Due to scheduling difficulties, here's an extended commercial break:
From 1970, a PSA, a WRC-TV/Washington Christmas cartoon, and a political spot for Sen. Albert Gore (the dad, with his son, in uniform):
Bambergers! Pathmark! Channel 10 Philadelphia, with Deborah Knapp! 1981!:
Child World! Two Guys (Naturally)! Mays! The Ronco Record Vacuum! Control Data Institute!:
We'll be back to our feature presentation shortly.
Randomness:
1. I had to run out to the stores again today, this time Lowe's and CVS, and once again there were no crowds. No traffic, no parking problems, no long queues at the registers. No busier than a typical Sunday. Maybe people are waiting.
2. I'm not a big U2 fan, nor a Springsteen fan, nor a Patti Smith fan. But seeing them on stage at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame concert on HBO tonight was pretty cool. So were Ozzy and Ray Davies and Lou Reed and even Jagger doing "Gimme Shelter." But there's only so much U2 one can take before it all starts to sound alike, and they got a huge amount of screen time, prompting a channel change.
3. On-side kick attempt on the opening kickoff? Seriously? Come on. Geez. He's just ASKING for it now.
OK, I got nothin' else.
What's the Internet without reliance on anecdotal evidence? Here's some more: This is not a good time for retail. I'm basing that on our sojourn to the mall today. We had to return something at Kohl's, stopped by Howard's new Torrance store, and went to Old Navy and Target. I know, it's hardly designer shopping, but bear with me here.
Kohl's on a sale day is usually a nightmare; the Torrance store has one set of registers for two floors, and they set up a queue that on a day like today would normally stretch about halfway around the first floor track. Today, it was about half that, maybe less. The returns line was about 10 deep and took about 5 minutes to get through. Next door, the Howard's had some good deals on flat-screen TVs; I was tempted by a 19 inch Toshiba, which was in ample supply in a stack in the middle of the store. There were few customers, though.
I needed jeans and Old Navy had them at half price, so we headed to Del Amo mall. I assumed the mall would be packed, but there was plenty of parking, and I've seen longer lines at the checkout on non-sale days. We were in and out of there in no time. The mall was busy but no more so than on a typical Saturday.
But surely Target would be packed, right? After all, like Wal-Mart, that's where consumers are headed in this economy. You'd think that. But the aisles weren't crowded, and when we were ready to check out, the line was... nonexistent. No line. In fact, there were three wide-open, empty lanes, and three checkers beckoning us to come through. No crowds.
And, come to think of it, our brief run to the stores on Friday had no crowds, either; a quick purchase at a clothing store required no wait at all.
Judging from all that, this is not going to be a happy season for retailers. There just aren't the kind of crowds you'd expect from the opening weekend of the holiday sales season. But there weren't too many great bargains, either. This just seems like an off year all around. Hey, that's as fact-based as any other data you'll see about this weekend.
The second day of Thanksgiving caloric indulgence was uneventful, still flavorful, and filling. It started in a weird fashion, though, because in the process of being awakened repeatedly by Ella the World's Most Famous Cat, I had dreams. And, in an unusual twist for me, I remembered them, mostly, once I was awake.
I'll spare you the details. The TV Guide capsule descriptions are like this:
1. I'm in some retail establishment, and I'm preparing to start my day on a new job. I can't find a locker into which to put my street clothes after changing into my uniform, and I'm running late. Suddenly, I remember that I'm supposed to be working at All Access, I hadn't told anyone, and I needed to get back to the office ASAP before... (cat headbutts me, I wake up)
2. I'm on a bus headed on to the USC campus, which looks nothing like the actual USC campus. I'm trying out for the USC football team, and I've somehow made it onto the squad. I think, hey, this is strange, I'm way too old, old enough to be the father of the rest of the squad. I'm herded with the rest of the players on the bus into a room where Pete Carroll is talking to us and telling us to drink some sort of blue liquid which I recognize as a truth serum. I surreptitiously pour it on the floor, but then Carroll tells us all to pour it on the floor, which confuses me, so I... (cat taps me on the back, I wake up)
I can do some amateur dream analysis on these, mostly involving insecurities and low self-esteem, but it doesn't answer the question: USC? Pete Carroll? Really? What brought THAT up? I haven't given USC even a fleeting thought since they got their second loss and pretty much dropped out of the BCS picture. I'd be less confused if it was the Temple or Villanova teams. And, besides, I've never played more than touch football in real life; I never even considered going out for football, mostly because I suck at it -- can't throw worth a damn, can't run very fast or with power, can't catch, not big enough for the line, not quick enough for the secondary. Baseball, basketball, sure, but not football. But I suspect that football has nothing to do with it.
Or maybe it's just a dream, no significance, no window on the subconscious. Whatever. I'm just surprised I remember these, because I almost NEVER remember my dreams, let alone two on the same night. We'll see if it happens again. Maybe this time the stories will be more entertaining.
Too much food. Too much bad football. We're left collapsed on the sofa watching old "NCIS" episodes and digesting turkey, mashed potatoes, string bean casserole, sweet potato pie... so good going down, so disturbing sitting in one's stomach. Seems like a mistake now, but I'd do it again in a heartbeat.
So, apropos of nothing, here's a YouTube video courtesy retunerman, and it's one with the amusingly dated opening credits of a long-forgotten British TV show:
"The Sullivan Brothers" lasted for a couple of seasons in 1964-65, produced by ATV London. The concept was that there were four brothers, all lawyers, one a blind barrister, the rest solicitors, who worked together on cases. It's one of those shows that isn't even found with great detail in most TV directories; only the most obsessive websites have much about it. The star was Hugh Manning, who went on to greater notoriety as the vicar on long-running soap "Emmerdale Farm"; here's the obituary, from 2004. There's no reason to post this here, no reason for me to know any of this, but it appears that my lot in life is to know and impart a lot of useless information, so my curse is your shared burden.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Well, then, I've made it to the holiday and I'm still in front of the computer. This has to stop. I know that the last couple of weeks have been light here, and I imagine it'll continue to be light through the next several weeks, because it's been busy, it'll be busier coming up (including the sheer agony of my annual solo run handling ALL of the news column at All Access), and all the work and assorted other concerns are sucking the creativity right out of me.
But I have no plans to abandon ship here. In fact, the scanner is beckoning, so there might just be some more lurches down Memory Lane in the offing. But right now, I have to keep it short, for my own sanity. If you're in the U.S., have a great holiday. I'll be back here tomorrow, probably after a lot of turkey and football. Hope you have the same.
We're almost at the end of the short week, and it feels like suspended animation. I'm working, but it's hard to concentrate. Time's moving slowly. I'm writing without comprehending much of what's being typed. Minds are elsewhere.
That's to be expected. A three-day week isn't going to be conducive to much other than planning out the Big Day, by which I mean procurement of the provisions. Turkey - check. String beans, mushroom soup, crunchy onion things - check. Sweet potatoes, pie crust - check. Mashed potatoes - check. Looks like we have everything we need. Add football on TV and the holiday's a go.
But it's a whole two days before the holiday, and there are other things to do, like, oh, I don't know, working. That means stringing coherent thoughts together and committing them to print, or the site, or whatever the hell it is that I do with the stuff I write in order to get paid. As previous abbreviated posts indicate, I've found myself with no time and no inspiration. Maybe the food will help. It's only a couple of days away.
No time, no cogent thoughts, no desire. No post tonight. Sorry again.
I was watching the Eagles-Bears game and I saw this, and it registered like this:
1. The Bears' uniform doesn't have a brown wedge in the back, does it?
2. That's not part of the uniform.
3. I just saw Devin Hester's naked ass, didn't I?
Can't unsee it, either. I'll let you go to the link to see a still if you must. At least it wasn't the Adam Lambert show on Channel 7.
Yeah, I know. I was out much of Friday, and got back very, very late. So here's this week's All Access newsletter, on a one- or two-day delay. At least I got it done:
We're going to have to get used to the occasional bout of air traffic delays like we had this week, and it's all because of "fix on fail." Surely, you're familiar with the concept being practiced by the FAA: Don't spend on maintenance and redundant systems, just wait until something breaks and fix it then. It's a way to delay spending the inevitable piles of cash to keep things going, but it leaves everyone in the lurch for a while when things go wrong. And they do go wrong.
Of course, radio's had the "fix on fail" mentality for years. A lot of stations have always practiced engineering "fix on fail" -- the flux capacitor breaks down and there's no spare veeblefetzer on hand, so the engineers have to rig something up with Juicy Fruit and alligator clips until the replacement comes in. But programming was a little different, because everyone had a bench and a farm system. Someone abruptly leaves, or gets fired, or dematerializes? No problem; you moved the overnight guy up at least temporarily and you found yourself a talent in short order.
That's changed. Now, a program director is faced with a sudden opening, and it's a scramble. There's no overnight guy; that's on satellite. And the farm system's a little depleted, because they're doing satellite, too. Where do you turn?
The short term is actually getting easier. Sure, you can throw something up from a vast array of syndication. You can also find several talents with ISDN setups to do a show remotely. But if there's not much of a farm system, it may seem like there's nowhere to turn if you want to have a local host in that slot.
And that's why programmers need to develop their own farm systems. PDs should be developing their own sources of talent, because nobody else is going to help anymore. You need to know what's out there, and that means networking yourself locally with anyone who can possibly do a talk show and working with them so that if the time comes, they're ready.
And by "anyone," I mean that you should be talking not just to out-of-work talkers and hosts from other markets, although that's important, too. You should find out who's podcasting in your area, listen, get in touch, critique. You should be talking to civic leaders and politicians and listening for the handful who have strong opinions, big mouths, and minds of their own. You should be acquainted with the disaffected and disenfranchised from other media, like reporters and columnists from the local paper or the news staff at the TV stations. And you should get to know the best music station talent, because, as we saw last week at the Talk Show Boot Camp, some of those people may be thinking ahead to their next move in radio. Look where you wouldn't normally look. Look beyond your e-mail inbox.
But above all, do it now. Don't wait. Don't "fix on fail." Be ready with an idea of who you'd like to bring in, before you need to do it. Maintenance will be cheaper and better in the long run than emergency repairs.
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Speaking of advance preparation, that's what you do if you host or produce a show every day, and there's lots of help to do just that at Talk Topics, All Access News-Talk-Sports' very own show prep column that you all use every day so I don't have to promote it anymore, right? Right? Oh, okay, if you haven't been there this week, you should go RIGHT NOW for stuff to talk about on that radio thing, including the value of fat, the futility of Black Friday sales, the 50th anniversary of a dud (the Edsel) and a hit (Rocky and Bullwinkle!), how much a Senate vote costs, why a couple got arrested for not tipping their wait staff after a bad meal, the mammogram and pap smear controversies, a spray to, um, prevent men from, heh, you know, being too quick on the draw, the continuing war between banks and their customers, the dangers of "Redneck Flamethrowers," how movie popcorn is VERY BAD FOR YOU and could practically RISE UP from the bucket and KILL YOU so you should NEVER EAT IT AGAIN, a skeleton in a Members Only jacket, Taylor Swift greeting cards, and lots and lots on the SWINE FLU!!! and the economy and jobs and all that.
What else? How about "10 Questions With..." WTKS (Real Radio 104.1)/Orlando midday guy Buckethead, a music station jock who made the transition to talk, plus the rest of All Access with all the news and charts and ratings and other resources upon which you've come to rely, now with forums so you your own bad self can opine on all matters radio and music. Go, look, enjoy, participate. It's free.
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We'll take a break next week for Thanksgiving, so, if you're in the U.S., have a great holiday and I'll be back in two weeks with the last Letter of 2009. I hope to make it a good one. It better be. I have two weeks to come up with maerial.
Man, I really thought I'd get the column done early this week. I kinda have the topic and where I want to go with it. But I just spent hours staring at the screen. The trouble is that I don't have a good opening. Without that, the rest just doesn't fall into...
...aah, it's another excuse, but I'm tired. I'll get to it tomorrow. Probably.
Aah, this week's shot. I'm not gonna get anything coherent written. No time.
Column tomorrow if I can get it together. More brief, useless blather if I don't.
I suppose I should mention how the Atlanta trip went. It was fine. I got some quality time with the Regular Guys, enjoyed the local cuisine (Chick-Fil-A, Varasano's pizza), and had some nice moments on two panels at the Talk Show Boot Camp. All good.
I'd not been in Atlanta for 10 years, and there's been a lot more development since then. The stretch of Peachtree running through Buckhead has more tall buildings, the Perimeter area is under perpetual development, and there are just a lot of people there, all of whom had to get through security at Hartsfield Airport when I showed up. There are a lot of obvious northern transplants there, plus the confluence of the Black South and the Redneck South. Of course, it's been like this for decades, but it just seems more so now. It's the New South, but larger. The New New South.
It was a good trip, though. I can tell it's a good trip when I get that feeling that I like being right there, right then. I had several moments like that this time: lunches and dinner with friends, running through Dunwoody, driving around and looking at the bustle of Buckhead. I still wanted to get home to Fran and the cat and California, but I had a lot of "it's nice to be here" moments. Can't ask for much more than that from a business trip.
Lord, do I suck. Ran out of time again. Thought I might, because I was coming back from a travel weekend and had a lot of catching up to do. Not caught up yet, though.
And I was thrown by Ken Ober's passing. I worked with Ken twice, and he was a good guy. 52... way too young. I'll tell the dog story (it's brief) if I have time tomorrow.
I know I should be posting my thoughts about Atlanta and the Talk Show Boot Camp, but I was flying all day on a crowded, unpleasant Delta Airlines flight and I just want to sleep. Maybe if someone was paying me for it, but... no.
Thoughts on radio, the New New South, and pizza coming soon.
Long day, too late. Maybe more tomorrow if I have time. Maybe not. We'll see.
This week's All Access newsletter was dashed off in the food court of an Atlanta shopping mall... and reads like that:
This week, I'm at the Talk Show Boot Camp in Atlanta, and while I'm here, I took the occasion to visit a show that I used to have on my station in L.A. a long, long time ago, the Regular Guys. Larry and Eric did a talk show back then, refugees from music radio, and now they, and their expanded roster, do a morning show on a music station. But it's still a talk show; they play no music other than as part of the conversation, they talk about politics as well as talking about other stuff and doing bits, they take phone calls... it's a talk show. And so are countless other morning shows on music stations. They're talk shows, even if there's an occasional song in the mix.
That's something to remember when people define "talk radio" as "older guys talking politics," and it's something to counter the assertion that talk aimed at people other than the stereotypical talk radio audience -- older males -- can't possibly work. It does work. It's already working. If it's a top 40 morning guy talking about the Kardashians, it's still talk radio. If it's an urban jock taking advice calls about relationships, that's still talk radio. Sports radio is talk radio. It's not conservative or liberal talk, but it's talk.
But then you get people pointing at failures like "Free FM" and saying that it's incontrovertible proof that nontraditional "lifestyle" talk (I hate that term; maybe we can come up with a better one) can't work as a format. There ARE success stories out there, but you get people assuming that because David Lee Roth didn't make it, the "format" is dead. I still think that there's a huge underserved audience for talk that isn't about politics all the time, that's not locker-room all the time either, that talks about the kind of stuff people, you know, talk about in real life. Morning shows are often like that. That's not to say that you want "morning shows all day," but there's going to be a need for more spoken-word radio as music stations deal with increased competition and royalties, and there's room for more than just political talk.
And maybe previous attempts have been of, shall we say, variable quality, but I still have faith that someone somewhere someday will take another shot and get it right. There's nothing wrong with traditional talk -- the more, the better -- but there's a big audience out there that's not presently listening to talk radio. Let's serve them, too.
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I'm way past deadline this week because I'm in Atlanta for Talk Show Boot Camp, so I'm going to dispense with the usual detailed plug for All Access News-Talk-Sports and Talk Topics and I'll just tell you to go there. So go there. And stop by "10 Questions With..." Randall Bloomquist, who's launching his Talk Frontier Media company, and check out the rest of All Access with the usual industry-leading news and music charts and columns, all free.
By the way, if you're in Atlanta for this thing, and if you're in need of some hope for the future, just walk about a mile north of the hotel and look for a small art gallery on the right-hand side. Around the corner, across the street from the Wal-Mart, there's a small log cabin, and on the wall are these words: "EVERYTHING WILL BE OK." I'll take that as a good sign.
It would have helped a lot had the Wi-Fi advertised by Delta Airlines been available on my flight today. A LOT. The ads flashed on the seat-back monitor screen, offering a free trial and everything, but our flight didn't have it. My plan was to write the Topics column on the plane so I'd have time to settle in and write the Letter column in the afternoon, once I arrived at the hotel. That... didn't happen.
So I spent most of the afternoon in the hotel room, writing. I'm off for dinner, then... well, sleep would be nice. I have no idea when I'll get to the Letter. Or if. Travel remains problematic.
Sorry, I have to skip a day here. Too much work, too much to do before heading to Talk Show Boot Camp later this week. Besides, I have nothing much to say tonight, anyway.
Hey, maybe I'll come up with something tomorrow. That'll be a nice change.
November 9th is an interesting day for us. That was the day, four years ago, we were called into a small examination room at a breast imaging center in Torrance and a nurse practitioner looked at Fran and said "yes, it's cancer." I don't remember much of the rest, because I was busy trying not to pass out. And, just like that, we were sent on a path we were not prepared to traverse, a path that led us through hospitals and chemo wards and doctors' offices, through physical, emotional, and financial pain, and, finally....
Here. Four years later. Still here.
That is worth celebrating. After all that Fran's been through in four years, we're still here, still alive, still well and still fighting. We've had four more years of interesting experiences, time with friends and family, and, above all, love. And, this evening, sitting in Sharkeez in Hermosa, eating fish tacos and watching football, I looked across the table and fell in love with a special woman all over again, just like I have every day since I met her. I cannot imagine being more proud of anybody or anything than Fran and the way she's made it through everything that life threw at her. She's still amazing, and I'm still in awe of her.
Tonight, I got to tell her that again. That's a greater gift than I could have imagined four years and a day ago.
Because I don't really want to talk about or think the latest Eagles disaster, here instead is another website of note, an obsessive's analysis and history blog about early Hanna-Barbera cartoons. Pixie and Dixie FTW (right, Joan?).
I give up. The last couple of days of Windows 7 brought a few Blue Screens Of Utter Futility and an iTunes disaster in which the dreaded Can't Save The Library Because You Don't Have The Proper Permissions error cropped up, ate my library, lost all my podcast subscriptions, and threatened to take all my iPod Touch apps with it (and, no, it wouldn't restore any saved versions of the library, because it hadn't saved any since the Windows 7 upgrade). I keep hearing how people love this OS, but it's been trouble for me. Too bad, because it looks great and actually works better than Vista, which isn't hard, and XP, too. I like it.
But it doesn't like me. Good thing I do most of my work on the Mac now, but I had high hopes to get some more life out of the PC.
Meanwhile, we dumped Cox Cable on Thursday and went with Verizon FIOS for cable, phone, and Internet. You can find horror stories about the installation process all over Consumerist, but for us it went absolutely pain-free. We weren't down long, the tech was efficient and friendly, the work was done quickly, and the service, so far, has been excellent -- Internet speeds are faster and consistently so, the cable service has better picture quality on both SD and HD channels, a LOT of choices (including a LOT more HD on-demand), and a much better DVR GUI. This is only after a few days; one bad customer service experience and I could change my opinion, and I don't like the router much, but so far, so good.
Okay, enoigh boring tech stuff for today. Time to go have what passes for my weekend.
This week's All Access newsletter reacts to a story saying the obvious, and how it applies to the radio industry as well:
The Wall Street Journal had a story about the newspaper industry's continuing woes the other day, and the very first line said that publishers are "running out of costs to cut, and they need to show some real ad-revenue gains soon." An analyst was quoted as saying that if revenue doesn't pick up, expense cuts won't be enough to drive earnings anymore.
And it took this long for him to figure it out?
You undoubtedly recognize the situation, because radio's been "cutting costs" for a long time, and, as it is for newspapers, the cuts have propped up some companies' earnings. Newspapers are, of course, in a somewhat more dire situation from radio, because technology is fast rendering the model of printing and delivering a hard-copy product obsolete, while radio broadcasting remains a competitive -- although no longer the only, or in all ways the best -- way to deliver audio entertainment. Besides, the audience for radio is still strong and at least holding steady, unlike the circulation numbers for newspapers, the vast majority of which are losing readers (for their print version, at least) at a truly amazing rate.
Still, in a lousy economy with advertising revenue gone elsewhere (or, alarmingly, away for good), companies are shoring up their bottom lines, and trying to make their debt payments, by cutting salaries, and there aren't too many more salaries to cut. Not that this stops some managers; Everyone can cite examples of stations ruined by overzealous cuts. The bottom line is that there aren't many more cuts available. And while top management is hoping against hope that swapping debt for equity will keep the Wall Street folks from pulling the default trigger, all of this -- the "cost savings," the debt-for-equity -- is just delaying the inevitable.
The line in the article about newspapers to which the people who manage radio need to pay attention is from an analyst who warns that these companies are "cutting costs to a level that accelerates the departure of their audiences towards other outlets." Does that resemble any other situation you've seen? How about:
-Cutting out local news departments?
-Reducing or eliminating the main competitive advantage radio holds: personality?
-Putting one person in charge of too many stations to pay attention to detail at most of them?
-Programming decisions made entirely based on cost rather than quality?
I've talked here before about glitch-prone stations running on an unattended computer with nobody in charge apparently listening. I've mentioned how too many stations ignore major breaking news -- even earthquakes -- because there's nobody in the building to make the call to interrupt the infomercials. I've talked about infomercials, and the damage they do. I've been talking about that for a long, long time now, even before the economy tanked to give the bosses a convenient scapegoat for their woes. Nothing changes. Somehow, radio's survived. That's great, but the moment of truth is coming, just like the article says it's coming for newspapers. Now, they can't improve the bottom line by just cutting bodies again. They have to start to grow the business. Concentrating on what radio does well -- personality, live news coverage, live interaction, local as well as national material -- would be a good start.
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If you're going to be in Atlanta a week from now, stop by the syndication panel at the Talk Radio Boot Camp in Atlanta on November 14th, with agents Eric Weiss and Lisa Miller, syndicated host Doug Stephan, Envision Radio Networks' Danno Wolkoff, Dial Global's Jessica Sherman and Phil Tower from the Allen Hunt Show on the panel and me as moderator. We'll be talking about how to get syndicated, whether you SHOULD be syndicated, what to look out for in the process, independent syndication, and more, plus your questions. Go to talkshowbootcamp.com for more about that.
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This column started as a way to promote what we do at All Access in general and in the News-Talk-Sports section in particular. It's too late to stop that now, so just go to AllAccess.com, log in (it's free), click on Formats, then click on News-Talk-Sports, then click on Talk Topics, and that's how you can get a lot of material for your show every single day. This week, you'll find mashed potato-related violence, the cat-declawing controversy, things that are still selling in this economy, why it pays to fight certain speeding tickets, a DVD price war just in time for people to stop buying DVDs, a particularly unfortunate allergy, why increased productivity may be a bad thing, bald bears, the latest Lee Harvey Oswald news, several stories about bodily excretions, the fine print in the healthcare plan, an interesting excuse for public exposure, and many items about the SWINE FLU!!! and the economy and politics and much more, from breaking news like the shootings at Fort Hood and Orlando and sports and science and stuff. There's also "10 Questions With..." WNRP/Pensacola afternoon talker Brandon Rathert and the rest of All Access with complete industry news coverage, music charts, ratings, job listings, and forums where you can complain about me and anything else. Go take a look. Now.
Again, see you next week in Atlanta. I... what? Baseball? They played baseball this week? Gee, I hadn't noticed. Sorry, doesn't ring a bell. It's November -- that's football season. Baseball ended when the Phillies won the National League pennant.
Or so I wish. Johnny Damon stealing second and third will haunt me all winter.
Weird day. I spent all of it at home while the technician installed Verizon FIOS, except for a few minutes to return the old DVRs to Cox Cable. Work went slow, and the Fort Hood shooting story cast a pall over everything that wasn't already bummed by the Phillies' flop last night.
I'll review FIOS after I play with it a bit. First order of business is this week's column. So far, I got nothin'. Maybe tomorrow will be more hospitable to my creative abilities.
In the end, it came down to Hideki Matsui. Matsui, and Pedro Martinez unable to get his fastball over 85 mph. Matsui, and Pedro, and Charlie Manuel making more bizarre decisions. Matsui, and Pedro, and Charlie, and some of the Phillies just plain not showing up.
It sucks. It sucks more that it's the Yankees, who used the power of having unlimited funds and unmitigated arrogance. It sucks that the arrogant Yankee fans get a 27th championship. It sucks that some of the Yankees are just really, really great players.
And it's time to move on to the Eagles. They'll surely disappoint, too. It's that kind of year.
So I voted today. I have no idea whether I voted for the right people.
I did my research. I checked out all the City Council candidates. I read up on the School Board and Library Board candidates. I walked in and... well, I might as well have thrown darts, because all the candidates said practically the same thing about everything. Open space preservation? Check. Fiscal responsibility? Check. Preserving the character of the community? Check. Taxes? Everyone's for low taxes, and nobody will commit to keeping them the same or lower. And they're all Republicans -- you can't be a Democrat and win here.
Choice? Not much of one. When we walked into the polling place -- in the Salvation Army's college campus, a fairly spectacular building to which I'd never been, with a zillion-dollar Catalina/ocean view -- there were no other voters, just three forlorn poll workers, extras from "Parks and Recreation." It was more than a little glum.
I wonder if it's even a good thing to vote when there's no way to even determine who's the better candidate. What's the point? It'll all end up the same anyway; petty personal squabbling, mass confusion, higher taxes (approved by the same people who tell you as candidates that they'd NEVER do that). It felt like a waste of time.
But it was a waste of a very short time. And it IS a civic duty, I guess. I just wish I knew what the hell I was voting for.
Cliff Lee wasn't dominating. They nearly blew a big lead. But all that matters is the win, and the Phillies forced the Series back to New York. Mission accomplished.
And all you can take from this one is that Chase Utley's locked in, Shane Victorino (who took a fastball on his hand) is gutty, and the Phillies are still alive despite having absolutely no bullpen to speak of. All Phillies fans were united in thought in the ninth inning: "Please, not Lidge." But Madson was Lidge-Lite, escaping by the grace of Jeter hitting into a double play. That'll be the team's free agent and trade goal: Arms for the bullpen, especially a closer who won't trigger massive anxiety every time the Phillies are in a close game.
I'd check eBay and Craigslist. You never know what you'll find there,
I watched the game tonight at a friend's house, and he noticed that in the ninth inning, as Brad Lidge faced the top of the Yankee order, that my right arm was extended and my hand began to clench into a fist.
Gee, I can't imagine why.
Tonight, after a Pedro Feliz homer in the eighth tied things up, Lidge came in and did what Lidge does. The fillip was the genius base running by Johnny Damon, who noted that the Phillies' shift for Texieira left nobody covering third base; he stole second, then kept going, as Feliz, covering second, had nobody to whom to throw the ball. The eventual disaster was pre-ordained.
And there it is. Can't repeat if Hamels and Lidge are useless. And they've been useless. Worse, it seems to have all been in their minds. Just like that, they're at the edge of the abyss. Lee can pitch his heart out tomorrow and win, but he can't pitch two more games. It's not looking good.
No, I did not punch anything. I'm not THAT far gone.
