May 2005 Archives

Got back late from the ballpark- the game's still on, extra innings, bottom of the 10th. I left in the 8th, pulled into the driveway just as the Cubs scored in the top of the 10th. Because I'm running late/behind, here's today's edition of "The Letter from All Access News-Talk-Sports," in case you didn't get it (for the uninitiated, it's the weekly newsletter/plugfest that promotes my other columns while serving as a sort of radio consultant's notes/humor column):

Hey, You!:

Stop hyperventilating. The apocalypse is not upon us, no matter HOW it seems.

Let's take the signs of doom one at a time, shall we?:

1. Yes, a ringtone is the number one chart-topping song in the UK. Yes, it's a lame ringtone, too, the "Axel F Theme" from "Beverly Hills Cop" set to a disco thump and topped with a chipmunk-like "crazy frog" voice. It's a novelty. It'll go away. Remember a few years ago when they went wild for the "Ham(p)ster Dance"? You don't hear that much anymore, do you? (Another way to look at it is this: music isn't the same dominant entertainment medium in a young person's life as it was when we were kids. Nowadays, video games and text messaging and cell phones are the biggest things, so why not a ringtone? If only it was a better ringtone....)

2. It is true that at a showing of "The Longest Yard" at the Regal Stadium 13 theater complex in my area, the audience reserved its most rousing ovation for the brief screen appearances of Rob Schneider, both in a trailer for "Deuce Bigalow, Eurpoean Gigolo" (which, by the way, appears to be exactly the same movie as the original- nice to see Hollywood in environmentally-conscious recycling mode) and in his extremely brief cameos near the end of the movie. However, it should be pointed out that... er... okay, there's NO excuse for that, but consider for a moment what kind of person would willingly pay to see an Adam Sandler remake of "The Longest Yard." (We were there, of course, for purely observational purposes, an anthropological field trip, y'see, and... fine, it was overcast and we were bored. Happy now?) Granted, that's a lot of people, but I prefer to look at the bright side- more people saw "Revenge of the Sith" and "Madagascar" this weekend. Is that a bright side?

3. Indeed, Paris Hilton has reportedly gotten engaged to a guy also named Paris. This actually has several positive aspects to it: it at least temporarily prevents anyone else from accidentally entering into a relationship with her (think of it as "containing the fire"), it provides her with a spouse whose name she can't possibly forget (can she?), and, er, I dunno. I'm aware of the downside: saturation media coverage of the wedding, a likely "Mrs. Paris" reality series, more Carl's Jr. commercials. I prefer to remain positive.

4. Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes are... ah, forget it.

So there's nothing to fear, not until maybe Ben Affleck makes another movie. And that's a clear and present danger, but it also shows you the necessity of keeping up on pop culture- it's changing so rapidly that determining what's in, what's out, and what's relevant is a full-time job. But it's worth it for a talk radio host, because it's such a fertile field for discussion. A ringtone- a bad ringtone- as a pop phenomenon? Bad remakes? The baffling popularity of Rob Schneider? Paris Hilton's marriage, burgers, and general celebrity? Not the end of the world, but when you've run out of things to say about the big news stories- or, like in this week, when the big news stories aren't really setting the phones on fire- it's nice to have that stuff available, and it's always good to sound like you know what you're talking about. If you want to attract younger listeners, you can't be talking about texting and PSPs and the new XBox and PS3 consoles as if you're someone's grandpa without a clue about these here newfangled gizmos.

(Long plug for All Access News-Talk-Sports/Talk Topics/AllAccess.com redacted)

I'll leave you now with important words from one of today's great philosophers on the topic of talking about pop culture on the radio, about which she imparts this critical advice:

"That's hot."

Words to live by. Works for her.

Me?

I worked all freakin' day. The only day of this alleged "long weekend" with any sun.

And you?

(grr)

It's been a year.

It's been a year and I still remind myself to call him at 5 pm every day. It's been a year and I still want to know if he saw the game last night, and I still think I should call him from the press box at the stadium or when I find a good burger place so I can tell him he'll have to try it next time he's out here.

But there won't be a next time. And I won't hear his voice bark "PERRY MICHAEL!" on the phone with joy every time he'd beat me to the punch and call me first. And I won't hear him dissect the Heat's offense, how he was one of the first to peg Dwyane Wade as a superstar, how Phoenix was gonna end up like the Mavericks did with Nash, running out of gas before the finish line. No more updates about his latest victory on the tennis court. No more quick meals with him at the Boca Raton Town Center food court or sandwiches at Too Jay's deli. No more "war" stories about his playing baseball in an Army league throughout Europe during the Korean War, no more reminisces about youth league basketball coaching, no more thoughtful analyses of the problems of public education. No more unconditional, overwhelming love from the guy who knew me before anyone else.

It's been a year.

Today, we'll go out and do stuff with him in mind, tennis or a book store or something, maybe get the kind of steak or burger he always loved, a piece of See's candy- dark chocolate with nuts, just as he always preferred. And I'll look around at the life I have, a privileged, good life, and I'll remember the guy to which I owe it all.

It's been a year. So much has happened since then- a blur of lawyers and accountants and bankers, sadness and joy, illness and health. Life went on. He always said it would- he assumed that you die and it's all over, no afterlife, no next thing, no nothing. I hope he's wrong and he's in that proverbial "better place." I hope he hasn't really missed a thing.

Overcast. Ran, ate, went down to Orange County, saw "Madagascar" (free tickets from Ralphs, it was OK, nothing I'd pay to see), bought a gift at Hilo Hattie, browsed at Borders, ate, browsed at Virgin, shopped some more, came home, worked a little.

The excitement is overwhelming.

Oliver Wendell Douglas is dead.

But he'll live forever.
Of course he will.

Thanks, Eddie. Send our love to Lisa, Mr. Haney, Hank Kimball, and Arnold.

Lileks seems hell-bent, for now, at least, on moving to Arizona, maybe, in a few years, possibly, to which I say go for it. Minneapolis or Phoenix? Phoenix, at least between September and April. Summers? That's what air conditioning is for.

Well, okay, while I like Arizona a lot, I like the ocean a lot more, so we ended up in California. But we felt a decade ago what Lileks is feeling now- tired of the winter, tired of the cold and the humidity and six months of gray. When the opportunity arose to go someplace warm and sunny all year round, we jumped at it. It meant leaving family, friends, everything we knew to go someplace where we didn't really know too many people, but the offer was too good and we had to do it. Haven't regretted it since- every day, we look around at the ocean and the mountains and think, yeah, this will do just fine.

One thing you lose in the move is history- you're leaving a place you know, a place where you know the stuff only the locals know, the shortcuts and the bargains and the secrets. And you're going to a place where the history's gone on without you, where it'll be a while before you're truly a local, even if everyone around you is also from someplace else. That was the case here- I'd been to L.A. a few times before moving here, but it took some time to feel like this is home. Now, it does.

So, I think a move to a warmer clime is the way to go. Worked for us. But if he's gonna move to the Valley of the Sun, he'll have to do some history homework first.

I recommend going here first. True Phoenix history.

Is it the holiday weekend yet?

I'm serious. Can I start now? Please?

I can see the finish line from here. I'm torn between sprinting towards it and crawling for lack of energy.

Right now, I'm crawling. Everything's in slow motion. Time to watch some of those "CSI:NY"s we have on the DVR. I can't handle much else at the moment.

Carrie Underwood.

We went to dinner, came back, and turned the TV on in the middle of the craptacular final episode. Naturally, we had to watch, and it ws a parade of the losers paired with people like Rascal Flatts and Kenny G (!) and Billy Preston and Babyface and the Worst Rendition of an Aerosmith Song Ever by a bunch of Idol losers with Kenny Wayne Shepherd and then Bo sang "Sweet Home Alabama" lounge-style backed by What's Left of Lynyrd Skynyrd and then, finally, they'd burned up enough time to get to the end. And Carrie won, meaning there'll be one hit single and then we can go back to ignoring all of it. Anyone heard from Fantasia Barrino lately?

"American Idol" was on while we ate dinner (New York feed, okay? Sheesh) and it was the first time I'd seen any of it since the early bad-audition weeks. I would hope that everyone is aware that the finalists suck. I mean, you HAVE to know that, right? It's obvious that Bo Bo Bo Bo Banana Nana Fo Fo Fee Fi Fo Fo Bo Bice is a cross between a Vegas hack lounge-rocker and Michael F'ing Bolton and Carrie Whatshername is a "Nashville Star" reject, isn't it? Hello?

That's the problem. Y'all can't HEAR.

Simon Cowell is too easy on these people. Hearing Bo massacre 70s horn-rock nightmare "Vehicle" (Ides of March, where are you now that we need you?) and Carrie strain to match Martina McBride on Sean Hannity's theme song, I'd have simply asked for new candidates, or I'd just tell everyone "show's over, no winner this year. Thanks for coming, drive home safely. See you in the Fall." And then I'd run like hell. Yes, I'd probably have to go into hiding, but at least it would possibly prevent the inevitable number one smash piece of crapola from being released. Does anyone really want to hear Bo Bice on the radio? Or Carrie Underwood? How many Ruben Studdard CDs have you purchased?

The consolation is that the national nightmare will soon be over. One will win tomorrow, there'll be one "hit" single, then we'll go back to the "Kelly Clarkson is the only 'Idol' with any semblance of a long-term career" days, which is fine with me. With faith, and several Newcastle Brown Ales, I can make it through.

I was all ready to get work done relatively early, write something for here, then kick back and see how Jack Bauer saves the world this year when I heard some gurgling outside.

Uh oh.

Fran's bath water was re-emerging in the alley outside my office window. I ran outside and, sure enough, we have a blockage. And it's late enough so that getting the home warranty people to track down a plumber and have them come out tonight is a problem. Oh, and the blockage effectively makes all toilets and sinks in the house unusable, unless we want everything to back up into the alley.

This is when renting is a good idea- call the landlord or the super and it's taken care of, at someone else's expense. Our landlord, on the other hand, is me. And it's my job to fix things, at my expense. This blockage is at a point where I can't get to it- it'll take the pros with their motorized pro plumbing tools to do it. In the meantime, we're kinda stuck.

Sometimes, when I'm feeling morose and missing my parents, I think about how the family safety net's gone, how I'm the last resort now, not Dad. Something happens, I have to be the adult and handle it. That's life, but I don't have to LIKE it. And the sewer line backing up, well, I don't have to like THAT, either.

Sigh.

You have to be a well-qualified, well-known person to be invited to contribute to the Huffington Blog, right?

Or you just have to have a famous father.

The "author bio" suggests that she's just a third-grade teacher in New York. Hey, ANY ol' third grade teacher can get her stuff on the Huffington Blog. Or not.

Note the sparkling wit, the exciting prose, the ear for dialogue:

At the school I teach at in the Bronx, one student who had never been to school before shouted on the first day of kindergarten, "Stop reading so loud, Teacher! I am trying to sleep!"

And while we're at it, do they have a shortage of commas in the system?:

So please preschools, teach your students to behave at age four if only to make my life easier when they're eight.

I'm looking forward to more entries from Reg'lar Folk at the Huffington Post. Does Bill Moyers have any family members available?

This week, one individual was photographed against his wishes. The result: an international uproar.

Another individual was also photographed against his wishes. The result: silence from the international community.

Saddam and me: unwilling models.

Here's what dimwitted me doesnt quite understand: Saddam was responsible for the death and torture of countless innocent people. Someone released a photo of him in his underwear. Apparently, the two offenses are morally equivalent, or at least plenty of people seem more offended by the photos than anything Saddam did as dictator. It was the same with Abu Ghraib: well, yes, the prisoners may have been murderers, but they were HUMILIATED! How BARBARIC! Release these poor oppressed solus immediately!

No, I'm not saying Lynndie et al. did the right thing, nor did I really want to see a fat hairy guy in underwear- I see that in the mirror every day. But, somehow, embarrassing pictures have become the worst thing you can do to someone. And if that's true, I have a legal claim of some sort for those publicity shots I had to get done. So do Rob Lowe, Dr. Laura, and Pamela Anderson. I'm thinking class action here.

I surprised myself the other day when watching the Sixers DVD. As I previously wrote, I was enjoying the '75-'76 highlight film, remembering what it was like to actually be at some of those games at the Spectrum all those years ago, when I remembered my kid self and what I would have thought it would be like 30 years later. Back then, I would have done anything for season tickets- I would have even been ecstatic if all games were on TV, but they weren't. And if you told me that 30 years hence, I wouldn't even WANT season tickets, I'd have called you crazy.

Here we are, 30 years down the road. I'm privileged enough that I could, if I really wanted to, spring for a pair of season tickets for the Lakers or Clippers. Maybe they'd be upstairs, but, hey, they'd be season tickets for the NBA.

And I still love watching NBA games.

And I have zero interest in buying season tickets, whatever the cost.

How did that happen?

Part of it is the basic process of aging- priorities change, you get married, you have a mortgage, you work, you realize that you don't really want to spend 41 nights at the arena when there are other, more important things to do, like, maybe, sleep. But a large part of it is just that I really don't want to donate any part of my income to the owners and players of the league, because they really don't care about me. Sure, it's entertainment, and entertainment costs, but if they offer lousy seats at exhorbitant prices, ridiculously expensive (and bad) food, outrageous parking prices, ear-splitting music... well, you get the picture. And for a lot less money, I get the League Pass on the Dish and there they are, all (okay, most) games, in my living room, where I have better and cheaper food, a better seat, free parking, control over the sound, and absolutely no guilt that I'm not watching an early season Clippers-Bobcats game although I paid for it.

Really, actually going to games is becoming an unappealing prospect. And when I get a plasma HD panel, there'll be no reason to go up to Staples Center. Or leave my house.

In fairness, the few NBA games I've attended in the past few years- strangely, they've been in Miami and Washington, not here- have been nice experiences, but I paid little or nothing for them. And if someone GIVES me tickets, I'll go to some games. But if you'd told my teenaged self that there'd come a day when I could afford season tickets and wouldn't even want them, I'd have been speechless for a month. You can go to any game you want and you don't? What is wrong with you?

With age comes wisdom, kid. Save the money, buy the HDTV. Basketball looks great in HD. And you can always turn down the volume when Stephen A. Smith comes on.

Got the official DVD history of the 76ers today, and it's interesting- typically of the NBA video productions, the set gives short shrift to the team's history before the 80's. There's the '82 Eastern finals- the "Beat L.A." game against the Celtics- and, naturally, Game Fo of the '83 finals, plus the Barkley 34 point game against the Bulls in '90 and the 2001 finals game 1 against the Lakers. And they throw in a previously released A.I. disc- yawn. The main disc, though, has the goods, the historical stuff.

That, unfortunately, is where there's not enough of the old stuff, perhaps because there isn't a lot of that stuff still around. The team history includes a stretch on the Philadelphia Warriors, who, it should be noted, are not the same team, then a blink-and-you've-missed-it Syracuse Nats segment, who, it should be noted, ARE the same team as the Sixers. There's nothing from the first season, just the "Havlicek Stole the Ball" clip you've seen before (several times on this DVD, in fact), and then a little bit- not a lot- about the legendary '66-'67 team, basically the same handful of clips repeated in several spots. There should be a whole hour on that year, but there are a couple of clips of the Eastern final against the Celtics and a few short clips from the finals against the Warriors. And then they fast forward to Dr. J and the good years.

The player profiles- labeled "The Great 76ers Players"- also display selective memory. Wilt, the Doctor, Moses, Barkley, the Answer, sure, and I always liked Mo Cheeks, too, but Darryl Dawkins, "great"? (He's the "host" of the set, so maybe that was a contractural obligation) If they're gonna put Dawkins and Cheeks in there, how about Hal Greer? Lucious Jackson and Chet Walker? Bobby and Caldwell Jones? Billy Cunningham? If you wanna include the Syracuse days, why not Dolph Schayes, who finished as player/coach in Philly?

But I realized while watching the DVD that my memories are to a great extent of that slack period, and there's one wonderful artifact, worth the price of the whole set, on there: the 1975-76 highlight film. It's a terrible print, with vertical lines abundant, soft focus and a wobbly soundtrack, but there, for the first time since I sat mid-court eleventh row at the Spectrum on a chilly winter night, were the Sixers of Coniel Norman and Harvey Catchings, Clyde Lee and Steve Mix, the hopeful days of George McGinnis and Doug Collins and the future behind the improbably-coiffed Dawkins and Lloyd Free and Kobe's daddy. There's Fred "Mad Dog" Carter getting loose against the powder blue Buffalo Braves- I might have been at that very game, come to think of it- and McGinnis getting past Cleveland in those Marquette-style Cavaliers unis. Catchings blocks John Gianelli's attempt at a hook shot, Collins forces Frazier to botch a pass to Monroe. That's Bill Campbell narrating and the big "76ers- the Team of the Year" banner at courtside, Gene Shue with improbable hair and test-pattern shirt, the Flyers' then-fresh Stanley Cup banners overhead, the embarrassingly dated bad '70's production music...

...and they were mediocre, really, a team clearly improving- after 9-73 in '72, there was nowhere else to go- but still not yet there. But that's the team I remember best, even more than the really good teams, the finalists and the '83 champion. Well, OK, I do remember '83 pretty vividly, but a lot of that blurs over the course of several years. Maybe it was the long drive with Dad down the Turnpike to the Spectrum, the red-white-and-blue star-spangled, truly '70's uniforms, the hopefulness and walking into the building with the O'Jays' "I Love Music" blasting on the PA, Dave Zinkoff barking "CUNNNNingham!" and "CarrrrTERR!" Whatever it was, it's there on the DVD, in that one segment, plus a wonderful bonus at the end, when Campbell touts the addition of four new (ABA) teams and the pending visits to the Spectrum of Julius Erving (shown being guarded by Bobby Jones, then a Denver Nugget), Artis Gilmore, and David Thompson.

I'd have liked to see more of the early days- you'd think there'd be more, considering that there's a picture of Greer on the box in that half-red '65 jersey. But I'm happy- for about 20 minutes, I was 15 again.

Late again, too late to get coherent thoughts together.

It took me an hour and a half to get from Santa Monica to home- it shouldn't be more than 45 minutes, but I was in totally immobile traffic. Of course, it was 5:00, so there's an explanation, but it also explains why I can't imagine commuting anymore. But I've whined about that before...

I gotta get my picture taken tomorrow. I'm not looking forward to it. I can't stand how I photograph, probably because I can't stand how I look, but that's a matter for years of intensive therapy. But there's a project that requires my photo, so my graven image will have to be committed to photographic form.

It's always tough, too, to decide what to wear, how to pose, all of that which might make me look like a prat. (Yes, I know, it's natural for me) When my picture was taken for a local alt-weekly last year, the sun was making me squint, so I had to put on sunglasses. And that's what ran, which got the requisite Bono references, and made me look like I was trying way too hard to look "cool." Believe me, i'm not trying to look "cool." I know I'm not cool. I revel in my uncoolness. But I still want to look reasonably presentable, and not like the dork with the cowlick and druggy expression that was in my school yearbooks.

And, no, I didn't keep those. I'd prefer to have all negatives destroyed.

Will I go with a suit or casual? Will my hair stay in place or shoot off in all directions? Will my eyes cross? Will the bags under my eyes be carry-ons or steamer trunks? All shall be revealed in due course. And when you see the finished product, be kind. I'm sensitive that way.

Long day, short post.

The last "Raymond" was OK- a reasonably amusing episode, with some personal resonance: the parts where the family was informed of Raymond's problems (and he wasn't) pretty much paralleled my situation years ago, when the doctors didn't exactly tell me how serious my illness was- they were telling my wife a much, much darker prognosis and they told me nothing. And then I turned out OK, and it was another family member who blurted out "hey, we thought we were gonna lose you there" at dinner one evening. I laughed when it happened on TV; when it happened to me, I went to another room and stared at the wall for a half hour. It's about as stunned as I have ever been.

But little harm, no foul, and I can laugh at it now. The rest of the episode was a typical "Raymond" installment, not their best but OK, one you won't mind seeing in syndication, which you will, ad nauseam, for decades. The Barones left TV fighting over food, and that's a good way to leave them. It wasn't the greatest sitcom ever, but it was usually pretty funny, and for a Jewish suburban guy from the Northeast, it was always relatable.

But it's no "Family Guy."

And now, the sitcom is once again dead, just as it was dead before "Cosby" and after "Cosby" and after "Cheers" and after "Friends" and "Frasier." Somehow, it keeps resurrecting itself. And if it can survive "According to Jim," it can survive anything.

It takes a big magazine to cause a body count.

Gotta admit, there's not a single web-only publication that can cause people to die when it makes a mistake. I guess you need a big magazine with editors and checks and balances and stuff to do that.

If I subscribed to Newsweek, now would be the time to cancel. But I haven't subscribed since I was in college. Looks like I haven't missed much.

I finally got to sit down and read for the first time in ages today. Not Net stuff, not magazines or papers, but actual books. It's been a long time since I've had the time. We'd gone and taken the new car out to Hermosa for a walk on the Strand and lunch, and after we polished off the fish tacos at Sharkeez we emerged to a thick marine layer- no sun. That chased us back to the house, where the sun WAS out but the thick air- it's hot today, and smoggy- sent me straight to the couch with some books I'd just bought.

Quick review: Rodney Rothman's "Early Bird" hit a nerve- he's the former Letterman writer who spent six months living in a retirement community in Boca (he was 28 at the time). It's funny in parts, kinda sad in others, especially since a lot of it reminded me of my Dad's last years in Boca, right down to the early bird dinner at Nestor's and the obsession with tennis. There's also something fascinating about how the retirees have their own, insular world with cliques and social stratification- retirement is like a parallel universe with its own rules and internal logic. The book is a little calculated- he takes a stab at explaining why he did it, but the best explanation appears to be "to get a book out of it"- but it's still amusing, like a funny Rough Guide to our future. If you like the David Sedaris school of bemused-outcast writing, you'll like it. I did.

Next: "Wilt 1962," which I'm halfway through- so far, really good.

My first reaction to that story in which Bill Gates said iPods can't last in the long run because everyone will be downloading music to their cell phones was to think, well, yeah, convergence is coming and all that, music and TV and radio and phones and Net, all in one device. And there WILL be convergence. I already carry a phone that does e-mail and web and can play MP3s.

But then I thought about that last part some more, and, suddenly, Gates' prediction seemed to be less solid. Here's why, in a word:

Usability.

The phone I have is about as small as you can make a device with a readable screen, and it's still bulky. I love it, but sometimes I long for a tiny, easy-to-pocket phone that doesn't make me look like I'm carrying the Encyclopaedia Britannica on my hip. And, sure, these devices WILL get smaller, but how much smaller can you make those screens if you're going to show video on them, or display full web pages, or have menus with text large enough for the average person to read? I have no doubt they CAN merge MP3 players with cell phones and computers and TVs, but just on an ergonomic level, they can't really make one device that does everything with the right form factor.

That is to say, iPods and iPod Minis are pretty much perfect form-factor music players. But they'd make lousy phones. The Treo's great for e-mail and Palm Pilot uses, a little awkward as a phone, and pretty lousy as a music player- the software, Pocket Tunes or RealPlayer, just isn't as elegant or easy as iPod's, you have to manually upload songs (onto a Secure Digital card), you need an adapter for the headphone jack to hear it in stereo, and a phone call will interrupt the music. Do we really WANT phone calls on the same device as our music? Put it this way- you can use your TV to surf the web, but nobody does. You can watch TV on your PC, but few do. (I do, but it's not something most people do) You can get e-mail on your cell phone, even a regular cell phone, but few people actually USE that function- if you're serious about mobile e-mail, you use a Treo or BlackBerry.

Look at music players in general: there are players that are cheaper and hold more than an iPod. They come in pretty colors, are made by reputable companies, and do what the iPod does, play music. But iPods sell lots more, even at much higher prices. And iPod Minis, which give you much less bang for your buck than the regular full-sized iPod or, especially, the iPod Photo, are hugely popular. This flies in the face of the thinking that people want more and more in their portable devices for less and less money. No, they want usability and they want cool. There is no more usable portable music player than the iPod- easy to navigate, well thought out, syncs in a flash, iTunes software is easy and self-explanatory. You don't really have to read the manual. Charge it up, plug it into the USB or FireWire port, fire up iTunes, set up playlists, sync, go. Readable screen, stylish appearance, reasonable size. (Oh, and they tend to work without a problem- when was the last time you could say that about anything running Windows?)

But then, they say, you can add a phone to that. And video, and Net. But you need a bigger screen for those, and a keyboard of some sort- does anyone use Graffiti anymore?- and soon, you get objects the size of Montana, or at least like those Portable Video Player deals nobody's buying. They don't comfortably fit in your pocket, but they can do everything.

"Can" does not equal "should."

So I expect the Swiss Army Phones to show up sporting Bill Gates' new portable Windows mutation, and I expect they'll be kinda cool. I might even get one. But I don't really want my music on my phone. I don't want phone calls interrupting the tunes, I don't want a music player that's too big and thick because it has to have a Net-worthy screen and a slide-out keyboard. I want a phone that works, with e-mail and Net access. I already have that. I'd rather have my music and video on separate gadgets. Convergence can wait. I don't have the pocket space for it.

Pat Buchanan's latest bomb is getting enough commentary elsewhere that a full fisking isn't necessary. In case you missed it, it's here; in a nutshell, he argues that World War II wasn't worth fighting, because it merely replaced Hitler with Stalin in Eastern Europe. The money part is this:

True, U.S. and British troops liberated France, Holland and Belgium from Nazi occupation. But before Britain declared war on Germany, France, Holland and Belgium did not need to be liberated. They were free. They were only invaded and occupied after Britain and France declared war on Germany � on behalf of Poland.

When one considers the losses suffered by Britain and France � hundreds of thousands dead, destitution, bankruptcy, the end of the empires � was World War II worth it, considering that Poland and all the other nations east of the Elbe were lost anyway?

If the objective of the West was the destruction of Nazi Germany, it was a "smashing" success. But why destroy Hitler? If to liberate Germans, it was not worth it. After all, the Germans voted Hitler in.

If it was to keep Hitler out of Western Europe, why declare war on him and draw him into Western Europe? If it was to keep Hitler out of Central and Eastern Europe, then, inevitably, Stalin would inherit Central and Eastern Europe.

Was that worth fighting a world war � with 50 million dead?

Er, dude, it's not like there was a lot of choice in the matter.

By the way, what's not mentioned in that section? What's not mentioned anywhere in the column?

Oh, right, "the Germans voted Hitler in," so that little 6-million-Jews-murdered thing was nobody else's business, I suppose. 60 years after the fact, here's a guy still playing the isolationist card, because he thinks, well, if we'd only just let Hitler kill all the Jews, we'd have been better off, because Stalin wouldn't have gotten Eastern Europe. And Hitler wouldn't have steamrolled over France, Holland and Belgium if they'd just kept to themselves.

Yes, Stalin was a genocidal maniac who crushed Eastern Europe. But letting Hitler do what he wanted wasn't an option. The existence of Stalin- a deeply evil force- does not make Hitler a more sympathetic entity.

Remind me why anyone should pay any attention to Pat Buchanan anymore. I can't think of a single reason.

You shouldn't write anything when you have nothing to say.

Er, gotta go.

Bought a car. Had no choice- Fran needed a new one, couldn't delay the inevitable any longer. We've been shopping for a little while, and after several false starts and leanings and favorites, the final choice was made, a suitable used version was found, test driven, and checked out, and we decided to go for it.

It's always a traumatic experience- you pray you're getting a deal, you do all the homework, you finally arrive at an acceptable price, you still have to contend with several layers of sales guys and a long wait to actually pay. And then you write the check and wince and they hand you the key and you get in as the owner for the first time and you think, well, okay, here goes.

And now I can get rid of all of the Used Car Guides and Blue Books and Auto Traders piling up around the house. I don't know whether I'm relieved or happy or sick to my stomach, but we got ourselves another car.

There HAS to be a better way to do this.

Why bother blogging anymore? I mean, if it's not in the Huffington Post, it doesn't matter, right?

You know, I'm all for people joining the blogosphere, but exactly why is it a good idea to give people who ALREADY HAVE A MEDIA VOICE another, er, media voice. Was Tina Brown really that in need of a place to air her views? Sen. Corzine? Rep. Markey? Julia Louis-Dreyfus and her husband? Their ghost writers?

(Yeah, I have another media voice, but it's severely restricted and I need this to wrote longer... er... and Hugh Hewitt and James Lileks have other media... er... ah, never mind, you know what I mean, dammit. I think.)

There's a place for this, of course, but it's really just replicating what's already out there in a chattier form. (Well, not always- Arthur Schlesinger Jr. appears to think he's teaching a particularly dull history class)

Best entry: Walter Cronkite writes "I'll launch my first contribution right here: Arianna, I offer this first editorial opinion that you settle for 'interesting' and recognize that it is not a synonym for 'entertaining.'"

Writing that's not entertaining! Sign me up!

(Actually, I'll give it a nice fair shot- maybe the celebs will get the hang of this. Hope so. Advice to the Huffingtonites: relax. Have- dare I say it?- fun with this. You can even do it in your pajamas. But you knew that.)

The news item on KFI was one of those things they use to fill the end of the newscast on a Sunday morning, a quick one about how experts suggest people without living mothers deal with Mother's Day. Get the whole family together, they said, and nurture each other, or something like that, help each other "get through the day."

You know, it's not much of a holiday if it's something people have to help each other "get through."

Personally, I prefer to "get through" the day by remembering my mom for the wonderful time we had together, and then moving on. Works for me.

My Mom would have been 71 today, her birthday. Or 73. Or 72 or something. We never knew for sure what her age was. She didn't want to tell us. I think she didn't want anyone to know much of anything about her; she was a Holocaust survivor, and even after decades of safety and security as a suburban New Jersey housewife and mother, she seemed to want to lay low, fearing that the German authorities might somehow find her and... and... and I'm not sure what she thought would happen, but she was worried, worried mostly that Germany would reunify and try something. The reunification happened, but they didn't try anything before she left us.

She used to amuse us with her accent, with the occasional mangling of the English language, sometimes deliberate ("Conshohocken" came out "Constipocken"- she knew how to say it, but she knew it'd get a laugh the wrong way). She spoke Yiddish to her friends on the phone, assuming my sister and I wouldn't understand it. (We did, at least enough to be dangerous) She was nervous and insecure, but, way more than that, she was loving, caring, nurturing. She loved us. We loved her back.

We still do.

Mom died in '94, way too young. Fran and I had dinner at a deli tonight, and while devouring the kishka with gravy, I thought how much she'd have loved it. I looked at the Mother's Day menu they put on all the tables, looked at the mothers and grandmothers at the tables around us, and I wished Mom was there, too. Maybe she was.

The U.S. intelligence community is monitoring what appears to be preparations by North Korea to conduct a nuclear test, a Defense Department official told CNN Friday. But the official strongly emphasized that it is unclear whether the activity is real or deceptive....

In an interview with CNN Friday, Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency, said the reports, if true, send a "very, very bad signal to our effort to roll back the North Korean program."

"I would hope that every country right now, every leader, is on the phone with Kim Jong Il, trying to convince him to restrain from going ahead with this reported nuclear testing," he said.

Yeah, hello? Kim Jong Il, please... yes, I'll hold...

Hello, Kim? Hey, good to talk to you. How are things in North Korea? Really? That's nice- hey, listen, dude, I just wanted to mention something about that thing on CNN, you know, the nuke deal. That true?

Wow. That's, er, interesting. Hey, look, man, I kinda wanted to tell you that I think- and, listen, it's just me talking, I'm just one guy, it's not official or anything like that- I think you might want to lay off that testing thing.

The nuke test. It might be better if you don't...

Dude, you don't have to shout. I... what? No, man, I'm just... look, Mohamed told me to call and...

Mohamed. Mohamed ElBaradei. From the U.N. Bald guy, glasses... Yeah, that guy... what's so funny? I don't... Kim, man, I don't think I can tell him that. He...

Hello?

The Dodger game was yet to start when the conversation turned to youth, memories of ballgames past and the sudden declaration by Denholm that he missed Wiffle Ball. "We ought to get a league together," he said, before he remembered that everybody lives a long way apart and it wouldn't work. I brightly suggested that we COULD use the parking lot if it was early enough before the game, but it just seemed like too much work and too little available time. But I DID see a rack of Wiffle Bat-and-Ball combos- you remember them, the plastic bat with the red cardboard receptacle at the end with a ball in it- the other day at Albertson's, of all places, the Torrance Albertson's, right by the service meat-and-fish counter, and I very briefly entertained the idea of buying it until remembering I have nowhere to play it- the yard's mostly pool, no big grassy areas- and nobody to play it with. And, besides, even when I was younger and thinner and more athletic, I couldn't hit the curve ball.

The curve ball, of course, is what the Wiffle is all about. You can't NOT throw a curve with a Wiffle ball. Actually, it was less a curve ball than a pitch that fluttered briefly, then dropped straight down- you had to take a couple of gallops forward and swwwwwwING! into it and it would fly a few feet, wobble, and drop like a rock, whereupon a "fielder" would pick it up and try to wing it to first, only it would wobble and drop again, and, well, that's why the whole Wiffle thing is a bad idea- the same properties that make the ball do tricks when pitched plague the hitter when he hits the ball and fielders when they try to throw it.

But it was fun. Oh, lord, it was fun. Pointless, frustrating fun. And it struck me that there was one place I'd love to play Wiffle ball- right on the field at Dodger Stadium. Would that not be a trip and a half? Granted, you wouldn't need to use much of the field- a small square in front of home plate would do it- but standing at the plate with a (plastic) bat looking out at That Field and waiting for the pitch- here it comes- two gallops and swwwwwwING! and it's a screaming line dr... no, it's a dying quail, and then the comedy begins, but that would be SO cool.

It'll never happen, but I can dream. And in the meantime, I can always play this.

Nancy Bea was hanging out tonight, chatting with the radio network guys in the back row while waiting for her turn to play. She doesn't get to play until late in the game, but when she does, suddenly, it's like old times.

Nancy Bea plays the organ at Dodger Stadium, of course, but she has to wait while they play prerecorded music for the first six or so innings, and there's something wrong about that. I understand the desire to be relevant to a young audience, but baseball isn't the 50 Cent version of "Disco Inferno" (tonight's "winner" of the nightly fan applause vote for song of the evening). Baseball is Jane Jarvis at the Shea Stadium Hammond Organ, Paul Richardson at Connie Mack or the Vet, Nancy Faust at Comiskey and Nancy Bea Hefley at Dodger Stadium. It's cheesy versions of old pop hits, traditional ditties like the Mexican Hat Dance, DAH-duh-duh-DAH up to the Charge! call. It's not the cacophony of pop music and hip-hop and rock cranked through a stadium PA until ears bleed.

The Dodgers do realize this to some extent- they've turned the volume down- but when you're in the ballpark, you don't want or need music from 2005. Sometimes you need it to be 1963. You need Nancy Bea.

Day off from this. Can't get mind in gear. Sorry.

Newspaper circulation, early results:

Los Angeles: Times down a lot
Baltimore: Sun down a lot
San Diego: U-T down a lot
Orange County: Register down a lot
Newark: Star-Ledger down
Buffalo: News down
Orlando: Sentinel down a lot
Cleveland: Plain Dealer down a lot
Columbus: Dispatch down a lot
Dayton: Daily News down
Toledo: Blade down
Portland: Oregonian down
Eugene: R-G down

What do all of these papers have in common?

They're all monopolies. Sure, they have suburban competition in some cases, but they're the only full-market dailies in their cities. And they're all down, in some cases by a lot.

How do you LOSE readers with NO competition?

In the New York Dead Tree Times today, an article covered the print industry's efforts to convince everyone it has a future. The magazine industry's spending $40 million over three years to get advertisers to stop bailing. The newspaper folks have hired an agency to convince everyone they're hip and cool and not at all old-farty.

And then they run Blondie and Gasoline Alley and other comics by dead people because the seniors will complain if they put in something more daring and contemporary. And they have crotchety old guys write sports columns and rock reviews and op-ed columns. And some, like the L.A. Times, persist in believing that they should emphasize news readers SHOULD care about rather than what they DO care about- international-only above the fold, maybe one mayor's race story below, the rest of the A section 100% international and national news, local an afterthought.

And even all of this isn't the primary reason they can't win. You know what the problem is: the Net. And radio. And TV. It's been building for decades, but now that you can get text and video and audio of news on an immediate basis, how can a newspaper written last night and printed early in the morning be relevant? What in the L.A. Times and Daily Breeze on my driveway at 7 am isn't stale and useless by the time I drag my ass to the curb and pick it up?

But you knew all that. And you know the arguments: we need papers, for the news gathering and the organization. Bloggers would be nowhere without them. Yes, yes, yes. But you can't escape the fact that even papers with NO PRINT COMPETITION are losing readers, and most are clueless about how to fix it.

I pay a lot of money to subscribe to the papers. I really can't tell you why it's necessary- I get everything in them online, hours and even a full day before the paper gets to my office. Habit? Probably. Will I eventually drop the subscription? Maybe. Do I have the answer for the papers' management? No, but that's not my job. I'm a consumer, and I'll get my news elsewhere. I already do. I wouldn't be investing in newspaper publishing right now. I don't even know why I invest in a copy of the daily paper.

You know, work has now pretty much taken over Sundays as well as Monday through Friday and part of Saturday. I wonder what'll happen when the last parts of the week fill up with writing. Will the work just overlap on itself? Will I then implode?

Should be interesting...

*************

A brief note about the difference between talk radio stations before I try to wring a few minutes of relaxation out of this weekend:

While listening to our local liberal talker, I heard promos telling me that, because I am of a different political bent, I am, according to Janeane Garofalo, "dumb, or cruel." Similar sentiments came forth from Mike Malloy. I have no problem with their making those statements on their shows- they're entitled to think that, and definitely to say that. But if the station's promoting itself with clips like that, they're telling me I'm an idiot and not welcome. Even the most right-wing of right-wing stations doesn't run promos telling liberals they're stupid and the station is not for them.

Funny thing is, some of the stuff on that station is completely palatable to even those who disagree with the political sentiments. They have several hosts now- a couple of syndicated shows, a local weekend show- who have proven themselves on stations where they were among the few left-leaning voices in otherwise conservative lineups. But I guess the station doesn't want me- I'm simply not welcome if I don't agree that the President is an evil chimp, I suppose.

Of course, I don't think the station wants to drive me or anyone else away. I just wonder if they realize that promos emphasizing how "dumb, or cruel" I am have that effect.

*************

The Regular Guys, who appear to have alienated no less than Atlanta sportswriting legend Furman Bisher (!) by their very existence, return to 96 Rock in Atlanta Monday morning. Listen.