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I was going to go off on the L.A. Times' blatant electioneering for Cruz Bustamante, and I was ready to tear apart the paper's Saturday coverage of Bustamante's little MEChA problem- a page 1 paean to the humble greatness that is our Lieutenant Governor, with an article on the jump explaining that MEChA is a harmless and probably beneficial social group, citing only Bustamante and MEChA supporters.

But Kaus got there first, and concisely, with links to the truth, as inadvertently offered by MEChA itself. So go there.

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The obituaries say Charles Bronson was 81 at his death today. 81. I had no idea he was that old. He was one of those guys whose age you couldn't pin down- he appeared to be born in his forties. The weathered face, the graying hair... he could have been any age forty and over.

But 81? Nah, Charles Bronson wasn't 81. He's frozen in time at 52, getting vengeance in "Death Wish." That's the good thing about a) film, and b) getting off stage when it's the right time. We who remember him- by that, I mean we who will be the last generations to remember him before he fades into the distant past like so many before him- will remember the angry, craggy-faced guy avenging his wife's murder and daughter's rape. That's the moment in time we'll remember. What he looked like and sounded like and was like at 81 won't be remembered. He'll be permanently the guy in "Death Wish," or those spaghetti westerns, or "The Dirty Dozen."

There are worse things than that. Take Jerry Lewis, for example, still before the cameras tonight despite whatever is causing him to blow up to epic proportions, unrecognizeable- if you didn't KNOW it was Jerry, you wouldn't KNOW, you know what I mean? And we'll remember him not as the young crew-cut cutup interrupting Dino, but as this guy, the guy who didn't know when it was time to step aside and leave the memories alone.

It's better to go when you're still ahead. While Charles Bronson made movies after "Death Wish" (including the many crappy sequels), nobody saw them, nobody remembers them, his image survived them. Whether he intended to disappear or not (and from all accounts, his inactivity was not voluntary), he leaves a moving picture of Dorian Gray behind. You couldn't script it better.

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OK, I'm fried. Just added about a zillion new stories to my other column at Allaccess.com, plus three other sections, and that's all for me.

Some "day off." I worked longer than on days I'm supposed to be working.

Go. Read the Talk Topics column, already. Good stuff there.

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I listened to Arnold Schwarzenegger get interviewed by John and Ken on KFI this afternoon and I'm still unclear on a few things. Sure, he talked about his general policies- yes to education, no on the tripled car tax, that kind of stuff, just like he did on the Sean Hannity Lightning Round last week. He does, despite what you've heard, answer questions.

But those answers are kinda, well, half-answers. He talks about how important education was for his own assimilation into this society and his achievement of the American Dream (cue patriotic music and flags), but he doesn't say how he'll pay for it. He says he'll repeal the car tax hike, but he won't say for sure what he'll cut to make that work, or whether he'd raise taxes to fill the void instead. He gives sound bites, sometimes plows directly through a follow-up with his planned talking point, and generally proves himself worthy of being called a Los Angeles Dodger. In short, he's a politician, and a good one. But about those half-answers- is this political footwork enough to drop all ideas about voting for the guy? Is it enough to go looking for someone more absolute and direct about not raising (or, if you're Bustamante or Huffington, raising) taxes?

Nah.

Why?

a) They all do it. b) They have to, because if they get any more specific c) you won't vote for them.

If Arnold says he won't raise taxes, ever, that's Bush I, you'll call him a phony, game over. If he says he will raisde taxes, that's Mondale, you won't vote for him, game over. If he doesn't really say anything... you complain he's not being forthcoming, but you don't rule him out, because every other candidate is in the same three categories. Might as well be in the one that voters haven't crossed entirely off the list.

Schwarzenegger's slicker than that, of course- he has REASONS you won't get a straight answer on budget issues from him. He says he hasn't seen the budget specifics, nobody's seen the budget specifics, can't make a decision until he sees exactly what the deficit is. All true enough, but he goes a step further with his economic "summits"- see, I've got experts ready to analyze the situation! Everything's in good hands! If I have to raise taxes, blame them!

So after his whirlwind tour of talk radio, we really don't know much more about the guy, which is the plan. We know the negatives of keeping Davis, we're learning the negatives of Bustamante, nobody likes Huffington, and Ueberroth and McClintock have deficiencies in either name recognition or electability, so Arnold, steering between the depth charges, stands a good chance of pulling this one out.

The good news is that he's proving to be an adept politician. The bad news is that he's turning out to be an adept politician. The best news is that he's not Gray Davis.

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I'm hooked on "The O.C.," which is not to say I either LIKE "The O.C" or pay enough attention to it to determine plot lines or character names or anything like that. It has all the elements that made "90210" and "Melrose Place" the guilty pleasure they were:

a) Babes.
b) California scenery.
c) Babes.
d) Um, that's it.

The show is ostensibly about a kid from the "wrong side of the tracks" (a fantasy Chino transformed from an average suburb with a Starbucks to something akin to a Caucasian Watts or East L.A.) who becomes a ward of a wealthy Orange County family headed by a public defender (!) played by Peter Gallagher wearing a haircut that screams "trendy," "now," and "ugly as hell." There are several young and not-quite-as-young women in various stages of babeliciousness, lots of fake melodrama (the boys go to a party in the LBC! THe neighborhood women in a steambath verbally catfighting!), and my favorite element- fake scenery. Oh, it's shot on location, but a lot of the scenery is NOT in Orange County...

...it's here.

"The O.C." in TV-land extends way into L.A. County, past Long Beach and right into Palos Verdes and the South Bay. The golf course in the opening montage and in other scenes is up the street from my house. The skateboarding-by-the-beach? Hermosa, with P.V. in the background. As far as anyone outside of this area knows, it's all Orange County. And I'm sure the producers would say "the O.C. is not a real place, it's a state of mind."

It's a fantasy. So is the idea of people calling Orange County "the O.C." Never HAVE heard that before, and I've lived here long enough.

But this show covers all the bases AND I get to see my neighborhood on TV. Can "ER" do that for you? I think not, unless you spend a lot of time in a Chicago emergency ward. So it's "The O.C." for me. If I actually paid attention to the script, it probably wouldn't be. So I don't. TV's better this way.

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A Dodger Dog. A seat behind the plate. A warm, dry evening. The one you love in the seat next to you. A baseball game in September that means something to the wild card race.

Priceless.

Okay, the dog's $4.50 for the Super version, the parking's $8., the program's $4., a bottle of water's $4.50, and I'm not used to spending anything at a game because I usually end up in the press box snarfing the popcorn and frozen yogurt. But on an evening like this, it's all worth it.

Dodgers lost. Team can't hit.

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While fuming once again over the Sacramentoids' headlong rush to grant the privilege of obtaining drivers' licenses to illegal immigrants, I realized that I was wasting my time. It's a done deal, and will be a done deal as long as the Democrats hold the Assembly and Senate, whether Davis is recalled or not. Can't fix that. This state is about to give non-citizens- not just non-citizens, but people who aren't legally allowed to be here- the same privileges as citizens, and everyone who IS here legally, especially immigrants who went through the process of getting green cards and then citizenship, should be angry. It's another devaluation of what it means to be a citizen, and it should make immigrants wonder why they bothered to become citizens when all it did was hand them a tax burden.

But it's a fait accompli. Right?

Wait.

Let's ask ourselves something: does this move devalue the California driver's license as a means of identifying the carrier? (Yes.) And if it does so, should the FAA or Department of Homeland Security, and/or the Border Patrol, be wary of using California licenses as ID to board planes or cross the borders? (Yes.) So... what if those agencies said that due to the opening of the process to non-residents, and the fact that those non-residents will be able to get the licenses and the application can't be used to investigate and deport them, the California driver's license is no longer permissible ID at airports or border crossings?

That's right, turn anyone from California away at the airport gate or the border unless they have a valid passport.

This might work.

Oh, sure, we're talking major inconvenience for legal residences. I would have to deal with the same thing- my license is from California, and I'd have to bring a passport with me everywhere. And it would hoplessly snarl traffic at airports and the borders. But if the license no longer means that the holder is a legal citizen of the state, how can it be accepted as a means of identification to enter or leave the country? If it's now meaningless, can we be safe if it's used to ID people coming and going?

And how quickly would the law have to be repealed?

Ah, see, that's what I'M talkin' about.

Allowing anyone to get a license with no citizenship or legal status required is a major security problem, and it's not just a California problem. There is no reason for this new rule except to import vast numbers of potential Democratic motor-voters to the state, to extend more (taxpayer-paid) benefits to the presently ineligible, and to pander to a small activist element of the Latino community. They're risking our security and taking our tax money. Drastic times call for drastic measures, and invalidating California licenses as legal ID is in some ways drastic, but it's time for drastic now.

Got any better idea?

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Welcome to those of you who heard about this place on John and Ken's show on KFI/Los Angeles or on Michael Graham's show on WRVA/Richmond- the article they referred to is below, on September 4. You'll find this a repository of random musings and incoherent rants; enjoy, tell (or warn) your friends, and thanks for stopping by.

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John Stamos on Broadway.

I know, he's done it before, but...

John Stamos.

"Full House" John Stamos.

On Broadway.

Does anyone else see this as a sign of the apocalypse?

And whatever DID happen to Dave Coulier, anyway?

And when does Eddie Mekka's "Hamlet" open?

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Confession: I don't much like Bruce Springsteen.

New Jersey natives- yes, I am one- are not supposed to admit that. They're supposed to be fans. They're also supposed to have black hair and mustache, neon on the undercarriage of their old Camaros or Firebirds, and gainful employment as mechanics or on the docks at Port Newark. And they're Giants fans. That would not be me, which is probably why I don't live there anymore. Regardless of domicile, I don't like Springsteen.

Oh, I don't HATE him, exactly. And he doesn't bother me as much as he did when I lived back there and everyone- EVERYone- yammered away about Bruce sightings like when he'd drop by and sit in on someone's set, or he'd be seen at the Kraeuser's buying milk and Ring Dings. WNEW-FM did a daily dose of "Bruce Juice," the faithful lined up at Sam Goody's to be the first to buy each album, Clarence Clemons had fans. Living in that atmosphere was like being a Republican in Berkeley. You just didn't tell anyone the truth. You kept your mouth shut and changed the subject unless you wanted to hear the litany:

"Oh, you'd sing a different tune if you saw him in PERSON."

"Bruce... is a-MA-zing in concert."

"He plays three hour shows. You should SEE how hard he works."

OK, look, when I listen to music, I don't care HOW hard the star's working. In fact, working hard has nothing to do with the quality of music. Miles Davis was a genius and he didn't even bother to turn around to face the audience, let alone jump around leading a jazzercise class. I don't care if my musical heroes are straining their calf muscles to entertain me. Just do good songs and do them well, and I'm happy.

Bruce didn't do good songs. They were... okay songs, some of them. I've never been much for the poor working-class blue-collar lunchbox rock and roll style, but as that stuff goes, I guess he was all right. It's just not what I like, as surely as I don't like Jimmy Buffett or Jessica Simpson or Yanni. You like it? Great, more power to ya. Have a blast. Let me know how it was. See ya in three hours.

Which brings me to the Boss' Fenway Park concerts, to be followed soon by a pair of dates at Shea Stadium. People are dropping unbelievable piles of cash to see these shows, and it's alien to me. I mean, even if I LIKED the music, well, look, you ever try to sit in a Fenway Park seat for three hours? And sitting in a field box behind the screen when the stage is in center field pinned against the Monster? And can you imagine the acoustics when highly amplified sound caroms off the countless angled surfaces there? It wasn't BUILT for that. It may just be one of the venues most ill-suited for a rock concert, and they were lining up to hand over their first-born for a chance at a ticket.

And that's a perfect place to see a show compared to Shea. Shea is like Leavenworth with worse bathrooms.

I guess the appeal is to be able to say you were there. "I saw the Boss at Fenway." That'll impress the rest of the Account Executives, I tell you what. It won't impress anyone younger than 35, but it'll slay 'em in the car pool. Great, but that's not how I operate. I've been to a show like that, dragged there by a girlfriend who wanted to see The Who at the old JFK Stadium in Philly, and I only went because I could accept one opening act, The Clash (we agreed that we should arrive after opening opening act Santana- little did we know he'd outlast everyone). I guess I can say I saw The Who and The Clash together on the same bill at JFK, but I'm not sure, because unless you were pressed up in the first crush of fans where a mosh pit would go today, you couldn't see WHO was on stage. For all I knew from the opposite end zone, Les Brown and his Band of Reknown were up there miming to "Baba O'Riley" and "Spanish Guns." And that's what 90 percent of the audience at Fenway will see at the Bruce shows (well, OK, they'll have the Jumbotron, but that doesn't prove anything, and if it does, they can say they went someplace and watched Bruce on a really big TV).

So I'll pass on Bruce, and I'll pass on big stadium concerts, too. It's not that I've gotten older (though I have). I've gotten wiser. And cheaper. And more tired. Maybe there's a concert on VH1 Classic.

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Bullet? Dodged.

I'll admit to having had no faith at all. I gave up at 33-10, cursing Larry Coker and Brock Berlin and imagining the Big East people clinking champagne glasses. I did, however, decide to check back in, and got back in time to see the last drive, the leg cramp, the key first downs, the burned-off time out, the Frank Gore touchdowns, the conversion attempts, the Florida drive, the Gators' going to the same well one too many times, the interception, the exhale.

Yes, it's goooooood to have football back.

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