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This is not going to be one of those days when I have time to write one of those long columns that I usually do when I want to torture you.

Nor will it be one of those days when I write something short yet cogent and interesting.

No, this is one of those days when I had so much to do for other parties, including listening to a LOT of radio, that, well, 24 hours is not enough.

I should have more time tomorrow. Maybe not. It'll be fun to see, won't it?

Not really.

Sorry.

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"So," a friend asked me today, "can anyone beat Bush?"

It's early, I said, but so far, I don't see it, not among this crop.

"Damn," he said. "I can't stand the thought of four more years of this asshole."

Get used to it, I said. Besides, he spends like a Democrat, so you should be happy.

"I dunno, I can't stand that guy."

And there's the Democrats' problem at this stage. They aren't going to win an election on a platform of We Hate Bush. The Republicans found out in '96 how bad that kind of campaign can be. They need an issue, but, so far, they haven't found a winner. Anti-war? If the public hasn't turned 100% against our presence in Iraq by now, it ain't happening, and, besides, the anti crowd hasn't given a coherent, sensible answer as to what they'd have done differently (nobody buys the "we'd have negotiated a peace plan" idea). Economy? It's growing rapidly. "Jobless recovery"? Looks like jobs are coming back. Abortion? Still legal. Prescription drugs? Bush stole that one. Education? Same thing.

So what can they do? They need something big to change things between now and next November, but it puts them in the untenable position of rooting for really bad things to happen to America. They need an economic collapse, millions jobless. They need another attack so they can point to Bush's ineptitude. They need a disaster to befall their own country. How can you win with that?

They won't. Not at this rate, anyway. But it's early, and my friend need not despair. If he wants a president who stands for big, intrusive government and new programs and policy initiatives galore, he has one now. In that sense, he can't lose.

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This week has put my mind through the wringer.

Couldn't you tell?

We're barely past the halfway mark and I'm completely fried. It's been a combination of factors: a lot of extra work from several sources, more deadlines, and some personal matters that need long-distance attention. It's regular life, magnified, and I'm holding up, barely. Poor Fran and Ella the World's Most Famous Cat (TM) have been watching all of this, helpless, and I feel sorry for them- this can't be pretty, me frazzled and trying to do three things at once, but it's all stuff that I have to do.

Ella, for her part, knows something's off- she keeps bringing me the ball for some fetch-playing, but my reaction isn't the usual good-natured capitulation. I've been irritated, shooing her away, and she knows something's not quite right with me. Fortunately, a cat's attention span is extremely short, and she hasn't given up. And at some point, she'll be rewarded with some pretty intense petting and ball-playing. (That doesn't sound right, does it?)

The bright side is that I should return to some semblance of normal by the weekend, which I pray will include a lot of sleeping. Haven't done much of that lately, and I've been anticipating the alarm earlier than usual- I've been up and unable to go back to sleep by about 4 am every morning. So I'm a wreck.

And all of that's an excuse, I know. I haven't returned all calls, I haven't been writing what I would consider sterling prose, I haven't necessarily made the best decisions, but at least I've kinda maintained as steady a course as could be expected under the circumstances. And, yes, I am begging for everyone's forbearance while I get through all of this, and yes, I am being way too cryptic about what's been going on. Sorry, but that's the way it has to be. Someday, I'll write a book about it. I hope that book is a long, long way off.

Tomorrow: either partial recovery or more excuses. Plus, my first impressions of satellite radio. I know, you can't wait. Fine, but I have to WRITE it first.

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The other day, I watched a sporting event on TV that had everything. It was exciting, tense, thrilling. There were surprises, upsets, twist endings. The scores were close, the competition fierce.

And there were free drinks.

Yes, poker.

It was on when I was on the cross-trainer at the gym. There are four sets in the cardio room- one's on Fox, one's on ESPN, one's usually on A&E, Discovery, or ABC, and the last is usually CNN. And I'm looking at Neil Cavuto's mesmerizing hair when I catch what looks like the saddest casino in Vegas, with the most ill-clothed people ever on television- polyester and nylon, loud patterns, foam 'n' mesh trucker's caps worn not in the ironic aren't-I-clever Ashton Kutcher manner but without any conscious thought whatsoever.

I couldn't turn away.

It was Texas Hold 'Em, each new flip of the community cards making hearts stop just for a second. Huge stacks of chips. Fat guys in Hawaiian shirts, skinny Vietnamese guys in polyester Haggars, a street-talking guy in a Steve Francis jersey, the old blue one with the stripes and rockets. Thousands and millions of chips at stake on each hand. Losers bolting from the table and walking straight out the door, winners leaping in triumph or just silently pumping a fist with pride. You don't get this just anywhere. Plus, you can play even if you're fat and fifty- in fact, that's an advantage, because you're used to long periods of sitting on your flabby butt. How cool is that?

It did strike me as absurd that guys throw tons of cash on the table on what amounts to pure luck. Skill has little to do with it, other than being able to determine on the fly how much money to bet. It's like betting on a coin flip- no, worse, because a coin flip has way better odds. Why would you do it?

I don't care. It was still a lot of fun to watch. I admit I've said as recently as last week that watching poker on TV is ridiculous. Consider me converted. It's the sport of the new millenium.

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The latest addition to the Simon gadget arsenal: satellite radio. I came into possession of a Sirius receiver, the Audiovox shuttle PnP model, for testing out, and I can't really get into detail on the programming for reasons too arcane to explain here, but after playing with it for a few days, I have some initial observations, which I imagine apply to XM as well (XM, of course, is invited to supply a SkyFi for similar testing).

1. Installation is easy enough. I did it myself with relative ease. But...

2. Getting a signal indoors is a bitch and a half. Even at a window with clear southern exposure, the signal dropped out with alarming regularity. My solution involved taking the antenna across a little utility alley behind my office and nailing it to a fence facing up, then stringing the wire across the alley and through the window. So we have a thin black wire across the alley about 6 1/2 feet above the ground, which would be a problem if we were that tall, but we're not. At that location, the antenna gets a clean, uninterrupted signal most of the day- it weakens at night, though, when the marine layer rolls in.

3. Car installation's easy, too, except for one small local problem- the FM transmitter, which sends the signal through your car radio on an unoccupied channel on the FM dial, can do so on four frequencies, 88.1 through 88.7. This is fine for everyplace in the U.S. except one- here, where there's a station available on each of those channels. When the broadcast signal comes in with any kind of strength, it interferes with the satellite stream. 88.1's useless here due to the Long Beach jazz station, which overwhelms the Sirius signal. The other three have their good and bad spots, with signals coming in from San Diego, Santa Barbara, Northridge, Claremont, and even Catalina. 88.7 seems to work the best, but it's a pain.

4. Programming doesn't always matter. These things- the Sirius shuttle and, from what I've seen, the XM SkyFi- are a blast to use. Tons of channels, menus that tell you what's playing on all the channels, song titles and artists on screen, and the same clear sound everywhere (except for our hill). It's just a really cool little thing, even if it heats up a little too much with use.

I think that, so far, the best thing about having one of these, besides uninterrupted music in any format variation you'd want, is that the on-screen readout lets you know who does a song without waiting for the jock to backannounce, which, of course, they never do on broadcast radio anyway. I've been listening to the sort-of-adult-college-rock channel (indie bands, the stuff college radio played before college radio moved on to playing the same Limp Korn stuff commercial stations play), and I'm hearing some bands for the first time. It's noce to know who they are.

Second best is unique to Sirius so far, play-by-play coverage of every NBA and NHL game. It's nice to hear the Sixers broadcasts from WIP 3,000 miles away; now, if only all the feeds had consistent quality (tonight's Nets-Bucks game, picked up from WOR New York, is nearly unlistenable- there's another station interfering, probably at the source).

I haven't listened to a lot of the talk offerings- I have checked out Mike Church's uncensored show and the "Our Time" show Karen Kay and Hilarie Barsky do for CFUN Vancouver, but I've heard both several ties before. I didn't catch Pamela Anderson yet- I'm not sure I want to- and a lot of the other stuff is Brand X/small syndicator talk programming, all of which I've heard. There is the gay channel- when I checked in there, the hosts were playing Cranium on the air. Uh... OK.

So far, then, I've determined, basically, that once people get their hands on one of these, it's likely that they'll want to keep it. The price is a deterrent, though- it ain't cheap, and if you want it in more than one car (Fran has been looking at this thing with covetous eyes), it's going to set you back a lot of cash. I haven't decided whether it's worth the price, but whereas I was a decided skeptic before, I'm a lot less skeptical now that I've played around with it.

Now, if I can only figure out why the clock runs an hour later than it is.

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This is when we gloat.

It's too much of a cliche to talk about our 70-and-sunny when it's 25-and-snowing back where we used to live. It is, however, what we do, and it's partly an attempt to validate why we live in California despite quakes, fires, smog, pestilence, and the Clippers, and partly- mostly- the innate tendency of humans to enjoy misery from a safe distance. We watch the scenes from New York on TV- the local New York Johnny Mountain/Fritz Coleman equivalents working themselves into a lather over every quarter inch- and remember our days sliding around the highways and shoveling out from under and we think, man, don't miss that at all. The good times- the beauty of the countryside and even the city under its blanket of white, playing in the white stuff, the familiar crunch/squish of the snow under each bootstep- don't factor into it. We watch, we laugh, we feel somehow superior by dint of location.

Yes, it's fun to watch the snow coverage. I think that's the secret of the Weather Channel- it's like a one-stop shop for natural disaster coverage, and everyone loves natural disasters as long as they're not in our backyards. It's just how life works- we had fires for the amusement of the folks back east, and they have blizzards for us. It's nice to see that kind of reciprocity these days.

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Rained much of the day today. Didn't care.

Ate a little too much, felt a little bloated. Didn't care.

Had to work part of the day. Didn't care.

Didn't have much of anything planned. Didn't care.

Eagles won. Cared, but not too much.

16 years ago today, saw a new employee at the radio station where I was working. Went over to introduce myself, because nobody else seemed to be doing so.

16 years ago today. We're still together. She is everything to me. And that's all I care about.

Here's to 16 wonderful years, Fran. Happy anniversary-of-the-day-we-met.

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Lord, am I pathetic.

Three more columns to write tonight and I'm just sitting here frozen, zero inspiration. It's another week and change until All Access goes on holiday hiatus and I can recharge, but right now, I need a little jolt.

But you don't want to read about that. You want to read perceptive commentary and witty bon mots about things in the news and crapola like that. OK, whatever. I'll give it a shot later. Right now, I kinda gotta go. Pardon me.

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I guess I'm better than I think I am. Just cranked out three columns in rapid-fire order, and they'll do nicely, got interviewed by the L.A. Times, flipped a chicken breast off the grill squarely onto the patio floor. Thought I was in for a late one, but I got everything done in decent time. 8:39? Not too bad...

Nothing much more to write tonight, though. Amusing anecdotes? Well, I was amused that Fran was worried that I wore my Eagles jersey- #90, Corey Simon, of course- to the Y and that someone might rip it off from the locker room; I gently pointed out that a) I'm probably the only Eagles fan in the South Bay, b) it's a replica, not the $250. authentic, and c) nobody here but rabid fans knows who Corey Simon, or any other Eagle besides McNabb and maybe Duce Staley or Freddie Mitchell (UCLA product) is, so I doubt any of the countless elderly Asian gentlemen who share the locker room with me at lunch time will want to bust two locks to get at the shirt.

I didn't say it WAS amusing. I said I was amused. There's a difference.

I'm tired.

Talk to you tomorrow.

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The report cards are coming out, and by that I mean the radio report cards, the monthly radio ratings trends. Radio ratings work like this: every week, hundreds of people in a given market forget to write down what they listen to until the day it's due, Thursday, when they panic and scribble in whatever they can remember. (Ever wonder why so many promotions take place on Thursday mornings? There's your answer) The diaries are sent back to the ratings company, which sorts and records the answers and releases them in quarterly books, but also releases 3-month rolling averages called "trends." Program directors and sales managers get the numbers and pore over them, applying formulas to extract actual one-month "extrapolations."

I used to be a program director, so I used to get those report cards, which meant that every month was another month towards developing huge, gaping ulcers. The numbers would download into a computer, taking what seemed like forever, and they'd usually be followed by the excuses- the diaries dropped into East L.A., or Compton or Pacoima or some other place where we didn't have any listeners, and no diaries made it to Orange County or the Westside, where we DID have listeners. Or there weren't enough in-tab diaries for men 18-34. Why, look, the Spanish and standards stations went way up and the alternative rock station dropped- there's your proof, boss!

Every single month. My job depended on it. You can only do that for so long before you just can't take it anymore. And, one day a few years ago, fresh off another situation where I had to leave despite adequate ratings because the General Manager really wanted a "big name" programmer (who lasted 6 months), I decided that I wasn't going to take it anymore. And, about 5 years later, I've stuck to that vow.

That's not to say I don't get measured now- I do, daily, weekly, monthly, in subscriber figures and page hits and unique visitors. But the numbers are mine, not the result of other people's work or inactivity, and they've been consistently high enough that- here's a confession- I don't really look at them much anymore. How many readers do I have at All Access and here? Don't rightly know. The salespeople tell me the number's very high. 2, 5, 10, 50 thousand? Don't know. Don't care, as long as it's enough to make a living. So far, it is.

And that's a lucky situation, I know. We all get graded in one way or another our entire lives. There are exams, IQ tests, grades, finals, class rankings, SATs. We get judged on looks, personality, the kind of car we drive, the places we live, the clothes we wear. Life is competition, and I like to compete. But life is also, if we're lucky, a long competition, and having your job depend on whether numbers- numbers you're not certain are even accurate- are favorable to you in a given month, whether this month's numbers beat last month's numbers, over and over, all year, every year, until they decide you're through, well, that, in case anybody cares, is why I don't do that anymore. Every once in a while, I get the feeler, the tentative request- would I be interested in the PD job that just opened at some big radio station? And all I need to do is remember what I felt like right about now, when the L.A. ratings lurched out of the laser printer, to find the right answer.

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Not too long ago, some fellow bloggers and friends of the site did some good work I wanted to link. Naturally, in the rush of work last week and with a lot of difficult stuff to handle, I forgot. And I can't find the permalinks, either. But I know where they are, they're good, so just go there and wander around and see what they're up to:

EarthlyPassions.com

CamEdwards.com

Go.

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"So, what do you think? Do you think they'll like it?"

The woman in front of us at the Costco checkout needed validation from the clerk, a friend of hers. "It" was a toy, something crafts-oriented, I couldn't tell for sure. The clerk reassured her- yes, she nodded, they'll like it just fine. I wanted to tell her I thought they'd like the pizza in her cart better, but it wasn't my place and, besides, I don't know the kids, so I don't know if they're the kind of kids who LIKE craft kits and other "educational" toys. Maybe they are.

I wasn't a craft toy kid, but I DID like building stuff, primarily with Erector sets and Legos. Legos are still around and still popular and still expensive as hell, but they're still cool, although I never had the patience to build the scale model of the Spectrum or Willowbrook Mall or whatever else I thought would look cool in Legos. (Everything would look cool in Legos. As I said, they're cool, inherently cool) Erector sets, on the other hand, I had to look up. I haven't actually seen one since maybe the last time I played with one, when I was a small child. They do still make them, which kinda surprised me, seeing as how Erector sets are collections of YOU'LL-PUT-SOMEONE'S-EYE-OUT instant liability items. I mean, we were playing with long sharp flat metal pieces and nobody from the Consumer Product Safety Commission was trying to stop us. These things were trial lawyers' wet dreams, and not only were kids allowed to play with them, we were absolutely ENCOURAGED to do so.

And we survived, sans scars. Imagine that.

So, if it's me doing the gift buying for kids, I head straight for Home Depot- what kid wouldn't be thrilled on Christmas morning running down the stairs and diving under the tree, ripping open the gift wrapping to find a brand new circular saw or cordless power drill with the special 98 bit gift set? Throw in a propane tank and welding kit and he'll be the envy of all the neighbor kids.

This is why gift giving is never left to me.

Really, if you have to get someone a gift, there are only two ways to go- you give them a gift certificate or you ASK them what they want. How difficult is that? The lady at Costco could have saved herself the worry of whether the kids would like what she was buying if she'd just plain ASKED them what they wanted. I'm betting they wouldn't have said anything much like what they're gonna get. Why do people not ask? Why is there such an insistence on the element of surprise? I'd rather know what was coming and like it than be surprised by something I don't want.

With that in mind, here are some gift-giving tips for this holiday season:

1. He doesn't want that.
2. No, not that one, either.
3. No, no, no! What are you THINKING?
4. Look, here's a gift card. Give it to him and let HIM decide.

See? Simple.

Oh, and I like to receive cash, too. Cash is good.

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On the off chance that the pudgy guy in sweats and a baseball cap at the Y today might happen upon this page, here's a personal message to him:

Showers. Try 'em. Use soap, too. Who knows, you might like it.

Is hygiene so difficult?

Damn.

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I saw this on a wall while running yesterday:

It's still there.

I can't imagine the circumstances under which it ended up there. It's not on a route with heavy foot traffic other than joggers and power walkers. It's not near a bus stop or intersection. It's in front of an empty lot. It's pretty much the middle (or edge) of nowhere. And it wasn't thrown out of a car- it's just perched there, unbroken, full, atop the wall. So how did a bottle of expensive fragrance end up there? I got nothin'.

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I was up before seven today, feeding the cat and doing a little work before a morning run, and that's when I heard the news.

You don't start too many days like this. Not before breakfast, anyway.

The indelible images of this event: the tape of Saddam being inspected for lice, the video from the "rat hole," the celebrations in the streets of Baghdad, the sight of the Democratic candidates vomiting in fear.

Okay, the last one wasn't on TV, but you know what I mean.

I think I'm gonna shut up now, because there's nothing I'd say that you aren't thinking already. Might as well just leave it right here. Today was a good day.

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Another L.A. Times article quotes me. I'm such an expert.

If you subscribe to the Times, you can see it here. If not, maybe it'll be reprinted in other Tribune papers with free web sites.

Go ahead, read it, massage my ego.

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... is at All Access, in the News-Talk-Sports section, under "10 Questions With..."

I interviewed myself. Seemed like a good publicity thing, since it'll be up all through the holidays and into the New Year.

Took a lot out of me, though, so more here tomorrow. Until then, go here. It's got a picture and everything (but don't let that scare you off).

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It's time to head east for a few days, which means it's time to dredge up the usual mixed emotions about traveling. It's the love/hate thing- I love the change of scenery, love the chance to see my dad and his wife, love the familiar scenery of South Florida, but I'm not crazy about the part involving lugging bags through the airport, waiting for the shuttle, waiting for a rental car, driving an unfamiliar little car on I-95 in rush hour traffic, being 3,000 miles from home. I'd like to be able to spend the day in Florida and be back in my own bed in L.A. at night, but they don't beam people from place to place yet, so I'll have to make do with a hotel for a few nights.

Packing is a pain, but I think I have everything I need ready to go. Half of the weight is electronic stuff- computer, camera, cell phone, radio, cords, plugs, chargers. I managed to get some clothes in there, too, and a toothbrush and some deodorant. I'm usually an overpacker- I'll bring 10 days' worth of clothes for a 3 day trip- but I restrained myself this time. Fran's less restrained- she's prepared for any weather emergency. If it snows in Miami this weekend, she'll be ready. She's also prepared for any kind of social event- if we get an invite to dine with Gov. Jeb, she can go. I can't, unless an Eagles jersey and jeans counts as formal attire. But I think I'll be OK.

The cat knows something's up. I think she can understand us now. The other day, when we had to take her to the vet for her annual shots, she started hiding before we even woke up. She absolutely knew she was going to be in for something unpleasant. This evening, the empty suitcases were sitting in the library, and I noticed Ella had taken one of her little foam soccer balls and placed it by the luggage. Later, Fran found her sitting in one of the bags. Ella knows we're not going to be here, and she'll spend the next few days hiding from the sitter. Poor kid- she has no idea where we've gone, or if we'll ever come back. I wonder how much she knows, or whether she has any sense of elapsed time. I want to tell her we'll be back soon, we're not abandoning her, it's just like the other times when we went away for a couple of days and then came back. If she senses we're leaving, maybe she'll understand that, too.

But for now, we're heading east to the land of retirees and refugees. First stage: the flight, which is not my favorite part. But there's a bright side: the plane has TV at every seat. Five hours and change is a lot easier when there's SportsCenter for distraction.

The next dispatch, if all goes as planned, will be from South Florida. Talk to you later.

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Uneventful trip to the airport. Uneventful wait, uneventful boarding. Uneventful flight- slept through part of it, watched ESPN through the rest. Uneventful car rental, uneventful drive on the freeway. Dinner with Dad and Lana, very nice. Checked in at the hotel, collapsed into bed.

Travel takes you out of the real world. Sure, you read the newspapers- I read the L.A. Times, Long Beach Press-Telegram, Orange County Register, New York Post, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, and Miami Herald today- but that's yesterday's news. I have no idea what the news has been today other than stocks were mixed and temperatures will drop for tomorrow in South Florida. That's about it. You travel, you're out of the loop.

Sometimes, it's better to be out of the loop. In fact, for the next few days, I don't want to be anywhere NEAR the loop. Can't help myself, usually, but I can try. I think I'll start... now.

If anything happens, save it for when I get back.

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It doesn't get cold in South Florida very often, but 41 degrees and breezy qualifies as cold pretty much anywhere south of, say, Minot, so it was definitely cold this morning along the ocean walk at Deerfield Beach. Countless pedestrians bundled against the chill did their morning routine- a little breakfast with coffee and the Sun-Sentinel, then a stroll by the waves. They do this every day.

I sometimes wonder what we'll be doing if we're lucky enough to make it to "elderly." Every time we go to Florida, I see the old folks on their walks, crowding into the deli for the early bird special, driving their Caddies and Lexii 25 mph in the left lane. It's annoying to us as younger people, but I can't get too upset at them. If we get to that age, I hope that'll be us- gray-haired Perry and gray-haired Fran taking a slow walk on the beach, grousing about the wait for a corned beef on rye and a Dr. Brown's, creeping along Glades Road while the whippersnappers honk and curse behind us. We'll have earned it, just like the shivering seniors I saw this morning have earned it. So they're kinda unfriendly and set in their ways and slow. If you're lucky, that's you, a few short years from now. There are worse fates.

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54 degrees, zero percent humidity. Going down to 44 tonight. South Florida.

No. Not possible. At least we're not here on a fun 'n' sun vacation. If we were, we'd be... not pleased.

But it's OK. We're OK. Let it snow.

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Went to a hockey game. Too weird. After all, I'm in Florida. There are two NHL teams in Florida, of course, but as in Los Angeles it's surreal to walk past palm trees to a hockey game. More surreal, though, is when the weather outside is hockey-cold AND there are palm trees and pastels.

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Threat level: increased to orange.

Travel day: tomorrow.

Inconvenience anticipated: elevated.

Timing: everything.

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Orange? Yeah, it slowed down security at Fort Lauderdale- the line wound around and doubled back on itself and snaked around so that the front of the queue and the people way, way back were right next to each other on opposite sides of the rope. The line didn't move for 20 minutes, then, suddenly, a burst of activity- we went from not moving at all to ramming through the checkpoint in no time. After that, everything else was easy.

The flight back was busy but not at all full ("plenty of good seate still available"). I amused myself watching ESPNews (many repeats of the Bobby Knight-Steve Alford interview clip) and Boomerang (Looney Tunes! Ruff and freakin' Reddy! Even some ultra-obscure Paramount late 50's-early 60's schlock under the Harvey banner!) and Nickelodeon (The Fairly Odd-Parents, of course). Incident-free, on-time, no traffic- not bad for "high alert."

"High alert," the President and his minions say, means for you to go about your normal business but just keep an eye peeled for, you know, bad guys. (I'd be happy to turn in McNabb and Akers after Sunday's game, because it turned out bad, but I'm pretty sure that's not what they mean by "bad guys") That's what we did in Florida- our normal business, despite downright cold weather (it warmed up today, in honor of our leaving) and the nature of our business, which I won't go into here but will just say that it's, well, difficult. We did get to spend some quality time with family, so it was a good trip, but I kinda feel like I now need a vacation.

We spent much of our time in Boca Raton, which is as it always has been, home of a) the early bird special, b) people wearing way too much cologne, and c) the worst drivers in America. It's also the home of the worst-timed traffic lights in America- instead of facilitating smooth traffic flow, the lights are timed to stop you at every intersection. Add that to the inability of the drivers to perform simple maneuvers such as changing lanes or driving as fast as the speed limit allows (25 in a 45 zone is typical... in the left lane), and it's getting impossible to get around Boca these days.

But get around we did, and it was, on many levels, good to be back in South Florida. We still like it a lot- it's Fran's former home, we still have friends there, and it's where Dad is, all good things, of course. But California's still home, and it feels good to be back, good to know we'll be in our own bed tonight, good to see Ella the World's Most Famous Cat, good to stop moving for a little bit. Normal returns tomorrow.

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On the plane ride back home, I perused a competing talk radio trade magazine and realized that it had never- not once- mentioned me. I have friends who write for that publication and they'd never mentioned me. As far as that thing is concerned, I don't exist.

This shouldn't bother me. I know I've established a name for myself in the business, and I know that a significant number of the movers and shakers of talk radio are well acquainted with me, so it really doesn't matter that a magazine with a fraction of the circulation of my own column has neatly edited me out of the picture. But it does bother me.

It's about ego, I know, but it's also a matter of career considerations. There's a book a friend sent me called "Brag!: The Art of Tooting Your Own Horn Without Blowing it," and it's all about the fact that if you don't tell people about the wondrous things you've done, nobody will know and you won't go as far as you can in your career. This tends to conflict with my natural reticence to reveal a whole lot of details about myself- yes, I know I write a LOT about myself, but not a lot about my career. And according to this book, that's a major problem.

That, in part, is why I finally interviewed myself for the All Access "10 Questions" column- I got tired of people not knowing what I've done, and of people taking credit for things I did. So it's up there for all to see. I'm not sure it's enough, however. This bragging thing can get addictive. Getting attention for yourself can get addictive. I used to cringe when my name appeared in print; now, I want to be in every paper, every day. There are a couple of ways to accomplish that, but the easiest will get you a lethal injection in most states. But I think that, at long last, it's time to get noticed.

That's where you come in. Feel free to drop my name into conversations. "Hey, have you checked out pmsimon.com, Perry Michael Simon's daily net column and pseudo-blog? You really should"- that'll work fine. Memorize it. And when YOU get interviewed, dropping my name will work wonders for me: "Of course, the greatest mind in the history of talk radio is Perry Michael Simon." Try saying it with a straight face- works better that way. Best of all, if you're a panelist at a radio convention sponsored by a competing magazine, by all means mention me as many times as possible. I'm not above bribery to accomplish this. You mention me (positive comments only!) at the R&R or Talkers shows, with the editors of said publications present, and I'll buy you lunch.

Hope you like pizza.

Really, this is long overdue. I want recognition, and I want it now. Together, we can make 2004 the Year of Me. Do it for world peace, for America, for... me. I'm worth it.

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The mad cow story hit the wires earlier today. Guess what I'm having for dinner?

The incubation period for mad cow's 7 to 40 years. Check back with me then.

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It's raining and cold in L.A. right now, and there's nowhere to go and nothing to do, not to mention that TV is all-Christmas specials and "very special episodes," with nary a basketball game or other sporting diversion on offer. Such is Christmas eve when you don't celebrate Christmas- like any other night, except more boring.

But don't let me bring you down, man.

Here's hoping you get what you want and deserve this year. Merry Christmas, and you can have my share of the egg nog. The stuff's just gross to me.

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Every time the wind picks up, we lose power.

It's windy tonight. The power's out.

I think I'll just sit here and imagine what I'd be doing if the lights worked. Probably nothing, just like now.

Merry Christmas.

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The Marmalade Cafe was crowded with families tonight. A lot of them were multi-generational- the parents, their adult kids, the grandkids, all together for the holidays. I watched some of them and I wondered what they were thinking.

People spend their entire lives looking for their parents' approval. You always wonder what your father thinks, or would think, about what you do, how you turned out. Does the burly older guy over there think his thirty-something son with the mullet turned out the way he expected? Does the mulleted guy wish his father approved of his career choices, his marriage, his life? What kind of conversations do they have, or does dad hold it back, loving his son but, still, somewhat disappointed with the result yet not wanting to let on what he thinks?

I don't have kids, so I can't know what a father feels when he sees his children succeed and fail, turn out better than/same as/less than expected, thrill and disappoint. As a son, I know that I want my father to be proud of me, and while he says he is, I know that my career path wasn't exactly what he expected. I'm never exactly sure that he, or anyone else, is clear on what I do for a living, but that's my fault- nobody sits around thinking that they want their kid to do whatever it is I've done, even though I've been a success at it (success at what? My point exactly). Whatever's happened, I hope I've done Dad proud. I've tried to be the very best lawyer-turned-radio-executive-turned-programmer-turned-consultant-turned-writer I can be.

That's the kind of thought most sons and daughters have at some point, even if they don't particularly even like their parents. The sense of being judged is inescapable. It shouldn't be so important- you can't live your life according to someone else's standards- but it is and you do. In a normal case, it's just something that resides in the back of your mind. In some cases, it's positive- you remember lessons learned from your parents and apply them in a constructive manner (basically, my situation, even if mom and dad didn't think they were raising a guy who'd end up making a living in the creative field). In extreme cases, it's debilitating, making the child unable to make a move without being paralyzed by "what would my parents think?"

But it's always there. And it was there at dinner, at the big table where an extended family laughed and jostled and passed the dinner rolls, at the table where crew-cut-grandpa and ruddy, conservative dad and mulleted, hulking son/grandson shared stories, at every table with every family together for their once-a-year holiday reunions. Dad looks at son, son looks at dad, son wonders if he's made dad proud, dad thinks... and what he thinks defines their relationship. That's how it will always be, even when the parents are long gone and the children are grown- parents always looking over your shoulder, you're looking over your kids' shoulders, circle of life and all that.

And if I'm a psychiatrist, I leave my business card on every table in every restaurant during the holidays. From these meals, impressive therapy bills are made.

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George Steinbrenner fainted today at Otto Graham's funeral. The Boss and I now have something in common. No, I didn't faint at Otto Graham's funeral. I wasn't invited.

But I did faint in a notable place. It was about 30 years ago (30 years already!), and we were in Venezuela, of all places. I remember riding a bus into Caracas, looking at teenage boys in ill-fitting uniforms toting rifles at the top of hillsides along the route. I remember being ushered into the birthplace of Simon Bolivar, father of the country. I remember it was hot, the air was thin, the courtyard was spinning, and...

plunk

...I remember being assisted to my feet, and I remember that somehow a glass of Long Island Iced Tea materialized and several Venezuelan gentlemen were smiling and insisting I take a sip. And for the rest of the