I'm a little pressed for time tonight (again?!?), but you'll soon be able to find me at yet another outpost on this here Internet. Oh, don't worry, I'll still be spouting off right here, with the retro pop culture goodness and general curmudgeonliness (is that a word?) you've come to expect. And I'll still be at AllAccess.com, of course. But I'll be also helping out at another site, editing and writing and spreading the rash to even more unsuspecting people.
I'll tell you the details when I can. In the meantime, here's a 1969 Miller beer commercial with pro bowling legend Billy Hardwick, and, yes, there's a connection buried in here someplace:
Yes, I'm joining the Pro Bowler's Tour! I'm... no, that's not it. I'm not even terribly good at Wii bowling.
Today's activity? Let's see... I worked. I ran. I was congratulated by another runner for getting out and "walking" every day, proving how slow I "run." I ached. I worked some more. I went to the gym. I had a nice conversation with a Rock and Roll Hall of Famer. I worked some more. And Fran's new phone came in a UPS delivery.
Here's the thing about phones: About two years and change ago, I paid about $250 for a state-of-the-art smartphone, not an iPhone but another type. It did the Internet, it did e-mail, it had apps. It seemed a marvel of its age, fast, sleek, cool. But compared to today's models, it was slow, clunky, thick and heavy. And it was Windows Mobile 6.1, which means it's dead now. Meanwhile, Fran's phone needed replacement, fast, and she got a new Android phone. Total cost: Zero, plus $21 tax. It does the Internet, it does e-mail, it has apps. But it's thin, light, plenty fast enough, and easy to use. It puts my phone to shame. And it was free. That's just amazing. You can get better phones today for free than you could for $250 just two years ago. They do more, and they do it better.
Yes, I'm jealous.
Of course, for business, a free phone won't do. I need the speed -- 4G is active in L.A., and I could use it -- and I need a bigger screen and possibly a real keyboard. Which means, of course, that I'll end up spending $200 or more on something that will be obsolete before its useful life is over. And I'll be back lusting after whatever's hot in 2012. I should have invested in mobile technology; clearly, there's a lot of money to be made on idiots like me.
The longish weekend ended without much incident yesterday, and I was back to normal work today. A normal Sunday involves writing all day while watching football in a window on the computer screen, and we won't talk about the latter today. The former isn't all that exciting, either: I read a zillion news sites, find talk radio-worthy items, come up with commentary and stupid jokes, and presto, a column. That's what I do.
That's also what I'll do tomorrow, plus reporting on radio industry stories. And I'll do it the next day, too, and the next day. Every day's like that. But I'm grateful to have the opportunity to do it, and for the number one trade website in the radio industry, no less. If getting back to work after a long weekend is "back to the rockpile," it's a really nice, comfortable rockpile indeed.
And, yes, I know about the Dr. Laura story. We had it Friday. Just because it's an off day doesn't mean I don't work.
Would it be exceedingly, ridiculously lazy to just post a TV Guide ad from Cleveland in 1966 like this?:
Yes. And so I am. Lazy, that is. WJW-TV addressed the problem of having too few episodes of the two ghoul-comedy series in syndication by alternating them. You wouldn't know it by the incessant reruns over the years, but "The Munsters' only had 70 episodes -- two seasons, 1964-65 and 1965-66 -- and "The Addams Family" only had 64 episodes over the same two seasons. Neither show, then, was a hit, at least the first time around. But they lived on, and they're both pretty universally known even today.
I always preferred "The Addams Family," because it seemed a) more ghoulish and b) more witty. "The Munsters" was more broad and slapstick, while the Addamses were creepier and more disturbing, which is as it should be. Unlike the Munsters, they made no attempt to be normal suburban folks; They though they WERE normal, and existed in their own universe in that mansion. The Munster family was too, well, nice.
But Herman on the Dodgers... that was the greatest. Plus the one where Herman has a hit record, and the special where they come right down here to my neighborhood to visit Marineland. "The Munsters" DID have its moments.
Still on hiatus. Got my Black Friday shopping -- Fran's cell phone -- done via telephone and online at 4:30 am, hence no need to fight the mall crowds.
Also discovered the joy of the afternoon nap. I don't get to do that on a normal day. My dad used to take naps like that all the time. Now I know why. I would do that more often, but I have to work.
And now, back to doing nothing. I could get used to this.
I WILL say that it was a good one. The food turned out great -- we cooked everything ourselves, and it all came out awesome, which is good, since we'll be eating it for the next week or so. And the Cowboys lost, which is always nice.
Tomorrow, I'll be avoiding the stores, unless we have to brave Best Buy to get Fran a new phone. Tonight, though, it's digestion and relaxation. Go do that, too.
The sweet potato pie is in the oven, the bird is just about thawed, and work is done for the day. "That Happy Feeling," indeed. (Somewhere, Sandy Becker is smiling)
We took a ride over to the Galleria in Redondo this afternoon to look at cell phones. (We'd actually gone to the Torrance Sprint store, but that was useless; the store had none of the smartphones on display, about 30 people waiting for service, and the requirement that you sign up and wait your turn just to look at a phone that wasn't even plugged in. Do they actively want people to walk out? Because we did) I know that people are waiting for Black Friday, but the place was just empty, eerily so. Macy's had a few people in it, and the Sprint Store was a magnet for a handful of teens, but the mall seemed dark and quiet. The place creeped me out. I imagine it'll be very different on Friday morning.
And so will I, after all the turkey and mashed potatoes and pie. In the meantime, I'm going to enjoy disengaging from work for a couple of days, and maybe even leaving the computer off for a little bit. I suggest you do the same.
its time had come and gone, but for most of its life, the Spectrum was a pretty good place to see an event. It had 17,000 seats, but unless you were in that tiny balcony level they added a few years after the place opened, you weren't too high up anywhere in the arena. Certainly, most seats were closer to the ice or court in the Spectrum than next door at CoreStates FirstUnion Wachovia Wells Fargo Center or Staples Center or any other of the latest crop of basketball and hockey arenas. The concourse was narrow, the concessions basic, the subterranean bathroom level primitive, but the place had character and memories, not just of the Flyers' two Stanley Cups or the '83 Sixers or even Christian Laettner's buzzer-beater, but of things like...
Like that game late in 1978 -- November 8, 1978, to be exact -- when the New Jersey Nets got seven technicals overall, with three on Bernard King and two on Kevin Loughery, at which point the Nets protested and later won; in between that night and the replay of most of the second half, four players were traded to the other side, resulting in three players -- Eric Money, Ralph Sampson, and Harvey Catchings -- showing up on both sides of the box score. Money scored for both teams. I was there that first night, sitting maybe 9 rows behind the Nets bench, hearing every word as the Nets cursed out Richie Powers and complained that he couldn't hit any individual with more than two technicals.
Or the night my father and I set out from North Jersey on an Friday evening for which the weatherman forecast light flurries and got caught in a raging white-out on the New Jersey Turnpike, too late to turn back and too far to reconsider; we plowed ahead (literally), arrived at the Spectrum to find the parking lot covered in a foot of snow and attendants shrugging and telling us to park anywhere we liked, and wading through the snow to find about 11,000 other insane people there to see the Sixers play the Kansas City Kings. We talked about that night until my father passed away, the stuff father-son bonding is made of.
And there was the first time I saw Michael Jordan play in person, the many concerts (the Cure, from the second row; Elvis Costello; Midnight Oil (!); several others), and the times my dad and I, through the generosity of a friend's brother who managed the private restaurant in the arena's basement, got to see the Flyers in the afternoon and the Sixers in the evening plus dinner in between, and vice versa. And the blue smoke haze in that third level that resembled a medicinal marijuana dispensary, and the fight I saw that started in the seating area with the combatants tumbling down the stairs and through the portal into the concourse, with nobody -- especially not the ushers -- stepping in to stop it.
It was the comfortably worn atmosphere, the banners hanging from the roof, the trudge from the arena to the subway station on a cold night after another tough loss, fortified by a bag of cold soft pretzels purchased from the ripoff artists along Pattison Avenue, the ride back on the subway and train with fellow Sixers and Flyers fans looking grim....
I'll miss it, but I've been gone for longer than the teams have been next door at the multi-named facility. And there's no question that the new place is still a lot nicer and better equipped. It's still sad to see it go. We had fun there.
How can one focus on work when it's a short week? I'm trying, but everything's going in slow motion. I have things to do, and I'm doing them, but Thursday looms and it feels like it's starting any moment now. The turkey's slowly thawing in the fridge, the potatoes are waiting for a peeling session, we have the honey and pie crust ready for Fran's classic sweet potato pie... as I said, how can one work?
Somehow, I'll get through the next two days. And then I'll eat and sleep and rejoice. And sometime after that, I'll be writing for yet another site, but I'll tell you about that when it's official. Patience.
The washing machine showed up early. We were told by the Best Buy people that it would arrive between 9:30 and 10:30 am, but when I came back from a short run at about 8:40 am, the truck was there and they were wheeling our old busted machine down the driveway.
So today was wash day. You don't get a new washing machine every day, and when you do, you gotta use it. It's a lower-end machine, but it's all we need, and it's just wonderful, let me tell you.
MY LORD, THIS IS WHAT MY LIFE HAS COME TO. I'M EXCITED BY A NEW WASHING MACHINE.
But that's all that happened today, that and working and running up to the Peninsula Farmer's Market for a bottle of wildflower honey. I would like to say that every day is filled with Glamorous Los Angeles Show Business Hi-Jinks with cameo appearances by A-listers and dinner at the trendiest of restaurants followed by stops at the coolest nightclubs and....
And I wouldn't want that. I have friends who are in the Hollywood stream, and it's not me. I know myself, and I know what works for me. What works for me is a quiet day with Fran, enjoying the trouble-free operation of a plain white top-loading washing machine. Clean clothes and bedding beats dodging paparazzi any day.
Oh, right, this thing. Well, it's been busy. And not all that eventful, other than the Julia Roberts-adjacent company holiday party and battling our way through Saturday afternoon crowds at The Grove, where we saw no celebrities but did see a whole lot of people, and traffic. (Kudos to the place for having those boards showing how many parking spaces are open on each level, though. Quite helpful)
Tomorrow, the washer comes, and that should be quite the rollicking tale, let me tell you. Or it'll be totally unremarkable. We'll see. In the meantime, I have things to do. Excuse me.
Nine minutes to midnight. I was at the company holiday party in Malibu, which was nice. Julia Roberts was in the dining room, but I didn't see her. I've been awake way too long. I shall go to sleep now.
Tomorrow, washing machine news and maybe other stuff.
I happened to be checking out a video posted by a Facebook group about Cleveland TV memories, and in this collection of distant signal clips someone taped around 1981, the money shot comes a little ways in, after some footage from a Cleveland news show:
PRISM! Philadelphia's very own premium sports and movie channel! I subscribed to PRISM for years, because that's where you got all the Phillies, Flyers, and Sixers games that weren't on channels 17, 29, or 48. Look, here's a spot for it:
More!:
PRISM was on cable in the Delaware Valley from 1976 through 1997. You could get HBO, and I did, but PRISM was the indispensable must-have. It was, I recall, more expensive (at least on Comcast Lower Merion and Suburban Cable in lower Bucks County), but worth it. You got all the games, "The Great Sports Debate," and plenty of cheesy movies.
It all ended in 1997, when PRISM and its 90's sister channel SportsChannel Philadelphia lost the sports rights to the new Comcast Sportsnet. Comcast took over PRISM's microwave distribution system, which allowed Sportsnet to avoid having to sell to DirecTV and DISH Network under an FCC loophole. And that sucked for me, since by then I was in California and couldn't get the channel on the dish.
Great sports, lousy movies, overpriced. I still wouldn't have been without it.
Whoops, one more day of busy-ness. Business. Hey, maybe that's where that word came from. But I don't have time to do the research, because of, um, the busy-ness.
So I'll go now, begging off until tomorrow, which will include buying a washing machine and other wildly exciting things. See you then.
The latest e-mail scam showed up in my inbox today. It's a variation on the scam run against elderly people on the phone. Let's read it, shall we?
Hi,
Well, that's a good start.
I'm sorry I didn't inform you about my traveling...
You're always doing that, aren't you? Gallivanting all over the globe while I sit here at home wondering... er... who did you say you were again?
am presently in Holland,
You am?!?
on short vacation and as i write to you now.. its unbelievable am stuck here,got mugged at gun point on my way to the hotel and my money,credit cards,phone and other valuable things were taken off me at gun point, thanking Almighty God for save keeping my passport.,
Yeah, thank Him for save keeping your... wait, is this English? I'm not sure. It IS unbelievable, though, I'll grant you that.
i really need your urgent assistance quickly ?
Are you asking me if my urgent assistance is needed quickly? Because the answer in that case would be no.
I JUST NEED SOME FEW HUNDREDS $$$ TO SORT OUT MY HOTEL BILLS AND i promise to refund it back to you once i get home cause i still have some cash in my account but i cant access any here right now ,already canceled all my cards immediately after the muggers took my things off me!!!
That's all you need? Why didn't you say so in the first place? No.
still at the public internet library where am making use of the free internet access,
They have a "public internet library" in Holland? They're so tech-forward there.
i will forever be grateful if you can help me,Waiting to hear from you quickly cos my flight leaves in few hrs but need to sort the hotel bills and please save me from been embarrassed.
It's a little late for that. Your grammar and spelling are embarrassing you already.
Sandy
I don't believe I know a Sandy.
Anyway, this thing started filling up the inbox tonight, and considering that there's no contact information and it's one of those e-mails that uses someone else's e-mail address for the sender, I'm assuming it's one of those pilot spams that's there just to confirm which addresses don't bounce back. But, geez, you'd think they could do a better job with this one.
Aha! So Vaughn Meader had started to move away from the Kennedy impression BEFORE the assassination! He saw that he couldn't do JFK forever. The image is that he just stuck to the act and hit a wall on November 22nd, but at least this confirms that he was planning to move away with his first record for his new label. He just didn't move fast enough.
Meanwhile, Allen and Rossi were HUGE in the sixties. I could never quite understand why; Maybe the nation used them as a surrogate for Martin and Lewis. Yet I can always get my sister to laugh just by saying "Hello dere!" Not that it was funny, mind you.
From 1982:
The older radio geeks remember the end of music on WABC as a tragic, senseless event, but it was only that to a relatively small core of adherents. The station had fallen on hard times long before that; Even if WKTU hadn't blown them out of the water with Disco 92, the end was bound to happen. There's a reason you don't hear Top 40 on AM anymore. There's a reason Top 40 doesn't play all genres back-to-back anymore. WABC held on longer than most, but it HAD to change. No amount of nostalgia can make that less true. It was fun while it lasted, but it needed to move to FM and it needed to update its sound in the mid-1970s. It didn't, so it's gone.
More old clips from Billboard magazine? Yeah. How about THIS headline from April 23, 1966?:
Little did they know.
KFI was, of course, not a talk station in 1966. They were all over the map, mostly middle-of-the-road, with an older staff and Dodgers baseball. The article notes that Geoff Edwards had been hired to do a more youthful, energetic show, but they were going it slow with the music (Si Zentner!). KFI muddled through as a full service MOR and Top 40 for years before finally challengine KABC in 1988 (Edwards still there at the time, replaced the next year by the fledgling syndicated show hosted by some guy named Rush Limbaugh). The rest, as they say, is history. And you'd be more accurate calling the current lineup more libertarian than conservative.
How about this slice of history from May 21, 1966?:
The local independent single from Pittsburgh was starting to break out nationally, so Roulette snapped up Tommy James and the Shondells and did pretty well with them. (Coincidentally, Don Geronimo told his Tommy James story on his show on KHTK Sacramento yesterday, in which James accidentally beaned a sleeping Geronimo with a golf ball while trying to hit Bobby Poe's house at 3:30 am, a sentence that only means something to radio people of a certain age)
You wouldn't have known on September 4, 1982 that the most important thing in the entire issue was in the fine print in the last column:
Howard Stern's arrival at WNBC New York wasn't big news at the time. It would soon be.
And then there's this from October 12, 1991:
Buried in there is a change at B104 in Baltimore, where my friend Larry Wachs (then still spelling the name "Wax" for his air name) had just finished a fairly difficult short stint as the appointed sidekick to the mercurial wacky-Top 40 morning jock who wasn't happy with that arrangement -- the station had let go his friend Pat Gray, and he didn't want a replacement partner -- and had other problems to deal with. The station hired Chris Emry to come in and replace the troublesome jock. That didn't go well, either. Wachs ended up eventually working for me in L.A.; he's been in Atlanta for years now, doing quite well. That other jock, the one that B104 fired, partnered up with his friend, moved to KC101 in New Haven, and eventually went to Tampa, where he went from Glenn Beck, Top 40 jock and talk radio dabbler, to GLENN BECK, the one you know now.
And now you know the REST... of something or other.
My old New Jersey 101.5 colleague Don Tandler posted a cool link on Facebook to a Google Books digital edition of an old Billboard magazine from June 10, 1967, with one article including quotes from a couple of Top 40 legends, Rick Sklar and Ron Jacobs (if you're a radio person, you don't have to ask who they were/are and what they did) and another featuring Dandy Dan Daniel, a New York mainstay and father of another friend, Chris Daniel of KMJ-FM in Fresno. There's a mention of a young jock from Missouri serving in Vietnam, a guy named Jim Bohannon, and, yes, it's the same Jim Bohannon heard nightly on Westwood One. It's all great nostalgic fun for radio geeks.
And because I happen to be a radio geek, I couldn't resist paging through the rest of the issue, where I found some other things. See, there's something fascinating about seeing articles and ads from when stuff we know now as classic or "oldies" was new. Like, say, this:
The headline was, of course, a little off. The project wasn't the Beatles TV cartoon show, which was already a couple of years old by then. It was "Yellow Submarine," and, yes, it did get made, didn't it?
We know how this worked out, too:
There was a full-page ad for the record, too, with the lyrics all typed out. "British Della" was a typo; Decca was the label, and London/Deram was British Decca's U.S. operation (in England, U.S. Decca, which at about that time relaunched its British operations, ultimately used the "MCA Records" name before it was used here). And it did, um, very well.
But then there was this:
And this:
Rufus who?
This was a teaser campaign for Rufus Lumley, and, no, we didn't see "a lot more" of him. Who the hell was he? Turns out that he was a Northern Soul singer, one of the British artists influenced by American R&B. Why, here he is:
RCA Victor signed him and released his EMI output, including that one. They spent a lot of money on a publicity campaign, but it didn't take, and that was it for Rufus. Here's another cut from his U.S. album:
And a very rare one, "Minneap'lis, Minnesota", "where a man can be a man":
In 1968, Rufus shows up on the RCA Victor soundtrack album by Gianni Marchetti for a movie called "The Wild Eye," singing a song called "Two Lovers." The trail goes cold on Rufus after that. There is absolutely nothing out there. The guy disappeared. After all of that, it's hard to believe he fell off the face of the earth. I don't know whether he's alive or dead, performing or not. With all the various Northern Soul revivals over the years, you'd assume he'd at least have a biography online, and you'd even assume there's a fan website, but there's nothing. Rufus, we hardly knew ye.
I kept browsing other issues, but this item from July 22, 1967 stuck out:
Could you even have a station with those call letters in 2010? WFAG later became WGHB, and is doing Sports now as "Pirate Radio." Of course, there was WGAY in Washington for many years, too. The FCC tries not to award questionable call letters anymore, but in 1967, WFAG was... well, I think it WAS offensive in 1967, but they had 'em anyway.
It's been five years to the day that we, Fran and myself, were in an examination room and they were telling us that she had cancer and the discussion faded into a tangle of thoughts that sent my head spinning into a near-unconscious state. November 9, 2005.
It is five years later. Fran and I spent the evening at a favorite joint in Hermosa Beach, munching on tacos and watching surfers and office workers and homeless guys shuffle by, gazing at the spectacular, and tonight, at least, missile-free sunset. Five years ago, tonight seemed like an eternity away, and wasn't necessarily guaranteed.
In the intervening time, I've learned a lot. I've learned that Fran is more courageous and driven and determined than I knew then, and I did know she was all of the above at the time. I've learned that dealing with adversity is something a which she is very, very good. And I've learned that going through this together has only made us closer and deeper in love.
So we are here, five years after our lives were changed and our conversations forever altered by a new, insidious subtext, after we joined the not-so-secret society of people whose lives had been invaded by cancer. And Fran is still here, and so am I. That is something for which I am immeasurably grateful. And that was worth hanging out by the pier, watching the beach world go by, being thankful that life did, indeed, go on.
Random notable clips from the Milwaukee Journal, May 1954:
Yes, the Socialists bought time on WOKY on May Day to talk about unemployment. In 1954, the socialists in Wisconsin were... well, remember who was Senator from that state at that time. But that was also the time just after the disastrous grilling of General Zwicker that led, shortly thereafter, to the Army-McCarthy Hearings and McCarthy's downfall. In fact, this was on TV that night:
A recall campaign was well underway, led by State Senator Harry F, Franke. As far as I can tell, he's still alive. Also interesting: McCarthy was a Republican, and so were the people trying to get him recalled.
But enough of the politics. Let's dance:
"The Man-Mountain of Music!" "America's Biggest Band Leader!" 68 cents plus 7 cents tax! Damn RIGHT you'll be there! Tiny weighed over 365 pounds; he was a successful Big Band leader until the genre died out not too long after this appearance, then scaled back on the touring and ran a radio station in Colorado. He died in 1971.
I clipped this one ages ago from a January 1961 issue of the Montreal Gazette and forgot about it:
CFCF Montreal was one of the early-60s radio stations that used the "Seven Swinging Gentlemen" thing. The big one was KFWB in Los Angeles, in its Chuck Blore-led Top 40 domination days. Clearly, back then, "swinging" didn't mean "swapping sexual partners." Actually, though, I think it did, so maybe that was the idea. Anyway, in 1961, guys in suits and ties weren't uncool. Every top 40 station had seven guys in suits. Nobody questioned this until about 1967, when Nehru jackets and mock turtlenecks and big medallions took over.
The ad was in a section about the debut of Montreal's first English-language non-CBC station, CFCF-TV, hence the "real swinging TV station" line. So that's another piece of information you didn't need or want.
That's a 1969 news open from WBAL-TV Baltimore. Factual, important, complete! Jim Mustard! Rhea and JP (a puppet)! Rolf Hertsgaard! Anti-war theater! The "Cool Hand Luke" music! The set, with huge curved walls opening up! Just amazing. Yes, kids, TV was like that back in the day.
And if you lived in a smaller market, and your local station was operated by college students, it looked like this:
May 1969, WUFT Gainesville. That hair! The still picture of Nixon instead of video! Glorious black-and-white!
In color:
WTVJ Miami in November 1970, with the dean of Miami news anchors, the legendary Ralph Renick. Not terribly slick, but they dominated back in the day. (Yes, kids, WTVJ was Channel 4 then, the CBS affiliate, in the Wometco days)
And closing things out:
WABC-TV New York's Eyewitness News, 1970. Tex Antoine is at the left, of Uncle Wethbee and rape joke fame. Melba Tolliver, the station's longtime reporter/anchor and pioneering African-American anchor who rocked a big Afro for years, does the voiceover; She's still around. "Cool Hand Luke" again, too. Here they are in 1977:
Roger Grimsby and Bill Beutel, among the most legendary of anchor teams. Grimsby was one of the most lethal deadpans in TV history, smirking his way through newscasts. John Johnson is in there, too, another longtime Channel 7 anchor. He's here, too:
A weekend newscast, John Johnson with Anna Bond, Sal Marciano with sports, and the improbably-named Storm Field (son of rival weatherman Dr. Frank Field) on a new set. Marciano's still around, most recently on WPIX; Field retired three years ago. Dunno what happened to Anna Bond; she went to Houston, came back to New York at WNBC-TV, then that's all I remember.
Complaining about the weather gets boring, but sometimes the weather is all there is. That was what it was like for the last three days; it hit the 90s at the house, which practically never happens, considering that we are close enough to the ocean to spend much of the year under the "Marine Layer" (that would be fog). Sunny, no wind at all, stifling. We do not have air conditioning, and the fans did nothing to help.
But this is where I live and work, and "it's too hot" is no excuse when deadlines loom. Neither is "I'm sick." Add those together -- "I'm sick and it's too hot" -- and that was my week. Sore throat, sinus headaches, general aches and pains (hey, didn't I get a flu shot? Yes, yes I did)... and that awful feeling when you feel like that and it's sunny and hot and the air is still and you feel like you're in a convection oven. Try sitting in front of a computer and coming up with witty commentary and straight news reporting for three days, from before 3 am to about 8 or 9 pm.
Wait. Complaining about the weather is boring, but complaining about the weather AND work AND illness is compounding the problem. I'll stop now. I hear the temperature is supposed to be more "moderate" tomorrow. Maybe I'll feel better, too. It could happen.
Once again, voting was about as uneventful as it gets. In this Midterm Of Doom, we went to vote around 1:00 in the afternoon. There was no line. There was practically no wait. The process took maybe 5 minutes total.
The process was painless, the choices painful. The major statewide races were lesser-of-two-evils pick-em's. California needed change and was faced with nothing but hacks on the ballot. We're screwed no matter who wins. We were screwed with the ones we already have. It's enough to make you not want to vote.
Yet we always vote, because, well, it's what we do. And at least we understood the issues and the differences between the hacks and the impact of the ballot measures. Considering how many voters have no idea what any of that is, and seem to pick their choices based on commercials and looks and party affiliation, we felt a duty to at least show up. Not that it mattered in the end, but we did our duty.
And we got our stickers, which excited us, primarily because they were good for free fries at The Counter, but we never did make it to The Counter for burgers, so we didn't even get food out of the deal. All we got was a new hack Governor and an old hack Senator beating hack opposition and nothing will change, at least not for the better. I hear interesting things happened elsewhere. Not here, not in the election, not in the polling place.
I have friends who are Giants fans, real Giants fans, the kind who were fans before this year's run, and so it was hard to feel too bad about the end of the World Series. It's weird, after two years with the Phillies involved, to watch the Series without an attachment to either team, nor a hatred of either. It's easy to enjoy the success of the "spare parts," even after they demolished the Phillies (Cody F'ing Ross?!?), and the joy of a city that has had the Giants since 1958 with only three almost-but-not-quite years to show for it is contagious.
But it wasn't all that exciting for anyone else. The Series was a little dull, the only really remarkable thing being the Giants' masterful pitching and the surprise of Cliff Lee's vulnerability, twice over. The heroics were not that memorable for non-Giants fans; I'll remember Kinsler's off-the-top-of-the-wall shot more than most of the key hits.
Next year might be different. Both teams will change -- the Rangers are unlikely to hold onto Lee, the Giants will lose half their "spare parts" to free agency -- but the Giants' young pitching should keep them in the hunt. That's for next season, though. Right now, there's a party up by the Bay. Most of us aren't invited, but it's kind fun to watch.
Perry Michael Simon. Talk radio guy. Editor of the News-Talk-Sports section at AllAccess.com. Editor and writer at Chris Hardwick's Nerdist.com. Former Program Director, Operations Manager, host, and general nuisance at KLSX/Los Angeles, Y-107/Los Angeles, New Jersey 101.5. Freelance writer on media, sports, pop culture, based somewhere in the Los Angeles area. Contact him here. Copyright 2003-2012 Perry Michael Simon. Yeah.
About this Archive
This page is an archive of entries from November 2010 listed from newest to oldest.
