and Senate, whether Davis is recalled or not. Can't fix that. This state is about to give non-citizens- not just non-citizens, but people who aren't legally allowed to be here- the same privileges as citizens, and everyone who IS here legally, especially immigrants who went through the process of getting green cards and then citizenship, should be angry. It's another devaluation of what it means to be a citizen, and it should make immigrants wonder why they bothered to become citizens when all it did was hand them a tax burden.

But it's a fait accompli. Right?

Wait.

Let's ask ourselves something: does this move devalue the California driver's license as a means of identifying the carrier? (Yes.) And if it does so, should the FAA or Department of Homeland Security, and/or the Border Patrol, be wary of using California licenses as ID to board planes or cross the borders? (Yes.) So... what if those agencies said that due to the opening of the process to non-residents, and the fact that those non-residents will be able to get the licenses and the application can't be used to investigate and deport them, the California driver's license is no longer permissible ID at airports or border crossings?

That's right, turn anyone from California away at the airport gate or the border unless they have a valid passport.

This might work.

Oh, sure, we're talking major inconvenience for legal residences. I would have to deal with the same thing- my license is from California, and I'd have to bring a passport with me everywhere. And it would hoplessly snarl traffic at airports and the borders. But if the license no longer means that the holder is a legal citizen of the state, how can it be accepted as a means of identification to enter or leave the country? If it's now meaningless, can we be safe if it's used to ID people coming and going?

And how quickly would the law have to be repealed?

Ah, see, that's what I'M talkin' about.

Allowing anyone to get a license with no citizenship or legal status required is a major security problem, and it's not just a California problem. There is no reason for this new rule except to import vast numbers of potential Democratic motor-voters to the state, to extend more (taxpayer-paid) benefits to the presently ineligible, and to pander to a small activist element of the Latino community. They're risking our security and taking our tax money. Drastic times call for drastic measures, and invalidating California licenses as legal ID is in some ways drastic, but it's time for drastic now.

Got any better idea?

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Welcome to those of you who heard about this place on John and Ken's show on KFI/Los Angeles or on Michael Graham's show on WRVA/Richmond- the article they referred to is below, on September 4. You'll find this a repository of random musings and incoherent rants; enjoy, tell (or warn) your friends, and thanks for stopping by.

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John Stamos on Broadway.

I know, he's done it before, but...

John Stamos.

"Full House" John Stamos.

On Broadway.

Does anyone else see this as a sign of the apocalypse?

And whatever DID happen to Dave Coulier, anyway?

And when does Eddie Mekka's "Hamlet" open?

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Confession: I don't much like Bruce Springsteen.

New Jersey natives- yes, I am one- are not supposed to admit that. They're supposed to be fans. They're also supposed to have black hair and mustache, neon on the undercarriage of their old Camaros or Firebirds, and gainful employment as mechanics or on the docks at Port Newark. And they're Giants fans. That would not be me, which is probably why I don't live there anymore. Regardless of domicile, I don't like Springsteen.

Oh, I don't HATE him, exactly. And he doesn't bother me as much as he did when I lived back there and everyone- EVERYone- yammered away about Bruce sightings like when he'd drop by and sit in on someone's set, or he'd be seen at the Kraeuser's buying milk and Ring Dings. WNEW-FM did a daily dose of "Bruce Juice," the faithful lined up at Sam Goody's to be the first to buy each album, Clarence Clemons had fans. Living in that atmosphere was like being a Republican in Berkeley. You just didn't tell anyone the truth. You kept your mouth shut and changed the subject unless you wanted to hear the litany:

"Oh, you'd sing a different tune if you saw him in PERSON."

"Bruce... is a-MA-zing in concert."

"He plays three hour shows. You should SEE how hard he works."

OK, look, when I listen to music, I don't care HOW hard the star's working. In fact, working hard has nothing to do with the quality of music. Miles Davis was a genius and he didn't even bother to turn around to face the audience, let alone jump around leading a jazzercise class. I don't care if my musical heroes are straining their calf muscles to entertain me. Just do good songs and do them well, and I'm happy.

Bruce didn't do good songs. They were... okay songs, some of them. I've never been much for the poor working-class blue-collar lunchbox rock and roll style, but as that stuff goes, I guess he was all right. It's just not what I like, as surely as I don't like Jimmy Buffett or Jessica Simpson or Yanni. You like it? Great, more power to ya. Have a blast. Let me know how it was. See ya in three hours.

Which brings me to the Boss' Fenway Park concerts, to be followed soon by a pair of dates at Shea Stadium. People are dropping unbelievable piles of cash to see these shows, and it's alien to me. I mean, even if I LIKED the music, well, look, you ever try to sit in a Fenway Park seat for three hours? And sitting in a field box behind the screen when the stage is in center field pinned against the Monster? And can you imagine the acoustics when highly amplified sound caroms off the countless angled surfaces there? It wasn't BUILT for that. It may just be one of the venues most ill-suited for a rock concert, and they were lining up to hand over their first-born for a chance at a ticket.

And that's a perfect place to see a show compared to Shea. Shea is like Leavenworth with worse bathrooms.

I guess the appeal is to be able to say you were there. "I saw the Boss at Fenway." That'll impress the rest of the Account Executives, I tell you what. It won't impress anyone younger than 35, but it'll slay 'em in the car pool. Great, but that's not how I operate. I've been to a show like that, dragged there by a girlfriend who wanted to see The Who at the old JFK Stadium in Philly, and I only went because I could accept one opening act, The Clash (we agreed that we should arrive after opening opening act Santana- little did we know he'd outlast everyone). I guess I can say I saw The Who and The Clash together on the same bill at JFK, but I'm not sure, because unless you were pressed up in the first crush of fans where a mosh pit would go today, you couldn't see WHO was on stage. For all I knew from the opposite end zone, Les Brown and his Band of Reknown were up there miming to "Baba O'Riley" and "Spanish Guns." And that's what 90 percent of the audience at Fenway will see at the Bruce shows (well, OK, they'll have the Jumbotron, but that doesn't prove anything, and if it does, they can say they went someplace and watched Bruce on a really big TV).

So I'll pass on Bruce, and I'll pass on big stadium concerts, too. It's not that I've gotten older (though I have). I've gotten wiser. And cheaper. And more tired. Maybe there's a concert on VH1 Classic.

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Bullet? Dodged.

I'll admit to having had no faith at all. I gave up at 33-10, cursing Larry Coker and Brock Berlin and imagining the Big East people clinking champagne glasses. I did, however, decide to check back in, and got back in time to see the last drive, the leg cramp, the key first downs, the burned-off time out, the Frank Gore touchdowns, the conversion attempts, the Florida drive, the Gators' going to the same well one too many times, the interception, the exhale.

Yes, it's goooooood to have football back.

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Gray Davis is now taking shots at Arnold's accent, telling a voter something to the effect of "how can you govern the state when you can't pronounce its name?" Needless to say, Arnold's campaign wants an apology, and it's another one of those campaign "issues." It's an outrage, they're saying. How dare you bring up a candidate's accent.

But why not?

Let me just say right off the bat that I'm the son of a first-generation immigrant mother who had an accent. Mom's accent was thick enough that she couldn't say certain words quite right. "Th" came out "s." Some words came out mangled. It was adorable, actually, and we used to have fun with her by asking her to pronounce words with which we knew she'd have trouble ("Mom! Say that name!"- pointing at a road sign for the Conshohocken exit. "Um, con... con... constipocken?"). She had fun with it, too, actually. I got the impression she'd crank it up a notch to amuse us. But I'd hear her talk on the phone in animated Yiddish and there was no question which was her more comfortable language.

Did the accent get in the way? Not really- our mom wasn't all-American like the other moms, but that was OK to us. All it meant was that, to this day, when I get really, really tired, some words come out a little odd- odder than my usual nasal PhilaJersey accent, turning "th" into "t" or even my mom's "s." So it didn't hurt me, it wasn't an issue, no harm, no foul.

And Arnold's accent isn't really a problem, either. He's a great communicator, and the accent, well, you understand what he's saying and laugh along with him at the way he says it. Could he be an effective governor calling the state "Kahl-ee-FON-ya"? Sure.

But should it never be an issue?

Teachers whose accents are impenetrable. Service people- clerks, reservations agents, tech support- whose accents are hard to understand. Doctors with accents trying to communicate with patients. There are several situations where accents ARE- SHOULD be- an issue.

Could governor be one of them? If it gets in the way of effective communication, yes.

Davis, true to his usual form, is saying this in a typically ham-handed manner. You can bet that any accented politician from the Mexican-American community he's so assiduously courting would get a pass from him, whether any Anglo could understand the candidate or not. But say a candidate comes up speaking Spanish and little English, a not-too-far-fetched scenario in California (or Texas, or Florida, or New Mexico, or Arizona...). He or she has an accent thick enough to render his or her English impossible to easily follow, but Spanish is another story. Say that candidate is running for L.A. mayor, where a solid Latino vote could get someone elected. Say that candidate DOES get elected. Is that a good thing for the English-speaking population, who wouldn't be able to understand nor communicate with the new mayor in their language?

It's not like this can't happen. I'd be willing to bet that it WILL happen. And I'm not saying someone like that can't be a good mayor. In fact, the opposite might very well be true. But should that be considered verboten as a campaign issue? Should we never talk about it? Is it poor manners, gauche, even racist to raise the issue?

Not really. And that's why, in this one case, Davis, hypocritical as he may be, isn't necessarily 100% wrong. But if his point is valid, he ought to include his own allies in the criticism. I wouldn't hold my breath for that.

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How the hell can the Phillies expect to go anywhere in October if you look down to their bullpen and Mike Williams is in it? Forget the absence of a closer- if your setup guy's so weak that you have to keep bringing Turk Wendell (!) and Rheal Cormier (!!) in to bail him out, you might as well start planning for next season.

Just thought I'd mention it.

UPDATE: OK, if they can manage 9th inning comebacks and extra-inning wins, well, maybe. But they can still use a closer and a one-way ticket for Mike Williams to Siberia. You'd think they'd have learned their lesson with relievers named M. Williams 10 years ago.

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On Sunday morning, I was trying to find some football talk on the radio before kickoff of the early NFL games. Where I live, you can get seven- one simulcast trio, two separate ESPN affiliates, two Sporting News affiliates, and a Fox affiliate from up the coast. With that many choices, it would stand to reason that there'd be some football talk at that time of morning, but several of the stations were in specialty mode- racing shows, a surfing show, that kind of thing. And then there were the gambling shows- not really shows, but infomercials disguised as talk shows. They're talking football, all right, but not really- they tease you with suggestions that they know the "keys to the game," then urge you to call for the "free" "lock" of the day, whereupon they surely try to suck your bank account dry.

So I kept trying, and after an hour a local L.A. show came up, hosted by a pair of radio sales guys. Really. They gave some sales guys a show. They're not horrible, actually, but it wasn't exactly expert analysis. Fair enough, I can deal with that. But then they introduced a "guest," a "noted Vegas handicapper" who one of the hosts introduced by claiming they'd received several calls and letters demanding to know when he'd be back on the air. The guest sounded exactly like every other Vegas tout, fast talking, insistent that he and only he had the inside skinny on the big games and that he would MAKE YOU MONEY. The hosts agreed- they'd MADE BIG MONEY listening to him.

And he had a free lock he'd give you RIGHT THEN AND THERE on the air, just to show you how he can MAKE YOU MONEY. The lock? Take New England over Buffalo. No question. Pats win outright. Take them even if you end up giving a point and a half on the road. Bills can't win. Bledsoe's a failure. You can see it in his face as he comes off the field- confusion and hurt. Take the Patriots, and that's just a sample of the locks you could get every week if you want to MAKE MONEY. Just call the toll free number and hand over your credit card number. Do it. Now.

You know what happened to that lock.

I'm not against gambling. I am not a stranger to the sports books of Vegas. But the handicappers are another story. There's an industry built on having zero additional knowledge above that of the average attentive fan, yet they find people who'll gladly sign up in the vain hope that it'll give them an edge. Sure it will. But that's their problem and their prerogative.

No, what gets me is that radio stations and hosts are willing to sell their own reputations down the river like that. The segment I heard was in a regular talk show- not labeled as an ad or infomercial. I don't know that there was any compensation for it- I assume there wasn't. But just having that guy on the show made the whole station sound like a fraud. I'm a sports fan, I like sports radio, I hear regular hosts on the station treat this handicapper like a real, respected, legitimate guest, and I'm supposed to trust this station to give me the real deal? They lost me. I'm gone. I'm sure I'm not alone.

Was that worth it?

To the management, yeah, probably, it was worth it. They need to show a positive bottom line growing by the amount dictated by corporate. You don't get there turning down business, however badly it damages you for the future. There's precedent for this kind of thing destroying a station- what used to be the dominant- and only- talk station in a major, major market went the infomercial route where a regular talk show would suddenly have a "special guest co-host" for a half-hour of talk about hair replacement or something like that, barely identified as a paid program, using the same host who'd normally be there. The station ended up dropping talk after decades of dominance. It was suicide, death by management insistence on bleeding every last dime out of the station.

And I hear stations dancing on that knife edge again. It's painful, but it damages more than that station's reputation. It makes radio look cheesy, as cheesy as a UHF station that runs infomercials in prime time, as cheesy as "Bears Football Presented by Bank One," as cheesy as crossover shows where the cast of a struggling sitcom suddenly appears as visitors on a hit show ("Look who moved next door, Raymond, it's the people from 'Still Standing'!"). Radio gets little respect despite being one of the most effective, interesting, laden-with-possibilities media on earth. People think of it as disposable or, worse, think it "sucks" and look to satellite for salvation. And radio people wonder why.

Here's an idea- treat yourself and the medium with respect. Don't do stuff just for the money. Do stuff you're proud to air. Be creative, fearless. Do your part to make radio the great medium we know it can be.

I'm dreaming, right?

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I was listening to some radio show or other today when someone asked why people who come to America from elsewhere don't let go of their country of origin, or at least put them on a par. It was something about a new car with California plates and a Mexican flag- not Mexican and American flags, just Mexico, and, well, America is the land where the driver earned the kind of living that blah blah blah. I realized that the host could just as well have been talking about me.

What? No, I'm not from Mexico. And I don't drive around with a flag from my native country on the back window (for the record, that would be an American flag, anyway). But I do retain an illogical relationship with my former residence.

I live in L.A. I'm a Philadelphia sports fan.

There really is no logical reason to retain sports loyalties- after all, I don't live in the Delaware Valley anymore and I won't be moving back. And it's not like the Philly teams did anything for ME. But there I was Monday, agonizing over the Eagles' lack of offense as they embarrassed themselves in the opener at the Linc (where I will likely never see a game, by the way). Why? Why can't I just switch to L.A. teams, like a friend of mine did when he solemnly informed me that he would henceforth be rooting against my Phillies for the wild card- he ditched his Mets and is now a Dodger fan?

I can't do that.

I guess it's the emotional investment. You put in years and years and you experience things, lows like years of mediocrity and worse, Mitch Williams throwing a hanging slider to Joe Carter and Rich Kotite being Rich Kotite, the highs of the 1980 Philies and 1983 Sixers, the decades of Harry Kalas- "that ball is OUTA HERRRRE, home run MIchael Jack Schmidt"- and Whitey and Merrill Reese on the radio and the plastic-n-urine ambiance of The Vet and the third level of the Spectrum with the sweet smell of illicit substances wafting over the Sixers and Pistons in some meaningless early season game 25 years ago. You don't throw that away, especially for the hated L.A. teams. You chant "BEAT L.A.!" for 30 years, you don't suddenly become a Laker fan.

There's no football here, either. (USC doesn't count.)

So I guess that's why I haven't joined the dark side. It's not nationalism, it's not an irrational love of the Mother Country. It's just that I've gone this far with the Phils and Iggles and Sixers and Flyers, and I'm in too deep to change course now. Oh, I'll go to Dodger and Laker and King and Angel and Duck games, but, when it comes down to it, I don't care whether they win or lose. My heart's still at Broad and Pattison 3,000 miles northeast.

I know, it's stupid. I'm a sports fan. Stupid is what we do best.

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Tom McClintock isn't getting the message.

He refuses to leave the gubernatorial race despite every sign that he a) has no chance, and b) will, by his ballot presence, ensure the election of his polar opposite. This is what he's managing to ignore:

-The pleas of his fellow Republicans.
-The sentiment of the general electorate.
-The polls.
-The talk show hosts.
-EVERYBODY ON EARTH.

OK, there's an exception to the last one. For some reason, about 12 percent of voters are sticking with Tom, and I've heard them flooding radio talk show phone lines, repeating their mantras: Tom's the only true Republican, Tom is more Republican than Arnold, Tom has a plan, Tom can win.

Those are, respectively, probably true, probably true, probably true, patently false.

Someday, maybe, McClintock can win statewide office. He's certainly smart enough, dedicated enough, good enough. But he's not yet well-known enough, and, on top of that, he's a social conservative in a state where that's increasingly a losing position. He's not going to win this race. And everybody HAS to know that.

So who are these people sticking with him? Who's still aboard this Titanic?

There are certain people who would rather be, in their own minds, right than successful. That would be a laudable position IF IT MADE ANY SENSE. If you don't win, you don't get to effect change, you are IRRELEVANT. "Right"? No, you're not right. You're a loser. Worse, if your insistence on ideological purity allows a far worse candidate to win, you're beyond a loser, you're complicit in the winner's misdeeds. If you insist you'd rather vote for McClintock than Arnold because of the latter's suspect credentials, you're ensuring that Bustamante will be given the reins and you're ensuring every tax hike and social reengineering program Bustamante wants will be passed. You're the same as the Greens who voted for Nader- smug in your self-righteousness, but just as much to blame for the guy who got in as someone who actually voted for him.

If you're one of those people, and you're sincere that you don't want Bustmante to win, you need deprogramming. Here's what you need to do- put down the Kool-Aid. Put it down. Back away slowly. There- wasn't so hard, was it? Now, you're going to have to put the sanctimony in the closet for a few weeks, OK? You can get it back October 8, I promise. Just put it away.

Please. Do not stick us with Cruz Bustamante. If you do, and he does what's on his agenda, you will regret it. Just put down the Kool-Aid. It's full of carbs, anyway.

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I could go on at length about today's anniversary- I may still- but I doubt I could nail it as perfectly as Lileks did today. Go, read this. Sample:

I’ve no doubt that if Seattle or Boston or Manhattan goes up in a bright white flash there will be those who blame it all on Bush. We squandered the world’s good will. We threw away the opportunity to atone, and lashed out. Really? You want to see lashing out? Imagine Kabul and Mecca and Baghdad and Tehran on 9/14 crowned with mushroom clouds: that’s lashing out. Imagine the President in the National Cathedral castigating Islam instead of sitting next to an Imam who's giving a homily. Mosques burned, oil fields occupied, smart bombs slamming into Syrian palaces. We could have gone full Roman on anyone we wanted, but we didn’t. And we won’t.

And then there's the last part, where his description of a widow's world is one of the clearest, starkest descriptions of life going on after tragedy that you will ever encounter.

Go! Read it.

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"Evil" has a definition. You can read it here.

I raise this point because I heard some radio hosts say an astonishingly stupid thing today. They were discussing, naturally, the anniversary of the attacks when one of the trio said something to the effect that "you know, Bush shouldn't have called bin Laden evil."

What?

He said Bush shouldn't have called bin Laden evil.

Oh.

Why?

Well, you see, evil's such a judgement, and it's kinda, you know, religious and it conjures up a big room with a conference table with Satan sitting there and bin Laden nearby in the corner or something.

One of his co-hosts said that's exactly what she thought it was like. The other co-host agreed with the first guy, that "evil" was an unnecessary adjective.

The most frightening thing that's occured in the wake of 9/11 hasn't been more terrorist attacks, and it hasn't been war. They're terrifying enough, but what's most shocking is how so many people are unwilling to say that the terrorists were evil, that there even IS evil in the world. It's a remnant of public education of the 60's and later, when you went from being taught good from bad, right from wrong to "nothing is black and white, everything's in shades of grey." Nothing is purely evil, nothing is purely good, ergo there IS no evil and is no good. (There were exceptions- Hitler, of course, and Nixon. But not Stalin- he was very good to the working people he didn't have murdered) Generations have grown up thinking there is no such thing as easily identifiable evil- "evil" is what the preacher rails against on Sunday morning. "Eeeeeeeevull." That's not a concept for us modern secular free-thinkers.

But not believing that there is evil leads to blindness- they see murder and oppression and look for excuses; they see self-defense and call it murder, or morally equivalent to murder. They see an underdog and assume it's always right, while the big guy's always wrong, and therefore nothing the underdog does- murder, subjugation of women, exploitation of children, teaching lies and hatred to children- is "evil." That's such an outmoded, old-fashioned, religious concept.

Which brings us back to the threesome on the radio this lunchtime. "Evil" is an uncool old people's word to them, and unnecessarily provocative to boot. Better we just call them terrorists... no, that's judgemental, too. Militants. That's better.

And that's how you turn into the BBC or Reuters.

But these weren't newspeople. They were just "wacky" radio "personalities" thrust into the ill-fitting role of news analysis on a day when "wacky" wasn't appropriate. But they're just echoing the kind of thing their friends say, the media says, even some Democratic presidential candidates say. Can't call bin Laden, or Saddam, or Usay and Qusay, or the Saudis or the mullahs or anyone evil. (Except Bush and the Jews... er, Israelis) Gotta look at all sides of an issue. Can't just say something's wrong. Gotta investigate the root causes. Maybe they have a reason.

They murder children.

There is no reason for that.

That's evil.

Simple.

If you can't see that, brother, then you just can't see.

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Having a wonderful time. Wish you were here.

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That white fountain-type thing across the 405- you can barely make it out, but it's in front of the white building on top of the hill- is Al Jolson's grave.

Nobody knows who he was anymore. But you can't miss his grave- he made sure of it. "The Jazz Singer" is a trivia question, the blackface thing a distant embarrassment, "Mammy" forgotten, not even played on "adult standards" stations. Once, he was world-famous enough to afford this tribute to himself; now, nothing. Such is fame. I'll guess that Johnny Cash will last a while, John Ritter less so. It doesn't matter what you do or how great you are. Someday, you're gonna hafta go, and when you do, the statute of limitations runs on your celebrity. Eventually, you're Al Jolson, so you might as well build a monument to yourself.

Incidentally, the cemetery- Hillside- sits on the edge of Culver City. It was the cemetery where Jewish celebrities were buried for decades, because they weren't welcome in some other celebrity post-death hangouts. In the 60's, they bulldozed a freeway right past its gates, and, now, the old peekaboo ocean view's blocked by buildings and the freeway. Not great for mourners, but Al's not complaining.

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Amazing.

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Okay.

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It dawned on me as we shopped for cat food today that our daughter... er, cat, Ella the World's Most Famous Cat truly hit the jackpot when she was adopted by us.

That's not self-aggrandizement. It's merely a statement of fact. Think about it from a kitten's perspective- you want a comfortable home, unlimited food, a warm place to sleep, and people who will be at your beck and call whenever you want them to feed you or pet you or play with you. Who better than a reasonably affluent childless couple exiting youth with a desperate need to nurture and dote on somebody, anybody, something?

That would be us.

She didn't know it at first. When we were at the adoption place in Long Beach and they took her out of her carrier- "what about that one, is it up for adoption?," I asked, and it turned out she was- and handed her to Fran, then me, she curled up on our respective chests, and when I held her and looked down at her nestled on my U. of Miami sweatshirt looking up at me with big yellow eyes, I thought it was love. I later realized her reaction was sheer terror, but by then I'd already written the check, signed the papers, filled a cart with food and toys and beds and scratching surfaces and everything she could need. And after a week's worth of break-in, including a few days when she disappeared and we finally discovered she'd found a hiding space under the dishwasher, she started to grow accustomed to our faces, and the bounty we provided her every day.

Cushy life, courtesy Fran and Perry, the Official Support Crew for Ella the World's Most Famous Cat.

So I never get out of PetSmart without a cartful of stuff for Ella. Three flavors of Fancy Feast, several cans of each. Big bag o' Science Diet dry food. Five- FIVE!- flavors of Whisker Lickins crunchy treats. The huge ultra-economy size of litter. She's set for a while with everything she needs. And she knows it. She knows because she's learned that when she's hungry- that would be about 3 am- she merely needs to wake me up to get food. This is accomplished in several ways, like licking my lips until I spring into the bolt upright position, or jumping on and off the bed until I stir, or her favorite move, just sitting behind Fran and... staring. Staring at me. I know she does it, because any time I begin to regain consciousness in the middle of the night, and I look through bleary eyes at my wife slumbering away, Ella's always there, a silhouetted cat head against the moonlight, staring, staring lasers through me until the alarm goes off at 5 and- joy!- the sardines, shrimp and crab in aspic will appear, along with some Science Diet dry food, some crunchy munchies, fresh water. And the rest of the day is filled with sleep and playing fetch with little foam soccer balls and sleep and making noises at the squirrels and sleep and more crunchy treats and sleep, all the way to midnight, which is when she likes to run back and forth all over the house at high speed.

Life is good for Ella the World's Most Famous Cat, no doubt about it. And that's why it appears to me she's won the cat equivalent of the lottery, or even better. Free food, room and board for life, slave labor to bring you treats and dispose of your waste and clean you and even pet you and play ball with you. You win the Powerball, you have to PAY for someone to pet you. Hourly rates. Ella gets it all for free, in perpetuity, no taxes.

And she gets us, and we get her. She wins the lottery. And when we saw her one sunny February Saturday afternoon in Long Beach, we did, too.

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So, this is how it ends.

Oh, I know, there are 14 games left, but it's over. I know it's over because I'm a Philadelphia sports fan and we always declare a season over at the first sign of trouble. Losing the first two games of the regular season- that's a sign. Losing both at HOME- that's a BIG sign. McNabb looking clueless and helpless as receivers roam wide open downfield and he throws to the guys in the other uniforms? Massive sign.

Forget the injuries and leave the pep talk at home. It's all over. Nothing to do but wait for the Flyers and Sixers to fire it up, or to fret over the Phillies as they head into their critical series against Florida. Football? Over.

Until they reel off three in a row. That's when I'll have to root around in the dresser drawer for that lifetime pass for the bandwagon.

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It's been a long time since I've lived anyplace where the weather is anything more than an every-few-years topic, like when El Nino hits. Oh, sure, we have the "marine layer," but that's almost every night and it's no calamity- a little fog, that's it.

Hurricane? What's that?

Of course, I know what a hurricane is. I got to see what a 'cane can do first hand after Andrew, when Fran and I drove around Cutler Ridge and Kendall and pointed out what wasn't there anymore- one of Fran's old college-era houses, gone, flattened; a restaurant along U.S 1 we'd enjoyed when we started dating, vanished; strip malls and housing developments and drug stores, all gone, replaced by trailers or the beginning of new construction or nothing at all, waiting for the insurance money to finally come in so the owners could rebuild, this time with better roofs and maybe cement or cinder blocks instead of wood and shingles. Andrew ripped right through southern Dade, swept through like a John Deere and left a tangle of wood and metal and leaves and dazed, newly possession-free people sifting through what had been their homes until, while cowering in a closet listening to Bryan Norcross tell them what to do, the house shook and the noise like a bullet train rushed around their ears and the structure began to disintegrate around them.

That was Andrew. Hugo did that to the Carolinas. There have been others, but more false alarms than anything else, which is why I expect plenty of thrill seekers to be sticking it out in the Outer Banks and Virginia Beach and the Eastern Shore, holding impromptu Hurricane Parties and maybe even taking the surfboard out for some real West Coast-style wave riding as Isabel approaches. And there's some romance in that image, the rebel humans challenging nature- we're RIGHT HERE, we ain't goin' anywhere, damn it, we're gonna ride it out, this ain't so bad, not with a cooler full of MGD and batteries in the boom box.

And most of the time, it isn't so bad. We tend to overreact to weather emergencies, like when L.A. television news goes into STORM WATCH 2003 mode over a slight mist in Alhambra. The blizzard that will paralyze the Delaware Valley turns out to be a couple of inches that melt off the Blue Route within 12 hours, the tornadoes bearing down on Kansas City make a left turn somewhere before Independence and never make it downtown, the heat wave breaks, the below-zero cold warms up. We live through it with central heating and air conditioning and weather stripping and rock salt and whatever Lowe's or Home Depot throw in the bins you pass while queued up to pay.

But sometimes, there's nothing you can do. You can prepare all you want for hurricanes and earthquakes and tornadoes, you can have emergency provisions and an evacuation plan and everything figured out to the last detail, but if the weather's gonna get you, it's gonna get you. It's gonna wash your house away, suck your car off the road, rip a crack down the middle of your foundation, and there's nothing you can do to stop it. We like to think we have control over these things, and we laugh at those who are victimized- poor guy, but what was he thinking living out there and not taping his windows and...

...and we know, deep down, that we're powerless. It's the same feeling you get when you hear about terrorism- hey, I wouldn't get on a bus in Jerusalem! I would have tackled the hijacker! I would have... You wouldn't have done anything of the sort, because this stuff happens and you can't prepare, you can't plan, you can't avoid it. If fate is gonna put you in harm's way, you can't do much about it.

Man, that's grim. Sorry.

So for those of you staring down the barrel of Isabel, I wish you all the luck in the world, I really do, and I urge you to take any precautions you can- board up, tape up, move stuff to high ground. But most important, get the hell out of there before the storm hits. Bring the cooler and the boom box with you. You can't control the weather, but you can at least try to get out of the way. That beats earthquakes by a mile.

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It's been a long day with a lot of work- just finished some consulting work, just broke the story of Art Bell returning to the air with a weekend show (which George Noory should be announcing any minute now), and I'm done for the day, so this has to be short. Sorry. My mind's even more shot than usual, so I can't help it.

In fact, all I can mention right now is how explosive the Phillies were today. THAT was great.

Talk to you tomorrow.

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Short note about local radio: the other day, when the Ninth Circuit panel stopped the recall election, I wanted to hear someone talk about it on the radio. I spent a good hour bouncing from station to station to hear what was going on.

You know where this is going.

Couldn't find it. Zero local talk about the recall. Syndication everywhere, with some of the hosts flying blind without any real details about the case, others completely ignoring it.

I'm not disgusted and I don't blame the program directors, some of whom I know and I respect as people who get it. They don't have the resources, they're committed to running syndication because corporate pressures demand it, it's easy to get caught short in cases like this. No, I'm just disappointed as a listener. I wanted to hear more about a fairly major story. Didn't get it. It's like going to a store to buy something and finding they're all out of the one you want. Sorry, sir, we're fresh out of news today, try again later.

Again, I understand why this situation has to be. I'm just disappointed. It happens.

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How can I be expected to take much more of this?

One day, the Phillies destroy Florida with their bats AND pitching. The next day, I have to watch them get hammered. One day, they cut the Marlins' lead to a half game; the next, they give a game back.

I'm getting motion sickness. At least the season's almost over.

And, oh, yeah, go Tigers. Eight losses in the last 11 games and we have a new winner... er, loser, all-time. We know you guys can do it.

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The Mercedes- brand new, and not the little low-end one, either- was erratically driving up Hawthorne in front of me, and I noticed that the driver was a) young, probably no more than 25, and b) smoking.

If you're 25 in 2003 and you smoke, sorry, dude, you're a moron. No excuse.

But he's clearly more than just affluent. Brand new 'Cedes. Brand new big-ass 'Cedes, sixty grand 'Cedes. He's rich.

And stupid.

And I think I'm smart.

And I am not rich.

Maybe the definitions of "smart" and "stupid" need revision.

Seriously, I wonder sometimes. I have fancy advanced degrees- a J.D., even- from good east coast schools, I spout off on political and cultural affairs as if I know what I'm talking about, I maintain the veneer of an educated adult, yet I cringe every month when the mortgage comes due. Mercedes Boy isn't bright enough to know smoking's bad for you, and he's cruising in a car I'll only drive if I work as a valet parker. Who's the moron?

I'm sure you can come up with your own examples- actors, politicians, radio general managers, Presidents of the United States, all people who quite frankly come off as dropouts from Apex Tech or the trucking schools advertised on UHF during daytime "Hogan's Heroes" reruns. Some are both dumb AND evil, too. They're not just gainfully employed but held up as successes. And some of them get to boss around, and sometimes fire, people like me. Once again, who's the moron?

I do have some perspective on this, of course- I'd be diving off the cliffs down the street head first if I didn't. I know not to measure my worth by what someone else is doing. I remind myself that I manage to make a good living doing something I like from the comfort of my home, that I've had substantial success and a great life so far.

But no Mercedes. I suppose I'm too smart for that.

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Do you think that in his later years, when he was through with show biz and leaning back thinking about the old days, Sheb Wooley thought, "you know, that 'Purple People Eater,' there's something I can really be proud of"?

I do. And it was.

Yeah, it was a stupid novelty song. Yeah, it wasn't even funny back then. Yeah, it's pretty much forgotten nowadays. But it's the same thing you can tell someone who disrespects any one-hit wonder:

How many hits have YOU had?

Sheb Wooley had a bunch of country hits and "Ben Colder" novelty records, he acted in several movies ("High Noon"!) and TV shows, wrote the "Hee-Haw" theme. All you know, all anyone remembers is "Purple People Eater."

One big hit that made a lot of people happy.

Not a bad legacy.

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A wise man- hi, Dad- once told me that the key to getting elected to high office is simple. "If you're a decent-looking guy with an inoffensive name, you're more than halfway there."

Welcome to the Presidential race, Gen. Wesley Clark.

He's presentable enough. "Clark" is inoffensive. And he's a general. Jackpot! Except that nobody's quite sure what he stands FOR, just that he's against the Iraq war. What would he have done? Unclear. What would he do for the economy? No comment. There's plenty of time to figure that out, right?

Right. Except that this guy's being mobbed by supporters. And people are dropping everything to go to Arkansas a