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Among the things I've done in what passes for my career, the primary area of work has been in the talk radio industry. Talk radio gets no respect from people outside the field, and a good example of this is in an article featured in the latest issue of another magazine, which never credits All Access with anything they use from us so it shall remain nameless here. The article- right in the middle of the front page- is a three-paragraph piece about Henry Rollins, the singer/poet/actor/publisher/tattooed guy who fronted Black Flag (v. 2.0), and that's OK, if a little tangential- Rollins has done a couple of try-outs on KFI in Los Angeles, so there's a small talk radio connection there. But the article doesn't stop there. The interviewer, someone from something called "Young American Broadcasters," actually writes this:

During his recent visit to Washington, DC we asked Rollins if he has any advice for radio talk show hosts. His answer: "It takes a lot of..."

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By the way, here's a What Would You Do? situation: there's a guy who I've given a lot of publicity to, a guy whose business has gotten no small credit in my other column because of stuff I've written. The reward- he wrote an article for another publication about the best show prep resources for talk radio hosts, and one of the few resources he DOESN'T mention is- naturally- my column. Should I be pissed off? Should I say anything? Should I mention it in the column? Should I mention it here? (Whoops- already did) Could he have written something that got edited out by the rival publication? Am I getting too agitated over this? Should I just go to sleep now and forget about it? What's sleep? Am I going to be thiking about this perceived slight all night, alternating with thinking about Kevin Millwood's no-hitter, the Lakers-Wolves game, the ache in my left hip and right ankle, the refinancing paperwork I have to get done this week, and the cat vomit left by Ella on the (washable!) throw rug? (I'm leaning towards Depends, No, No, Too Late, Maybe, Yes, Yes, What I Used to Get More Of Before I Became a Working Adult, and Yes.)

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This is why we learn history, and this is why I sometimes despair for society:

In a Los Angeles Times review of a blacklisted Hollywood writer's book, there's this passage:

Some will doubtlessly charge Barzman with a failure to apologize for her "blindness" to "the evils of Stalinism." But this ongoing demand for apologies is simply the latest chapter in the thought-control process that the Barzmans escaped by fleeing to Europe.

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I didn't grow up with Dodger Stadium. I grew up on the east coast, where "ballpark" meant Shea and Yankee Stadium and Connie Mack or the Vet. All I knew of Dodger Stadium was what I saw on TV- the zig-zag roof on the bleachers, the oddly-shaped scoreboards, the box seats with the low rail all the way past the foul poles, the mysterious "76" ball rotating off in the distance, all in black-and-white on channel 9. It didn't have the history of Wrigley or Fenway or the whiz-bang amenities of the new crop of parks in the 70's, Riverfront and the Vet and Three Rivers, all AstroTurf and exploding scoreboards. It was alien, distant, and the epicenter of evil for my Dad, who cursed O'Malley for moving his team 3,000 miles west of Flatbush.

Eventually, I did finally make it to Chavez Ravine and, well, if you've been there, you know it's quite nice and still, 41 years after its opening, one of the better ballparks in the country. But there was one moment tonight where I felt a mystical...

Stop right there.

I am not George Will or Bob Costas. I do not worship in the Temple of Baseball. It is not magical, it is not otherworldly. It is just a game played by very rich young men with numbers on their backs and customized H2s in the parking lot, and the stadium is merely a building, designed to maximize revenues.

And yet...

I stood in the press box this evening looking at the mountains beyond the outfield fence, Mount Wilson and Angeles Crest shrouded in a blue haze as the last vestiges of twilight lingered for a few more minutes. The lights in the park were finally taking full effect, and floodlights highlighted the tall palms swaying above the back of those zig-zag bleacher roofs and the hills just across the parking lot, "THINK BLUE" nestled on the hillside in left field. Green field, yellow, orange, blue, and red seats, about half empty, in layers surrounding the field and reaching skyward, a cold drink on a warm evening watching the Dodgers and Phillies work out the kinks in an early-season game...

Perfect. And that's when the ghosts came out to play, Kirk Gibson hobbling to the plate in the World Series, Koufax throwing that 2-2 pitch to Harvey Kuenn, Garvey-Lopes-Russell-Cey, Drysdale scowling and intimidating, Alston stoic and Lasorda manic.

I did snap out of it. It isn't mystical, there are no ghosts. But on a perfect springtime evening, you'll be forgiven for thinking it is and there are. Ultimately, if you're a real baseball fan, you sometimes get your George Will moment. In twilight tonight, I had mine.

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In last night's column, I neglected to mention one very important part of the baseball experience, one that represents a lost and dying art- the ballpark organ.

The Dodgers still have an organist, Nancy Bea Hefley, who's been playing the music you associate with ballparks since possibly before the park was built- I imagine her sitting amongst the squatters in Chavez Ravine circa 1953, playing "Mairzy Doats" on a Farfisa while immigrant kids played stickball nearby. Most parks- even the Dodgers, when each player comes to bat- play recorded music, usually pop and hip-hop picked by the players to accompany each at-bat (Shawn Green, for example, steps to the plate to the strains of Blur: "Woo-hoo!"), plus the requisite 2 Unlimited ("areyoureadyforthis?") or Pink or Gary Glitter or some other jock anthem. Few retain the tradition of our youth, when Jane Jarvis sat down at the Shea Stadium Hammond Organ to hammer out the "Mexican Hat Dance" or Paul Richardson ("You can see Paul nightly in the off-season at the Holiday Inn in Wilmington") in the booth at the Vet playing the hell out of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game." Eddie Layton played for the evil Yankees in the summer, the Knicks and Rangers in the winter in a little glassed-in booth way up above the green seats at the Garden, while everyone knew Nancy Faust brought the organ version of "Na Na Hey Hey (Kiss Him Goodbye)" to Comiskey and, by extension, the world.

Back then, they even had organ stores in the mall- the demo right up front was irresistable to kids like us, who couldn't pay actual songs but COULD do the ballpark thing: DAH-duh-dah-dah-DAH-duh-dah-dah... duh duh duh DAAAH ta-DAHHHH.... CHARRRRRGE! You don't find too many people playing the organ anymore, but I bet you could bring it back, even in the days of MIDI and synths and computer music. All you need to do is put an organ in the mall and let people play the ballpark Charge song. You'd sell a million- every home needs the ballpark Charge song. It's like penicillin- no matter how bad your day is going, do the Charge thing and you have to smile.

duh duh duh DAAAH ta-DAHHHH.... CHARRRRRGE!

Ah, yes. That feels good.

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On the 110 freeway this afternoon, a motorcycle crash shut down the southbound lanes and stopped traffic for hours. It was a pretty bad wreck, so it's understandable that the freeway was at a standstill... southbound. Northbound, on the other hand, there was no excuse. No cops, no physical blockage. The northbound traffic was jammed nearly as badly as the southbound side, and it was from nothing but rubbernecking. Everybody loves a bloody wreck when they're not involved, sure, but there's no reason they can't keep it moving. Always happens, though.

But I believe I have the answer. Send an extra Traffic Control Officer to the scene with a rifle and have him POINT IT AT THE RUBBERNECKERS. Nothing says "keep your sorry Plymouth-driving ass moving NOW" than your basic Remington LTR with HS Precision Urban Police PST59 stock pointed directly at your forehead. Problem solved. Thank me by pressing the accelerator instead of the brake and getting the hell out of my way. I'm too important to slow down.

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"Hey, Perry," Dodgers announcer Ross Porter called to me tonight as soon as I walked into the press box, "is it true that every time you come to a game the Dodgers win?"

I guess so. Second night in a row I'm there, second time in a row L.A. beats Philadelphia.

For the Phillies' sake, perhaps I should stay home Thursday night.

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I guess it's a big deal that Aaron Sorkin and Tommy Schlamme are leaving "The West Wing." I wouldn't know. I've never watched the thing.

That's a shocking disclosure from someone like me who prides himself on total television immersion and knowing what's new and popular and boss and gear with all the crazy hep cats out there. But here's the deal: I really have a hard time watching shows that are supposed to be good for me. Let's clarify that: it doesn't mean I don't like good television, or TV that's critically acclaimed. "The Sopranos": good show, critically acclaimed, I watch it. "The Office," "Six Feet Under," "Scrubs," all good, all critically acclaimed, all on my list. No, I mean the shows that aren't just rated highly by critics but shows that are characterized as shows you SHOULD watch, MUST watch, because, well, you'll LEARN something. PBS shows, for example. I haven't watched a PBS station in years, not since all the British sitcoms came off except for "Are You Being Served?" and "Keeping Up Appearances." PBS shows are "educational even when they say they're not. They fall into the category of cultural events described in brochures as "Serious Fun!" They may be serious, but fun they're not.

Which brings us to "The West Wing." I can't watch it. I have no idea if it's any good, but I suspect not, because it's an Aaron Sorkin political show, meaning a) everyone talks reallyfastandsnappylikethey'reDorothyParkerattheAlgonquinRoundTable overlapping each other's words and generally being as artificial as only Aaron Sorkin can write, and b) it's going to be misty-eyed liberal, pining for the good old days when Democrats controlled Washington and they weren't afraid to RAISE taxes and sexually harass the interns. I've seen Aaron Sorkin in action- "SportsNight"- and I know he has a tin ear for dialogue, but it's the kind of tin ear that critics think is just dead on perfect ("The Gilmore Girls" is another show that mistakes snappy talking and characters finishing each other's sentences with wit and accuracy). And the liberal part- well, you don't have to watch the show for that. It's Hollywood. You can safely assume it.

So I assumed it, and assigned "The West Wing" to the list of shows I can't be bothered to watch. I don't think I missed anything. Excuse me now while I avoid watching "ER."

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Perry the Jinx Update: I'm in the press box and the Phillies opened up a 3-0 lead in the top of the first. Perhaps the jinx is over. Part of me wants that not to happen- if the Dodgers keep winning every time I show up, they may keep wanting me to show up. Ah, Cabrera just hit a double, maybe... No, I can't do this. I have to root for the Phillies.

But quietly. This IS the press box. No rooting.

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Yes, the string was snapped, the Phillies won, and I'm probably not going to be welcomed by the Dodgers as a good-luck charm anymore. Talk about mixed emotions. At least they won't throw me out next time I drop by. Will they?

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Scott Peterson's gone and hired himself a celebrity lawyer, Mark Geragos, the guy who defended Winona Ryder and Susan McDougal and Gary Condit, so you know he has experience with Modesto guys whose alibis are a little shaky. Geragos will apparently defend anyone who can pay his fee and get him in front of TV cameras, which makes him not unlike most criminal defense attorneys. It also turns out that he went to the same college as I did, and that explains some things to me.

What makes a lawyer take on a case like Scott Peterson's, or the Unabomber's, or the terrorists'? I always thought it was greed and desire for publicity, and those may be part of it, but when I heard Geragos went to Haverford College, I thought about why someone from that Quaker intellectual liberal haven would defend a guy who everyone (including Geragos, two weeks ago, on Fox News Channel) thinks is guilty as sin. And I think I know why.

At the core of the idealism inculcated in college students is the idea that the underdog is always right. Big is bad, might makes the opposite of right. Big business, bad. America, wrong. The "little guy," right, always right. David yes, Goliath no. So they graduate comfortable in the knowledge that it's always better to be on the side of the underdog, because the big guys HAVE to be bad. That's how they pick up the anti-war position, the pro-Palestinian position, the Europe is better than America position. It's that gravitation to the side they perceive as disadvantaged.

But what if the underdog is wrong?

Wrong? Why, the underdog CAN'T be wrong.

And so you have these people pleading the Palestinian case while assiduously avoiding the harsh fact that the Palestinians want to murder innocent people and erase Jews from the Middle East entirely (and from the world, just to be sure). They oppose war against a murderous tyrant, by extension supporting him. They're in love with Fidel Castro despite his treatment of his own people, because he's a "little guy" and America's, well, America. And they'll take up the cause of a guy who probably murdered someone, because that's less important than that he's one little guy against the big bad government/prosecution/public/world.

So one week Geragos is on TV saying that the prosecution has a great case, and another week he's proclaiming his new client innocent, the victim of a community, a prosecution, and a media pack that ganged up on the little guy. The little guy is always right, you see.

When I was growing up, you couldn't root for the Yankees. The Yankees were big. They were winners- they always won, and when they became losers by 1965, they STILL had the arrogance of winners. You had to root for the underdog- the Mets, naturally, underdogs even after they became good, or the Red Sox (just to be irritating to Yankee fans), but not the Yankees- too big, too powerful, too good. They're bigger, more powerful, better than ever now, and they're still hated by a lot of people, myself included. They're Goliath, they're big business.

They're America.

I might have to stop rooting against them. It's too... Geragos.

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Had a whole column done and, you know, I never learn- clicked "post" and Blogger went down. Column lost. That'll teach me- again- not to write the thing in Word first and save it. Let this be a lesson to you all, in the event you all are as stupid as I am.

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The mall was packed today. So was Costco. While we were driving around the Del Amo parking lot trying to find a space in the same time zone, I asked Fran why the place was so crowded, and she looked at me like I was an idiot. (No argument there.) "Mother's Day," she reminded me. "Mother's Day is coming up." Aha. No wonder she wanted to go to buy her Mom a gift. Now it all becomes clear.

My mother died eight and a half years ago- Wednesday would have been her birthday. She passed away fairly young. In some ways, I'm glad she didn't have to see what happened in the world over the intervening years. I think 9/11 would have been tough on her, and the Middle Eastern crisis- she was a Holocaust survivor- would have eaten her up. By the same token, I'm sorry she couldn't stick around to see what became of us, sorry she never got to come out to California (we moved out here the next year) or meet our cat or just, you know, be around.

I guess what I'm saying is the same thing you always hear: be good to Mom while you still have the opportunity. Talk to her more often, visit her, be there for her. And, you know, you don't have much time left to get a good present and a halfway decent card for Mother's Day, so go to the mall now, before all the parking spots are gone. You can have mine.

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