« December 2005 | Main | February 2006 »

January 2006 Archives

January 1, 2006

HABIT FORMING

Two days left in my holiday lull and I get hit with a meme.

Damn.

Frank tagged me with the "my 5 weird habits" meme, in which I am supposed to come up with said habits and tag five other bloggers, too. I came up dry, so I asked Fran what my weird habits are.

"You leave floss on the floor," she noted; why, yes, I do, but not on purpose. I use those Reach plastic floss things, and when I discard them I flip them towards the trash can in the bathroom. Sometimes I miss. Sorry. Weird? Not really, just careless. But we can put that into the "maybe" category.

"Your office is a pig sty." Well, yes, it is, because I have stacks of paperwork and piles of computer equipment and a zillion books and no place to put them short of buying a new house, and nowhere among those piles is a cache of cash. Besides, is having a messy office a "habit"? Borderline. And it's hardly weird. Next!

Fran ran out of ideas, so I thought some more, and came up with these:

I do the dishes because I don't really trust anyone else to do as thorough a job with them, even though Fran is likewise very thorough.

I like my daily routine to follow the same pattern every day: start work at 4:30 am, be done with certain tasks at certain times, go running at the same time every day, have lunch and dinner at the same time (and be done with all eating by 7)... Is that weird? Maybe OCD, but weird?

I carry a little bottle of hand sanitizer when I go running, just in case. And when I ripped up my leg the other day, it came in handy. So there.

OK, that's five- I throw floss, I can't organize my office, I do the dishes as part of some bizarre sanitary compulsion, I'm finicky about my daily routine, and I got the Purell thing going. I could add the compulsion to check my e-mail every 10 minutes or so via the Treo, but I do get a lot of business e-mail and I see a lot of people do that.

Oh, yeah, ketchup with turkey. Sorry.

Can I go now?


  Share

January 2, 2006

CLOWNTIME IS OVER

Too much work left to get done for the beginning of the work week/year tomorrow, and not enough time, so here's a shorthand version of what's on my mind:

1. If I was the victim of someone stealing my bank information to pass fake bad checks (with someone else's name on them!), and the bank had no trouble fixing the problem, why are retailers and the Scan check-authorization system having such trouble figuring things out? And why are they demanding that I jump through more hoops to prove who I am and what the problem was than the bank did? And why did thr retailers cash the checks in the first place if the name, driver's license, and account numbers didn't match up? And if they were the stupid ones, why are they making ME fix it?

2. Those of you who watched the Rose Parade this morning should be aware that by about 12:25 pm here, the sun was out. So there.

3. You can't go into a store here without encountering a USC chotchke display. The bandwagon-jumping is in full effect. For the record, they're a terrific team, Pete Carroll's done a fine job, Reggie Bush is fabulous, and I don't care, because I didn't go to USC. I get to ride the Villanova basketball bandwagon by virtue of getting my law degree there. USC, no. No matter how good they are, they're someone else's team, so no red-and-gold attire for me on Wednesday.

4. You're an NFL team and you find yourself with Mike McMahon at quarterback, something's gone terribly wrong. You find yourself with a Detmer at quarterback, something's gone even more wrong. Play both in the same game and you're the Eagles. That's gotta hurt. On the other hand, the Falcons had Vick all the way and they ended up in the same position: sitting on their asses with a beer and the remote watching other teams make the playoffs. Moral of the story: shut the hell up, it's basketball season now.

Back to "normal" schedule tomorrow, complete with several All Access columns and an all-out shoutfest at the bank. Can't wait.


  Share

January 3, 2006

81 STUPID BOXES

Larry can't do Sudoku:

    I lost interest in this particular puzzle because I couldn't see anymore after two hours of strain. This was a relatively easy puzzle according to the star rating at the bottom and that pissed me off.

    F-ck you Sudoku!

My, my, what a temper. You'd never know it from listening to his show.

    The American economy must be going gangbusters if we can afford the luxury of another time-wasting Japanese fad on our shores.

That's the beauty of being an American- we CAN afford the luxury of another time-wasting Japanese fad.

Yes, it's a fad. Yes, everyone who's doing them now will drop it and move on to other time-wasting activities, just like they're moving on from Texas Hold-'Em. Yes, it's exceedingly pointless. But I, too, was just like Larry, frustrated and erasing entries until holes formed in the paper and cursing out the newspaper people and the editors and the Japanese (who didn't even invent the game and therefore bear no real responsibility for it).

Today, I fly through the "easy" and "medium" puzzles, take "hard" and "diabolical" Sudokus as interesting challenges, and end up staying up past my bedtime working the puzzles in "Games Magazine World of Sudoku" and "Pocket Sudoku 1" and even doing Sudoku for Palm devices on my Treo cellphone. I have spiffy mechanical pencils just for Sudoku (who needs pencils anymore for anything else?). I have made peace with Sudoku. Larry (the Japanese know him as Turtle-san) shall at some point see the light (or, as the Americans say, "get the hang of it"). As Sudoku master Ty Webb once said, "Be the Sudoku."

    I'm 1 for 6 in Sudoku so far, and that needs to change soon. This ain't gonna be my Rubik's Waterloo. I can't wait for this to be unpopular to do.

    F-ck you faddish behavior and the desire to conform!

Got something for you, Mr, Wachs- click here and don't say I never do anything for you. You're welcome.



  Share

January 4, 2006

ANOTHER PULITZER MOMENT

Before his death, the L.A. Times' David Shaw infamously ripped bloggers for being unaccountable and boasted:

    "When I or virtually any other mainstream journalist writes something, it goes through several filters before the reader sees it. At least four experienced Times editors will have examined this column, for example. They will have checked it for accuracy, fairness, grammar, taste and libel, among other things."

D'oh!

D'oh!

D'oh!

D'oh!

D'oh!

Confirmation and due diligence are apparently optional with the folks who write, edit, and print many daily newspapers.

President Dewey would agree.


  Share

ADDENDUM TO PREVIOUS POST

Paul Harris says:

    The problem is that every single one of these people blaming The Media are doing it on their radio shows, their TV newscasts, their newspaper websites, or their blogs. What they fail to acknowledge is that they are part of The Media, too.

    ...

    So am I. So is Rush. So are all the people at CNN and Fox News Channel and NPR and InstaPundit and DailyKos and The Suburban Journals and Fark -- and that woman who opened a Blogger account because she just has to share some fabulous news about her cats.

    You see, there's no membership card to join The Media. It doesn't matter whether you have a radio show that's syndicated to hundreds of stations or heard by two members of your family on a small-town college station at two in the morning. You're still in The Media. Same goes for a local cable access TV show, a free weekly neighborhood newspaper, or even a blog.

    If you publish, broadcast, or otherwise distribute content, stop referring to The Media in the third person.

    Instead, have the guts to be specific in your complaints. Don't like what some news network did, or the headline in a certain newspaper, or the wording used by a particular blogger? Then vent and rant all you like, but mention them all by name, rather than blaming The Media in general.

    This is the new paradigm, and you're part of it. Get used to it.

He's right, but the problem in the mining disaster story is that the same mainstream media that dismissed blogs and talk radio as fonts of misinformation with no checks and balances like THEY have managed to screw it up. The same folks who like to say they're better because they have editorial standards clearly don't have standards when it comes to getting a scoop. They didn't do what they say sets them apart from the blogging rabble.

Maybe they ARE no different.

So, out of curiosity, I checked the front pages to see who had the story wrong. Yes, deadlines had something to do with it, but if the presses have to roll and there's no confirmation, how can you just print a story and hope for the best? Some papers waited, some printed "still unknown" stories, and some just ran with the wrong story. I made a list, but it's a mile long- the count was 150 wrong, 53 right, a few dozen with inconclusive or early still-in-progress stories. (Some of the correct papers were in the Eastern time zone, and some of the mistaken are on Pacific time- what's THEIR excuse?) There are a lot of editors who are apparently OK with printing uncorroborated, unconfirmed stories if the deadline's approaching and there's a paper to print. Unlike the TV networks and blogs and radio, once those papers are on the trucks and headed for your driveway, it's too late, which means they have a special duty to, you know, make sure. The electronic media can immediately correct the story, the blogs can post at any moment, but a newspaper is what it is. And that's the problem- I'm not jumping up and down and pointing fingers and taunting the editors, but I AM disappointed that so many. faced with deadlines, sacrificed their stated editorial duties to get the headlines out there.


  Share

January 5, 2006

COMEDY CENTRAL'S STAND-UP COMPETITION: A PLUG

Go here and vote for Greg Behrendt, a gentleman and scholar and very funny man. (And, according to the huge ad for his new TV talk show in the TV trades this week, "INSIGHTFUL HUMOROUS PROVEN" with "Communication. Humor. Experience." He's HUMOROUS and has Humor. How can you beat THAT combination?)

OK, you can also vote for Doug Benson. But that's it.


  Share

ONE GOOD THING TODAY

First, say hello to Bevo, today's happiest potential menu item at Outback:

The number of yahoo locals running around in red and gold USC crap has been reduced to zero today.

The bandwagon's empty.

Ha.

(This can only be understood by those of us who live in Southern California and do NOT root for USC. We feel much better today)


  Share

January 6, 2006

TGI'M OUT OF THERE NOW

Late last year, I wrote at All Access about the woman who digs up the flotsam and detritus that gets tacked to the walls of places like TGI Friday's and Ruby Tuesday's and Bennigans and Houlihans and you know the places, and I mentioned how, every time I end up at the Torrance TGI Friday's, I get seated next to a rancid, used, stained, disgusting figure skate that looks like it was extracted from Ernest Borgnine's intestines.

We stopped there for a bite this evening. And at my left shoulder was...

Serves me right for going there. And I'll ask again: who would think that the ideal decor for an eating and drinking establishment would be dirty footwear?


  Share

January 7, 2006

LAZY SATURDAY

Just a couple of comments:

1. We saw "Match Point" today. You would think that Woody Allen got his Dostoyevsky out of his system with "Crimes and Misdemeanors," but no, he had to go and make the SAME MOVIE ALL OVER AGAIN, or at least the Martin Landau part, except with younger actors, a London setting, and no comic counterpoint. The main character, in case you can't quite grasp the source material, is shown early on intently reading "Crime and Punishment," then consulting a Dostoyevsky companion book, raising the question of how, having read the original, he can then proceed to... OK, we're treading in spoiler territory here. But the "Crime and Punishment" rip- again- was annoying, and, I'm sorry, but Scarlett Johansen really doesn't do much for me, especially when her character is a chain-smoking, whiny, drunk, egotistical failure that somehow has guys willing to ruin their own lives to be with her. (And the sex scenes are unconvincing- Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Johansen have zero chemistry)

Finally, Woody Allen may be the only director who thinks that straight twenty-something males are deeply into opera. Woody, dude, er, no. And while we're at it, try editing sometime- over two hours was way too long to tell this particular story.

2. The trailers had yet another movie attempting to convince the moviegoing public that Everyone's Gone Gay ("Imagine Me and You") and another The President's An Idiot movie ("American Dreamz"- see, Bush is bad, Rove is bad, "American Idol" is bad, terrorists are just cuddly comic characters, and America is the worst of all, because a rich Hollywood writer-director who's made millions from you morons thinks so and, gee, everyone else he encounters on the lot or at the Coffee Bean or the Arclight cafe thinks the same way, so it must be true). And a dire-looking Steve Martin remake of "The Pink Panther" that received zero laughs from the audience. followed by an even more dire "turn off your cell phones" spot with Steve Martin as Inspector Clouseau that elicited crickets. And they wonder why people aren't going to the movies.

3. Memo to our local Japanese restaurant: you'll get more repeat business if you even feign attentiveness to your customers. Really, if you make us feel like we're an imposition, we won't be returning. Just thought you'd want to know that.

4. Marty Mornhinweg got promoted to offensive coordinator by the Eagles with Brad Childress' departure for Minnesota. This is disturbing on so many levels I can't begin to discuss it. So I won't. Bill in Detroit asked me if we'd take Matt Millen off the Lions' hands, too. I don't think that's necessary, actually. (And you can keep Joey Harrington, too, pal)


  Share

January 8, 2006

MAKING A LIST, CHECKING IT NEVER

You saw it in the papers, or you heard it on the news: a new list of America's fattest and fittest cities says Chicago is America's fattest. Lots of surprises on the list, too. Quite provocative, and I've already heard talk radio hosts discussing it.

But none of them ask a simple question: how was the survey compiled?

    (Chicago) catapulted to the highest spot in 2006 because it has the survey's worst workout environment, said Men's Fitness editor Neal Boulton. The ranking "is not really based upon what a person does at the dinner table," Boulton said. "It's not about going around counting the number of overweight people. It's about a call of arms to mayors and governors to provide public health initiatives that will stem tide of obesity."

In other words, they kinda made it up. Oh, there are some statistics, but they threw in some whoppers that let them use the "survey" to punish politically incorrect city governments.

Now, there are things in the rankings that should raise red flags among the nation's newspaper editors and TV and radio news assignment editors. First, the moves of certain cities- L.A. from 21st to 3rd fattest, Long Beach from 20th to 7th, Philadelphia from 2nd all the way to 23rd in a single year- ought to raise red flags, because there's no way on an objective basis that swings that wild would be possible.

And a look at the methodology ought to raise more red flags. It starts out in a vaguely promising manner:

    The 50 largest U.S. cities were selected using the most recent United States Census Bureau statistics available at the time of the survey, which was conducted from August 2005 through October 2005. Cities were assessed in 17 weighted categories, using data specific to each city, except when data was available only for a metropolitan statistical area or for a state. (When no data was available, a neutral score was assigned.)

OK, where did the data come from? Let's look:

    Gyms/Sporting Goods: Composite score, equally weighing (a) total number of clubs, gyms and fitness studios ranked per 100,000 population, from YellowPages.com; and (b) total number of sporting-goods retailers ranked per 100,000 population, from YellowPages.com.

Since when is the number of sporting goods stores in a market an indicator of health? Was the Northeast suddenly less healthy when the Herman's World of Sporting Goods chain went belly-up several years ago? Did L.A. get unhealthy when Oshman's started to disappear, and did its health come back when Sportmart entered the field? Besides, anyone else notice how inaccurate the Yellow Pages listings are? My local SBC and Verizon books seem to be missing some major retail operations in every category.

    Nutrition: Composite score, equally weighing (a) average frequency of fruit and vegetable consumption (percent of people who consume five or more servings per day) in state-level data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Behavioral Risk Factors Surveillance System; and (b) total number of health-food stores ranked per 100,000 population, from YellowPages.com.

Again with the retail! We have a new Whole Foods seemingly in every town- does that make us healthier or trendier? (And how, exactly, do the CDC and Prevention surveys measure who eats five servings a day?)

And so on, through junk food (again, number of outlets per 100,000), alcohol (number of taverns per 100,000), TV watching (wouldn't this be pretty much the same nationwide? Doesn't, say, "Desperate Housewives" do the same basic share in most markets?), climate (wouldn't this be irrelevant if people can WORK OUT INDOORS?), and on and on and then you hit paydirt, the real way they ranked the cities:

    Mayor & City Leadership (new): Composite score, weighing (a) mayoral participation in, or promotion of, public fitness events; (b) position reporting to mayor responsible for antiobesity programs or citywide fitness initiatives (sometimes called "fitness czar"); (c) current citywide antiobesity or fitness initiatives; (d) mayor's personal example and exercise habits.

So a city that wastes money on a public relations campaign and a patronage job for some friend-of-the-Mayor is healthier than one that spends it on education or police. Oh, and if the mayor's out of shape, that's another demerit. (By that token, L.A. has a relatively fit Mayor and Arnold in the State House- that ought to make it a winner) And:

    Obesity-Related Legislation (new) : Points were awarded for (a) state "snack taxes;" (b) state-based nutrition and physical-activity programs; and (c) participation in the federal Steps to a Healthier U.S. program. Points were subtracted for states that have laws limiting liability for purveyors of junk food. Data reported by the Trust for America's Health.

If your city is passing punitive social-engineering legislation financially punishing you for having the occasional potato-chip craving, it's fitter. If your state quite reasonably has limited liability for snack food makers with the understanding that IF YOU EAT JUNK FOOD, YOU KNOW THE RISKS AND YOU SHOULDN'T BE ABLE TO BLAME SOMEONE ELSE FOR YOUR SPARE TIRE, your city is not fit.

So, basically, this is advocacy disguised as "research." And the editors eat it up, because, well, what's the harm? And there isn't much harm, unless you think that the news ought to be a little more, you know, factual.

But this kind of thing goes on all the time- you put out a list, and you'll be quoted in the news as if you're Gallup or Nielsen. That "Boring Institute" guy was able to con every newspaper and wire service into reporting his annual "most boring celebrity" list as if there was really an institute of scholars researching what's boring. (He's a PR guy, naturally) Mr. Blackwell made himself into a national celebrity without ever quite having to do much other than release a list every year. And then there's that "other" talk radio trade magazine that annually puts out a list of what it claims are the 100 most influential talk radio hosts in America, only you've never heard of half of them and several seem to be, well, advertisers. And it's cited uncritically in bios and articles as a major honor, and the editor/publisher is often quoted as an expert in talk radio. The basis for the list? None. It's really one guy's opinion, no voting involved. Totally subjective, and he admits it- the only qualification is that you have to, er, have a show. And that's how people with literally no ratings, no following, and no influence make the list (and some who DO have ratings and influence are missing).

That's my mistake. I really AM an expert on talk radio, and I don't get quoted much, because I don't have a list. I should make a list. One press release and I'll be in every paper in America. We should all make lists. It really IS that easy.


  Share

January 9, 2006

THE REVOLUTION STOPS HERE

For the several thousand people (it seems like that, anyway) who've asked today:

1. Yes, I did.

2. Disappointed. Mostly the same show he's been doing for the last few years with a few expletives. Nothing innovative, nothing "revolutionary." And he didn't even bring back some of the 20-year-old bits he promised he'd do again that he "couldn't do for the last ten years" because "the man" was harshing his mellow or something. Nothing insightful or all that entertaining or funny. And I know he's capable of better because I've heard him do better.

3. What you're seeing on the Net with his fans is a bunch of people convincing themselves that the money they've laid out on the equipment and subscription hasn't been wasted. And it hasn't- the music channels are good and the NFL and NBA are on there, too. And he can do better- this was only the first day, after all. Gotta give him some time to get his bearings. But you'd expect a show several months in the making to have more than eight month old Pat O'Brien tapes. Why not discuss Brad and Jennifer's breakup or Tom Cruise's couch-jumping while you're on the ancient-gossip kick?

4. If he really thinks he's not competing with his old stations anymore, why bother trying to get on the air with his replacement to "offer advice"?

5. I'll keep listening. But I expected more right out of the box. Oh, well.


  Share

January 10, 2006

ANOTHER PLACE HOLDER

Tonight was a late one, and I'm beat, so nothing this time. Maybe some thoughts about indecency, politicians, and calendars tomorrow. Maybe not. We'll see.


  Share

January 11, 2006

INDECENT? PROPOSAL.

What was I saying yesterday? Oh, yeah, indecency. You know, I've beaten this one into the ground over and over and it never changes. The one thing that's interesting is that while I've often said that indecency has no friends in Washington, it's not from a lack of trying. An example is Jeff Jarvis' attempt to get onto that "decency" panel at the Senate Commerce Committee tomorrow. He tried; no response. Meanwhile, L. Brent Bozell always makes it on there. So does Jack Valenti. But the only radio representative is from Bonneville, and they're for obvious reasons not supportive of broadcasters charged with indecency; he'll repeat the NAB's mantra about the industry's desire to cooperate with its tormentors ("please don't hit me"). Nobody will be there to tell the Senators that they're full of crap.

But the prudes always get to play. Bozell is treated like he actually represents a significant number of people instead of a handful of the lame, feeble, and repressed. Likewise, in Detroit, some clown named Bill Johnson is on the warpath against the Detroit Pistons cheerleaders' calendar, and the papers are printing articles as if it's a real protest instead of a weirdo obsessed with Howard Stern and risque catalogs and calendars. And he apparently gets called upon as an "expert" by CNN, MSNBC, and Fox instead of being ignored as the crank he is.

I think the key is to give yourself a name that sounds like it's a big group. Bozell is the "Parents Television Council," and Johnson is the "American Decency Association." Maybe Jeff should be the "American Indecency Association." The "National Council For Explicit Broadcasting." The "National Association of Penis." OK, not the last one. But if they think you have a lot of supporters, they'll listen.

Also, you have to give them money. I haven't figured out a way around that one yet.


  Share

January 12, 2006

LET'S SEE... LOCK AND LOAD? NAH. RACK AND PINION? NAH... CASH AND KARI? PERFECT

Radio news from WZZK Birmingham:

    The news release says the Cox station's new morning show, "Cash and Kari," features Keith "Cash" Connors, a veteran of nearly 20 years in the Atlanta radio market -- about half of that time as part of the "Rhubarb and Connors" morning show on Y-106 -- and most recently working with "Kelly & Alpha" on Cox sister station B-98.5. The show's other half, Kari Powell, was most recently a traffic reporter at WSB-AM and WSB-TV in Atlanta, and has been teamed with Connors previously as part of the Rhubarb and Connors show.

Cash. Kari. Cash and Kari. Cash and Carry- geddit?

Ha ha.

And that's not even the worst one I've heard.

Really, you walk into the PD's office and they tell you "look, man, your new partner's name is Kari so we're gonna call you 'Cash,' OK?" and you don't look for a new line of work, you deserve what you get, which is likely a new job and a new name every year or two. (There might be more money in it than a career in french fry distribution, actually, but you gotta weigh that against having as many names as Dr. Johnny Fever over the course of a decade)

(That's another reason I preferred working in talk radio. When I programmed talk stations, even the fake air names were real-sounding names. (OK, "Mother Love" wasn't a real-sounding name, but that was visited upon me. And Larry wasn't "Fast Larry Wax" by the time he worked with me) When I did music stations, we had the usual Chases and St. Jameses and other that-can't-be-on-your-drivers-license names that scream "radio guy." But I managed to work in radio for a long time without ever having to tell anyone they had to change their name to some pukey, goofy radio thing.

Well, there WAS the time we had the traffic reporters on New Jersey 101.5 use names like Tom Rivers (Matt Ward, still there) and Harvey Cedars and Cherry Hill and other plays on New Jersey town names, but that was Big Jay's idea, honest! Hey, WE thought it was funny....)


  Share

January 13, 2006

ENNUI ARE THE CHAMPIONS

Had a whole thing written about the James Frey affair, but then I decided I didn't care enough, plus I ended up using a laser pointer to drive Ella the World's Most Famous Cat crazy (laser pointer=best cat toy ever) and half-watching the Sixers try to get back into the game against the Celtics, and soon enough it was late and I really didn't have much else in me. Sorry.

Really, though, the laser pointer IS the greatest toy to drive cats nuts. They think the red dot is alive or something and they chase it and try to stomp on it. Ella's gonna sleep well tonight, because she's been exercising plenty.

(And memo to ESPN: you did not have to show that clip again, just because it's the Sixers and Celtics tonight. You know what I mean.)


  Share

January 14, 2006

THE BIG STORY ON ACTION NEWS TONIGHT

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's web site poses the important questions:

    Rumor had it, and now publicists deny, that Brad Pitt called ex-wife Jennifer Aniston to let her in on new love Angelina Jolie’s pregnancy. If you were Brad and Angelina, would you have warned the former Mrs. Pitt?

If you have an answer for that, you need to reevaluate the course your life is taking.


  Share

January 15, 2006

SPOIL SPORT

A half-hour into the season opener for "24," and if you're TiVoing it or waiting for the West Coast airing you won't want to be told that





















Former President Palmer and Michelle Dessler buy the farm within the first ten minutes.

On the bright side, the Idiot Daughter hasn't shown up yet. It's only a metter of time.


  Share

January 16, 2006

EARLY RETURNS ON THE BIG ANTI-VIRUS SWITCHEROO

I finally did it- after suffering through Norton Anti-Virus and the way it slooooowed my system down, I swallowed hard, crossed my fingers, uninstalled the whole mess (and, yes, it requires several rounds of uninstalling and deleting) and installed NOD32.

The initial reaction, based on a single day of use:

1. Everything is a little faster. Retrieving e-mail is a lot faster. The system isn't laboring as hard- there isn't nearly as much going on in the background.

2. Norton was supposed to automatically update every day, then they unilaterally changed it to weekly (see, my version, which came with the computer, was 2004, and they want to sell you 2006), and it wouldn't even update weekly- I was constantly having to manually update the virus definitions. NOD32 checks every hour and has already updated a couple of times.

So far, so good. I guess I'll feel that day until a virus seaks through, but so far it works. It's still amazing to me, though, how Norton went from must-have in the old Norton Utilities days to awful today.

'Course, I coulda bought a Mac.


  Share

January 20, 2006

BABY, I'M BACK

Well, so much for the "I'm going to write something every day this year" promise.

The ironman string was broken Tuesday when the ambulance came to carry me to the hospital with a torn esophagus. After an uncomfortable three days in lockdown, tethered to an IV and not allowed to eat or drink anything for much of the stay, I was released today and am grateful enough for the favor that I will not even mind the upcoming oatmeal-and-farina diet too much. (I'm lucky I like the stuff, actually)

Anyway, to those who sent along their concerns and prayers, thank you. I'm OK now, shaken but happy to be back home where I can get more TV channels and Internet access and stuff closer to the definition of "real food" than the World's Saltiest Broth (flavor undetermined) and Weird Jell-O-like Dessert (flavor undetermined) and I can take a shower. Okay, so it's not paradise, but it beats where I spent most of the week.


  Share

January 21, 2006

DEMOCRACY AND ITS CRITICS: THE MUSICAL

The L.A. Times has a commentary this morning about the final demise of the independent record store, and it's the usual boomer lament for indie stores gone away, the good old days when you'd find a pristine copy of a rare throat singing album buried in the 99 cent pile. I remember those days, too, and I have my list of record stores in which I used to root around for treasures.

The article carries the subhed "Independent record stores still offer things the Internet can't," and goes on to describe what that is:

    I am old-fashioned enough to want to get out of the house once in a while, into real three-dimensional spaces stocked with things you can see and smell and pick up and turn over to see what they look like on the other side.

    Proust had his madeleine, but nothing unlocks the seven volumes of my memory so much as handling some LP I bought when I was 13 or 14 years old. There are those of us for whom music is a fetishistic activity, in the primary meaning of fetish: "an object that is believed to have magical or spiritual powers." Can one fetishize an MP3 file? I haven't been able to yet. (You can fetishize the player, as Apple accountants can attest, but that is a different thing.)

Er, so what we're losing is the ability for some aging hipster to get a woodie over touching a record?

Yep.

And what we're ALSO losing is the attitude. Remember when you wanted to buy a record that was totally unfashionable, and fearing the wrath of the grad-student-for-life behind the counter, the sneer directed at you, the need to mutter "it's for my cousin" or some other lame, forced explanation? Remmeber when ALL the clerks at every indie record store were variations of Jack Black in the movie version of "High Fidelity"? How you felt like judgement was being cast upon you from on high, even though the clerks were really losers who wielded their eclecticism like a weapon (the only one they owned) against the oppression of bourgeois American society (that would be you)? (And isn't it interesting that the same music that was anathema to those clerks is probably prized by the same people today, albeit in that annoying combination of forced-irony and I-liked-it-all-along revisionism that rock snobs always carry?)

All of that is gone now. Now, you can buy whatever you want whenever you want it. You can hear things first, get recommendations without the supercilious attitude, buy just one song if that's all you want. And you can do that without a) leaving home, and b) filling your living quarters with stacks and shelves and crates of albums and CDs. So you can't look at the cover, feel the vinyl, flip through the little lyric booklet. I miss some of that, but when it comes down to reason, the physical manifestation of music was a waste of space. We have crates and shelves packed with our old CDs and records, and it's really for nostalgia's sake; unlike books, which to date beat any electronic replication of the reading experience for portability and clarity, music might as well be offered without packaging. The packaging may be a separate art form, but one that's outlived its usefulness, just as a beautifully designed buggy whip doesn't mean we need to preserve the buggy whip or even lament its passing from daily use.

So I, too, have fond memories of independent record stores. I even enjoy the experience at L.A.'s branch of Amoeba Records, the mega-indie that's poised to be the last one standing. But we don't NEED independent record stores anymore, and there are more good reasons for them to go away than there are for them to stick around. I'll let the L.A. Times extend the funeral if it wants, but, really, it's time to get over it and move on.

(Although without records, we wouldn't have had this)


  Share

January 22, 2006

THANK YOU, AND YOU, AND YOU, AND ESPECIALLY YOU

I guess absence makes the heart grow fonder, because my little sojourn to medical hell prompted quite a few e-mails wondering where in blazes I'd gone off to and why the columns weren't updated and why there wasn't any notice. When 911 is involved, there's no notice, and the note on the All Access columns didn't appear until the same day I got sprung, so I'm sure my absence confused everyone, but it was indeed nice to see that my absence was noticed.

Of course, no matter how many e-mails you get lamenting your unexplained absence, you get- okay, I got- a thought popping up in your head: how come there aren't more? I know they're out there- did they not miss me? Did they not care? Did they all pack up and just go look at Fark or something and forget about me? Will they be back?

Look, I never said I was stable or well-adjusted.

The paranoia subsided soon enough, and the support and prayers and well-wishes I received obliterated the resentful, sullen thoughts in short order. It's nice to know you're out there, whether or not I receive e-mails or cards or completely unsolicited, lavish gifts from every single reader. Although the gifts are nice, too.


  Share

January 23, 2006

CONSUMER UPDATE

Running through some of my recent consumer transactions:

1. Remember the Sports Chalet thing, the one where the manager of the store blew me off to help someone who walked in after me? Remember how I wrote a detailed, polite letter to the president of the company? Here's the response I got so far:

(crickets)

Until I hear from them, I would not recommend that you buy from Sports Chalet. My opinion is that they do not want your business.

2. The NBA League Pass is now sort-of-emulating the baseball online streaming thing. You have to be a subscriber to the cable/satellite package, but I am, so I dutifully signed up and entered my Dish Network information as required. The response was that the account number doesn't match with the provider. Apparently, the NBA doesn't want my business, either.

(UPDATE: I got an e-mail back asking for the information so they could fix it. Apparently, they DO want my business.)

3. A NOD32 update: so far, I'm happy. Updates frequently, sometimes more than once a day, unlike how Norton changed its policy and left most users with weekly updates, if it works. NOD32 also seems to slow the system down less than Norton, and occupies a lot less of a footprint. I may replace the Norton on Fran's computer and the McAfee on the laptop with this thing. Thumbs up so far.

4. Good deal on TDK DVD-Rs at Costco this week, if you got one of those coupon passport booklets a few weeks back: with the coupon, it's two 100-dics spindles of print-on white +Rs or -Rs for about $42. Not bad.

Enough for now- Jack Bauer's on in four minutes. Gotta go.


  Share

January 24, 2006

NITPICKIN': THE COVER OF "THE WEEK"

We get "The Week" magazine here, but Fran usually reads it, not me. It's a compendium of digested news items, meant for someone who doesn't have time to read the papers every day or plow through a zillion websites or bother with Time and Newsweek. It's not bad, actually, and they do carry opinion briefs from both sides of the aisle. I may not read it much, but I'm the guy who picks it up at the P.O. box, and I've noticed that every cover- maybe 9 out of 10- features a cartoon of President Bush looking ridiculous, a confused, moronic look on his face, struggling and weak. Today, I opened the box and found this cover:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad there. Not looking weak or confused, is he? No, he's strong, confident, a small smile on his lips, business casual, arms folded in a resolute pose, a nuclear plant under construction in the background. Unlike the Bush covers, there's no broad caricature, just a portrait that the subject could conceivably have commissioned himself.

Imagine this being 1939 and Time Magazine commissioning not the familiar scary Hitler pictures but a flattering portrait of a confident, youthful Hitler, smiling and relaxed, the Berlin skyline behind him. Or printing a good-looking, modern portrait of Osama bin Laden smiling and sporting a healthy glow in October 2001. If they use the cover to lampoon the President, as is their right, why would they depart from their standard procedure to make Ahmadinejad look not like the enemy, not like an anti-Semitic jackass and Holocaust denier, not as someone who poses a major threat to everyone, but as a confident, capable leader?

Oh, sure, I doubt Felix Dennis is an Ahmadinejad fan. But when the editors were deciding how to portray Ahmadinejad on the cover, someone decided to play it straight for once. Strange.


  Share

January 25, 2006

CLASSLESS NOTES

If you want to feel really old, take a look at your alma mater's alumni magazine. I got the Villanova Law magazine in the mail today, and while I have not had any interest in anything about that place since I escap... er, graduated, for some reason- maybe because it was slickly packaged and shrinkwrapped- I opened the magazine and turned to my class' page in the alumni notes section. It's silly for me to do that, since I only stayed in touch with a few people from law school, but I went ahead and looked. And there were two people with pictures, and they'd... um... they'd gotten a few years older. Quite a few years. Not prematurely gray or prematurely bald, just gray or bald, because it's not premature anymore.

Old guys in suits.

My age.

I'm OLD!

OH, NO!!!!

Okay, that's unfair- they're lawyers, after all, in typical official lawyerly poses. They're going to have lawyer haircuts, lawyer ties, lawyer expressions, and that'll put a few years on your photo right there. I work in unlawyerly t-shirts, my blond hair sticks up in cowlicks more appropriate for Dennis the Menace than Perry Mason, and my photo- you can go to AllAccess.com and see it there, because I'm too lazy to post it now- is generally taken in one of those pseudo-casual hey!-you-just-caught-me-in-the-middle-of-a-hearty-laugh poses, which connotes "youthful" in a way that the photos they took of us when we WERE young didn't. But my classmates look like successful gentlemen, senior partners, adults. And I still have a hard time accepting that I'm an adult, too.

"Oh, you don't have to call me MR. Simon. Mr. Simon is my father."

No, it isn't, not anymore. It's me.

Adult.

No do-overs.

Damn.

And that's the last alumni magazine I'm ever opening.


  Share

January 26, 2006

NOT TODAY

My recovery slowed a little today, maybe not related to the whole torn esophagus thing, but I was a little off this afternoon, a little achy and a little queasy. I'm OK, but I think I need some rest this evening. Sorry.

Besides, I simply MUST find out what caused Simon to stalk out of the "Idol" auditions last night.


  Share

January 27, 2006

PREVIEW OF COMING DISTRACTIONS

Coming soon to pmsimon.com:

Bill Walton and a whale!

The fantastic new game show "Porn Star Or Athlete?"

And the exclusive pmsimon.com feature "Skip Caray Through the Years":

All coming as part of the new 2006 Cavalcade of Nostalgia at pmsimon.com! Don't miss a single embarrassing moment!


  Share

THE AMERICAN BASKETBALL LEAGUE

I'm going to take some time and scan some stuff I find interesting from my collection of sports yearbooks, programs, media guides, and magazines from the 60s and 70s. Why? I don't know, it's just interesting to me. Plus this: when I Google certin stuff I remember, there never seems to be much about it on the Net. Some things are being lost because nobody's taken the time to put them on the Web- you can't find pictures or information or anything about them. Take the ABL, the first stab at a league to compete with the NBA. It's remembered, if at all, for being the refuge for Connie Hawkins when he got booted from Iowa and the NBA refused to take him (read the book "Foul" for more on that). But it was also where Bill Sharman got his coaching start, where Dick Barnett and Bill Bridges played before better-known NBA careers, and where a young rich kid and heir to a shipbuilding company in Cleveland first interfered with a coach- yes, the Cleveland Pipers were owned by a very young George Steinbrenner.

Try and find something on the ABL on the Web. There's this, and this, and that's about it.

Let's add to that. Here, from the 1962 Converse Basketball Yearbook, are six team photos from the American Basketball League:

Notable: Connie Hawkins is the lower right guy in the Pittsburgh Rens shot in the lower left, that's Harlem Globetrotters owner and ABL commissioner Abe Saperstein in the upper left of the Chicago Majors photo, and coach Sharman, Barnett, and Connie Dierking are in the Cleveland picture.

The Cleveland Pipers were the ABL champs in that 1961-62 season, but the L.A. Jets folded in January and the Washington franchise moved to Commack, Long Island in mid-season. They didn't make it through the 1962-63 season. Hawkins, of course, moved on to set the ABA on fire before finally being let into the NBA with Phoenix in '69.


  Share

FASHIONS OF THE 70'S, PART 1

Today, he's a veteran NBA GM. Back then, he was not only the coach of the ABA's Spirits of St. Louis, but a fashion plate:

It's not just the suit, it's the collar.

(From the 1975-76 Spirits of St, Louis game program)


  Share

PARC JARRY

I love this CKAC/Montreal ad from the 1974 Expos game program because it offers a ground-level view of Parc Jarry that you can't find anywhere on the Web these days. You can see exactly how small the place was- look how low the press box sat, and there was no upper deck. I remain convinced that had the team played in a larger but similar version of a little ballpark- not that semi-domed monstrosity the Big Owe, but a Parc Jarry on steroids- there might still be a Montreal Expos.

And where's Claude today? Here he is:

It's been a long time- 32 years will do that. He's been doing sports commentary for the RDS cable network and last year became Deputy Minister for Education, Leisure and Sport for the Charest administration in Quebec.


  Share

FASHIONS OF THE 70's, PART 2

Calista Flockhart dressed as Burt Reynolds or Kip from "Napoleon Dynamite" ready for a night on the town? You be the judge:

$43. for the jacket and pants.

1975 is real to me. I was there. This NEVER looked good.

(From the August 30, 1975 San Antonio Wings World Football League game program)


  Share

January 28, 2006

RADIO AND TV GALLERY, PART 1

Today, I thought I'd continue with scanning stuff that you just don't see on the Net, with a concentration on radio and TV print ads from back in the day. This may be unbelievably irrelevant and stupid to you, but I love this kind of ephemera. And it's my site, so here it is.

What I like about this ad isn't the cigar-chomping tech or the big 2-inch reels or the Phillies' 1971 schedule. No, it's all about the stop sign logo. You don't see too many examples of the stop sign logo for WPHL-TV Philadelphia, which it had, in a couple of iterations, from sign-on in 1965 to sometime in the early 70's. This was in the Phillies' game program in 1971:

WPHL has been Philadelphia's WB affiliate for years, and will be back to an independent when The CW (or whatever it ends up being called) launches in the Fall.

WOR-TV New York was a terrible independent- ancient movies and brand X syndication- except for one thing: sports. It had the Mets, Knicks, and Rangers for many years, and later the Nets and Islanders as well. When cable took the sports and the station was forced to move to New Jersey (as WWOR-TV), the programming improved and the station developed an actual news product instead of an announcer rip-and-reading headlines over a slide at the station's sign-on. In the New Jersey Nets' 1981 program, they were all about the sports:

Like WPHL, it's losing its network affiliation, in this case UPN, when The CW launches on its rival, WPIX.

While we're on New York sports, the Mets were on WNEW in 1976, when this appeared in the game program:

The Mets were all over the dial through the years, on WABC, WNBC, WJRZ, WNBC-FM, WNEW, WHN, and eventually WFAN, where they remain the station's cash cow. WNEW is now Bloomberg all-news WBBR.

In 1977, WYSP Philadelphia couldn't spell "congratulations" in the Main Point club's 14th anniversary program:

I lived literally doen the street from the Main Point, which was a somewhat twee folk club that made tentative steps into rock before it closed and became a branch of the old-style Mapes Five and Ten store. Dunno what it is now. WIOQ, then a rock station, took the occasion to advertise its folk show:

Gene Shay is still on the air at WXPN- He'll be 71 on March 4.

WMMR used the program to congrtulate itself on 9 years in the rock format:

And they're still in the format 29 years later.

Here's the WFL's Portland Storm in 1974 on KEX Portland, which is still around and a big Clear Channel talker:

...and on KPTV 12, which was then an independent and is now Portland's Fox affiliate:

More tomorrow.


  Share

January 29, 2006

PORTRAIT OF THE SCREAMING MANIAC AS A YOUNG SCREAMING MANIAC

Just one scan today: here's a familiar face at the age of 27, from the NIT game program in March 1968, Mr. Bobby Knight:

Thus began a legend. Roy Rubin, on the other hand, is best known for being the first of two coaches who piloted the '72-'73 Sixers to the Worst Record Ever. He went 4-47. Last I heard, he was working in the Miami area with at-risk kids. Knight IS an at-risk kid.

There were very few familiar names of the future playing in the NIT that year. Jo Jo White was the biggest, the Kansas guard who went on to star with the Celtics for years. Temple had John Baum and Eddie Mast, both of whom played pro ball briefly, and Don May of Dayton made it to the NBA, too. So did Notre Dame's Bob Arnzen, in both the NBA and ABA, but only for a few years. Mostly, the tournament had guys named Zopf and Culuko.

Oh, and a guard playing for Knight at Army. Some kid named Krzyzewski. I wonder whatever happened to him.


  Share

January 30, 2006

1969: LOCKED AND LOADED

Do you think that when they wrote this entry in the 1969 Cleveland Indians yearbook, they realized the impact of the fact that Sudden Sam McDowell was a "gunsmith"? Knowing what we now know about McDowell's problems at the time, having guns near him may not have been wise.

A lot has changed since then- McDowell turned his life around. But while we're at it, will ya check out that 'do and that suit? And what's with standing by a jewelry case? Was it an early attempt at showing off a star athlete's bling? Who thought this was an appropriate picture for a baseball yearbook?

As a kid, of course, it all seemed perfectly normal to me. Nowadays, kids don't buy baseball yearbooks.


  Share

January 31, 2006

BREAKING SPORTS NEWS FIRST

Celebrated Atlanta radio personality Larry Wachs pulled his groin at Atlanta Braves fantasy camp. No, not that way, although maybe back at the Best Western... um, no, erase that thought.

I talked to Larry the other day while he was preparing for the week, and we talked about the vagaries of being in our 40s and trying to compete in sports. It's really hard to do it, because no matter how good a shape you keep yourself in, parts of you will not cooperate. I could probably pick up my running pace and try a marathon or 10K, but I know that the "sproing" you'd hear for miles around would be an Achilles tendon popping at mile 5. As it is, I do run long distances, but "run" is a misnomer. Plod is more like it. As long as I keep moving and break a sweat, I'm happy. I'm not in a race, and I don't need to win.

Part of me thinks otherwise. I see the guys playing full court pickup hoops at the Y and I think back to when I used to play, and sometimes I'll go out and shoot on an empty court and think, yeah, I could fall right back into it. And then I feel a twinge in some long-forgotten muscle and I remember I've passed my sell-by date. (And there was that incident a couple of years ago when my leg gave way on the court and I thought sure that my ambulatory days were over...)

But the fantasy's there. I'll give Larry a lot of credit for getting out there and giving it a shot- and he pitched well before the muscle quit on him. Part of me wants to play basketball again, to try the L.A. Marathon or that Rock and Roll run thing at the Coliseum. But other parts are saying no, and I know who'll win that argument. Besides, playing is fun, but sitting in the stands with a cold brew and a Dodger dog has its charms, too.


  Share

About January 2006

This page contains all entries posted to PMSimon.com in January 2006. They are listed from oldest to newest.

December 2005 is the previous archive.

February 2006 is the next archive.

Many more can be found on the main index page or by looking through the archives.

Creative Commons License
This weblog is licensed under a Creative Commons License.